[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 16, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H691-H699]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE FEDERAL DEFICIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Jindal). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. 
Spratt) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, we received last week the budget of the 
United States, as requested by President Bush, for fiscal year 2006. 
And having looked at it to some extent, I have to say we regret that it 
continues the same bad choices that have led to huge deficits and 
mounting debt during the last 4 years.
  For the third year in a row, the Bush administration's budget sets a 
record level deficit, $415 billion, and offers no plan to put the 
budget back in the black again.
  Unfazed by these deficits, the Bush administration proposes tax cuts 
on

[[Page H692]]

top of them which can only go to the bottom line and make the budget's 
bottom line worse. To offset a small portion of these plans, the Bush 
administration calls for cuts in services to students and veterans, 
small business and law enforcement, environmental protection and urban 
and rural development. And although most of these cuts are significant 
to those who will be taking the hit, they barely make a dent in the 
bottom line of the budget.
  Let us start and look at where we have been in order to appreciate 
where we are today. Just to show the Members that the budget can be 
balanced, this chart shows that in the year 1992, the United States had 
a deficit of $290 billion. This was the deficit inherited by President 
Clinton when he came to office January 20, 1993. By February 17 he had 
on the doorstep of Congress a plan to cut that deficit by more than 
half over the next 5 years. That plan was ridiculed here on the House 
floor, only passed by one vote here, only passed by the Vice 
President's vote in the Senate, but look at the results. Just to show 
that it can be done, the budget can be balanced, under the 
administration of President Clinton over 8 years, the bottom line of 
the budget got better year after year after year.
  Starting with a deficit the year before of $290 billion, the 
President lowered that to $255 billion; $164 billion a couple of years 
later; then $22 billion; and, finally, in the year 2000, due to the 
Clinton budget passed in 1993 and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, the 
budget was in surplus by $236 billion, 5 short years ago. The year 
before President Bush came to office, the budget was in surplus by $236 
billion.
  President Bush came to office committed to substantial tax cuts. We 
warned him at the time to be careful about assuming that these 
surpluses would continue indefinitely and keep rising. He nevertheless 
pushed through his substantial tax cuts and his other spending 
policies, and we can see what has happened every year since. The bottom 
line of the budget has gotten worse and worse to the point where 3 
years ago, it was $378 billion in deficit, a record amount. That was 
2003. In 2004 it was $412 billion in deficit, another record level. And 
this year the Office of Management and Budget, the President's budget 
shop, tells us recently that they expect a deficit this year of $427 
billion. A dubious record, but that will be the third year in a row 
that the bottom line of the budget has registered a worse deficit than 
the year before, $427 billion.

                              {time}  1645

  Now, the President set a goal last year looking at these dismal 
results for improving the bottom line of the budget. He said over 5 
years we are going to cut that deficit in half. In my book, 5 years is 
not good enough. Nevertheless, that was the goal he set for himself, 
and he claims that the budget he submitted this year will achieve that 
result. But in truth, the budget he submitted this year is more notable 
for what it omits, excludes, than for what it includes.
  The President has not included in his budget for 2006 sent up last 
week any reasonable allocation of likely expense for the deployment of 
our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2006. I would like to think they 
would not be there, but we have to be realistic. We know from 3 years' 
experience approximately what it has cost to maintain those 
deployments. They should be recognized in the budget, but they are not.
  The President proposes to privatize or partially privatize Social 
Security and he gives us a likely cost for the first few years of 
implementation of those privatization plans between 2009 and 2015. His 
cost, OMB's cost for that time period, is $749 billion. That is nowhere 
to be found in these numbers. Even though it falls within the 10-year 
time frame of the budget, it is not included in the numbering.
  The President asks for additional tax cuts. He asks for the tax cuts 
that he passed in 2001, 2002, and 2003 that expire for the most part on 
December 31, 2010, to be renewed and made permanent. Even though we now 
know that given the bottom line of the budget, the red condition, the 
fact it is a historic deficit, $427 billion, the bottom line can only 
get worse if those tax cuts are extended and made permanent. The 
President says, ``I want to do that.'' In addition, there is another 
$383 billion of expiring tax cuts that will have to be handled as well.
  But there is one big item called the Alternative Minimum Tax. Over 
the next several years, this tax will affect more and more tax filers. 
Last year, to buy us a little time so we could repair that particular 
formula of the Tax Code so that it does not hit middle-income 
taxpayers, for whom it was never intended but is hitting now because it 
is not indexed to inflation, we built a little patch in last year's 
budget to at least leave the effect of it in constant status for 1 
year.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I thank the 
gentleman for highlighting the huge budget shortfalls we are facing, 
but one other item that seems to be masked in the budget numbers on the 
previous chart, does that include the amount of money that is currently 
being borrowed from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds? Is 
that amount also reflected in those figures showing deficits?
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the deficit is worse, 
and the gentleman makes an excellent point. When the surplus, and 
Social Security is running a surplus next year and this of $150 billion 
to $160 billion, that amount is actually offset against the gross 
deficit in the regular budget of the United States. So if you remove 
that offset, the surplus in Social Security, which is netted out 
against the deficit, that number becomes $687 billion instead of $427 
billion.
  Mr. KIND. If the gentleman will yield further, the current raid on 
both the Social Security and Medicare trust funds makes those budget 
deficit numbers much worse?
  Mr. SPRATT. That is correct. I had another chart up which the 
gentleman is familiar with which shows you on the back of an envelope 
in a simple form the net effect of the three Bush budgets sent up in 
2002, 2003, and 2004.
  When the President sold his tax cuts to the Congress, his Treasury 
Secretary and his Director of OMB both said, We will not need to come 
back to you until 2008 to ask for the debt ceiling of the United States 
to be increased. They were back the next year, 2002. They said, We have 
incurred so much debt, despite our intentions, that we need to raise 
the legal ceiling on the debt of the United States by $450 billion.
  The next year, 2003, they were back again. The tax cuts were 
beginning to be fully implemented, taking a toll on the bottom line, 
with other effects like a recession, like increased military expenses. 
But all of this added up to a need to increase the debt ceiling by $984 
billion.
  Let me put that in context. The entire national debt of the United 
States before Ronald Reagan took office was less than $984 billion 
accumulated since the beginning of the Republic. Then last November, 
before we could adjourn, Treasury was back, the administration was 
back, and they said, Before you can leave here, unless the government 
is going to shut down, the ceiling on the debt of the United States has 
to be raised again by $800 billion.
  That means that this $984 billion increase made on May 26, 2003, 
lasted only 16 months. We are in effect adding $1 trillion to our 
national debt every 18 months. Nobody in his right mind thinks that 
that course can be continued.
  This is the net total by which Congress had to raise, Republicans for 
the most part voting for it, had to raise the debt ceiling of the 
United States in order to accommodate Mr. Bush's budgets for the first 
4 years, $2.234 trillion. That was the amount we had to raise the debt 
ceiling over 3 years in order to accommodate his budget.
  Let me go back to the things that were left out of the President's 
budget, because, as I said, it is more notable for what it excludes 
than what it includes. As I said, there was nothing in the calculation 
of the taxes that he wanted to make permanent to fix the AMT, though 
all know this is a looming problem that politically has to be addressed 
in the next several years. There was not even money to patch it over 
for another year to study how to fix it.
  Secondly, there was not a dime for Social Security privatization. Ten 
years of budget, not a dime for Social Security privatization, even 
though the President has made it his number one agenda initiative.

