[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 41 (Tuesday, April 4, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H1429-H1435]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           BLUE DOG COALITION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, this evening, as every Tuesday evening, the 
members of the 37-Member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue 
Dog Coalition come to the floor of the United States House of 
Representatives, here at our Nation's Capitol, to address the debt, the 
deficit, and tonight also the budget.
  And for those of you who have walked the halls of Congress, it is 
easy to spot when you are walking by a Member's office that is a member 
of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition because you will see 
one of these posters, one of these posters that displays the current 
national debt. And every American citizen shares the National debt.
  As you can see, at the moment, the U.S. national debt is 
$8,378,143,406,405 and some change. And for every man, woman, and child 
in America, including those being born this hour, your share of the 
national debt is $28,000.
  We raise these issues for a number of reasons, Mr. Speaker. It is 
hard now to remember, but from 1998 to 2001, our Nation enjoyed a 
balanced budget. We had a surplus. We could meet many of America's 
priorities. But today, for the sixth year in a row, we have the largest 
budget deficit ever in our Nation's history. Our Nation is borrowing a 
billion dollars a day. We are sending $279 million a day to Iraq, $57 
million a day to Afghanistan, a billion a day we are borrowing, and on 
top of that we are spending half a billion dollars a day simply paying 
interest, not principal but just interest on the debt that we already 
have.
  As members of the Blue Dog Coalition, we believe it is time to get 
our Nation's fiscal house in order. Now, the Republicans in this year's 
budget they will present this week on the floor of the United States 
House of Representatives indicates that their priorities do not reflect 
our priorities or our values. We are going to spend a lot of the time 
this evening talking about that.
  They will say, well, we are trying to balance the budget, which they 
do not do. They will say that, well, we are cutting this program or 
that program to try and reduce the deficit. But what they do not tell 
you is that their budget includes $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years 
in tax cuts that primarily benefit those earning over $400,000 a year.
  So when they talk about cutting programs, they will tell you that 
they are trying to cut programs to reduce these numbers. Not so. 
Because you don't cut taxes for folks earning over $400,000 a year at a 
time when you are in a nation that is borrowing a billion dollars a 
day; at a time when you are in a nation that is spending half a billion 
a day simply paying interest on the debt you already have.
  So it is about priorities. And the Republican priorities in this 
year's budget include cuts to the Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research 
Center in my Congressional District. In fact, there are 25 or 26 
agricultural research centers all over America that are being cut. They 
create good paying jobs in these rural communities that invest in the 
kind of agricultural research that our farm families so desperately 
need.
  The development of the Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center began 
back in 1977 with their initial work starting in 1980. It is a 
partnership among three agencies, Agricultural Research Service, 
Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Arkansas Cooperative 
Extension Service.
  Their mission, the mission at the Agricultural Research Service unit 
at the Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center, is to develop 
scientific principles and technologies to enhance the profitability and 
sustainability of small-scale farms, because they are threatened by a 
lack of profitability. Yet in this year's budget, in this year's budget 
that the President submitted to this Congress and that this Republican 
Congress may very well pass this week, it includes zeroing out, 
eliminating 25 or 26 of these agricultural research centers all across 
America.
  Again, this budget is about priorities, and this budget that we are 
going to vote on this week does not reflect my priorities or my values. 
It certainly does not represent the kind of conservative small-town 
values that I was raised on, where I was raised to value our farm 
families who simply try to do their best to provide us with a safe and 
reliable source for food and fiber.
  We can get into a debate about how we have become too dependent on 
foreign oil. If we are not too careful, we

[[Page H1430]]

are going to become too dependent on other countries for our food and 
fiber. And I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that that is a dangerous road 
to go down, and one in which America has no business going down.
  This is just one example of many of what is wrong with this budget. 
There are ways to balance the budget, and we are going to talk tonight 
about an alternative that I believe makes sense, that reinstates a 
thing called PAYGO. Pay as you go rules mean if you want to fund a new 
program, you have to cut something else. If you want to pass a tax cut, 
you have to cut a program. You just don't go borrow more money from 
China to fund it. It also balances the budget within, I believe, 10 
years.
  Yes, in 10 years we would have a balanced budget again, and that is 
an alternative that will be presented on the floor this week that many 
of us will be supporting.
  We will be talking a lot tonight about the debt, the budget, and the 
deficit and these things, and I am very honored to be joined tonight by 
a number of my Blue Dog friends, and Dennis Cardoza is the co-chair of 
the Blue Dog Coalition. He is the co-chair for communications. He is a 
Member of Congress from California. A lot of people, when they think of 
fiscally conservative Democrats, they think we are just in the South, 
but we are spread from California to Long Island. This is a national 
movement. This is a national movement of 37 fiscally conservatives 
Democrats that believe it is time to restore some common sense and 
fiscal discipline to our Nation's government.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to turn this thing over to one of the 
leaders of our group, Dennis Cardoza from California.
  Mr. CARDOZA. Well, I want to thank the gentleman from Arkansas both 
for relinquishing of some time and also for the leadership that he has 
shown by hosting this hour for the Blue Dog Democrats each Tuesday 
night this year.
  Before I get started in my prepared remarks, I wanted to just 
acknowledge something that came to mind. The previous presiding 
officer, the gentleman that was acting as Speaker a few moments ago, is 
my former colleague from the legislature in California, a wonderful 
man, John Campbell. And it struck me that when we were in the 
legislature together in California, every year we had to balance the 
budget. We could not leave Sacramento, we had to stay in session until 
we had a balanced budget. It is so unfortunate that here in Washington, 
as we have both graduated up the ladder, that we don't have that same 
kind of fiscal accountability and the same responsibility.
  And sitting here with my colleague, Jim Costa, who used to be one of 
the leaders in the California State Senate, we took it very seriously. 
In fact, it was mandated in law that every year, and I believe almost 
every State in the country has to do that, but here in Washington, in 
our Nation's Capital, we cannot find the fiscal responsibility to 
balance our Nation's budget and get our fiscal house in order.

