[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 71 (Wednesday, May 25, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H4063-H4070]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE FINANCIAL CONDITION OF OUR NATION'S GOVERNMENT
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Poe). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
General Leave
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
on this special order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Arkansas?
There was no objection.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, as whip of the Blue Dog Coalition I rise this
evening to talk about the financial condition of our Nation's
government. There are about 35 of us that are fiscally conservative
Democrats. We refer to ourselves as members of the Blue Dog Coalition
and we are trying to bring some common sense back to our Nation's
government as it relates to trying to restore some fiscal discipline to
the way we operate our government.
Our Nation today is $7.769 trillion in debt. To put that another way,
our Nation today is spending $160 billion a year simply paying interest
on the national debt. That is about $500 million a day. In fact, it is
$13 billion per month, it is $444 million per day, it is $18 million an
hour, it is $308,000 a minute, or $5,100 a second. That is how much our
Nation is simply taking tax money from you and me and using it to pay
interest on the national debt.
I have got about $4 billion in road needs in Arkansas's Fourth
Congressional District, which includes 29 counties and 150 towns and
three interstate projects that are now under construction. Give me less
than a week's interest on the national debt and I can put thousands of
people to work and complete these road projects, like I-49, I-69 and I-
430, and four-laning U.S. Highway 167.
When we speak about the debt in public opinion surveys, it simply
does not show up. It is like it is someone else's problem. But, Mr.
Speaker, I contend this evening that it is every American citizen's
problem, because every American citizen's share of the national debt
equals $26,000. $26,000 is each individual's share of the national
debt, including the children, the babies that are being born today.
Every United States citizen would have to write a check for $26,000 in
order to get our Nation out of this hole that we are in.
Yet our Nation continues to go further in debt. For a fifth year in a
row, we are seeing a budget that provides this Nation with the largest
budget deficit ever in our Nation's history, which means more interest
on more debt, which means more priorities continue to go unmet. Again,
we are spending $13 billion per month simply paying interest on the
national debt. We could build 100 brand new elementary schools every
single day in America just with the interest we are paying on the
national debt.
Earlier today the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), a Blue Dog
member, offered a proposal on the floor of this House to guarantee
every National Guard and Army Reservist in America health care for
life. These are men and women that are going to Iraq, they are going to
Afghanistan. If they have not been, they are headed that way, and if
they are coming back, they are probably getting ready to go again. Yet
they are treated different than our full-time men and women in uniform
at a time when we are really dispatching them the same. The reality is
they deserve health care for life, they deserve health care like the
full-time soldiers.
Yet this House rejected that proposal today because they said it
would cost $1 billion. Because of the reckless spending going on in our
Nation, we are spending that much money in about two days simply paying
interest on the national debt.
I want to talk more about the debt and the deficit, but at this time
it gives me great honor to introduce the Cochair For Policy for the
Blue Dog Coalition to speak more about the debt and the deficit and how
it impacts all of us as Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, and
that is my friend the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).
Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding. The
gentleman was focusing on one of the gravest problems our Nation has
ever faced, one of the gravest threats to our children's and our
grandchildren's well-being, because those debt payments the gentleman
is talking about, the interest payments, they are like a tax that
[[Page H4064]]
can never be repealed until our Nation one day, we hope and pray, will
return to a surplus. We had a couple years of surplus under President
Clinton, but, sadly, those days are gone. Now we have plunged deep back
into debt.
As the gentleman points out, the debt now is $7.7 trillion. We all as
Blue Dogs have signs like this outside of our office doors so that
anybody who visits our offices here in Washington or back home, and for
me that is Nashville, Tennessee, can see exactly the hole that we have
dug for our Nation's future and how much it is per person, $26,000 per
person. So I appreciate the gentleman's focus on this grave problem.
Blue Dogs have been great leaders on this issue. We will talk in a
few moments about the 12 step plan that the Blue Dogs have put forward
to try to rescue our Nation from this debt binge that we have been on.
It is kind like the 12 step plan for Alcoholics Anonymous, 12 steps to
get out of a problem that so many Americans are unwilling to face up to
and recognize.
Before we do that, I would like to take a moment to give our friends
in Congress and across the country some key dates so they can write
these down and look at the deficit and the debt from a little bit
different perspective.
Date number one is last year, 2004. Why is that significant? Because
the auditor for the United States of America, David Walker of the GAO,
said it was ``arguably the worst year in American fiscal history.''
That is pretty grave news. If you had a company and your auditor said
you have been through one of the worst years in history, you would
probably be facing bankruptcy. That is what the U.S. auditor said about
last year. Most people do not know about that. That news should get
out.
Take the year 2005, this year. What did we do about the deficit and
the debt? Well, the Republican majority rammed a budget through this
body, $2.6 trillion, in a record-setting 2 hours. That is from start to
finish, from the first moment we could look at the document to final
passage vote, never get to see it again, $2.6 trillion in 2 hours. If
that is not financial mismanagement and irresponsibility, I do not know
what is.
The next date is 2009. That is the date when we will be spending more
money on interest on the national debt than we will on all regular
domestic government in America. Due to the deficits and the debts that
the Bush administration has accumulated, our debt burden will be so
great by then, by the last year of the Bush administration, we will
have to spend more money to our creditors than we will on our citizens.
In a sense it will be a better deal then to be a creditor of this
country than to be a citizen of this country. That is an outrage. That
is the first time in American history that has ever happened.
Another key date is the year 2012. That is when the Chinese, if
current rates continue, will own all of our debt. In fact, a firm in
Connecticut has predicted by February 9, 2012, the Chinese will own all
of our foreign debt. That is another outrage. The Chinese are not
necessarily the friendliest holders of this debt. To be financially
beholden to them is really a national security risk.
