[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 55 (Tuesday, May 9, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H2330-H2335]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 2310
THE BLUE DOG COALITION
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Inglis of South Carolina). Under the
Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from
Arkansas (Mr. Ross) is recognized for the time remaining until
midnight.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the 37-member strong,
fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. There are 37 of us
that are Democrats. We are fiscal conservatives and we are concerned
about the debt and the deficit that plagues this great Nation ours.
In fact, you can see here, the Blue Dog coalition today, the United
States national debt is $8,361,683,340,530 and some change. Now, for
every man, woman and child, including those born today, their share of
this enormous national debt is about $28,000. It is what we call the
debt tax, d-e-b-t. That is one tax that cannot go away until we get our
Nation's fiscal house in order.
It is hard now to believe that from 1998 to 2001 we had a balanced
budget in this country. Things were going pretty well. Now, what do we
have? We have gasoline prices that are up 80 percent, health care up 50
percent, higher education, college costs up 40 percent. Things are not
going so well. Mr. Speaker, I submit to you, it is directly related to
this debt, the largest debt ever in our Nation's history, this deficit,
the largest deficit ever in our Nation's history.
You know, the projected deficit for fiscal year 2007 is $348 billion.
But the reason it is $348 billion is because they are borrowing, our
government is borrowing from the Social Security trust fund. The
projected deficit for fiscal year 2007, not counting the Social
Security surplus; in other words, if the politicians in Washington kept
their hands off the Social Security trust fund, the real deficit for
fiscal year 2007 is $548 billion.
The first bill I filed as a Member of Congress was a bill to tell the
politicians in Washington to keep their hands off the Social Security
trust fund. Now I am beginning to understand why the Republican
leadership would not give me a vote, even a hearing, on this bill,
because they are now using the Social Security trust fund to run our
government to pay for tax cuts to those earning over $400,000 a year in
this manner of reckless spending that we are seeing going on, in fact,
for the sixth year in a row.
The 2006 deficit, $372 billion. Not counting the Social Security
surplus, it was $605 billion. In fiscal year 2005, it was $318 billion;
if you don't count the Social Security surplus, Social Security trust
fund, it was $494 billion. Fiscal year 2004, $412 billion deficit, and
it goes on and on.
My point is this, Mr. Speaker, our Nation is borrowing $1 billion a
day. We are spending $279 million every day to Iraq. But don't ask this
administration for a plan on how that money is
[[Page H2331]]
being spent. Don't ask this administration to be accountable for that
$279 million a year tax money going to Iraq every day, because if you
do, they will tell you they are unpatriotic. $57 million every day
going to Afghanistan, and billions more going to pay for tax cuts for
folks earning over $400,000 a year.
Mr. Speaker, I submit to you this reckless spending that we are
seeing in this country must end. As members of the Blue Dog Coalition,
we have a plan, we have a 12-point plan for meaningful budget reform
that will get our Nation's fiscal house in order. We will talk more
about that in a little bit. We will talk more about the budget that may
come to the floor of this Chamber in a little bit.
The other point that I want to make is in addition to the billion
dollars a day that our Nation is borrowing, the debt is already $8.3
trillion. It is going up to the tune of about $1 billion every day. So
it is $8.3 trillion and growing.
On that $8.3 trillion in debt, our Nation is spending about half a
billion dollars a day simply paying interest on the debt we already
got. No principal, just interest.
Some people say, well, none of this really matters. But it does, and
it should matter to everybody in America, because that is a half a
billion dollars a day that cannot go to fund America's priorities until
our government gets its fiscal house in order.
In my congressional district, which spans about half of Arkansas, I
have got I-49 on the western side of the State. We need $1.5 billion to
complete that interstate that can create all kinds of jobs and economic
opportunity. That is a lot of money until you look at it this way and
you realize, oh, my goodness, we could finish that interstate with just
3 days' interest on the national debt.
On the eastern and southern part of my district we have I-69 under
way. I need $1.6 billion to finish it. Again, just for 3 days, interest
on the national debt, I could complete I-69 in Arkansas. I could four-
lane U.S. highway 167 from Little Rock to El Dorado on 1 day's interest
on the national debt. Give me a few hours interest of the national
debt, I can finish that expressway around Hot Springs National Park,
Arkansas.