                              {time}  2045

  The Blue Dog Coalition has made repeated calls for responsible budget 
reforms that will put our country back on this path of fiscal 
responsibility and fiscal sanity that I have discussed.
  As moderates and as fiscal hawks, we have tried to reach across the 
aisle to engage in real debate on fiscal responsibility. For years now, 
our appeals for commonsense, bipartisan reforms have been brushed aside 
by both the White House and this Republican leadership.
  Instead, this Republican Congress and the White House have pursued 
policies that have resulted in exploding deficits and over $8 trillion 
in debt. Rather than taking this fiscal mess seriously and putting 
forward a plan to change course, we are being fed more of the same in 
this year's budget. The Republican budget resolution is a rehashed 
version of misguided policies that have gotten us into this mess in the 
first place. It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the 
same thing over and over and over yet expecting different results. That 
is exactly how I feel about the Republican leadership's fiscal 
policies. No matter how deep they dig this fiscal hole, they want to 
keep shoveling, they want to keep digging; and we have to make it stop.
  The administration has requested and Congress has provided for four 
increases in the debt ceiling since 2001. This budget resolution does 
not fix the broken budget; it actually makes it worse. The Budget 
Committee passed a budget resolution that includes a deficit of $372 
billion for the fiscal year 2006 and a deficit of $348 for 2007. This 
means that under this Congress and this White House, Republicans 
totally, we will have seen the five biggest budget deficits in American 
history in 5 consecutive years. Under this budget, the statutory debt 
by 2011 will go up another $2.3 trillion, leaving the statutory debt at 
a record level of $11.3 trillion. Ladies and gentlemen, this is 
unacceptable.
  The Blue Dog Coalition has put forth a comprehensive 12-step plan 
that is designed to cure our Nation's addiction to deficit spending. 
Our proposal will include commonsense measures such as reinstating the 
pay-as-you-go rules such as what you use to balance your own budget at 
home. Every American understands that they need to balance their own 
checkbook; so does America. These pay-as-you-go rules are the first 
step.
  In the 1990s with PAYGO rules on the books, we saw deficits 
disappear. We had record surpluses and rapid economic growth. In 2001, 
the Republican-controlled Congress abandoned PAYGO, and we have been 
awash in red ink ever since. It is time for Congress to bring back 
PAYGO and bring back some fiscal sanity for our country.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Ross for having us here tonight and thank 
him for his leadership.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the co-chair, Mr. Cardoza, and for 
communications within the 37-Member strong, fiscally conservative Blue 
Dog Coalition for his insightful information and knowledge about the 
process and what we are trying to accomplish. We have Members here from 
Georgia and Illinois and Oklahoma and from all over the Nation that 
have come to speak the truth, to hold this Republican Congress 
accountable and demand some commonsense and fiscal discipline be 
restored to our Nation's government.
  We are going to hear from people other than California, but it just 
so happens our first two presenters are both from California. The other 
is a gentleman who has not been here long, but has been quite effective 
within our coalition and a real leader within our coalition, and that 
is the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise to add my voice to my fellow Blue Dog 
Coalition members who are here this evening to have a dose of fiscal 
sanity, to allow the American people to understand that there is indeed 
a another choice. Therefore, tonight we hope to give an accurate 
picture on the budget process that we are about to embark on this week 
and the lack of fiscal integrity that this budget process unfortunately 
has, because it lacks a bipartisan effort to provide the sort of 
financial support that the American public demands.
  I too want to commend Mr. Ross and Mr. Cardoza for allowing me to 
join with them in this effort. I think that Blue Dogs who are fiscally 
conservative really reflect the mainstream of what America is all 
about.
  The fact of the matter is that this budget resolution that we will 
debate this week has in its very basic underpinnings a lack of fiscal 
integrity. Let me talk about a dirty little secret contained in this 
budget resolution that all Members ought to be aware of. The secret is 
the offloading of our Federal financial problems onto our States as a 
strategy to reduce our Nation's budget deficit.
  The hypocrisy is clear, through the preemption of State laws, and in 
spite of a little-used Federal law that prevents unfunded mandates on 
States, Congress has arrogantly chosen to do just that, and that is to 
offload on our States.
  Do the States have the ability to fill that gap? Well, the National 
Council of State Legislatures has identified the minimum gap in Federal 
funding to States caused by unfunded mandates in 2004 fiscal year as 
being approximately $25.6 billion. In the fiscal year 2005, the amount 
rose to $26.2 billion.
  Evidence by the National Council of State Legislatures shows that 
this gap

