[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 166 (Tuesday, October 30, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H12218-H12224]
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 18, 2007, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, this evening, as most Tuesday evenings, I rise 
on behalf of the 47-member-strong, fiscally conservative Democratic 
Blue Dog Coalition.
  As I sat here, Mr. Speaker, thinking about what I wanted to discuss 
in this next hour with some of my Blue Dog colleagues, I couldn't help 
but listen to some of the rhetoric that we've heard over the past hour. 
You know, for 6 years, for 6 years the Republicans controlled the White 
House, the House and the Senate. And what did they give us? They gave 
us tax cut after tax cut for folks earning over $400,000 a year.
  And this new Democratic majority, what has the Democrats given you? 
We are giving you health care for children of working parents. Let me 
repeat that. This is health care for the children of working parents. 
This is not for children whose parents are on welfare. They're already 
covered under a program known as Medicaid, which is health insurance 
for the poor, the disabled and the elderly.
  Some 10 million children in America will go to bed tonight without 
health insurance, without the ability to go to the doctor when they get 
sick. And who are they? They're the children of parents who are trying 
to do the right thing and stay off welfare, but they're working the 
jobs with no benefits.
  While the Republicans were hiding earmarks, the Democrats in this new 
majority have been passing legislation that says if you're a Member of 
Congress and if you break the law, you lose your pension, period. And 
while the Republicans have been on an agenda that benefits those 
earning over $400,000 a year, the Democrats in this new majority have 
raised the Federal minimum wage for the first time in 10 years.
  If we're serious about moving people from welfare to work, we've got 
to pay them more than $10,712 a year, which is what the previous 
minimum wage represented if you worked 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a 
year, never get sick, and never take a single day off for vacation.
  Now, they said that the Democrats are wanting to provide health 
insurance for children of working parents. We plead guilty to that, and 
after all, if the working families have been benefiting from some of 
these tax cuts that primarily benefited those earning over $400,000 a 
year for the past 6 years, our working families might not need the 
help, but they do because under the past 6 years of a Republican White 
House, House and Senate, quite frankly, they haven't got it.
  It's time, Mr. Speaker, to tone down the political rhetoric and look 
at the facts, and as a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, I can tell you 
what we're all about. We're about fiscal discipline and accountability. 
We're about putting an end to the partisan bickering. We don't care if 
it's a Democrat or Republican idea. We ask ourselves, is it a 
commonsense idea and does it make sense for the people that send us 
here to be their voice?
  Today, the U.S. national debt is $9,063,547,746,613. If you divide 
that enormous number by every man, woman and child in America, 
including the children being born today, every one of us, our share of 
the national debt, $29,888. That's what those of us in the Blue Dog 
Coalition refer to as the debt tax, D-E-B-T, which is one tax that 
cannot be cut, cannot go away until we get our Nation's fiscal house in 
order.
  Tonight, we're going to be talking about the debt, the deficit, and 
as members of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, 
we're going to be talking about ways to put an end to this reckless 
spending.
  If you ask 100 people on the street what they think about this Iraq 
war policy, you will get about 100 different answers, but one of the 
things that unites us as Blue Dogs is we believe that the money that 
this administration asks for for Iraq should be accounted for. We 
believe that if this President is going to continue to spend, and this 
is year 5, if this President is going to continue to spend $16 million 
an hour, $16 million every 60 minutes going to Iraq, and if this 
President's going to continue down that path, then we believe we're not 
here tonight to debate the merits of $16 million an hour going to Iraq, 
but we're here tonight to hold this administration accountable for how 
that money is being spent and to ensure that it's being spent not on 
projects for Iraq but providing the protection and the state-of-the-art 
equipment that our brave and honorable men and women in uniform not 
only need but deserve.
  This war has affected all of us. My first cousin was in Iraq when his 
wife gave birth to their first child. He's now back for a second time, 
and he will be there when she gives birth to their third child. My 
family's not any different from many families across America.
  Many families have made the sacrifice, some of them the ultimate 
sacrifice, in support of their loved ones who have gone and simply done 
what they've been asked to do. And Mr. Speaker, if we're going to send 
our men and women in uniform to Iraq, we need to make sure some of this 
money is being spent on them, and we need to make sure that we're 
taking care of them.
  At this time, one of the things that the Blue Dog Coalition has done 
is