My point is that whether it is education, health care, roads,
whatever it might be, America's priorities continue to go unmet until
we get our Nation's fiscal house in order.
Now, in a little bit, we will be talking more about our foreign debt
and about the Blue Dog 12-point plan to budget reform, which includes a
balanced budget amendment. We will be talking more about the budget
that may come to the floor of this Chamber this week.
But at this time, I am pleased to turn this microphone over to a real
leader within the Blue Dog Coalition, someone that really understands
fiscal discipline and someone that I am very pleased and honored to
have join me this evening. That is the gentleman from Georgia, my
friend, David Scott.
Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Ross, it is always a pleasure to come down
on the floor and talk with you about the pressing issues facing our
Nation and the world today.
You know, Mr. Ross, you talked about the debt, and you talked about
the budget. It is the budget that provides us with the blueprint.
Just this morning, on my way, before I got on the airplane to get up
here, I was talking with one of my constituents out in Cobb County, a
town called Austell.
{time} 2320
I was talking to Ms. Winnie Smith, putting in a yard sign in her
yard. She came up to me and she said, ``Congressman, our country is
moving in the wrong direction. If you could just do four things. The
four things I wish you all could do something about right away, one is
secure our borders. We have a terrible problem with our borders. If we
could just protect this country and protect our porous borders.''
Then she said, ``Bring down these gas prices. Please do something
about the gas prices.''
Then she asked me, she said, ``Lord, if you could just do something
and get our young men and women home out of this mess in Iraq. And
then, Congressman, if you could just do something about this debt.''
I told her, ``Ms. Smith, you hit four things right there on the
button.''
I want to just talk, if I can just take a few brief moments on each
of these little points, and I want to use the budget that we probably
may vote on, I hope we don't, because I truly believe that there are
enough Republicans who are able to look through this smoke and mirrors
of this budget and see that it is not the blueprint, it is not the
direction that we want to go.
Mr. Ross, if we could just take the first item that Ms. Smith, my
constituent down there on Clay Road in Cobb County talked to me about
this morning, and that is our borders. I thought I would get here and I
would try to go through the budget here for a moment, because it is the
blueprint.
There is a howl and a cry the likes of which I have not seen in my
whole 32-year history of being an elected official. For 32 years, every
other year my name has been on the ballot somewhere in Georgia. Thank
God the people of Georgia have voted me in each of those 30-some years,
and I appreciate what the people of Georgia have done.
But the cries from the people of Georgia and all across this Nation,
nothing is as piercing and as meaningful as what they feel about the
insecurity of the borders. Immigration issues, all of the other issues
aside, what we do with the 11 million or 12 million illegals that are
here, how we deal with that, all registers with folks, but the most
important thing is what are we going to do about the borders?
So I got here today and I went to work, and I want to report on
exactly what this Congress, what the President, is proposing to do to
secure the budget.
You can have a lot of talk. I just listened intently to our friend
Mr. King here a few minutes ago talking eloquently and very
passionately about the border and the need to do so, and I concur with
him. But the point is, what are we doing about it?
Well, the American people need to know. I want to point out tonight
what shows the shortcoming in this budget for four of the most pressing
issues facing the American people today.
The 9/11 Commission has given this Congress and this President a D on
collaboration on border security. The 9/11 Commission December 2005
report card, Washington Republicans got a D on international
collaboration on border security. The commission points out that there
has been no systematic, diplomatic effort to work with other countries
on shared terrorist watch lists to ensure terrorists cannot get across
our borders.
I start off with the motive of terrorism rather than immigration so
the people understand that the insecurity of our borders is paramount
in our war on terror.
But as we get down to the immigration fight, and we just look at the
one most important area, there are 1,000 fewer additional Border Patrol
agents than were promised in the 9/11 act. This Congress, under the
leadership of Republicans, and I must say that, not to be partisan,
because I want to correct something immediately here. There are
Republicans and Democrats who are equally concerned about this issue.
That is why that budget has not passed yet. So I don't want this to be
just purely partisan. This is not a Republican or a Democrat issue.
This is an American issue, and this President and the Republican
leadership of this Congress, not all the Republicans in the Congress,
are clearly out of step, for they have broken the promise made on
funding for additional Border Patrol agents. Quite honestly, Mr. Ross,
we need at least three times as many agents.