Another key date is 2017. That is the date we will have the first
honest deficits in America, because that is the date the Social
Security surplus will diminish down to zero. Then the true size of the
deficit will be unveiled, because, as the gentleman knows, the deficit
last year was not $412 billion, like most people think, which is still
an all time U.S. record. The deficit was $569 billion, because the
Social Security surplus was $155 billion last year, and it was used to
hide the true size of the deficit.
Another key date is 2035. That is when Standard & Poor's, the bond
rating agency, says that American debt will become junk bond debt
because we will have so little financial credibility in the markets.
That is not from a government official, that is from the official
business rating agency.
Finally, probably the worst number of all, this is truly so hard to
believe that I think it needs a chart to display it, the General
Accounting Office says that by the year 2040 it will take all revenues
collected by the Federal Government just to pay interest on the debt.
In other words, by the year 2040, just 35 years from now, there will be
no money left, not one red cent, for any of our national defense needs,
for any Social Security, for any Medicare, for any anything. It will
take all of that money just to pay interest on the debt. That is an
outrage, and it is a particular outrage if our only creditor then is
the Chinese government.
We are clearly on a road to ruin. We have to change our course. We
need to change our course immediately. Sadly, this Congress is not
doing that. They need to follow the Blue Dog 12 step plan.
I appreciate the gentleman's great leadership on this issue as one of
our leading Blue Dog Members.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from
Tennessee. If I understand the gentleman correctly, what the gentleman
is telling us is that basically the government of the United States of
America as we know it today ends in 2040 if we continue down this path
of reckless fiscal spending?
Mr. COOPER. The gentleman is exactly correct. We are the greatest
Nation on Earth, we are the greatest Nation in the history of the
world, and that will probably end well before 2040 if we keep on the
current path.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, it sounds outlandish, until you stop and look
at history. No country has stood forever. Every country has undergone
changes. What the gentleman is saying is according to the Government
Accounting Office, not some Democratic Party group or some Republican
Party group, but according to the Government Accounting Office, if we
continue to spend at the rate that we are spending today, if we
continue to borrow at the rate we are borrowing today, what the
gentleman is saying is that the Government Accounting Office is saying,
we are not saying this, the Government Accounting Office, not a
bipartisan, but a nonpartisan Federal agency, is saying that beginning
in 2040, every dime of every tax dollar in America will simply go to
pay interest on the national debt?
Mr. COOPER. The gentleman is exactly correct. And it is terrible to
deliver such tough news to the American people, but the GAO is telling
us the truth, in a nonpartisan fashion, as the gentleman indicates. And
this bad news is not 35 years off. As I indicated earlier, the GAO has
already said that the year 2004, last year, was ``arguably the worst
year in American fiscal history.'' They are saying that is only going
to get worse still on the path that we are on, on the high deficit,
high debt path we are on.
{time} 2245
Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, what the gentleman from
Tennessee is talking about is the debt. We are not even talking about
the deficit yet, but debt. Again, our Nation is spending $13 billion a
month, over $13 billion a month simply paying interest on the national
debt. That is $444 million a day, that is $18 million an hour, that is
$308,000 a minute, or $5,100 a second.
On top of that, we have the deficit, and the gentleman from Tennessee
talked about this a little bit. It is hard now to think back that we
had a balanced budget in this Nation from 1998 through 2001.
Mr. COOPER. Just 5 years ago.
Mr. ROSS. Just 5 years ago. Ever since I was a small child growing up
in Hope, Arkansas, I heard people talk about how it was the Democrats
who spent all the money; yet it was President Clinton that left this
Nation with a balanced budget from 1998 to 2001. Now, this
administration, this Republican Congress has given us the largest
budget deficit ever in our Nation's history for a 5th year in a row.
It started in 2001. The deficit was $128 billion, with Social
Security, and what I mean by that is they borrow money from the Social
Security Trust Fund to pay for government spending that is above and
beyond what tax dollars bring in. No wonder they are talking about the
need to reform Social Security. No wonder they would not give me a
hearing on a vote on the first bill I filed as a Member of Congress
back in 2001, which was a bill to tell the politicians in Washington to
keep their hands off the Social Security Trust Fund.
In 2002, the deficit was $157 billion. In 2003, it went to $377
billion. In 2004, it went to $412 billion. In 2005, it went to
[[Page H4065]]
$427 billion. That is counting the money that is borrowed from Social
Security. If it was not for Social Security, those numbers would be
much larger. If it was not for the money being borrowed from the Social
Security Trust Fund, last year's deficit would have been $567 billion;
this year's deficit, $589 billion.
Now, where is this money coming from that we are borrowing? Japan,
$702 billion. We have borrowed $702 billion from Japan. Mr. Speaker,
$250 billion from China, the Caribbean Banking Centers, I have never
heard of such; $103 billion our Nation has borrowed from the Caribbean
Banking Centers to do what? To run our government where we are spending
more than we are taking in.
Now, some people may want to pause and say, well, America is at war.
Well, that is true, and no one supports our troops any more than I do.
I have a brother-in-law in the U.S. Air Force, I have a first cousin in
the U.S. Army, and I am so very proud of them. Last August 11, I was in
Iraq to see some 3,000 National Guard soldiers from Arkansas; and as
long as we have troops in Iraq, I am going to support them and provide
them the funding they need to get the job done and to get home as
safely as they possibly can.
But that makes up about 20 percent of this deficit. Eighty percent of
it is coming from reckless spending and from tax cuts. This is the
first time in America's history that we have cut taxes when America is
at war. So we are asking these men and women to take a year to a year
and a half away from their jobs and away from their families and go to
Iraq and fight this war, and then come home, go back to work, and pay
taxes to pay for the war they fought. This is the first time we have
ever cut taxes when America is at war. It may make for good politics,
but it makes for bad, it makes for horrible fiscal policy.