[[Page H1431]]

will continue over the next decade and could grow as high as $50 
billion annually, and we offload our financial responsibilities to 
States and let them be on their own.
  The evidence is clear. It does not take into account inflation and 
other changes in discretionary spending over the next decade.
  I ask my colleagues to recall recent history. In the 1980s and in the 
1990s, President Reagan, a former State Governor, understood the 
necessity of a bipartisan effort to protect the States. President 
Clinton, another State Governor, codified that recognition of States by 
signing the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act in which the Congress pledged 
to no longer continue this practice of passing laws and then telling 
the States it is your job to figure out how to pay for it.
  But this White House, also currently occupied by another former State 
Governor and many of my colleagues who serve in Congress, over half who 
come from State legislatures, I believe, have forgotten where they come 
from.
  Do you think we are solving problems when we are just passing them on 
to our States? I will continue to question the sincerity of those who 
lead this budget effort to actually achieve responsible fiscal 
management. The most recent example of that reluctance to embrace sound 
fiscal management principles was demonstrated last week in the Budget 
Committee's rejection of an amendment that would reinstitute pay-as-
you-go, which my colleagues, Mr. Ross and Mr. Cardoza, have spoken to. 
Pay-as-you-go is a concept that all of our households employ, which 
means in your family's budget, you do not spend money that you do not 
have.
  As Members may recall, PAYGO was agreed to in the 1990s by then-
Speaker Newt Gingrich and signed into law by President Clinton. In the 
mid-1990s, that led to the first budget surpluses we had in over 40 
years. Ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you, over the last 5 years, 
we have gone from surpluses to massive deficits.
  I remember as a young kid watching television on ``Dragnet.'' 
Remember Sergeant Friday? He used to say ``Just the facts, ma'am.'' 
These are the facts, and I think Americans are coming to realize these 
facts do not hold up to the principles of sound fiscal management. We 
can do better. We should do better. Americans deserve it.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Costa for joining us this evening 
to discuss these issues that are so important to not only today's 
generation but to our children and grandchildren.
  This week on the floor of the House there is going to be a very close 
vote. Most votes on the House floor last somewhere between 5 and 15 
minutes. Every once in a while we have a vote that goes for an hour or 
2 hours, sometimes even 3 hours, while enough arms are twisted to be 
able to get enough votes for a vote to pass.
  I have always said the Prescott Curly Wolves, they have some pretty 
good years in football. And when there is no time left on the clock, if 
we are not ahead, if we could just not sound the buzzer until we are 
ahead, we would be the State champions every year. That is, 
unfortunately, how many votes run on this House floor. When they are 
close votes, votes are no longer 5 or 15 minutes; they last until the 
Republican leadership prevails; and then the horn, the bell, the gavel 
is sounded. That will likely happen late Thursday night or early Friday 
morning during the vote on this budget because this budget does not 
reflect America's priorities, and they are going to have a very 
difficult time passing it.
  In fact, I predict it will be on a strict party-line vote, and they 
will lose some votes. It is unbelievable the fiscal turnaround from a 
budget surplus in fiscal year 2001 to the five largest deficits in 
history, and they have occurred in the last 5 consecutive years with 
the 2006 deficit being $372 billion. And the projected deficit for 
fiscal year 2007 is $348 billion; but not really. That is counting the 
money that the politicians are borrowing from the Social Security trust 
fund.
  If you do not count the money that is being borrowed from the Social 
Security trust fund, the deficit last year was really $605 billion and 
for fiscal year 2007, it is $448 billion. I am beginning to understand 
why the Republican leadership refused to give me a hearing or a vote on 
the first vote I filed as a Member of Congress, a bill to tell the 
politicians in Washington to keep their hands off the Social Security 
trust fund.
  When this administration took office, it inherited a projected 10-
year surplus of $5.6 trillion. This surplus has become a $3.3 trillion 
deficit, an embarrassing reversal of $8.9 trillion.
  Since 2001, there have been four increases in the debt ceiling to a 
staggering total of $3 trillion. This Republican-proposed budget 
increases the statutory debt ceiling by another $2.3 trillion, almost 
doubling the debt ceiling in 5 years to $11.3 trillion. And if that is 
not enough, with regards to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, this 
budget only includes $50 billion, less than half of what was 
appropriated for 2006, and goes so far as to actually assume we will be 
out of Iraq and Afghanistan after 2007. This is not a truthful budget. 
The budget includes no funding, absolutely no funding for the war 
efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond 2007.
  This Republican Congress is telling us in this budget that the 
conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will be over by the end of fiscal 
year 2007. We know better. This is not a truthful budget.
  The budget resolution calls for $39 billion in 2007 and $228 billion 
in new tax cuts over the next 5 years; $39 billion in tax cuts in 2007, 
$228 billion in new tax cuts over the next 5 years, and $1.7 trillion 
in new tax cuts over the next 10 years that primarily benefit only 
those earning over $400,000 a year. And in times of deficit, in times 
when we are borrowing a billion a day, what does that mean? That means 
we are borrowing money from places like China. This administration has 
borrowed more money from foreigners in the past 5 years than the 
previous 42 Presidents combined. Let me repeat that: this 
administration has borrowed more money from foreign central banks and 
foreign investors in the past 5 years than the previous 42 Presidents 
combined; and yet we are now going to borrow more money from China and 
Hong Kong and, God forbid, OPEC nations, to give a tax cut to those 
earning over $400,000 a year.
  Over 5 years, the Republican-proposed resolution cuts nondefense 
discretionary spending by $162 billion, below the amount simply needed 
to maintain services at current levels.
  Our next speaker will talk more about these funding cuts, these cuts 
that not only cut programs that matter to people but undercut our 
values, that undercut America's priorities.