Immigrant enforcement agents and detention beds. Specifically in 2004
Congress enacted the 9/11 act, the Intelligence Reform Act, for those
watching C-SPAN and want to check it, it is Public Law 108-458, which
mandated an additional 2,000 Border Patrol agents being hired over each
of the next 5 years. Yet for this fiscal year 2006, this Republican-led
Congress has funded only 1,000 additional agents.
Is it any wonder that our own citizens are taking it upon themselves,
called Minutemen, to patrol our borders, because our government is
letting them down, and it is clear in this budget. We funded only
1,000. The 9/11 act also mandated an additional 800 immigration
enforcement agents over the
[[Page H2332]]
next 5 years. Yet in this FY 2006 budget the Congress has funded only
350 additional agents. It mandated an additional 8,000 detention beds,
yet in the 2006 budget the Congress funded only 1,800 additional beds.
So it is no wonder that they are having difficulty getting this budget
increased.
Now, let me just say on this point of immigration, because I want
everybody to understand exactly where this Congressman is coming from,
earlier tonight I was watching on TV the Asian Pacific Caucus on this
floor. It was a very moving presentation by them about the
contributions that the Japanese Americans and Asian Americans have
made, and particularly the Japanese Americans, particularly during
World War II as their people were being interned in camps. Yet, similar
to African Americans, they still fought for this country in the face of
tremendous bigotry and odds, because they wanted to show we are
Americans.
That is what this immigration fight is about. Yes, we want to secure
the boarders, but it is about being Americans.
I was just in Miami, Mr. Ross, this past weekend with my wife. I was
down there with the congressional wives and their foundation. I took it
upon myself to visit and to do a little field work there.
While I am at it, I want to give congratulations and kudos to the
hospitality that the people of Miami Beach showed and the leadership
Kendrick Meek and his wife provided for us as the host. It was
wonderful.
But the one interesting thing about Miami Beach that I found was most
everybody is from somewhere else. If you want to see a melting pot,
really want to see immigration and America at work at the same time,
visit Miami Beach. I haven't been there for a while.
I spent 3 days there this weekend. I talked to everybody. Whether
they were Cuban or Mexican or Latin American or Caribbean or Jamaican
or Haitian or Asian, they are all there in different ways.
One of the things I did, Mr. Ross, was every time I would say thank
you, I would add the phrase when I said thank you and shook their hand,
I would say, ``You are a good American.'' And when I said ``you are a
good American,'' a smile came over their face. I ask you to try it
sometime, or anybody in country to try it sometime, and you will see
people in this country understand and they get the point.
This is America. We must translate that to some of those who are
slipping and sneaking into this country to understand this is America,
to understand it is one America, to understand that there is one
language, English, there is one flag, there is one National anthem,
there is one set of values. We have got to work to get that through.
That was the story that came through so passionately on this floor
earlier today with the story of the contributions of the Japanese
Americans, because it says we are a country of immigrants.
But on this issue, we want people to be legal, to pay their taxes and
work hard the American way, learn our language, learn our values, as
everybody else did. But the most important thing before we get to all
that point is to secure our borders.
I want to just mention quite quickly what we Democrats are doing,
because a lot of times when we come up here and we talk, we talk about
what the Republicans and the President are doing. Here is what I want
the American people to understand, what we are doing on border
security.
{time} 2330
On border security, since 9/11 House Democrats have repeatedly tried
to increase appropriations for border security. For example,
Representative David Obey, our senior Member on Appropriations offered
a motion to recommit the conference report on the fiscal year 2005
supplemental appropriations bill with instructions to add $284 million
to fund an additional 550 border patrol agents. That is securing your
border.
And also an additional 200 immigration agents. That is dealing with
the immigration problem where it counts, and border aerial vehicles,
using our technology. But Republicans defeated that motion to recommit
by a vote of 201-225.
Senate Democrats on the other side, as far as border security, Senate
Democrats have also repeatedly fought to increase the border security
appropriations. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia offered an
amendment to the fiscal year 2005 supplemental appropriations bill to
increase funding for border security by $390 million, providing for the
hiring of additional border patrol agents and the operation of unmanned
aerial vehicles.
With support from 21 Republicans, Democrats succeeded in adopting the
Byrd amendment by a vote of 65-34. That is what I said earlier. It is
not just a Democratic fight, there are Republicans who are working with
us on this.