I did pretty good off of tax cuts last year, but my kids have to pay
for them someday, because we borrowed the money from the Caribbean
Banking Centers to give me a tax cut. And the list goes on and on.
Korea, we have borrowed $67.1 billion. OPEC nations, I mean, we wonder
why gas is over two bucks a gallon. OPEC nations have loaned our Nation
to fund our government and our tax cuts $65.3 billion. Germany, $59.5
billion; Taiwan, $59.1 billion; and Mexico, for crying out loud, has
loaned the United States of America $40.6 billion to pay for tax cuts
for the wealthiest people in this country, and then ask our men and
women to go to Iraq, fight this war, come home, get a job, pay taxes,
and pay for the war that they have fought.
There is so much more that we could talk about, but before I get too
carried away, I would like to yield back to the gentleman from
Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).
Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is focusing on the problem,
and I think the American people are hungry for more facts, more real
information about the situation we are in. I would like to encourage
them to look on the Web site of an institution called the Cato
Institute. It is here in Washington, D.C. It is not a Democratic group.
If anything, they are mainly Republican, but they issued a report on
May 3, 2005. It is by Stephen Slavinski, and it talks about how under
this Republican-only government, because Republicans run the White
House and the Senate and the House of Representatives, we have seen the
biggest spending binge since Lyndon Baines Johnson in the 1960s.
It is not just defense-related. If we look at nondefense spending
programs, it is the biggest spending binge since Richard Nixon. Most
Americans do not know this, and they do not know that we just went
through arguably the worst year in American fiscal history. So I
appreciate the gentleman sharing the message.
Several of our colleagues have arrived, and it is probably
appropriate at this time to recognize them.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Tennessee
joining us tonight as we talk about this huge crisis facing America,
the debt and the deficit, and the Blue Dog Coalition's desire to try to
restore some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's
government. This is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. This
is a commonsense issue, and this is about trying to restore some fiscal
discipline and common sense to our Nation's government.
Mr. Speaker, when we talk about the deficit this year, $589 billion,
someone the other day asked me, they said, Mike, what is $1 billion? I
put that number in my calculator and get that little E at the end.
Well, a billion seconds ago, Richard Nixon was President. Mr. Speaker,
6.8 billion seconds ago, President George Washington was sworn into
office. A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ, and to
count out 1 billion nonstop without sleep or eating would take 38\1/2\
years.
So we are talking about a number with a lot of zeroes, and we are
talking about money that is going down this deep, dark hole to simply
pay interest on the national debt due to reckless fiscal policies that
could be going to build new elementary schools, to invest in education,
to invest in our teachers, to provide our National Guard and Reservists
with health insurance, not just during a time of war, but all the time.
We could build roads, we could create jobs, we could create economic
opportunities in this era where 9 million people are out of work. None
of these things are being done because of this horrible, reckless,
irresponsible fiscal policy.
To talk more about this, a fellow Blue Dog member, another one from
Tennessee, Tennessee is full of fiscally conservative Democrats, and
that is my colleague, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis), and I
yield to the gentleman.
Mr. DAVIS of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from
Arkansas; and, certainly, it is a privilege to serve in the U.S. House
with my good friend, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper). The
gentleman at one time served the district that I represent, and he is
one of the few great intellects we have in Tennessee. He is, in my
opinion, very analytic on this issue, and it is certainly a pleasure to
follow the gentleman, although sometimes quite difficult, obviously,
but he is someone we can be proud of.
I am extremely pleased to be a part of a group who call themselves
Blue Dog Democrats, and there is a reason for that. We truly believe
that deficit hawks and defense hawks are something that America
believes in, and that is why I can believe in this group, in this
caucus of 30-some-odd individuals who have committed themselves to
fiscal responsibility and being sure that our Nation is defended
against our enemies, and our enemy today comes in more than one way. It
certainly can come in the form of what happened on September 11 from
individuals who want to do harm to liberty and freedom. It can also
come from an economic assault on this Nation.
I want to talk some about that in a few moments. But as we look at
what has happened in this country since 2000 and look at the huge
deficits, and it is my understanding that if we take the trade deficits
in the last 4 years and total those up, I have heard that it is greater
than the entire deficits, trade deficits in the history of this
country.
What does that mean, and what does that do for us? It means we are
losing our jobs. It means that as that continues to happen, we will
also start losing our revenue streams. So we have got to start looking
at putting our house in order and managing what we are doing today.
Otherwise, this country not only could be attacked by some military
power; I am not sure there is one in the world that would threaten to
do that, by those who are terrorists who would threaten this country or
attack this country, but the economic threat to our Nation is almost as
equally dangerous today unless we get our fiscal house in order.
To my colleagues and folks back home who may be watching, this may
sound a little partisan to you, but a lot of folks back home on both
sides of the aisle I think that have supported me, and I appreciate
that, but I think it is time that I expressed my views pretty strongly
because I love this country. I want my grandchildren to be sure that
they enjoy the same liberties and opportunities and options in their
life that this wonderful country gave me.
I do believe that this administration and the Republican majority has
spent a great deal of time in the first session of the 109th Congress
trying to convince the American people that Social Security is in a
crisis. Well, that is debatable, and I am sure Congress will
[[Page H4066]]
spend valuable time over the next few months arguing about how to fix
this system. While I think that we should address Social Security's
pending solvency problems at some point in the future, I truly believe
the responsible and moral thing for this Congress to do is to address
the crisis that is knocking at our front door.
That crisis is a $7.7 trillion national debt, over $600 billion a
year in trade deficits, and over $400 billion a year in budget
deficits. These numbers are so big that they sound like something out
of a science fiction movie. If only they were science fiction. Sadly,
it is really the fact.