[[Page H12219]]

we've written legislation known as H. Res. 97 that was drafted by 
members of the Blue Dog Coalition to ensure accountability for how the 
money is being spent in Iraq. At this time, I would call on one of the 
cochairs, the cochair for policy for the Blue Dog Coalition, and that 
is my dear friend, the cochair for policy for the fiscally conservative 
Blue Dogs, and this is Dennis Moore of Kansas who's going to talk more 
to us this evening about H. Res. 97, which simply is called, Providing 
for Operation Iraqi Freedom Cost Accountability, and I thank 
Congressman Moore for being a part of this Special Order this evening.
  Mr. MOORE of Kansas. I thank Congressman Ross, and Mr. Speaker, for 
letting us speak this evening.
  The Blue Dogs, as Congressman Ross said, have introduced H. Res. 97, 
Providing for Operation Iraqi Freedom Cost Accountability, to address 
the lack of oversight and accountability with regard to our Federal 
Government's funding of the war in Iraq.
  H. Res. 97 currently has 63 cosponsors, myself included, and puts 
forward commonsense proposals that ensure future transparency and 
accountability in the funding of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This, I 
believe, is an important first step toward making sure that more 
resources get to our troops in the field and are not wasted on other 
things. We want to make sure that our brave men and women serving in 
Iraq and Afghanistan have what they need to do their job.
  H. Res. 97 focuses on four crucial points for demanding fiscal 
responsibility in Iraq: number 1, a call for transparency on how Iraq 
War funds are spent; number 2, the creation of a Truman Commission to 
investigate the awarding of contracts to make sure they are fairly 
awarded and get what they're intended to secure; number 3, a 
requirement to fund the Iraq war through the normal appropriations 
process and not through emergency supplementals as we have done 
throughout this whole war; and number 4, using American resources to 
improve Iraqi assumption of internal policing operations.
  Recently, Mr. Speaker, members of the Blue Dog Coalition worked 
together with House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton of 
Missouri to include key provisions of H. Res. 97 in the fiscal year 
2008 national defense authorization bill. In doing so, we took the 
first step toward ensuring complete fiscal transparency in the funding 
of the war in Iraq.
  The American people deserve to know how their tax dollars are being 
spent and that they're being spent wisely and that our troops have the 
resources they need to do their job and to protect themselves in the 
field.
  The Blue Dogs, Mr. Speaker, are committed to passing legislation that 
accomplishes this goal, to give our troops what they need and make sure 
they have the resources they need to protect themselves as well.
  Mr. Speaker, I've been a member of the Blue Dog group for more than 9 
years now, and in that period of time I have learned, and I've said 
this to my folks back home over and over and over again, 80 percent, 85 
percent of what we do up here in Congress should not be about Democrats 
and Republicans. We ought to be working for our people and for our 
country. And when I say that back home, I see people every time and in 
the audience sitting there shaking their heads yes. They're tired of 
the partisanship up here. They want us working together to do what's 
right for our people and our country.
  I have now eight grandchildren, Mr. Speaker, and we have mortgaged 
their future. Mr. Ross had a chart up here just a few minutes ago that 
showed we have a national debt in excess of $9 trillion, and we're 
passing that debt, Mr. Speaker, on to our children and grandchildren. 
To me that is immoral.
  We ought to change the way we're doing business here in Congress and 
do like most families. Most American families live within a budget, not 
all but most, and we should be doing the same thing. That's what our 
Blue Dog organization is all about, making sure that we, as a Nation, 
try to live and do live within the resources that we have and not pass 
this debt on to our children and grandchildren.
  I thank Congressman Ross.

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. ROSS. The gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore) is the cochair of 
policy of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition.
  As you can see, the 2007 Iraqi war funding, the total cost, $135.2 
billion; the cost per month, $11.3 billion; the cost per day, $370 
million. That's about $16 million an hour. I helped dedicate and break 
ground on interstate I-530, which someday will connect I-30 and I-40 in 
Little Rock through Pine Bluff to I-69 in southeast Arkansas, which 
could create a economic revival in one of the poorest regions of the 
country, the delta region.
  In my speech in Pine Bluff yesterday I couldn't help but point out in 
the last transportation reauthorization bill there was about $6 billion 
for new interstate construction for all of America for the next 5 
years. That's about the amount we will spend in Iraq in the next 2 
weeks.
  Don't get me wrong, let me make it very clear, as long as we have 
troops in harm's way, I am going to support them and make sure we 
support them as a Nation in providing them the very best that money can 
buy and the technology and the equipment they need to do their job as 
safely as possible and return home to their families. We have to ask 
ourselves at some point, $16 million an hour going to Iraq means $16 
million an hour we don't have to invest in our communities in America, 
that we don't have to invest in education and homeland security and 
veterans benefits, and the list is endless.
  At some point, at some point we have to demand a new direction in 
Iraq and begin to invest in America again.
  At this time, I would recognize our administrative cochair of the 
fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, and that's my good 
friend, Allen Boyd from Florida.
  Mr. BOYD. I want to thank my friend Mike Ross from Arkansas, the 
communications cochair of the 47 member strong fiscally conservative 
Blue Dog Democrats.
  I came down here tonight to join him to try to continue to deliver 
the message to the American people that I think in some ways this 
administration and this Congress have lost their focus on what's 
important to keep America great and strong.
  I noticed today that the President of the United States and the 
minority leader and the minority whip stood before the American people 
and talked about vetoing an appropriations bill which funds the health 
and education agencies of our Federal Government simply because that 
bill would increase spending over last year at a rate, I think, of some 
$9 billion or $10 billion, which is actually below inflationary and 
population increases. At the same time, the President of the United 
States has sent in a supplemental request down here for funding for the 
Iraq war, which I believe is to the tune of $49 billion or $50 billion 
to get us through the next few months.
  I think we have just lost our sense of balance, or our sense of what 
we have to do to keep America strong and keep it a great Nation. I want 
to refer, if I could, if we think about those numbers, about an agency 
of the Federal Government that helps provide health care and education 
benefits to the people of the United States of America, while we are 
thinking about that, I want to refer you to a recent report released by 
the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. In that report, 
we uncovered the waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayers' dollars caused by 
the lack of necessary oversight by the U.S. Government. This is 
something that the Blue Dogs have been focused on for a long time, is 
the government, we as a government being good stewards of our 
taxpayers' dollars that we take involuntarily from our citizens to run 
the government, to provide security, transportation and other things, 
the other functions of a government.
  This quarterly report, which details progress in the U.S. 
Government's reconstruction of Iraq, uncovers continuing problems which 
have left millions of dollars, billions of dollars unaccounted for and 
a large number of products unfinished in Iraq. In fact, the Inspector 
General himself has stated that 40 percent of all projects in Iraq are 
in danger of not being completed under the original contract and 
``virtually every project in Iraq has cost more or taken longer than 
expected.''
  The Inspector General also noted that some projects are never 
finished.