                              {time}  2100

  And to talk more about this is the gentleman from Oklahoma, who has 
quickly become a real leader and a real voice within the fiscally 
conservative Blue Dog Coalition, my friend, Dan Boren.
  Mr. BOREN. Thank you, Congressman Ross. Mr. Speaker, you know it is 
not very often that I come to this floor to speak on an issue. As a 
freshman Member, sometimes we don't come down and talk about issues on 
this floor. But I think it is very important tonight that we talk about 
this budget because budgets are a statement of our priorities.
  I am going to talk tonight a little bit about rural America. I also 
want to talk a little bit about our Nation's veterans.
  For those of you all who have never been to Oklahoma, I am going to 
tell you a little bit about my district. My district is in eastern 
Oklahoma. I represent 25 counties of a very rural part of the United 
States. The largest community in my district is Muskogee, Oklahoma, 
population 38,000 people, where my wife, Andrea, and I reside.
  There are towns like Broken Bow and Idabel and Miami and Sallisaw, 
Wapanucka, Bromide, Bluejacket, some of the best people in the world. 
And let me tell you, this budget does not help my folks back home. I 
think it is very important that we reduce the national debt and we 
balance our budget, but we can't do it on the backs of rural America.
  Once again, this year the President's budget slashes rural 
development programs. It freezes funding for rural education and phases 
out our rural health care grants.
  In my district, it abolishes the COPS grant program which is 
responsible for putting over 200 officers on the street in eastern 
Oklahoma. We have a real meth problem in eastern Oklahoma.

[[Page H1432]]

We have a terrible meth problem. We had a lot of meth labs that were 
popping up and actually we are doing a lot about that. But we need more 
cops on the street. This budget cuts 200 police officers.
  My good friend, my colleague from Arkansas, Mr. Ross, mentioned cuts 
in our ag research centers. Folks, 2 weeks ago I was in Lane, Oklahoma. 
There is a research center, the Wes Watkins Lane Ag Research Center, 
employs a lot of folks in my district, has a $3 million impact on the 
local economy. We are talking about salaries, 70, $80,000 salaries. 
These are big salaries in my district. In the President's budget that 
facility is set to close. And I know I am going to be working with my 
colleague from Arkansas to help stop that.
  Here is another couple of statistics. It cuts assistance to rural 
manufacturers and small businesses by nearly 60 percent. In the State 
of Oklahoma we lost over 80,000 manufacturing jobs over the past 2 
years. And we are talking about taking those investments away from 
small businesses. We need help in rural Oklahoma.
  It also cuts rural health care by 83 percent, and not just in rural 
America, not just in rural Oklahoma. It also affects all of our 
veterans. I have got a big Veterans Hospital in my district in 
Muskogee, Oklahoma. And I get a chance to visit with our veterans all 
the time. And they talk to me about the TRICARE program.
  One example in this budget is an increase in co-pays and enrollment 
fees for military retirees in the TRICARE program. So this country is 
saying to you, you go, you enlist in the service, you spend 20 years 
supporting the flag, going overseas, fighting for our freedoms, and we 
are going to cut your benefits. That is a wrong priority, and we won't 
stand for it.
  Another thing we have got to think about when we are talking about 
cutting these programs like TRICARE. Folks, we are facing a recruitment 
problem right now. We are trying to get more and more young people to 
join the military. How can we tell those young people to join the Army, 
Navy, Air Force and Marines, how can we tell them to join when we are 
going to cut their benefits? There is a direct correlation to what we 
are doing in this budget to our Nation's Armed Forces.
  And I stand as a Blue Dog, someone that believes in fiscal 
accountability. But, at the same time, we have got to make sure that we 
defend those priorities. And I stand with my colleague from Arkansas. I 
know we are going to have a few other speakers here in a minute. And 
with that I am going to yield back to my colleague from Arkansas. And I 
thank him for allowing me to be a part of this program.
  As I mentioned before, I came down as part of the 30-something and 
gave a few talks, and I rarely come down. But this budget got me so 
upset, thinking about the people back home in Oklahoma, that I wanted 
to come to this floor and talk about these priorities. And with that I 
yield back to my friend, Congressman Ross.
  Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for being a part of 
this special order on the budget, the debt and the deficit. And I 
appreciate the work he is doing with me to try and save all these 
agricultural research centers from closure that are so important, not 
only to rural America and to the communities where they are located 
like Booneville, Arkansas, but also so important to our farm families, 
all over this great country.
  Mr. Speaker, if you have any comments, questions for the Blue Dog 
Coalition, there are 37 of us. We are a group of fiscally conservative 
Democrats that come together here on Capitol Hill to try and restore 
some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government. And 
Mr. Speaker, if you have any comments or concerns of our group, I would 
encourage you to e-mail us at [email protected]. That is 
[email protected].
  At this time I am pleased to turn this over to Melissa Bean, 
Congresswoman from Illinois, a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, who 
many Tuesday evenings comes down and joins us for this, what I believe 
is a very healthy debate and healthy discussion about how we need to 
get our Nation's fiscal house in order and restore some of the 
conservative values that many of us were raised on and still believe 
in. And with that I yield.
  And we are also joined tonight by, as we are almost every Tuesday 
night, and I am so proud of that, David Scott, Congressman from 
Georgia, a real leader, a real voice for common sense and conservative 
values within the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition. And I 
welcome both of you. And we can have a colloquy or do whatever y'all 
want to do. I will yield right now to the gentlewoman from Illinois.
  Ms. BEAN. I am honored to join my colleagues in the Blue Dog 
Coalition and, again, want to commend your leadership, Congressman 
Ross, of our Blue Dog Coalition, because fiscal responsibility has to 
be our top priority in this Congress.
  So many of us came to this body to address issues of importance and 
priority to the families in the districts that we represent. And yet, 
if we don't, first and foremost, act responsibly with the national tax 
dollars that we have, we can't properly address those regional 
priorities that we would like to.
  I was here on the floor with you just several weeks ago, and I 
mentioned that I had been with some seventh graders in my district. One 
of the fun parts of our job is when we can go have civics classes with 
the kids. And they were pretty mortified just a few weeks ago when I 
shared with them that their share of our national debt, each individual 
one of them, was $27,000. And I am sad to see from your last chart, you 
have now moved it, it is already up to $28,000. So we went from $8.2 
trillion to $8.3 trillion in just a couple of weeks. And it is 
frightening how rampant this irresponsible spending has been and how 
out of control our Congress has been.