Since this administration has taken office, we have seen, as the
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) said a moment ago, the largest
Federal increase in spending since Lyndon Johnson. Our friends on the
other side of the aisle often cite that 9/11 and the war on terrorism
are responsible for this. There is no doubt it is true that the new
threats to our security has caused a need for new spending in the areas
of defense and homeland security. But even if we exclude those spending
increases, we have still seen under this administration and Republican
majority the largest spending increase in the past 30 years. I find it
ironic that the party of small government has overseen a 33 percent
growth in government during the President's first term.
As a recent publication by the Cato Institute says, the GOP
establishment in Washington today has become a defender of big
government.
Mr. Speaker, maybe this is just a result of partisan politics during
the Clinton administration, but Republicans and Democrats were forced
to work together if they were going to get anything done. What
happened? From fiscal year 1998 to 2001, we actually had budget
surpluses and a projected overall surplus in the range of $5 trillion.
Even if we remove the Social Security surpluses from the total budget
line for these years, we still had budget surpluses in fiscal year 1999
and 2000, and the largest budget deficit we saw was $32 billion.
Under this administration, we have seen on-budget deficits as high as
$567 billion, a remarkable turnaround. In my humble opinion, the
Republican majority has been reckless and spent the taxpayers' money
like drunken sailors on a weekend pass.
Mr. Speaker, it is time to resolve that pass and to revoke it and
take a stand for all of the American people because, sadly, the Members
of Congress currently serving are not going to have to pay off this
debt. Instead, our children and grandchildren will have to pay it off.
Our soldiers who are serving us so bravely in Iraq will come back home
and find they have to foot the bill for the war we sent them off to
fight; and this is simply wrong. It is simply immoral.
{time} 2300
There is hope. It is called the Blue Dog Coalition 12-point plan. And
I am up here to ask for an up-or-down vote. We have heard that a lot
recently, have we not? An up-or-down vote for the people of America. An
up-or-down vote, because ultimately this issue does not just affect
people in certain districts. It affects all Americans.
So I am here for the American people asking for an up-or-down vote. I
want an up-or-down vote on H.R. 903, the Fiscal Accountability and
Honesty Act of 2005. This will, among other things, extend PAYGO that
expired in 2002 and close the loopholes on emergency spending.
I want an up-or-down vote on H.R. 121, a package of rules changes for
the House. These changes will require a rollcall vote on raising the
debt ceiling and give Members of Congress 3 days so that we can
actually read and study the bills we vote on. I mean, if the Republican
majority is so confident that the legislation they send to the floor is
right for the American people, should it not withstand 3 days' public
scrutiny? What is there to hide? Why not an up-or-down vote on 121?
I want an up-or-down vote on House Joint Resolution 22, the Balanced
Budget Amendment. This amendment has already been passed by the House
as part of the GOP Contract with America.
Now, the Blue Dogs, in an effort to provide security for our current
and future retirees, have added language to protect Social Security
benefits from being cut to balance the budget. There are 49 States in
this Nation that require a balanced budget. If it is good enough for
them, it is good enough for me.
Mr. Speaker, I will repeat this three or four times. Give us an up-
or-down vote on budget restraint issues, measures that have been
introduced, get them out of the committee, bring them on this floor.
Give us an up-or-down vote, an up-or-down vote. If it is good enough
for judges and Presidential appointees, it is good enough for all 200-
some-odd million people who live in this country.
So to the majority on this floor, I ask you, an up-or-down vote. Now
is the time. It is time to get it done.
Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis). And just
to quickly quote, I believe the newspaper there in Tennessee is called
The Tennesseean, and on May 9, in an editorial they said this: ``If
Members want to get serious about addressing deficits, they should take
an approach more like those proposed by the Blue Dog Coalition, which
includes Tennessee Democrats John Tanner,'' one of the founders of the
Blue Dogs, ``Jim Cooper,'' who has been with us here tonight and will
return, ``Lincoln Davis,'' who just spoke, ``and Harold Ford, Jr. The
Blue Dogs not only emphasize the need to balance the books, they
advocate bringing down the national debt, which has climbed to more
than $7 trillion and is becoming a national security issue since much
of the debt is in the hands of foreign investors.'' Again, the
Tennesseean editorial on Monday, May 9, 2005.
As the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis) indicated, this is not
about partisan politics. I do not know about you, but I am sick and
tired of all the partisan bickering that goes on at our Nation's
Capital. It should not be about whether it is a Democratic idea or
Republican idea. It ought to be about is it a commonsense idea, and
does it make sense for the people that sent us here to be their voice
and to represent them.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.
Mr. DAVIS of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, thank you for an opportunity to
be here tonight. And I deeply appreciate it. This is my second term, so
I am kind of new as far as being a Member of Congress. But it is a
delightful group that I am with, and I certainly look forward to this
Nation having better leadership with individuals like those I serve
with who are Members of our Blue Dog Coalition.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr.
Davis) for joining us this evening and for his commitment to trying to
restore some fiscal discipline to our Nation's government.
You know, when you hear about the Blue Dogs, this group of fiscally
conservative Democrats, a lot of people think we are all from the
South, and they all think we sound kind of like I do. And that is not
the case at all. We stretch from California to Long Island.
Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield as much time as the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel) might consume. The gentleman from
New York will talk more about this crisis that we find ourselves in,
and in a little bit we will be coming back as a group to talk more
about this 12-point plan that we have to try and help get us out of
this hole that we find ourselves. But at this time I yield to the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).
Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, the gentleman from
Arkansas (Mr. Ross). The gentleman and I were elected in the same
class, in 2000. I thank the gentleman for his leadership for so ably
representing the conservative values of his district. I do not agree
with every one of his positions, but nobody advocates more fearlessly
for the interests of his district than the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr.