However, most of this additional border security funding was removed
by the Republicans in conference. That is why when you look at the
polls, when you look at what the American people are seeing, it is not
just us here. The American people are not dumb. They know who is
running this place. They know who is responsible for these high gas
prices. They know who is responsible for the lack of appropriations and
a lack of a budget with a proper blueprint that shows the vision this
country ought to have on these critical areas.
And these Republicans, they have got to plan for the blame for this
bad situation with our budget and our deficit.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, Mr. Scott from Georgia
for joining me this evening. I appreciate his leadership within the 37
Member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. We
are here on the floor talking about the budget, the debt, the deficit
late into the evening on Tuesday because America, America has a debt
that is out of control.
It has a deficit out of control. Mr. Speaker, it is time to restore
some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's Government.
Mr. Scott just talked about priorities, about how this Republican
Congress is clearly in the majority for the first time in well over 50
years. They control the White House, the House, the Senate, and now the
Supreme Court. And they voted against funding border security.
And yet the budget that will be presented on this floor this week
calls for $228 billion, that is with a B, in tax cuts that primarily
benefit those earning over $400,000 a year.
Mr. Scott, I do not know about in your district, but I do not have a
lot of folks in my 150 towns and all the square miles that I represent
that earn $400,000 a year. I yield.
Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. And the people are not asking for these tax
cuts. They are not demanding these tax cuts. They are demanding that
the borders be secure. They are demanding that gas prices come down.
And it is a shame that this budget is not addressing this.
And the President is about tax cuts. Well, they are not really tax
cuts. They are deferred tax increases. Somebody has got to pay for
those. And the tragedy is, Mr. Ross, that we are at the mercy in
borrowing money from foreign governments.
And not just any foreign governments. It is very important that we
take a look at the major players on the international stage now as far
as our basic fiscal insecurity is concerned.
90 percent, 90 percent of everything we are spending to run this
Government of the United States today is on borrowed money. From China,
nearly $300 billion. From Japan, nearly $700 billion. From Taiwan, $118
billion.
From Hong-Kong, $127 billion. From the OPEC nations of Saudi Arabia
and others in the Middle East, staggering, over $200 billion.
You look at those countries, Mr. Ross, and you must realize that
those are some of the same countries that are eating our lunch on this
oil. The other countries that are eating our lunch on oil, Iran, Iraq,
where we are mired, Saudi Arabia, again, where we are, and the Middle
Eastern countries underneath have about 30 to 40 percent of all of the
known oil reserves at this time.
So if on the one hand you are borrowing money from the very same
people who are holding you hostage for oil, that is a bad situation to
be in. And the American people want us to address those issues. And
they realize it takes resources to do that.
Furthermore, we have to pay for these tax cuts, Mr. Ross. It is so
disheartening to me that to pay for those
[[Page H2333]]
tax cuts on the backs of our veterans. We are cutting veterans programs
by $1.2 billion. We are raising their copay for their insurance that
they use to buy their medicines over 100 percent.
That is wrong, Mr. Ross. That is not what the American people are
after. And that is why they are expressing it. As I said before, the
American people have had it up to here.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman makes an excellent point. And
look, I am not against tax cuts. I voted for the biggest tax cut in 20
years back before 9/11. It was back before Iraq, Afghanistan. It was
back when we had a surplus. We were really giving people some of their
money back.
But this notion that you can give tax cuts in times when you do not
have a surplus, in times of deficit spending to provide tax cuts for
those earning over $400,000 a year, and to accomplish that and pay for
that by cutting programs like Medicaid and Medicare and student loans,
and borrowing the rest from places like China and Japan, that may be a
tax cut on these earning over $400,000 dollars a year today, but it is
a tax increase on our kids. It is a tax increase on our children and
our grandchildren.
Mr. Speaker, it is about priorities. We have $3 dollar gasoline.
There is a lot of talk from the Republican leadership. Well, there was
one proposal where they want to give us $100 close to election time.
They want to give us $100 and tell us to get over it and get used to
it.
Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, under today`s prices, that $100
would get you two fill-ups if gas is at $3.25
Mr. ROSS. Let me tell you, as a Member of the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, I can tell you that these are the facts. The
Republican leadership talks a lot about alternative and renewable
fuels. Biomass refineries, grants to create biomass refineries for all
of America for the next 365 days totals $100 million.