  And it is sad that when I spoke to these seventh graders about their 
family budgets or their parents who worked in the business communities, 
how did they avoid getting themselves into debt, that those seventh 
graders could better articulate fiscal common sense by saying, don't 
spend what you don't have, than this Congress has been able to 
demonstrate.
  And I also serve on a caucus that addresses financial literacy for 
young people in this country. And it is so hypocritical that we want to 
talk to these kids about how to better manage their money when we are 
not doing a good job with our Nation's resources.
  Mr. ROSS. The gentlewoman is so right, and I appreciate her sharing 
her experiences.
  I was at Pine Bluff High School on Monday, speaking to a couple of 
classes, history classes, and that is one of the things we talked about 
was the debt, the deficit and what it means to their generation, 
because, you know, it is what I call the debt tax. It is one tax that, 
debt as in D-E-B-T, not to be confused with the death tax. It is what 
in the Blue Dog Coalition we have coined as the debt tax, because as 
long as we have got a debt, as long as we are spending a half a billion 
a day paying interest on the debt, then that is a half a billion we 
don't have to meet America's priorities. And that debt tax has got to 
be paid back by future generations, our children and grandchildren, 
because I can assure you all these foreign investors and foreign 
central banks that are now funding our deficit, they are not going to 
forgive our debt the way that oftentimes in the past we have forgiven 
others debts.
  And I yield to the gentleman from Georgia. Glad to have you with us 
this evening, Mr. Scott.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Always a pleasure to be with you, Mr. Ross, and 
with you, Ms. Bean. It is always a pleasure.
  You were talking about the young kids, and you have got to think 
about those young kids. You have got to think about the generations 
coming behind us. Some of those are watching C-SPAN tonight as we 
speak, and hopefully all across America they are beginning to pay 
attention to what is happening here on the floor of this Congress.
  And as I stand here, I am reminded of what happened on the floor of a 
Congress and a Senate a few centuries back and is captured really 
greatly in a play by the great William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare 
wrote a brilliant play called Julius Caesar. And in that play, a very 
important part was as Caesar was on the floor as the senators were 
surrounding him and knives going

[[Page H1433]]

into him, he looked out at all of the senators and saw them, Cicero and 
Cassius, and then he leaned over and he looked over caught the eye of 
Brutus and grabbed him as Brutus stuck the knife into his ribs. And he 
said ``Et tu, Brutus. Yours is the meanest cut of all.''
  Well, I am here to tell you and tell America, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ross, 
Ms. Bean, that the meanest cut of all in this budget is the cut to 
those law enforcement folks, those people that are on the front lines 
at home, who have our security in their hands, our police officers, our 
firemen, our first responders and the military, our veterans, our Air 
Force, our Navy, our Marines, who are being cut unmercifully, Brutus-
like, in this budget.
  I just want to highlight for the American people so they can actually 
see and hear how this budget is devastating those that we place our 
security in their hands. Just think that this budget includes a cut in 
the funding of first responders by 25 percent at a time when we are in 
such great need.
  Police Departments nationwide do not have the protective gear to 
safely secure a site after a detonation of a weapon of mass destruction 
in this country. Fire Departments have only enough radios for half the 
firefighters on a shift.
  And yet, this budget, this Republican budget that they are asking us 
to vote on in the next day or two, includes a cut in first responder 
funding within the Department of Homeland Security of $573 million, 25 
percent. And within this total, the budget slashes the Firefighters 
Grant Program by $355 million and eliminates all funding for the law 
enforcement terrorism prevention, reduction of $385 million.
  When we look at our veterans, we are treating them so badly under 
this budget. It increases the health care costs for one million 
veterans.
  America, we need to pay attention to what this Republican budget is 
doing. For the fourth year in a row, the budget raises health care 
costs for 1 million veterans by imposing new fees on veterans, costing 
them more than $2.6 billion over 5 years and driving at least 200 
veterans out of the system.
  It doubles the copayment for prescription drugs from $8 to $15, 
America, and imposes an enrollment fee of $250 a year for Category 7 
and 8 veterans who make as little as $26,000 a year.
  This is the truth. This is what they are asking us to vote on. And I 
pray and I hope that we will have enough Republicans to stand with us 
Democrats and reject this as not in the best interest of the American 
people.
  It fails to address the strain on our troops. Now, Mr. Ross, I have 
been over to Iraq, just came back in January; went over to Afghanistan. 
I have been in the hot spots. I have seen our military, and they are 
doing a fantastic job in extraordinary circumstances. We are talking 
about 19- and 20- and 21-year-old kids out there handling extraordinary 
pressures.