Ross).
Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr.
Davis). I am honored to be on the floor with both of them this evening.
The gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross) noted that I am from New York,
from Long Island, New York. One of the wisest decisions that I ever
made in coming to Congress with the gentleman was to join the Blue
Dogs. And,
[[Page H4067]]
in fact, most of the Blue Dogs do come from the South. I am probably
the only Blue Dog who speaks with a distinct New York accent. Sometimes
we need a translator to figure each other out.
But it really does not matter whether you are from the Deep South or
the south shore of Long Island. What binds Blue Dogs are principally
two issues: Number one, a sense of fiscal responsibility. We believe
that we ought to play by the same rules on the floor of the House that
every American family has to play by at their kitchen tables. You have
got to balance the books. Those folks do not have the ability to simply
print money in their basements. They have got to balance their books.
They have got to reconcile their checkbooks. We believe the same.
The second thing that we believe is that we have got to have a strong
and robust military, something I agree with passionately.
Now, I have the privilege of serving with the gentleman from
Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) on the Armed Services Committee. There are only
two New Yorkers who serve on the Armed Services Committee. I am the
only New York Democrat on that committee. And I call myself a Harry
Truman Democrat. I believe in a strong and robust defense. I spend most
of my time on this floor in this Congress thinking about how to keep
our country stronger and safer. And what I want to talk about just for
a few minutes this evening is the linkage between this $7 trillion debt
and our national security, our national defense, because this figure
does not make us stronger in the long run.
Think about what happened on the floor of the House just a few hours
ago. We spent the day debating a Defense authorization approaching $500
billion. And at the end of that debate, our Blue Dog colleague, the
gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), stood up and suggested that we
make a simple, but important, change in the budget that was about to
pass. He said to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, it does not
matter whether you are Republican or Democrat; let us do the right
thing for our Guard and Reserves. Let us provide them with health care.
Let us not tell a single American Guard or Reservist that if you are
going to go fight for us in Iraq or Afghanistan, 40 percent of our
military in Iraq, Guard and Reserve, if you are going to do that, when
you come home we are not going to abandon you, abandon your families
with respect to health care. If you need health care, we will take care
of it. If you are willing to sacrifice yourself for us, we are willing
to take care of your health care, your health insurance, not just while
you are fighting, but after.
And what was the response that we heard? It is the same response that
we hear time after time after time on the floor of the House. It is not
that anybody is against our Guard and Reserve. It is not that anybody
is against providing health care for our military. It is just that we
cannot afford it because of this number.
Mr. Ross. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Israel. I will be happy to yield to the gentleman.
Mr. Ross. The gentleman is telling us that we, tonight, the majority
in this Chamber refused to provide health insurance every day of the
week, every week of the month, every month of the year for our men and
women who have gone to Iraq, who are going to Iraq, or who have been to
Iraq, because they said we could not afford it
Mr. Israel. That is exactly what happened.
Mr. Ross. And it was going to be a billion a year.
Mr. Israel. The gentleman is correct, a billion a year.
Mr. Ross. And this is the same crowd that gave us a budget this year
that includes $106 billion in new tax cuts.
Mr. Israel. These are the Members of this body who argue that we can
afford to make every single penny of tax cuts permanent, but we cannot
afford to provide health care for Members of the National Guard and the
Reserve who are fighting for survival around the world.
Mr. Ross. If the gentleman would yield, so what you are telling me is
that the majority on the floor of the U.S. House this evening decided
it was more important to maintain $106 billion in tax cuts and not
provide health insurance year round for our Reservists and Guardsmen
that have either been to Iraq, are going to Iraq, or just got back from
Iraq or are in Iraq today. They were not willing to take $106 billion
in tax cuts and make it $105 billion so they could take care of our men
and women in uniform?
Mr. Israel. If the gentleman would yield, the gentleman is precisely
correct. That is the decision that was made tonight. But it gets worse,
because many of us on the Armed Services Committee approached our
colleagues and said, you know, if somebody is willing to go to Iraq and
they lose their life, we ought to be able to take care of their life
insurance. We ought to pay for their life insurance.
{time} 2310
The answer was, great idea, we cannot afford it. After all, we have a
$7 trillion debt. Nobody ever says, we do not care about our troops;
nobody ever says, we do not care about our military.
It all comes down to this: We used to have a $5.6 trillion surplus.
Maybe in those days we could support our military and our military
families, but now we have got into deep debt. We have got to make tough
decisions so we can improve life insurance for our troops, our military
families. We can pay a very modest amount in health care for our Guard
and Reserve because of this debt, but also because we want to make sure
we can make those tax cuts permanent. Now, that is fundamentally
unfair. That is just bad priority.
Meanwhile, as we are telling our Guard and Reserves that we cannot
afford their health care, which does not make us stronger, for 2 years,
as we told military families that we could not take care of their life
insurance, increase their life insurance, increase the death gratuity.
Meanwhile, we continue to engage in reckless fiscal policies with the
enemies that we are told that we will have in the future, namely, the
Chinese. Every time you have a briefing they tell you, you have to
start worrying about China, but meanwhile we are allowing them to
finance our debts.
So the adversaries that we are told we should worry about in the next
few years are keeping the lights on in the House of Representatives,
are running our Humvees in Iraq. How can you have a coherent national
security policy when you have to rely on the adversaries that you
expect to finance your Treasury, when they own 40 percent of your debt?
It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
The final point I want to make is this: This is bad enough. The
decisions that are made on the floor of the House with respect to our
military are bad enough, but think about what our children are going to
have to deal with when they are here on the floor of the House, when
they have to figure out how they are going to pay their taxes, balance
their checkbooks.