[[Page H693]]

  Thirdly, there was nothing for the cost of the war in Afghanistan, 
the insurgency there, nothing for the cost of our deployment in 
Afghanistan or Iraq or enhanced security in North America. The 
Congressional Budget Office, recognizing that that is a number that is 
there and has to be somehow or another estimated and included in the 
budget, captured, in order to have the budget be a complete and full 
account of what we are likely to spend, did a model.
  They said, assume we can reduce our forces beginning in 2006, between 
2006 and 2010, down to 40,000 troops in the theater, the CENTCOM 
theater, not necessarily Iraq, but in the CENTCOM theater, with 18,000 
troops remaining in Afghanistan. What is the cost over the 10-year 
period of this budget? The cost to do that is $384 billion. Let us hope 
we do not have to incur that, but some significant number has to be 
included in this budget to make it a realistic budget.
  Finally, when you add those three items, then we have less surplus. 
When you have less surplus, you have a bigger deficit, you have more 
debt service, because you borrowed more principal on which you have to 
pay interest. You add all of those items together, you get a $2 
trillion adjustment to the budget.
  This, therefore, is what we see, adjusting for the four items that I 
have just outlined, the budget path that the Bush budget will take over 
the next 10 years. $427 billion, third year in a row, it sets a record 
level, a deficit of $427 billion for the year 2005. It goes up the next 
year and levels off in the range of $400 billion, and then comes out at 
the end of 10 years at $566 billion.
  We are not reaching to make this point; we are simply putting back in 
the budget costs we think are realistic and need to be captured in 
order to have a truthful portrayal of what the budget looks like.
  This is the course that the Bush administration is plotting for us in 
the budget they have just submitted, and most people think that this is 
not a sustainable course.
  I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, on this chart the gentleman shows the blue line as to 
the President's promise to cut the deficit in half within 5 years. 
Cutting the deficit in half within 5 years is certainly a modest goal.
  Is it not true that the projected surpluses that we started off this 
administration with would have created $5 trillion in surplus? Yet 
according to the first chart you had, we are very much in debt, and we 
come up with a promise to cut the deficit in half in 5 years. What kind 
of goal is that? Why are we not talking about returning to surplus, 
where we were, and not having all of these deficits? Is cutting the 
deficit in half not somewhat of a bizarre goal?
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, first of all, the 
gentleman is absolutely correct. When the President came to office, he 
had an advantage that no President in recent times had enjoyed, a 
surplus projected to be $5.6 trillion between 2002 and 2011, over a 10-
year period of time; $5.6 trillion. That surplus is now gone, vanished. 
In its place there is a deficit over the same time period of $3 
trillion to $4 trillion. This shows you how the $3 trillion to $4 
trillion accumulates over that period of time.
  We have had a swing of $8.5 trillion to $9 trillion in the budget 
over a 4- to 5-year period of time, a swing in the wrong direction of 
$8 trillion to $9 trillion.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman that 
one of the things when you run up all this deficit, you have to pay 
interest on the national debt every year. The interest on the national 
debt, you have a chart that shows what we spent in 2004, what we are 
going to have to spend.
  Mr. SPRATT. The big red bar is the amount of interest, or debt 
service, that we pay, first in 2004, and then to its right, 2010.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield 
further, interestingly enough, I remember when President Clinton left 
office that we expected to pay off the national debt held by the public 
by 2008, in which case we would be paying zero interest on the national 
debt. Here you show in 2010 a $300 billion interest expense.
  Is it not true that with $300 billion at $30,000 each, you could hire 
10 million Americans? That is even more than the number of people 
unemployed today.
  Mr. SPRATT. The gentleman is correct. When the President came to 
office, we had before us in Congress a novel idea, which would have 
been truly a conservative fiscal proposal, namely, that we would take 
the surplus in Social Security alone and instead of buying up new debt 
and funding new spending, we would use that surplus to buy old debt, 
retire that debt. We would add that money, $3 trillion-plus, to net 
national savings, bringing down the cost of capital, boosting the 
growth of our economy; and then in 2020, when the Social Security 
beneficiaries, the baby boomers, begin to press their claims for 
benefits, Treasury would be more solvent than ever to meet those 
obligations.
  That would have been the first long step we could have taken toward 
Social Security solvency. There was support for it on both sides of the 
aisle. The President rejected that in preference for his own budget, 
which has led us to the deficit which appears there now.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield 
further, when we have all that interest on the national debt, that 
means that NASA will not have any money. NASA-Langley in my district is 
suffering cutbacks, laying off people. Shipbuilding, we would not be 
able to build the number of Navy ships, we are particularly trying to 
cut back on aircraft carriers. Pell grants are not going up with 
inflation. We are cutting back veterans health care. We are not keeping 
up with inflation to maintain present services and veterans health care 
in the middle of the war.
  Is that not the kind of thing that happens?
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman is right 
on the mark. When you have an enormous increase in debt service like 
this, what it does is crowd off, trade off, other things that would 
normally be purchased, defense and non-defense goods and services.
  Instead, the one thing that is truly obligatory in the budget is 
interest on the national debt. We cannot fail to pay it, or the credit 
of the United States collapses. So it takes precedence over everything 
else. You can see it has become the big boy on the block. It eclipses 
other non-defense spending priorities. From education to health care to 
veterans health care, you name it, interest on the national debts will 
be crowding out these other priorities, and the American people will 
pay substantial taxes to service this debt and wonder why they get 
nothing in return.