We will send nearly three times that much money to Iraq in the next
24 hours. It is about priorities. This President has announced already
that if this supplemental appropriations bill includes funding for
disaster payments for our farm families here in America who have
suffered through one of the worst droughts in this Nation's history
that he will veto it, the first veto of this administration after 6
years.
Again, it is about America's priorities, and America's priorities are
found all over this Republican budget for fiscal year 2007. A budget
that should reflect the priorities and values of our Nation, a budget
that may very well be debated and voted on on the floor of this chamber
sometime this week.
Well, Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority has had a difficult time
bringing a proposal to the floor for a vote. This is because they
cannot find consensus within their own party about the choices made to
cut programs that are essential to the most vulnerable in our Nation,
while increasing record deficits by providing tax cuts to those making
over $400,000 a year.
{time} 2340
If they fail to pass a budget, it will be the first time in three
decades that the House has not adopted a blueprint, a budget blueprint.
But if they succeed, the damage to our Nation and those we represent
will be devastating.
Since this administration took office, it has requested and this
Republican controlled Congress has provided four increases, four
increases in the statutory debt ceiling totaling $3 trillion. Under
this budget, the statutory debt by 2011 will increase by another $2.3
trillion for a total increase of $5.3 trillion. As you can see, as of
tonight our national debt, $8,351,683,340,530 and some change.
While Republicans say their objective is to restore fiscal discipline
to our Nation, this budget does not lead us in that direction. While
tremendous cuts are made to programs that serve a majority of
Americans, the Republican budget includes $228 billion in new tax cuts
that will benefit only a small few, mostly those earning over $400,000
a year. As a result, their budget resolution continues to deficit spend
over $400 billion for the next 5 years.
These deficits mean that under Republican policies, the five largest
deficits in history will have occurred in the five consecutive years
that they have controlled this Congress, the White House, this Senate,
and the Supreme Court. This is not how the American people want our
government to function.
The American people want a good dose of common sense. They want an
end to all this partisan bickering. They want to see one America again.
Cutting vital programs for those who are most in need to provide a tax
cut to the wealthiest among us is morally unconscionable.
The Republican proposal eliminates 42, 42 education programs
including those that support vocational education, college-readiness
programs for low-income students, and family literacy programs.
Overall, both the President's budget and the House Republican
resolution cut funding for the Department of Education by $2.2 billion
below the comparable 2006 level.
This is the second year in a row that the Republicans will cut
Federal education funding despite the need for school districts to meet
demanding standards under the federally mandated No Child Left Behind
law. This funding level does not meet the educational needs of
America's students. It fails to provide assistance to nearly 4 million
children eligible for title I services and 2 million children eligible
for afterschool services that enhance student achievement.
For the many families that are trying to send their children to
college, their proposal cuts aid for students to help pay for college.
It freezes the maximum Pell grant award at $4,050 right where it has
been since 2003, while the average tuition and fees at 4-year public
colleges have risen nearly $1,400. As a parent with a child who will be
attending college in the next couple of years, I understand firsthand
the increasing costs of tuition and the need to provide assistance to
those seeking higher education
Some of the most egregious cuts in the Republican budget adversely
impact the most vulnerable Americans. The Republican proposal is
largely consistent with the President's budget in its effect on safety
net programs such as housing, child care, and nutrition assistance. The
President's budget eliminates over $100 million for the commodity
supplemental food program which provides nutrient-rich food packaging
for low-income women, infants, children, and senior citizens. The
program serves 420,000 elderly and 50,000 mothers and their children
each month.
The House Republican budget imposes even deeper cuts to these type of
programs than the President's budget. Like the President's budget, the
Republican proposal freezes child care for 2007 at the 2006 level and
cuts funding for the following years. These are just a few examples of
the misplaced priorities that this Republican-controlled Congress has
for our country and why it is important to oppose these cuts.
I urge my colleagues to reject these cuts and take action to begin an
honest dialogue to pass legislation that will provide needed resources
for the majority of our Nation. It is time to pass a budget that
reflects America's priorities. Not the priorities of a divided America,
but the priorities of a united America.
Mr. Speaker, I am convinced we can do that. We can do that, and we
can have a balanced budget. It is about priorities. It is about making
the difficult decisions that will allow us to pay down this debt, to
stop this deficit spending. We can do it. We can do it by beginning
with one of the Blue Dog proposals which requires our Nation to have a
balanced budget, something 49 States are required to do, something I
helped do as a State senator in Arkansas for 10 years.