We have a $2.5 trillion budget right now. In 10 years when my kids
are approximately my age or approaching my age, think about what that
budget is going to do to them. Their defense budget, the gentleman from
Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) probably knows this, will likely approach $600
billion. Interest on the debt which they have to pay will likely
approach $500 billion. And everything else, whatever is left in the
budget will be allocated to all of their needs, Social Security, and
Medicare, the FBI, education, environmental protection, crime
reduction.
That is an intolerable budget that we are inflicting on them.
One of the things that the Blue Dogs emphasize is our fundamental
responsibility to be fiscally conservative, but to give our kids a
better, safer, stronger world than we have today. What we are doing
with these numbers, with these policies is raising our kids' taxes,
straining their military, mortgaging them to our potential adversaries.
And I am reminded of the very profound words of one of our
distinguished colleagues, another member of the Tennessee delegation,
the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), who last spring said to a
gathering of Blue Dogs that no nation in the history of humankind has
ever been strong, free and bankrupt.
If nothing else, our obligation in Washington, DC., in the
administration, in the House of Representatives, is to put politics
aside and agree to make sure that we are strong, free and not bankrupt.
And all we have done
[[Page H4068]]
over the past several years is to strain our military, deny military
families the basic, decent conditions they need, the health care they
need, the life insurance they need; and end up owing more to the
adversaries we are told to worry about more and more every day.
We have an obligation to treat our military families better, to treat
our troops better, to treat our kids better. Thank goodness the Blue
Dogs take that obligation seriously. I thank the gentleman for giving
me this time.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I would advise the gentleman to continue to
join us if he will.
The gentleman speaks to us on these veteran issues and these military
issues with a lot of authority as a member of the House Committee on
Armed Services. And I want to thank the gentleman for what he does for
our veterans and our men and women in uniform as we continue to try and
advance health insurance around the clock for our men and women in the
National Guard and our Reservists.
I think what the gentleman from Long Island has basically summed up
for us this evening is about priorities. It is about, do we want
another $106 billion in tax cuts when we borrow 45 percent of that
money from Japan and China and the Caribbean banking centers and Korea
and the OPEC nations and Germany and Taiwan and Mexico? Or do we want
to do right by our men and women in uniform, by our veterans?
Do we want to build the kind of roads we need to create jobs and
economic opportunities for the future and do we want to fix Medicare?
All this talk about Social Security, if we do not touch it, the first
reduction in benefits happens when I am 91 years of age. And yet
Medicare, which is what our seniors count on to stay healthy and get
well, is bankrupt in 14 years. And yet no one is talking about that.
These are priorities that are important to those of us in the Blue
Dog Coalition. And we understand that as long as we continue to borrow
money from foreign countries, as we continue to borrow money to the
tune of $1.1 billion per day, think about that, as a Nation we are
spending $1.1 billion a day more than we are taking in.
It is about priorities. And until we get our fiscal house in order,
we are not going to be able to meet the needs of our children, our
grandchildren and the future of this great country.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield at this time to the gentleman from
Tennessee (Mr. Cooper), the cochair for policy for the Blue Dog
Coalition. I thought we could engage in a colloquy to discussing the
12-point reform plan. We do not just want to beat up the Republicans
for bankrupting this country. We want to offer a solution, and we have
got one.
Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. There
are several ways out of this terrible dilemma that we are in an as a
Nation.
First, we have to acknowledge that we have Republican cosponsors for
our proposal. Particularly the Republican Study Committees deserves
great thanks for their lending a hand to our proposal. A number of us
have cosponsored their proposals. The solution out of this has to be
bipartisan.
Our 12-point plan includes the following elements: It includes a
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Remember, that was part of the Republican Contract with America, but
somehow they have forgotten about it these last 10 years. We need to
have a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, this is important to note, and the gentleman
from New York (Mr. Israel) mentioned it earlier this evening, those of
us with families, we get around the kitchen table and we have to
balance the family budget. My wife and I own a small-town family
pharmacy with 12 employees back home. We have to have a balanced
budget. Forty-nine States in America, I was in the State Senate in
Arkansas for 10 years; 49 States in America require a balanced budget.
Is it asking too much of the politicians in Washington to give the
citizens of this country a balanced budget? That is what we are talking
about doing here.
Mr. COOPER. The gentleman is correct. Our balanced budget amendment
would completely protect Social Security so it would not in any way be
endangered by this. It would also require a three-fifths majority of
this House in order to raise the debt limit. So it would really do a
lot to control the spending binge we are on.
Another key element of the plan is, pay as you go. In other words,
this Congress could no longer buy on credit. We would take up the
national credit card, cut it up, put it away.
Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, says this is
probably the single most important policy reform we could undertake.
Why does he say that? Because we had it for 12 years and it worked
brilliantly. We had it in place from 1990 to 2002. And under Republican
leadership they let it expire, so the pay-as-you-go principle no longer
operates. We need to reinstate PAYGO.
Mr. ROSS. So the gentleman is saying that under President Clinton
that we had what was called pay-as-you-go rules in place, which meant
that if you are going to raise spending, you have got to cut spending
somewhere else, which led to the first balanced budget in 40 years; and
now that no longer applies to the House here?
{time} 2320
Mr. COOPER. The gentleman is exactly correct. And if you cut taxes,
you have to make up the lost revenue, either through spending cuts or
other taxes. And it is an important way to live within your means, by
cutting up the credit cards so you are no longer borrowing more than
you can afford. It is a key principle.
Another element of the Blue Dog spending plan is to put spending caps
on spending, so that we live within our means; so that we live within
our own budget; so that the budget does not become a joke, as it so
often does within this House.