                              {time}  1700

  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I had just one other question. On 
the first chart that the gentleman had up there, on the other side, the 
first chart the gentleman had, I remember we had something called pay-
go during the Clinton years.
  Can the gentleman explain how that helped us keep the trend up, and 
then what happened?
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, we had two rules in the 1990s that applied 
from 1990 through the year 2000, really until 2002, and those rules 
effectively said, number one, the pay-go rule, if you want to increase 
an entitlement, liberalize the benefits of an entitlement program, you 
have to pay for them with an identified new source of revenues, or you 
have to cut some other entitlement somewhere else of the same amount.
  Secondly, if you want to cut taxes, you have to have another tax to 
offset the revenue loss, or you have to cut entitlements enough so the 
bottom-line effect is neutral. Those two rules, with a discretionary 
spending cap, those rules that helped us put the budget in surplus for 
the first time in 30 years to a $236 billion surplus, what the Bush 
administration did was let those rules lapse, expire.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. So during those years, we had fiscal 
responsibility. We could not spend money unless we paid for it; we 
could not cut taxes unless we cut spending; and maintaining that fiscal 
responsibility kept that line going up. And, at the top of that line, 
we stopped pay-go and we passed tax cuts without spending cuts, and we 
passed spending increases without paying for them; is that right?
  Mr. SPRATT. That is correct.

[[Page H694]]

  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. And that graph shows what happens.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield for a question, 
this is a little bit before my time, but correct me if I'm wrong; it 
was really a Democratic Congress, working with the first Bush 
administration, the current President's father, that first instituted 
the pay-as-you-go rules back in the 1992 budget; is that correct?
  Mr. SPRATT. That is correct. The Budget Enforcement Act of January 
1991, President Bush.
  Mr. KIND. It was President Clinton in his first budget that he 
submitted during his first administration that asked for maintaining 
and continuing the pay-as-you-go rules that Democrats had to pass 
without one single Republican vote in the House of Representatives; is 
that right?
  Mr. SPRATT. That is correct; and in the Senate.
  Mr. KIND. And, Mr. Speaker, not one Republican back then had 
supported the pay-as-you-go rules that required tough political 
decision-making, trade-offs, in essence, with the budget, which is 
something that the Democrats in Congress today are advocating in the 
alternative budget resolutions that were submitted, because it worked 
so well in the 1990s, the pay-as-you-go rules, which are very simple. 
If you are proposing a pay increase or a tax cut in one area, you have 
to find an offset in the budget to pay for it in order to maintain 
balance.
  And it led to the 4 years of budget surpluses, as the gentleman 
pointed out, 2 years of which the Social Security-Medicaid trust fund 
was not even being raided but, instead, we could use that money for 
important debt reduction, starting to pay off the national debt.
  I was here during that first Bush tax-cut debate we had a few years 
ago where the big concern, on the Republican side at least, was that we 
were going to pay off the national debt too fast, if you could believe 
those days, which never materialized. But now today, we are back into 
chronic budget deficits, and one of the fastest growing areas in the 
budget today is interest on the national debt.
  I see two major problems with the huge budget deficits today that are 
unprecedented and we did not face before. One is, who is owning that 
debt? Who is paying for our deficit financing? Right now, Japan is the 
number one purchaser of our government debt, soon to be surpassed by 
China. I do not believe it is in our country's long-term economic 
interests to be so dependent on foreign entities, let alone China, to 
be the number one purchaser of our debt in financing these deficits.
  The other big difference we have today is ever since those long-ago 
years when the pound sterling was a viable currency, we have never had 
a rival currency up against the dollar in the international 
marketplace. That is changing today with the strength of the euro in 
the European Union and in the common marketplace.
  Now, if these countries that are currently investing in buying our 
bonds decide to take their investment somewhere else, such as in the 
euro, which is gaining in strength, and the dollar, which is declining 
in value, we are going to get caught holding the bag in trying to 
finance these deficits, and that could be the perfect financial storm 
being created.