With that, I yield to my friend, Mr. Scott from Georgia.
Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Again, Mr. Ross, we must repeat because it is
very important, we are here to do America's business. Every waking
moment this Congress should be preoccupied with the three or four basic
concerns that are threatening the quality of life in this country and
very well threatening our own security, our borders.
We have not heard enough of what we are going to do to secure our
borders. We need to hear from this leadership, and we are hearing it
from Democrats. I assure you, Democrats will control our border.
Democrats will put the military on our borders.
[[Page H2334]]
Let me tell you something, Mr. Ross. I worked for a while as a
teacher, and my favorite subject to teach as was history because it
taught you so much. And one of the things that you look back on history
is that history teaches us a couple of things. It teaches us that if
you forget your history, you are doomed to repeat it. And if you forget
the bad parts of your history, they will certainly reoccur.
We are at a very, very serious point in our country of having a very,
very significant time of keeping our progress moving forward on each
level of security.
Let us first of all talk about this Nation's security. History shows
us when we look back and we evaluate how we came about to formulate
what is now called the National Guard was a need to do exactly what the
National Guard was set up to do, guard our Nation. The first order of
business to secure our borders is, number one, to put in the process of
hiring and tripling the number of agents, putting forth the technical
surveillance on our borders. But until we can get up to speed on that,
we need to put our military strategy on our borders and send a message.
We cannot take any more illegal immigrants coming into this country.
It threatens the country. Even our immigrants who are here are saying
the same thing. We can no longer not have our borders secure because of
the war on terror.
{time} 2350
CNN is doing a wonderful report on our borders, and I am not just
talking about the Mexican border. I am talking about the Canadian
border as well, and if I am watching CNN and you are watching CNN, and
Anderson Cooper is doing this wonderful special on CNN, I hope people
will watch it because it is very revealing. I saw it this weekend.
It showed about this little area up in Canada on the Canadian border
somewhere north of Minnesota or something where the border is so porous
up there that a guy comes in, goes into a little shack, opens the
shack, speaks into a microphone, looks into a camera, and says I am so
and so, I am crossing the border, thank you very much, and that is it,
for those who will stop.
I am scratching my head and I am saying, in this time of terror, if I
am watching this, surely al Qaeda's watching it. I am telling you, it
is just a matter of time before we get an attack as a result of not
checking our borders.
Some of our law enforcement people who are working some of these
borders are saying that some of that may have already happened. I am
telling you, if we do not check our borders, it is the most significant
thing you can do, and you look at this budget and you show me in this
budget where there has any priority or urgency to close down these
borders. This is why the American people are upset. It is their
security. It is their way of life. It is what we fought for. It is what
generations have fought for.
America, it is on the verge of being threatened out of existence. It
has happened before. History is cluttered with the bleached bones of
many great past civilizations who woke up too late to respond. Go back,
look at your history books, look at Rome, look at the Ottoman Empire,
look at the Netherlands particularly when it came to energy, and to a
degree Great Britain. All of these powers lost because of those four
things: global overreach, and not taking care of home and their border;
dwindling resources at home; and the third thing, you guessed it, debt
in the hands of foreign governments.
We are headed down that path, and the American people are looking for
us to change that direction. That is what my folks down in Georgia are
saying. That is what they want us to do, and we have got to do it. That
is why I am so proud that we are here as Blue Dogs, pointing the way,
showing how we will be fiscally responsible. Nobody can take that away
from us. There has been nobody manning the watch, watching this debt,
long before it was up to this level of priority than the Blue Dog
Coalition who have been at the front, Democrats at the front of the
line, talking about financial responsibility and, foremost, paying down
this debt.
What a tragedy it is for this administration, this Congress to just
lark along, borrowing all of this money, putting this extraordinary tax
increase on the backs of our children and our grandchildren, and
America's getting this.
I was surprised this morning when I was down there in my district in
Cobb County, and she mentioned those four things. Iraq, I knew;
immigration, I knew, that is hot, that is heavy, oil prices, that is
heavy. But then she says: And the debt. America is waking up and
understanding this debt situation is placing this country in a very
precarious position, and we have got to change it and be responsible.