                              {time}  2115

  And I will tell you an experience that I had that I will never 
forget. When I was in Iraq, I went into Camp Victory, standing in the 
middle of Camp Victory, and I met and was hugged by a soldier. And both 
of us in the middle of Camp Victory hugging, tears coming down my eyes 
and down his, and he says to me, ``Congressman Scott, when I am hugging 
you, it's like I am hugging a piece of home.''
  I vowed in Iraq on that spot that night, having dinner with those 
soldiers in Iraq, that I would fight tooth and nail on this floor to 
treat our veterans and to treat our military right.
  And, Mr. Ross, as I told it to you, what is in this budget, it 
refuses to end the disabled veterans tax. This Republican budget fails 
to repeal the veterans tax, which forces disabled military retirees to 
give up $1 of their pension for every dollar of disability pay they 
receive. Added to that it fails to end the military family tax, the 
survivor benefit plan, penalizes survivors, mostly widows, of those 
soldiers who are killed as a result of combat. That is what this budget 
does. That is why I say that the meanest cut in this budget is to our 
military, to our veterans, to our law enforcement people who put their 
lives on the line for little or no pay. And the only reason to do it is 
to offset this tax cut for the 1 percent wealthiest people in this 
country and then have to go borrow the money to pay for that at the 
sacrifice of our first responders.
  This is why I am praying with every ounce of strength in me that this 
body will stand up to this Republican budget and vote it down because 
it is not in the best interests of our Nation's security, our national 
security, or our homeland security.
  Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott) for his 
input and would encourage him to stay for what I hope will be a 
meaningful discussion with the time remaining this evening as we talk 
about the budget and the debt and deficit. And I want to thank the 
gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean) for staying with us as well.
  Some of this has been mentioned tonight; some has not. But let us 
just take a look at some of the cuts that will be included in the 
budget this week. Education, the Republican budget resolution that will 
be voted on on the floor of this Chamber this week is identical to the 
administration's proposed budget cuts to education, training, and 
social services, including $2.2 billion in cuts to the Department of 
Education.
  Let us begin by putting this thing in perspective. We spend more 
money paying interest on the national debt in 100 days than we spend 
funding education in 365 days. What does that say about our commitment 
to our children?
  Ms. BEAN. To future generations.
  Mr. ROSS. To future generations. And yet they propose to cut $2.2 
billion from the Department of Education. The President's budget fully 
eliminates, fully eliminates, 41 Department of Education programs.
  I had folks in my office this week, today, from my district. They are 
involved in the HIPPI program, programs that are helping young people 
get ready for kindergarten. They reach those young people at ages 3, 4, 
and 5. And they also go into the homes and teach the parents how to 
teach the children. It is a wonderful program.
  And I had a meeting yesterday in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, with the 
chancellor at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, which is an 
historically black college, Chancellor Lawrence Davis, and he was 
telling me that we have a crisis in America with African American males 
because 60 percent of African American males who do not finish high 
school end up in prison. And his concern and my concern is that America 
does not seem to be nearly as alarmed about it as they should be. The 
way we address this is by investing in education. If we will get to 
these young people at age 3, 4, and 5, we can spend pennies on the 
dollar compared to what we are spending warehousing them in their adult 
life in prison. It is about priorities.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ROSS. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Excellent point. And there is no greater 
emergency in this country than addressing the plight of African 
American males. No group in this country has paid the price, has made 
the contributions, has gone through the struggles, and has faced the 
vicissitudes of racism as the African American community. Structure, 
discipline, sanctioned by law. And yet if there was just one tenth of 
the effort to correct that imbalance, but on every score, you go down 
the line, and you mentioned them, education, the college grant. They 
say No Child Left Behind. An excellent idea but underfunded by 3 or 
$400 billion, not putting the money in. Black college Presidents have 
come up to this Congress hat in hand, begging, pleading for money for 
scholarships, and have not gotten a response.
  In this budget itself, do you know that the fastest growing part of 
this budget is the interest we are paying? And the interest we are 
paying is more than all that we are spending totally on primary 
education, secondary education, college education, everything 
education, as well as the environment and veterans. This is dastardly 
wrong.
  Mr. ROSS. The gentleman is so right. And I was sitting there in a 
meeting in my office today listening to a group pleading with me to 
vote against this budget, which I am, pleading with me to vote against 
this budget because it cuts programs that give 3- and 4-year-olds a 
fighting chance to be ready when they enter kindergarten that can help 
us be able to give them a chance at success in life.