  So again, I think it is a reason why we need to work together in a 
bipartisan fashion and, at the very least, reach agreement in 
reinstituting something that worked in the 1990s, the pay-as-you-go 
rules.
  I commend the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), our Ranking 
Member on the Committee on the Budget, for the leadership and the 
honesty that he has shown in presenting the figures so that we can, at 
the very least, agree on the facts and the challenges that we are 
facing, and then coming up with some commonsense solutions that have a 
proven history of working in the past. I am going to continue to work 
with the gentleman and the rest of my colleagues here in trying to put 
together an honest and reasonable budget in order to get us back on 
that glidepath of fiscal discipline and fiscal responsibility again.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, let me turn to the gentleman from Virginia, 
but if I could briefly demonstrate, before I yield. This chart right 
here shows something else that is left out of the budget for 2006. The 
President, acknowledging that he has a deficit in 2005 of $427 billion, 
and it is likely to be at least that large in 2006, nevertheless asked 
for renewal and making permanent tax cuts that total 1 trillion, 7 
billion dollars.
  As for the effect of these tax cuts, this chart right here is pretty 
simple, but pretty instructive. This blue line at the top indicates the 
level that the administration told us projected the individual income 
tax revenues would follow if their tax cuts were passed. As my 
colleagues can see, it projected that revenues for last year would be 1 
trillion, 118 billion dollars from the individual income tax. In truth, 
they were $804 billion. That is more than $300 billion short of what 
was projected. Do it on the back of an envelope. It is simplistic 
accounting.
  But we cannot avoid the conclusion: that is three-fourths of the 
deficit in the year 2004. This is the effect, undeniable effect that 
tax cuts have had on the bad bottom line that we are looking at now.
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman 
if the revenue numbers also include the surplus that is coming in from 
FICA taxes, from Social Security. Because what this administration has 
been doing is really masking the seriousness of the deficit that they 
have created, because they have been taking the Social Security 
surpluses and offsetting it against the actual deficit to make the 
deficit appear much smaller.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, we discussed this a bit earlier, and the 
gentleman is absolutely right. The numbers we are talking about are the 
unified deficit numbers. That is to say, we consolidate all of the 
accounts of the budget. Social Security is actually in surplus now and 
will be for some years to come, so the surplus of about $160 billion in 
Social Security is offset against the deficit and the rest of the 
budget, making that deficit appear smaller than it truly is.
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, what I am getting at is, I 
remember, as the gentleman does, when the Clinton administration 
acquired a substantial surplus and was projecting at the end of the 
year 2000 about $5.5 trillion of surplus. To meet the Social Security 
obligations for the next 75 years, what they were going to do is to 
take the Social Security surplus and put it back into the Social 
Security trust funds, so we would not have this issue with regard to 
supposedly bankrupting Social Security. All of that could have been 
avoided if we had followed through on those policies. Unfortunately, 
what this administration did was to promptly pay out that money in tax 
cuts.
  We have been talking about these high numbers, trillions and 
billions; in fact, I wish the people, if there is anyone watching at 
home, they might write down what $1.7 trillion represents. It is 1 
comma 7, and then 11 zeroes.
  Mr. Speaker, $1 trillion is a thousand billion; a billion is a 
thousand million. This is an enormous amount of money that we have 
reduced our revenue by as a result of tax cuts, most of which went to 
the people who needed it the least.
  Now, what is most troubling, I think to many people that we 
represent, is the cuts that are going to occur in the lives of people 
dependent upon programs. I want the gentleman to conclude his points, 
but when we talk about cutting $60 billion out of Medicaid nursing home 
costs and health costs for children and eliminating vocational 
education, all of it relates back to this policy, and it seems almost 
as though it is an excuse to cut domestic social programs that 
represent only 16 percent of the deficit, and yet almost 100 percent of 
the cuts are coming out of these domestic social programs.
  But I would like to address that, and I would like to elaborate on 
that in a bit. I know the gentleman wants to conclude his comments and 
hear from our friend, the gentleman from Maine, as well.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thought I would say a few words about an 
event I did not so long ago, just before the election, or right after 
the election in my district in Maine. I went to Windham High School, 
which is not so

[[Page H695]]

far outside of Portland, and talked to a group of students, civics 
students and their teacher, Bruce Bowers. They had asked me to come and 
talk to them about the Federal deficit, the Federal debt, the growing 
national debt, and what it means to them, because I had said on 
numerous occasions during the course of the campaign that the 
Republican budgets which have been passed here are immoral. We are 
passing on our current expenses, our current choices, to our children 
and grandchildren.
  Well, they had studied the issue. They knew more than people in this 
House did, in many cases, I think, and they held up these signs. They 
had these signs in back of where I was speaking, and believe me, I got 
a grilling. But here were some of the signs: ``Pay as you go.'' ``No 
taxation without representation.'' ``Fiscal mismanagement should not 
tax our future.''
  These kids understood what is not immediately obvious; that they were 
going to pay the bills for tax cuts that had been passed today or in 
the last 4 years, and for the war in Iraq, because essentially we are 
borrowing money to do those things. And they know that 20 years from 
now, when they want to be sending their kids to college, they will be 
paying taxes to the Federal Government, and there will be less of that 
money to pay for education, there will be less of that money to help 
them get job training, there will be less of that money to help their 
kids find the assistance they need to go to college, there will be less 
of that money to pay for their own national defense, because they will 
be paying exorbitant interest, levels of interest on the national debt; 
much more of what our tax dollars pay for 20 and 30 years from now will 
be just interest, interest on today's obligations.
  Let us talk just about a couple of those. We are spending $1 billion 
a week in Iraq. Remember Paul Wolfowitz, the Assistant Secretary of 
Defense, who came before the committee and said, this is a case where 
Iraq can pay for the cost of its reconstruction, and reasonably quickly 
at that. Wrong. Not just wrong about weapons of mass destruction, not 
just wrong about the connection to al Qaeda, but wrong about what we 
would be paying. We are paying over and over again, and we are 
borrowing that money and our kids will pay the bill, eventually.
  But it is also true that in 2005, $89 billion would go to people in 
tax cuts, $89 billion would go to people for tax cuts from households 
earning $350,000 a year or more; $89 billion. And those kids in Windham 
understand. They know that that is going straight to add to the annual 
deficit, the overall Federal debt that they are going to pay interest 
on that bill for years to come. Not just the $89 billion in 2005 that 
go to tax cuts for the rich, but probably $100 billion in 2006 and on 
and on and on.
  The Republicans in the House and the Bush administration are 
bankrupting this country. They are imposing a burden on our children 
and grandchildren that is unconscionable, and they will sit and tell 
us, oh, well, we will grow our way out of this. These revenues will 
simply vanish. And the truth is, now, after all they have done to hurt 
the American middle class in the last 4 years, they have now come up 
with these cockamamie private accounts in Social Security idea that 
will, by itself, double the national debt in 20 years.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I have just put up a chart to show exactly 
what the gentleman was just saying. Privatization means that tax funds 
that are now put in a public trust fund will instead go into private 
accounts that will cause the government to borrow more and more and 
more over time. The Bush administration acknowledges that between 2009 
and 2015, when it first implements this particular proposal, that the 
cost will be $754 billion. We have obtained, using the Social Security 
actuary numbers, the true impact for the first 10 years of 
implementation and for the second 10 years of implementation, fully 
implemented. The cost right there, that little blue bar chart, bar on 
the graph there, the plan that the President is proposing adds $4.9 
trillion to the unified deficit of the United States by 2028.
  But we are only halfway up the slope at this point. The borrowing in 
the trillions goes on and on and on until the year 2055 to the mid-
2050s, an enormous increase in the national debt.