Another element of the Blue Dog reform plan is to require our Federal
agencies to live within their means and get their fiscal houses in
order, because so many Federal agencies are not auditable. They do not
know how to account for the money that they are charged with, and it is
very important that they live within their means just as any family or
business has to do in this country.
Mr. ROSS. If the gentleman will yield for a moment there, I want to
go back and make sure I understand. When you talk about requiring
agencies to put their fiscal houses in order, you are talking about
Federal agencies?
Mr. COOPER. Exactly.
Mr. ROSS. It is my understanding that the Government Accounting
Office found that 16 of 23 major Federal agencies cannot even issue a
simple audit of their books.
Mr. COOPER. They would be pretty much out of business if they were a
public company in this country, and they are all large enough to be
giant public companies. And the Federal Government simply cannot find
$24 billion. They do not know where it went.
This is an outrage. And guess what the worst offending Federal agency
happens to be? The U.S. Pentagon. And it is not because we are at war.
Even during peacetime, the Pentagon has not been able to account for
the money it is spending.
Mr. ROSS. That is the agency that spends $800 on a hammer and $600 on
a commode seat?
Mr. COOPER. That has been true in the past. We hope that is not true
today.
Mr. ROSS. So you are saying, if the gentleman will continue to yield,
that the Federal Government cannot account for $24.5 billion that it
spent in 2003; and what this plan would do is it would say to those
agencies that we are going to freeze your budget until you learn how to
be fiscally responsible?
Mr. COOPER. We have heard their excuses for too long. So this would
freeze them until they learned how to behave and learned how to count
the money they are entrusted with.
Another key element of the plan is that Congress has to tell
taxpayers back home how much we are spending, because right now many
bills go through this body with a voice vote, with no cost estimate. So
we are proposing, just as a place to start, not that this is a perfect
number, but any bill that spends more than $50 million we will have to
have a recorded vote on so that the taxpayers back home will
[[Page H4069]]
know who voted for what; so there is finally some accountability in
this body.
Mr. ROSS. So if the gentleman will yield, right now, with the
leadership in this House, under the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay),
they will allow a voice vote without an actual rollcall vote on
millions, if not billions, of dollars of taxpayer money being spent;
and what we are saying here is, if you are going to spend $50 million
or more of taxpayer money to fund our government, it requires a vote of
the full Congress?
Mr. COOPER. A recorded vote so that people back home can tell how we
behave up here.
Mr. ISRAEL. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. COOPER. I would be delighted to yield to the gentleman from New
York.
Mr. ISRAEL. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Does the gentleman
recall when the House of Representatives voted on the entire $2.5
trillion budget resolution?
Mr. COOPER. That was some 3 weeks ago we had the budget resolution.
They rammed it through here in 2 hours.
Mr. ISRAEL. And would the gentleman state how long Members of
Congress actually had to read that $2.5 trillion budget?
Mr. COOPER. The gentleman asks an interesting question. I am on the
Committee on the Budget, and we were only allowed 2 hours from first
glance of the document, and this is a complex document, any document
would be that spends $2.6 trillion, and 2 hours later, final passage
and you never see it again.
That is an outrage to ram through a budget like that. No responsible
board of directors in America, no responsible businessman or woman
would tolerate that situation, yet it has become commonplace in the
U.S. House of Representatives under Republican leadership.
And lest this be viewed as partisan, check again the Cato Institute
report. They say that government accountability has suffered terribly
under our all-Republican government because there are no checks and
balances any more. There is nobody calling them to task, and so we have
got to restore fiscal sanity to this Nation.
Another key element of the Blue Dog spending plan is to set aside a
real rainy day fund. We know that emergencies and tragedies are going
to occur. Let us set aside a little money in advance so that not
everything becomes an emergency here.
We spend tens, sometimes hundreds, of billions of dollars a year here
because it is a so-called emergency. And some of them are. But in the
most recently past emergency supplemental bill of $82 billion, a lot of
that was for our troops in Iraq, and we are all for that; but a lot of
it was for other stuff that powerful Congressmen and Senators snuck in
the bill because they knew they could get away with it.
Mr. ROSS. If the gentleman will yield on that, I think it is so
important that we do have a rainy day fund. We have had natural
disasters every year since I have been here. We either have droughts or
floods, and sometimes both depending on where you live; and we have to
be there for our farm families if we want to have a safe and reliable
source for food and fiber, which I believe is every bit as important to
our national security as oil.
But what is so important about the need for a rainy day fund, I
believe, is it helps stop the deficit spending. You have money set
aside in a fund knowing that something is going to happen.
And the gentleman raised the issue of the $82 billion supplement.
Most folks think that went to support our troops. I supported it,
because a large part of it did go to our support our troops. But the
reality is during that same week on the floor of the House we did two
things: we passed a budget that included $500 million in cuts to farm
families in this country, and in the same week we passed $82 billion,
and most people think it was all to support our troops. I supported it
because part of it was and I support our troops, but what most people
do not know is that that bill included a $266 million buyout, you have
heard of tobacco buyouts, to do a buyout of opium farmers in
Afghanistan.
Now if we cannot find Osama bin Laden hiding in the hills over there
in Afghanistan, how in the world are we going to police what thousands
of Afghan farmers are or are not growing? Just one example of what the
gentleman is talking about that goes on that I believe people need to
be held accountable for.
Mr. COOPER. The gentleman is exactly correct. The other elements of
the Blue Dog reform plan, point number seven, would be let us have real
votes, recorded votes, on raising the debt ceiling for this country.
A lot of Americans think we vote on that here. Well, we used to, in
the good old days. But now, under Republican leadership, if you voted
for Speaker Hastert, you also voted to make debt ceiling votes
disappear. They no longer happen anymore.