That is why it is important for us to put in pay-as-you-go measures,
measures we have been preaching about for a long time. The American
people are ready for that because if we do not, we, too, can go the way
of so many of those past civilizations who woke up too late.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia for
joining me this evening, and he is right. I am concerned, as he is,
about America's security.
Some people will say, well, there has not been another attack in
America since 9/11, and I submit to you that is true and we have been
real lucky. We have been lucky. We have been lucky because it is very
clear that our border is not secure with Mexico or Canada. It is clear
that while we take our shoes off and we go through the metal detectors
at the airport and while our suitcases are X-rayed, the freight which
can take up as much as a quarter to half of the belly of a plane
continues to go unchecked. All the containers, for the most part,
coming into our ports remain unchecked.
I submit to you that instead of having a budget that is going to be
debated on this floor this week that calls for $228 billion in tax cuts
for folks earning over $400,000 a year, let us invest in America's
security. Let us make those ports secure. Let us make our borders
secure. Let us check the freight on the belly of those commercial
airplanes. Let us invest in America again.
Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. This is exactly right. America's not crying out
here for tax cuts for the top 1 percent. As a matter of fact, Bill
Gates and several others said we do not want it; Mr. President, we do
not need it. Those farmers need it for the drought. Those counties need
it for the community block grant programs that is a lifeline of these
counties. The children need it for their student aid programs and their
loans, they need it. Firemen need it. Our first responders need it, and
we need it to provide the incentives in place to help with our patrol.
I want to mention because there was so much we wanted to cover
tonight, but I cannot leave without saying this one thing. It really
points an example of our lack of response, we have talked about it, to
the border security problem, but look at our lack of response properly
in this budget to our gas problem. Every basic issue that needs to be
responded to, American people know we did not get to this point by just
one thing. Oil companies have a lot to do with it, but their profits
are not the real reason.
The real reason is we have a serious shortage because we are being
held hostage by most of the petroleum producing countries and because
we have not planned properly with our refineries and because we have
not planned properly with our automobiles and our guzzlers, and even
when we move to do that, with one example, I just point out to you, the
hybrid cars. The one good program that we could use would be that.
There is nothing in the budget that even approaches what we need to
do to give our American people true incentives, serious tax incentives
to purchase hybrid cars, hybrid cars whose engines are run on a
combination of electric batteries and gasoline. The key to our success,
as far as bringing down these energy crises and stop making us so
dependent on these other volatile Nations for our energy is to lower
our consumption of oil, and to lower our consumption means we need to
go elsewhere to find the fuel mix to do it. We can do it. We have got
the American know-how.
You take the hybrid engine. They have got, what is it, $2,000 for the
tax credit now. It is going up to $3,400, but then there is all kind of
complications in that make it so confounding that dealing with it is
for the first manufacturer to produce 60,000 cars, then it goes down
every quarter. It just gets so
[[Page H2335]]
complex that the poor American people do not even have a clear angle
with which to attack it and go out and purchase the automobiles. We
need to clear that up.
We need to put in this budget that we will give a 50 percent increase
at least on the tax incentives and make that a going up scale so that
we can get more hybrid cars running. We need to go and start giving
incentives to farmers who are producing corn and soybeans, creating a
new industry with which to produce ethanol, and mix that with our
gasoline to be able to carry our fuel much like Brazil is doing. We
need to enrich conservation programs to conserve our energy, and then,
finally, we have got to do all we can to get the American people out of
their automobiles, the commuter rail and with mass transit.
But where is the will? Where is the direction? Where is the
encouragement? Where is the inspiration to say let us go, America, we
can do it? That is what the American people are waiting on, and we have
got to provide the direction for them to do it. It is not this budget,
and that is why it is not passing.
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia. Mr.
Speaker, if you have any comments or concerns or questions for us, you
can e-mail us at [email protected]. That is
[email protected].
Next Tuesday night, Mr. Speaker, I will return to this House floor to
talk about the plight of our farm families across this country, the
disasters they face this year ranging from droughts in parts of the
country to the needs in other parts of the country, to the hurricanes,
a real concern among the Blue Dog Coalition about the plight of the
family farmer. It is every bit as critical to our Nation's security so
that our farm families can provide us with a safe and secure source for
food and fiber. That is just as critical to us as our energy sources
are. We will be talking more about that on the floor next Tuesday
night.
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