                              {time}  1715

  So we even if the budget were to be cut in half, the deficit were to 
be cut in half by 2009, which it will not, the numbers simply will not 
support that outcome, there is a huge change in the budget deficit 
looming on the horizon at that point in time which means that the 
deficit will not be balanced again or anywhere close to it in our 
lifetime when this debt is added to it.
  Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear that I understand exactly 
what the gentleman is saying.
  I appreciate very much the opportunity to have this opportunity to 
learn from the gentleman. I want to go back to the context that we are 
talking about for just a second because I did take the opportunity to 
read the budget that came out of this administration.
  More specifically, I took the opportunity to read the historical 
tables because I think it is important for us to see what has been 
before we can talk about what is coming up in the future. And we have 
talked already quite a bit about the total debt, and I am very happy 
that the gentleman is focusing on debt because we can talk about 
deficits, annual deficits every single year, but it is not as if annual 
deficits are static. If you have got deficits every year, you are 
borrowing it from somewhere; that means that debt goes up. If you have 
a deficit of $300 billion this year, that is borrowed money. Another 
deficit the next year, $600 billion.
  Mr. SPRATT. Your debt service goes up, too.
  Mr. CASE. Yes, that is absolutely right. The gentleman has an 
excellent chart that demonstrated that earlier, that under this 
President's own budget the interest on the national debt will double or 
more in the next 5 years while every other program is remaining 
basically at the same level of funding.
  So the question that I have got, I am looking here at the President's 
own budget, noting that in 2004 we had a total national debt of $7.3 
trillion. That was just a year ago and that was up, as the gentleman 
pointed out earlier, by $2 trillion just over a few years. So we are 
going up pretty darn fast.
  I am looking here at the President's budget. This is the President 
talking; this is not us talking. It shows here in 2010, just 5 short 
years from now, we will have, according to this President's budget, a 
national total debt of $11.1 trillion. So $7.3 trillion last year. 
Under this budget, we are going to $11.1 trillion and, of course, that 
is the aggregate, is it not?
  Mr. SPRATT. In 4 years.
  Mr. CASE. Absolutely, in 4 years. And the point that the gentleman is 
making now, and by the way, that is a 60 percent increase in the total 
national debt in just a few short years, so obviously something is out 
of whack.
  Now what the gentleman is pointing out in the chart that he is 
pointing us to right now is that essentially when we talk about this 
national debt, we are not talking, we are not including some very key 
aspects here. We are not talking about the cost of the privatization 
plan, right?
  Mr. SPRATT. No, it is not included. And what I am saying here is this 
additional debt will be stacked on top of what is already monumental 
statutory debt of the United States growing every year because of the 
deficit in our regular budget, growing every year.
  Mr. CASE. In the same spirit, we are not talking in this budget about 
any fix to the Alternative Minimum Tax, right?
  Mr. SPRATT. No.
  Mr. CASE. Nor are we talking about the costs of the war which are now 
projected to be astronomical if we project out over a reasonable period 
of time. That is additional debt.
  Mr. SPRATT. When those adjustments are made, the numbers the 
gentleman just gave will only get worse.
  Mr. CASE. We are not talking about additional debt service on the 
additional debt that will be incurred as a result of the first three. 
Those do not enter into the additional interest payment.
  So what we are really talking about, I guess the point I am trying to 
make and trying to get clarity from the gentleman, is that when we are 
talking

[[Page H696]]