And to put it in perspective, it took the first 204 years of our
Nation's history to run up the first $1 trillion in debt, and now we
are doing it about every year or two. That is an outrage. And no one is
recorded in their votes when we do that. Every year or two it is
another trillion; we raise the debt ceiling. And that vote has simply
disappeared.
Mr. ROSS. If the gentleman will yield, he is absolutely right. It
took 200 years to go $1 trillion in debt, and now we do it every 20
months in this Nation. But in terms of raising the debt limit, it is my
understanding that what the gentleman means by that is it is kind of
like a credit card with a credit limit. And when the Federal Government
reaches its limit, the Congress has to vote either by voice vote or
rollcall to raise the debt limit before we can exceed whatever it was
before.
And it is my understanding that we exceeded the debt limit back in
October of 2004, but we really did not want to bring attention to it.
The leadership here did not want to bring attention to the fact. They
did not want to bring us back to raise the debt limit weeks before the
election, so they literally used Federal employees' 401(k) savings
contributions to fund our government for 2 or 3 weeks, to buy time
until the election was over and bring us back up here.
As a small business owner, if I do that with my employees' 401(k)
plans, I go to the Federal pen. And yet it is my understanding that is
how we ran our government in late October and early November of 2004.
Mr. COOPER. Sadly, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is exactly correct.
In the little time we have remaining, let me make sure we finish the
remaining Blue Dog points here.
We have to admit that Congress likes to spend money on its own pet
projects. It is called earmark spending. We do not ban that, but we
require a written justification for every project, so that things like
Senator Charles Grassley's $50 million indoor rain forest in Iowa would
no longer happen without written justification. The Wall Street Journal
reported ``it would be cheaper to fly everyone in Iowa to a real rain
forest rather than build a fake one somewhere in Iowa.''
Another key element of the Blue Dog reform plan is to give us the 3
days that we have under House rules to read these bills so that we have
a chance to know what is going on; so we have a chance to share with
our constituents back home what is in these bills so we can get their
ideas. That is the best way to represent them, instead of ramming
things through here, like our budget 3 weeks ago in 2 hours, or other
legislation they rammed through in 1 day under what they call the
martial law rule. That is not a pejorative; that is what they call it,
a martial law rule for running our democracy.
Another key element of the Blue Dog reform plan is let us get an
honest cost estimate for every bill. I mentioned earlier let us have a
recorded vote for the larger bills, but we need to know what each bill
costs so we have some idea what we are spending.
{time} 2330
Most Americans back home are probably shocked that after 200-plus
years of this great democracy, we still do not know what bills cost.
Finally, we need to make sure that each piece of legislation fits
within the budget, so we do not routinely bust the budget. Last year, I
think four or five of the appropriations bills busted the budget.
Finally, Congress needs to make sure that we do a better job of
keeping tabs on government programs. This Congress has failed
miserably, and even the most partisan Republican would admit that. Most
of the oversight subcommittees have been abolished. They
[[Page H4070]]
do not exist anymore. There is no one to hold hearings to make sure
that the taxpayers' money is being well spent. Those are the key points
in the 12-point Blue Dog reform plan.
We have bipartisan support for this. Many of the elements are shared
with the Republican Study Committee Plan. Many of us have also
supported their reform efforts. We need to work together to form a
bipartisan majority, much as our Senate colleagues did to avert the
nuclear showdown on judicial nominations, get the sensible center of
this Congress to come together and do the right thing for the American
taxpayer.
We are so close because if just 10 or 20 of the Republicans would
break from their leadership, they could do as the CATO Institute report
suggests, start reforming the budget process in this House. All it
takes is 10 or 20 renegades on their side to stand up for the American
taxpayer. We can get budget reform. It may be the Republican Study
Committee that does it. It may be the Mainstream Republicans, or the
Tuesday Group that does it, but I believe the Blue Dog Democrats will
be there to make sure that sensible fiscal policy is restored to this
Nation.
I appreciate the gentleman holding this special order.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I would thank the gentleman from Tennessee.
Mr. Speaker, one of the 12 points is to ensure that the Congress
reads the bills we are voting on. We cannot pass a law to make Members
of Congress read a bill, but several examples have been given this
evening of what we are talking about here.
Last year, before the election, there were 13 spending bills that had
to pass to fund our government. Two were passed before the election.
They brought us back up here after the election, saying that they could
roll all 11 into one and call it the omnibus spending bill and pass it
in 3 or 4 days, and they did.
The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader, did. It
was over 1,000 pages, over 12,000 local spending projects. We had just
a few hours to read it. Sure enough, it was full of errors, including
allowing congressional staffers to look at people's tax returns. And so
all 435 Members had to fly back up here to fix that, among other
things.
That is just one of 12 common-sense budget reform steps that we think
have to happen before Democrats or Republicans can provide a truthful,
meaningful budget again.
Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, just one concluding point. This Blue Dog 12-
point plan is not radical or inventive. It is what every American
family has to abide by every single day. All this plan says is, we will
play by the same rules that our businesses are supposed to play by and
our families are supposed to play by. I do not know of a single
American family that can just decide to go beyond their means and tell
their bank, I want to borrow more. We should play by the same rules.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross) and the
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) for their stalwart leadership on
fiscal responsibility and common sense.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, in the hour that we have discussed the debt
and the deficit, our Nation has borrowed $48 million. On top of that,
our Nation has paid $18 million in interest on the national debt. That
is $66 million that our Nation has spent during the 60 minutes we have
been here.
It is about priorities. That money could have gone for better
education, better roads, and better veterans' benefits.
Mr. Speaker, I raise these issues because my grandparents left this
Nation better than they found it for my parents. And my parents left
this Nation better than they found it for our generation, and I believe
we have a duty and an obligation to try and leave this country just a
little bit better than we found it for our children and grandchildren.
____________________