[[Page H1434]]

  We live in a free country. We get to choose what we eat and where we 
worship and whom we marry. Some people do that several times. And one 
of the few things in life we do not get to choose is who our parents 
are. Some children, both black and white, get really lucky. Some do 
not. And I think as a Nation we have a duty and obligation to be there 
for all young people. And if we can get to these young people at age 3 
and 4 and get them ready for kindergarten, then we can have an impact 
on their lives and turn them into a productive citizen instead of 
spending $20,000 a year paying for them to sit idly and wastefully 
behind bars.
  Yet these programs, these preschool programs, are being cut in this 
budget. And one of the women that was in my office today talking to me 
about it, she said, I was one of those in one of these programs. They 
came to my home and they taught me how to teach my child, and I started 
teaching my child, and my child started making the honor roll. And this 
woman today, she is from my district, she said, Mike, I want you to 
know I am now going back to college to become a school teacher. She 
went and got her high school degree. She is now going to college to 
become a school teacher because of one of these programs that not only 
has had an impact on her daughter's life but has now had an impact on 
her life. Yet these programs are either cut or eliminated in this 
year's budget.
  Ms. BEAN. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ROSS. I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.
  Ms. BEAN. So much of what we have been talking about, whether it is 
education, whether it is the environment, it is all about future 
generations and our commitment to them.
  And to go back to the seventh graders that I mentioned that I spoke 
with, they are all studying the Constitution right now. Some of them 
probably in your districts as well as mine are taking their 
Constitution tests. I was so impressed with their knowledge and their 
youthful idealism as we talked about the Constitution and what it meant 
to them.
  And we had an open discussion, and we took the preamble of the 
Constitution apart, and we talked about what does it mean in order to 
form a more perfect union. And they understood that that meant that we 
have a commitment to make our country better. We talked about providing 
for the common defense. And they understood that that meant not just 
national defense but also protecting Americans from natural disaster 
like we have experienced in the gulf region and then, sadly, just this 
week from the tornadoes. They talked about establish justice and what 
did justice mean. And they understood that that meant there should be 
basic fairness in our laws.
  But the part that really resonated with the kids was when we talked 
about that as we preserve these liberties and these American values, we 
do them for ourselves and our posterity. And they understood that that 
meant we as adults should be making decisions not only for them as well 
as ourselves but for their children. And so they are very concerned 
that we are not making the right decisions. So they expressed a lot of 
those issues. And to go back to the fiscal responsibility theme that we 
have been talking about tonight, they were able to understand the 
analogy of what we have been doing with this debt, and driving 
ourselves into debt essentially would be if I got a credit card and 
went out on a spending spree, but I put the credit card in my 
daughters' names and said to them, When you are 18 and you get a job, 
you get to pay it off. And that is what we are doing to these kids, and 
that is not justice. That is not making good decisions for our 
posterity. We can do a better job than we have been doing for them.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. The American people are expecting us to.
  I just share with you my own experience. Every weekend I get home, by 
the time I get off the airplane, I get in my tee-shirt and my jeans and 
I get out and walk door to door in my district, about 50 percent of 
which is new out in Cobb and Douglas Counties. And there is a certain 
experience that you get when you go knock on doors and you talk to your 
constituents and they say, Oh, the Congressman is here. And, Mr. Ross, 
let me tell you America is worried. The people in America are worried 
about the direction of this country.
  At one stop a lady comes out and she says, Yes, put a yard sign in, 
and I give her a tee-shirt. And she says, Congressman Scott, what are 
we going to do about our education? I am not just talking about the 
money, but I am talking about the fact that my kid is sitting in a 
hallway because there is no room, there is no classroom. And in many of 
our counties across this country, they are meeting in trailers because 
we have not put the money in the budget in order to deal with it.
  Now, I got the latest figures because I think it is very important 
that the American people know why we must vote down this budget come 
tomorrow or Thursday. The budget provides $15.4 million less, a cut in 
funding for education, than promised by the No Child Left Behind. No 
Child Left Behind. No Child Left Behind, but we are leaving them behind 
and not only leaving them behind but we are leaving them on the floor, 
in the hallways to study, overcrowded classrooms, teachers without 
adequate pay to do all the paperwork and not paying them for it. They 
are meeting in fire stations. They are meeting down the road in an old 
church basement. They are meeting in trailers. Damp, unsafe, unsanitary 
trailers. This is what this budget is doing to our American children.
  Under this Republican budget, the cumulative funding shortfall for No 
Child Left Behind is $55 billion. This Republican budget, as we talked 
about before about the need, especially in some of our hard cases, this 
Republican budget completely eliminates several important education 
programs, including vocational education State grants, educational 
technology State grants. We are talking about those institutions that 
are actually taking our youngsters and training them with jobs that are 
being cut. Americans are worried about that.
  Veterans are worried. Down the street another one says he is standing 
in line, not being able to get his treatment at a VA hospital. We are 
calling and he says if it was not for this congressional office 
calling, what would happen? But there are literally thousands of 
Americans out there, veterans, who are facing these dilemmas every 
single day. And they are upset about these unwise, foolish, mean, and 
unnecessary cuts to vital programs not because we cannot afford it, not 
because we are not wise to do it, but we are doing it just to offset 
costs for a tax cut for the wealthiest 1 percent in this country.