even under the President's own budget of an increase of 60 percent in 
the national debt, assuming we agree to this budget straight out, we 
will assume if the President gets his way on privatization and on the 
Alternative Minimum Tax which we all want to do on the reasonable costs 
of the war, on other initiatives, not to mention further cuts in any 
taxes or continuation of any tax reductions, we are talking about 
trillions of dollars of additional debt during that same period.
  Mr. SPRATT. No question about it. When you add this on top of it, it 
becomes almost irreversible. I do not see how you can add this and ever 
expect to see the budget close to balance again.
  Mr. CASE. Let me conclude by making one other point that came out of 
our Committee on the Budget hearings just a week ago when I asked 
Office of Management and the Budget Director Bolton, hey, I have not 
heard much about debt. I have heard plenty about deficits, but I have 
not heard much about debt. Of course, frankly, I speculate that the 
reason is it is a lot easier to talk about reducing the deficit in 
half. But if we only reduce the deficit in half every year, we are 
still talking about compounded total debt because that is borrowed 
every single year. So it is not good enough to talk about reducing the 
deficit in half. It is a matter of balancing our books.
  Mr. SPRATT. Absolutely correct.
  Mr. CASE. I thank the gentleman for his good work, and I am happy to 
learn at his feet.
  Mr. SPRATT. The gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz).
  Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. I would like to make a few comments, 
and I ask for some of the gentleman's comments on some of my 
observations as a new member of the Committee on the Budget. I really 
sought to get on the Committee on the Budget. It is something I wanted 
to do because I know that my constituents sent me here to speak up for 
them, to look out for them and really to be an advocate for fiscal 
discipline, fiscal responsibility and for wise Federal spending.
  As a former State legislator, as a State senator for 14 years, I know 
how important Federal Government investments are, that they do allow 
our State and local governments to meet their obligations without 
assuming the costs and responsibility for Federal shortfalls. They 
allow for shared responsibility of new initiatives aimed at promoting 
economic growth, quality education, access to health care, protecting 
the environment, and providing for a safe and secure homeland.
  To do this, I want to mention three principles; and I would 
appreciate comments on it. I believe that we have to first recognize 
our obligations. The gentleman has talked about this, a good bit about 
our obligations that we already have. We have to work within our 
budgetary limits to meet them, and we have to make smart investments 
focused on the Nation's current and future fiscal well-being.
  Unfortunately, as the gentleman has been pointing out with his 
charts, the President's budget does not meet any of these three simple 
rules.
  Similar to his previous budgets, the President's fiscal year 2006 
blueprint prioritizes the tax cuts for wealthiest Americans over 
meeting our obligations to all Americans, failing to adequately invest 
in keeping and creating new jobs, failing to expand affordable health 
insurance, failing to meet the health care needs of our veterans, and 
some of the other speakers talked about that, and failing to protect 
those who were working on our front lines to keep our Nation safe from 
terrorism.
  As the gentleman's chart points out, one of the greatest failings of 
this President's proposal is his intention to change our commitment to 
older Americans.
  Just last week, the President visited my district. He came to 
Montgomery County to promote his plan to change Social Security. Now, 
my constituents listened pretty carefully. Quite a few of them turned 
out. And they were anxious to know some of the details, some of the 
things the gentleman has on the charts, and what it would mean to them 
and to their families.
  I am going to just mention a few, and maybe the gentleman can help us 
with some of the answers.
  They wanted to know exactly what the term ``private account'' means. 
They wanted to know how private accounts would affect the value of 
their guaranteed benefit. They wanted to know whether it would provide 
more or less security for their retirement. They wanted to know how 
much they would really be able to control these accounts.
  And they wanted to know how the proposal would impact disability and 
survivor benefits. They wanted to know how this proposal could possibly 
strengthen Social Security for the long term. And, moreover, they 
wanted to know how we as a Nation could afford to pay that $4.9 
trillion that it would cost to create these private accounts out of 
Social Security.
  I ask the gentleman to comment on some of these questions because 
before we can begin to talk at all about some of the long-term fiscal 
health of Social Security, we have to give the American people some of 
the answers the President has not given.
  What we do know, and I think the gentleman has some charts on this, 
is that the President's proposal will do two things. It will 
dramatically reduce guaranteed benefits, and it will significantly add 
to the Nation's growing debt. So I ask the gentleman to confirm these, 
and I will say one third thing that I know it does, and that is that it 
does nothing to promote the long-term solvency of Social Security.
  Mr. SPRATT. The gentlewoman has touched upon major impacts. One of 
our problems is the President's budget is lacking in detail as to all 
of the program, project and activity cuts that they would actually 
propose in the years after 2006. It is hard to tell. We have a chart 
here that shows what we know about the reduction in what is called 
nondefense domestic discretionary spending. And we can see here that we 
expect a reduction below purchasing power of about $180 billion over a 
5-year period of time. That is education. That is veterans health care. 
That is highways. That is the government as we know it. Everything that 
people tend to identify the government with is included in these 
accounts. They have only come all together to $350 billion.
  So you can, of course, out of $350 billion achieve some cost 
reduction, but there is only so much that can be achieved there. And 
keep in mind, this is not the source of the problem. These accounts 
have not increased in the last 3 years, but this is where the 
administration is going to squeeze as much as they possibly can, but 
there will never be enough in these accounts to eradicate a deficit of 
$427 billion next year.
  Nevertheless, there will be deep pits, student loans, Pell grants, 
all of these things that matter to American families, kitchen-table 
issues.
  Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. I have heard from many of my 
constituents, just some of the initiatives and some of the deep cuts 
that the President is talking about, even though they are not going to 
affect the savings that we need to provide these private accounts. It 
does not equate. I have nurses asking me about loan forgiveness 
programs, teachers asking me about education.
  Mr. SPRATT. This is before the private accounts. When the private 
accounts are layered on top of this, they add so much to the deficit it 
is hard to predict what will be left of the accounts and items and 
projects that were just referenced.
  Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. It is true the private accounts really 
do not have the details from the President about how they would work, 
what they would really mean; and it is true that they do not strengthen 
the fiscal viability of Social Security unless what we are really 
talking about is deeply cutting benefits. Is that right?
  Mr. SPRATT. Exactly.
  Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I can say as someone new 
to the Committee on the Budget, I appreciate the gentleman's wisdom on 
this. If we are going to meet some of our obligations to families and 
communities and to local governments, we have to be able to correct 
this budget, work together. I think the President has suggested that. I 
know that the gentleman has always worked closely with Republican 
counterparts.
  As a new member of the Committee on the Budget, I know that we as 
Democrats and Republicans want to be honest with the American people, 
tell them the real consequences of what we

[[Page H697]]

are doing, and come to a budget resolution that will meet the 
obligations of the American people.
  I thank the gentleman very much for his detailed information. I look 
forward to working with him to accomplish that goal.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Cuellar).
  Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the leadership the gentleman 
has shown in the Committee on the Budget.
  I want to focus on one part of the administration budget and that 
deals with education. When I looked at this 3,000-page budget proposal 
the other day, I was quickly struck by the fact that out of the 150 
programs that are slated for elimination, 48 of them, that is one out 
of three, were in education.
  Education has the power to break the cycle of poverty. Education has 
the power to change lives. As millions of Americans have proven, 
education has the power to change the future. It has changed mine.
  I think the gentleman will agree with me that if we would call, or 
any Member would call, any economic development foundation in their 
district and ask them about the importance of a broad-based 
comprehensive education system, I think they would get the answer, an 
answer that we all know, that is, there is no greater resource today in 
our great Nation to attract better jobs with better wages to our 
communities than a strong education program that we have.
  Mr. SPRATT. There is no other individual in the Congress I could 
point to who is a better testament to that principle than the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Cuellar), who I believe has four degrees. Am I correct?
  Mr. CUELLAR. I thank the gentleman very much.
  I think the gentleman agrees with me that educational programs alone 
are no guarantee. These programs are successful only with the 
inspiration of our parents, the support of our community, and the hard 
work of our students. Many educational programs are threatened by this 
budget which includes the Upward Bound Program, the Talent Search, the 
GEAR UP among other programs. But I think today, if the gentleman would 
allow me just a few minutes to talk about one program, and that program 
exemplifies what it means to offer opportunity to an individual, what 
it means to offer opportunity to a family, a community and a country.
  I think the gentleman is familiar with this program called Even 
Start. The budget calls for a $225 million cut from the Even Start 
program. That is a cut that would basically eliminate this program. In 
my own State, there are 90 Even Start programs in the State of Texas 
serving more than 5,500 families. In my part of the district, Seguin, 
Texas, there are 60 families that depend on this.
  This is a very remarkable program that allows the parents to learn 
along with the children, where they are able to get their GED, where 
they are able to pull themselves up and not only educate their children 
but also to get trained, educated so they can get a job. It provides a 
sense of pride that makes them better parents, and that is what we are 
trying to do through our educational system.

                              {time}  1730

  I think the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) would agree 
that if we have these budget cuts in education, as is proposed, this 
will not make our families stronger, this education will not make our 
Nation stronger, and I believe these cuts in education will make it 
very hard on thousands of families that are working hard, playing by 
the rules to make this transition from poverty to prosperity.
  You know, now as we are talking about providing the tools to break 
this cycle of poverty and provide more home and opportunity for the 
children, I think we need to talk about something you have been talking 
about, Mr. Spratt, and I would ask you this particular question. We 
agree that we need to have budget discipline. And, yes, we need to 
preserve educational programs like the Even Start program. So how do we 
do both?
  And I think, just like you have said before, in order for us to do 
this, just do it just like we do the budget at home, we set priorities. 
We set priorities. We need to decide in Congress what are those 
priorities? Is it spending $280 million to study the icy moons of 
Jupiter, or do we educate our children? Is it spending $480 million to 
support the states of the former Soviet Union, or are we going to save 
America's farms?
  I think, like you have been saying, Mr. Spratt, it is a time to set 
priorities for our Nation, and now it is the time to make sure that we 
set those priorities, not only for our Nation, but for our own 
individual districts. And I ask you to continue the efforts and the 
endeavor to make sure that the American public understands that we can 
have a budget, balance the budget, but at the same time, the way we 
lower the deficit is to set the priorities, the priorities in education 
and health care, and economic development.
  Mr. SPRATT. We can balance the budget and also balance our 
priorities. In 1997 when we did the Balanced Budget Agreement of 1997, 
we had the biggest plus-up in education in 15 or 20 years. We will have 
a budget resolution, a Democratic budget resolution on the floor, and 
it will adequately fund education. That will be the last thing that we 
will cut. Certainly we will not have 38 educational programs eliminated 
in our budget.
  Now, in the time remaining let me recognize the gentlewoman from 
Georgia.
  Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, to continue the discussion about the 
budget, let me just say that the purpose of a budget, the budget is the 
most important legislative document that the Congress will produce; and 
in fact, all legislative bodies produce a budget, be it the school 
board, city council, county commission, the legislature, and of course 
us here in Washington, D.C., in the Congress.
  And the budget is our statement of values. It is a statement of 
values, because we look at the definition of politics, and it is the 
authoritative allocation of values in a society; and how are those 
values authoritatively allocated? They are reflected in the decisions 
that we make with respect to how we are going to spend our money.
  And so when the President sends his budget to the Congress, the 
budget of the President then reflects the values of the President. And 
so this President has talked about an American prosperity, an America 
of prosperity and opportunity. But the America that the President seems 
to value is a very narrow America indeed.
  In other words, our mantra ought to be leave no American behind in 
our quest for opportunity and prosperity for all. But, sadly, many 
Americans have indeed been left behind. And the situation is not 
getting better, it is getting worse.
  A very few Americans are doing extremely well. But many of us are 
being left behind, and, in fact, too many of us are being left behind. 
For the latest statistics available, it takes 100 million Americans at 
the bottom to equal the share of national income received by the top 
2.7 million Americans.
  And this budget does not even begin to address the widening income 
gulf in our country. In fact, it exacerbates it. The employment and 
income picture has gotten worse for people of color, in particular, 
since 2000, eroding the tremendous progress that was made during the 
decade of the 1990s.
  And in fact, since 2000 more than one-third of the progress made in 
reducing poverty among African American families has been completely, 
totally, absolutely 100 percent erased, as 300,000 African American 
families fell below the poverty line just from the year 2000 to the 
year 2003.
  I would like to bring your attention to the product of an 
organization, a product that I have become dependent on as I try and 
travel around the country and educate folks about the true conditions 
faced by people in this country.
  It is the State of the Dream from United for a Fair Economy. And 
every year they produce a report, ``The State of the Dream 2004,'' 
``The State of the Dream 2005,'' about the inequalities, the 
disparities that exist in our country along the racial divide.
  Now, I have got a couple of charts here that I would just like to 
show. Now, on the index of income, can you imagine that from 1968 to 
2001, the average black income was 55 cents compared to that for white 
income, and 57 cents in 2001?

[[Page H698]]