                              {time}  2130

  Even them, even Bill Gates and others at that level, are saying, ``We 
don't need it.'' But our veterans need it. Our teachers need it. Our 
children who are in these trailers, they need it.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I know I feel confident 
that the Republican leadership will send down a group to follow us. 
They do that every Tuesday evening. I am honored that they feel a need 
to do that. I think our message is getting through about trying to 
restore fiscal discipline and common sense to our Nation's government.
  They are going to talk about how we didn't vote for this so-called 
Deficit Reduction Act. What they are not going to tell you was it was 
$40 billion to cuts in Medicaid, student loans and the orphan program, 
and also it was followed by $90 billion in tax cuts for those earning 
over $400,000 a year.
  I wasn't real good in math back in high school or college, but $90 
billion in new tax cuts and $40 billion in cuts to the poorest among us 
equals what, $50 billion of new debt. Only in Washington would they 
call that the Deficit Reduction Act. That was the name of it.
  Then they are going to say this budget we are opposing is making the 
hard choices and the hard cuts and eliminating important programs in 
the name of trying to restore some fiscal discipline and balance the 
budget. What they fail to tell you is it is really about priorities, 
because their budget includes $1.7 trillion in new tax cuts over 10 
years.
  Look, I voted for the biggest tax cut in 20 years back in 2001, and a 
lot of my Democratic colleagues are still mad at me about it. We had a 
surplus, it was before 9/11, before Iraq and before Afghanistan. We 
really were giving people some of their money back.
  Yet now, every time since then that we have passed a tax cut, because 
we

[[Page H1435]]

no longer have a surplus, we have a deficit, every tax cut we have 
passed since that time has been funded with money that we are borrowing 
from places like China.
  In 2000, we had borrowed a total of $62 billion from China. From 1976 
up until 2000 we owed $62 billion to China, and at the end of 2005 we 
owed $257 billion to China. Japan, $668.3 billion. Our government, we 
are borrowing $1 billion a day and spending half a billion a day paying 
interest on the debt we have already got. That is half a billion that 
can't go to fund our agricultural research centers or build I-49 or I-
69 or many other opportunities and priorities and needs we have in 
Arkansas' Fourth Congressional District, because our Nation is in debt 
and running record deficits and borrowing money from all these foreign 
investors and foreign central banks.
  Put it this way: Foreign lenders currently hold a total $2.174 
trillion of our public debt. Compare that to only $23 billion in 
foreign holdings back in 1993.
  Here is the top 10 list. Here is who is funding your tax cuts. Here 
is who is funding our government. We have borrowed $668.3 billion from 
Japan; we owe now $262.6 billion, and it goes up every week, to China; 
the United Kingdom, $244.8 billion, Caribbean banking centers, have you 
ever heard of that? I never heard of a Caribbean banking center before, 
but we have borrowed $97.9 billion from them; Taiwan, $71.6 billion; 
OPEC, you wonder why gas is $2.50 a gallon? We have now borrowed $77.6 
billion from OPEC; Korea, $68.3 billion; Germany, $65.2 billion; 
Canada, $54.9 billion; and Hong Kong, $48.3 billion. Those are the top 
10 countries that we are borrowing money from to help fund tax cuts in 
our country to pay for tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year.
  I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. And here is the danger. Here is the danger when 
you put your financial security in the hands of foreign nations at the 
rate that we are doing it. Now we have to worry that some of these 
nations could very well sell their U.S. dollars in their reserves and 
then they could switch their currency into other nations. They could do 
a lot of things when they have our debt.
  What happens if they lose patience here? By having so much of our 
debt in the hands of foreign interests, we place our whole financial 
security in great peril.
  China now has $250 billion of our debt, Japan has $687 billion of our 
debt, Taiwan has $117 billion of our debt and Hong Kong has $67 billion 
of our debt. I mention these because these are countries in the Asian 
Basin. If collectively they came together, for surely geography puts 
their direct interests more at stake than it does us over here in the 
Western Hemisphere, if they came together with a pact and just made a 
decision on what to do with our debt or whether they are going to sell 
U.S. dollars or reinvest in other countries or do things that will 
drive down our financial security, look at the bad position that places 
us in. And when you combine that with the fact that India and China 
have taken over our manufacturing capabilities, it shows the 
seriousness of the situation.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from 
Georgia and the gentlewoman from Illinois for joining me this evening.
  At the beginning of this special order, this was the national debt, 
$8,378,143,406,405 and some change. Just in the hour that we have spent 
here on the floor in this special order discussing the Nation's debt 
and the deficit, the debt has gone up approximately $41,666,000. So the 
new number is $8,378,185,072,405 and some change. Just in the hour we 
have been here, we have seen the national debt go up that much, 
$41,666,000, approximately.
  So, until our government gets its fiscal house in order, as Members 
of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, we are going to 
continue to come this to this floor every Tuesday night and talk about 
restoring some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's 
government. We will be talking more about the Blue Dog 12 point plan 
for curing our Nation's addiction to deficit spending and will be 
talking about our plan, our vision for a better America, a vision that 
includes a balanced budget and so many other provisions that just make 
good old-fashioned sense.

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