  What United For a Fair Economy has found is that since the murder of 
Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, on some of those most important 
indices, the situation has gotten worse, not better, for people in our 
country.
  And here over the span of 33 years, we have only increased the well-
being by 2 cents. And at the current rate, it would take 581 years to 
even out the black-white gap in income.
  Or we can look at poverty. Overall poverty to close the gap, 150 
years to close the gap, the poverty gap as experienced by black 
Americans and white Americans.
  Or we can look at child poverty. The President says he wants to leave 
no child behind, but sadly, if we look at the numbers, and these 
numbers represent real children, it will take us 210 years to close the 
child poverty gap.
  The President talked about housing, and we all know that 
homeownership is the cornerstone for the beginning of the accumulation 
of wealth, and look here at homeownership. It will take us 1,664 years 
to close the homeownership gap. Is that not incredible?
  What does that tell us about our country's values and priorities? Our 
President talks about making this an opportunity, making this a 
prosperity society for all Americans, but if the President's budget 
does not deal with these very real differences in the way real 
Americans live, then the President has talked to us but he has not 
really backed his words with a policy statement that will change the 
way the bulk of Americans live in this country. The President cannot 
create an ownership society without addressing these disparities, and 
sadly, his budget proposal falls short of even his stated goals.
  I look forward to actually being able to call the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) Mr. Chairman and have folks on the other 
side of the aisle call him Mr. Chairman, too.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
vehemently state my disappointment, frustration, and objection to the 
FY 2006 budget submitted by President Bush.
  When President Bush submitted his 2006 budget to Congress recently, 
he said, ``The taxpayers of America don't want us spending our money 
into something that's not achieving results.'' I couldn't agree more.
  The President's 2006 budget cuts money from America's veterans, 
America's first responders, students, small businesses, health, urban 
and rural development, and environmental protection.
  Is the President saying our veterans, first responders, students, and 
small businesses are not achieving results?
  The unnecessary tax cuts for the rich and an optional war with Iraq 
are not producing results.
  The President's budget does not contain a single dime of money for 
war effort in Iraq or his proposed reforms to privatize Social 
Security.
  How is this possible? How can the budget for the country omit the two 
most important issues mentioned during the President's address to the 
Nation on the State of the Union?
  Instead, those costs are hidden from the American people in the form 
of an $80 billion emergency supplemental request to Congress. A request 
that was not mentioned during prime time coverage on national 
television.
  This budget continues the same bad choices of this administration and 
will lead to the same bad results--huge deficits and increasing debt.
  This President and this administration has squandered an inheritance 
of a 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion and has replaced it with deficits 
that our children may have as their responsibility.
  This budget will severely impact Texas citizens negatively as well as 
other American citizens. They deserve better.
  Never before has America faced such an array of issues that demand 
creative, competent leadership.
  But the Bush administration has pursued solutions that serve only to 
escalate the problems we are facing.
  We should be making progress, but in too many areas we are either 
backsliding or simply holding the line.
  Programs and policies that not only provide assistance for the poor 
but for a large portion of the American people who need help to keep 
their heads above water are under attack.
  To cut the Medicaid program for the poor of $60 billion over 10 
years, to cut the Small Business Administration's technical assistance 
program to small businesses by 37.9 percent, and to cut community 
policing programs up to 95.6 percent is not only immoral but 
irresponsible.
  Eight million Americans are unemployed. But Republicans passed a new 
set of tax breaks that reward corporations who send jobs overseas.
  About 45 million Americans have no health insurance. But Republicans 
have proposed Health Savings Accounts that benefit a wealthy few, 
encourage employers to drop insurance coverage and will increase the 
number of uninsured by 350,000.
  Over 8 million children nationwide are struggliing to meet new 
national education standards. But Republicans refused to provide 
promised help to our schools, leaving millions of children without the 
help they need in reading and math.
  America needs a budget that reflects the morals of this country, a 
budget the American people can trust and support, one that supports the 
national security policy that is as strong and brave and as decent as 
the heroes who serve to protect us.
  America needs a budget that includes all its citizens and a budget 
that is fair and balanced.
  The President needs to do for all of America what he is asking the 
rest of the world to do--to treat all its people with decency and 
respect.
  Mr. BISHOP of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my 
opposition to the President's FY06 budget--a budget that I believe goes 
against our values as a society. If the proposed budget passes, it 
would be a disaster for constituents in my home district on Long Island 
and districts nationwide, forcing working families to make up for many 
of the cuts in the form of higher State and local taxes.
  The American people deserve honesty, and this budget is dishonest by 
omission, and dishonest in how it portrays the overall budget 
projections. The President claims that the steep budget cuts he 
advocates are necessary to cut the deficit in half in 5 years. This is 
simply not true, and the budget the President proposes fails to 
accomplish his stated goal.
  First, the budget is dishonest by omission. Nowhere in the FY06 
budget does the President account for significant costs, including:
  Fails to account for the enormous costs of privatizing Social 
Security as proposed by the President; a whopping $6 trillion over the 
next 20 years; $754 billion over the period from 2009-2015;
  Fails to account for the continuing presence of our troops in Iraq--
the administration knows we are going to approve an Iraq supplemental 
upward of $80 billion for the first part of this year alone--and an 
estimated $384 billion over 10 years--yet still omits it in the budget;
  Fails to account for growth in interest costs;
  Fails to reform the Alternative Minimum Tax that is 
disproportionately burdening middle income families in my district on 
Long Island.
  As troubling as the glaring budget omissions is the knowledge that 
the deficit is largely a self-inflicted wound. The President inherited 
a record annual surplus of $236 billion--which now, 4 years later, has 
tanked into a deficit in excess of $400 billion. Any attempt at honest 
accounting suggests that we are looking at a decade or more of similar 
deficits.
  The reason we are faced with an unethical budget is because the 
President refuses to acknowledge the fiscal irresponsibility of his 
choices, and will not entertain even the most moderate suggestions, 
such as repealing only the portion of the tax cuts that benefit the top 
1 percent of taxpayers.
  Unfortunately this budget builds on a disturbing trend. This 
administration and the leadership in Congress appear to be intent on 
valuing wealth over work, thereby placing working families at a 
distinct disadvantage. The tax policies the President advocates 
disproportionately advantage the wealthiest to the detriment of working 
Americans, and working families will continue to bear the brunt of the 
rising inflation spurred by the rising interest rates.
  The Bill Gates' of the world pocketed their tax cut at the insistence 
of the President. However, this President sees no problem eliminating 
funding for Perkins Loans in his budget, even though the cost of 
tuition is rising and will continue to rise as the administration's 
policies force inflation. As a result of the decision to eliminate 
Perkins, this year more than 670,000 student borrowers could lose out 
on loan forgiveness if they become teachers, law enforcement officers 
or if they serve in the military. This is just one of many examples of 
valuing wealth over work.
  In my district, the budget scales back and eliminates several long-
term shore protection projects important to the safety and economic 
security of Long Island.
  The President has no problem zeroing out the Fire Island to Montauk 
Point Study, just as it nears completion.
  The President eliminates funding to dredge the Patchogue River, even 
though this creates a huge safety hazard for boaters.
  The President does not hesitate to slash funding for the Long Island 
Sound Study Office from $7 million to less than $500,000, even though 
this is vital to the livelihoods and economy of the east end of Long 
Island.

[[Page H699]]

  The President falls far short of his promise under the No Child Left 
Behind bill, even though this means that taxpayers will have to foot 
the bill at the local level to pay for education.
  Finally, the President does not seem to mind taxing veterans' health 
care at $250 per year, and doubling copayments for veterans' 
prescription drugs, at a time when we should be saluting our veterans.
  Our values as a society are not reflected in this budget. We must ban 
together in Congress to force an honest accounting, and insist upon the 
restoration of long-term fiscal responsibility to our Nation. It's not 
enough to talk about compassion--it is high time that we refocus our 
priorities and show some compassion.

                          ____________________