[[Page H12220]]

In one recent case, the Federal Government invested $90 million in a 
project to overhaul two giant turbines at a plant south of Baghdad. 
However, the multimillion dollar project, which is critical to 
providing power in Baghdad, has not been realized because of weak 
operations and maintenance practices by the Iraqis after the project 
was turned over in April of 2006.
  This report goes on to cite several examples of the same egregious 
waste, fraud, and abuse. I want to outline some of those; I want to 
give you six specific examples of the waste, fraud, and abuse 
identified in this Inspector General report.
  Number one was a 50-bed children's hospital in Basra, a 50-bed 
children's hospital in Basra, Iraq, which was originally expected to 
cost $50 million. This might be appropriate, because we have heard the 
previous speakers in the previous hour talk about how SCHIP ought to be 
vetoed, SCHIP, which would provide health care services to our children 
here.
  We just spent $50 million in Iraq on a children's hospital. That 
hospital is a full year behind schedule. The contractor responsible for 
the project left the hospital only about half complete, yet 100 percent 
over the original cost estimate. We haven't heard a lot of fuss about 
that from the previous majority.
  Number two, due to inefficient oversight by the State Department, the 
Federal Government spent $44 million on a residential camp for refugees 
that has never been used. Another $36 million was spent on weapons and 
equipment which are now unaccounted for.
  Number three, oil contract overcharges and contract mismanagement 
recently cost the U.S. Government $263 million. Oil contract 
overcharges and contract mismanagement, $263 million.
  Number four, due to poor contractor oversight, a failed oil pipeline 
project wasted nearly $76 million of your taxpayers' dollars.
  Number five, according to an Iraqi estimate, $5 billion per year, 
this is according to the Iraqi estimate, $5 billion per year is wasted 
due to widespread corruption in Iraq.
  Number six, after allocating $17 billion in U.S. funds to the 
security and justice reconstruction sectors in Iraq, only four of 
those, 18 of those sectors, only four have transferred to Iraqi 
control.
  This quarter's report also included a financial review of large 
contractors funded by the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund. 
International Bechtel is the largest Iraq Relief and Reconstruction 
Fund contractor, and there were many examples of waste and fraud and 
abuse discovered in that report when analyzing the Bechtel contracts.
  This report analyzed 24 job orders that Bechtel contracted to perform 
at a total cost to the government of $761.2 million. Of those 24 job 
orders, only 11 were successfully completed, 10 were incomplete, 
canceled or transferred to someone else, and the other three, they 
could not determine status of.
  You see that there are many, many problems in Iraq. I think that the 
American people have figured out that we have some serious, serious 
problems over there, not only with the policy as it relates to how we 
keep ourselves secure, but also to our involvement over there and our 
spending of, as Mr. Ross has shown you, $135 billion on an annual 
basis.
  That is $16 million an hour, $2.5 billion a week, $135 billion a 
year; and we seem to, in many cases, send that over there without 
asking a lot of questions about where the money is being spent and what 
we are getting for it. At the same time, we talk about vetoing an SCHIP 
bill which is $7 billion a year, which will go to cover 10 million 
additional children in the United States of America. I think we have 
just lost our way in terms of priorities.
  I want to wind up by telling our viewing audience that recently I 
took a trip to Iraq. It was my first visit over there. I led a 
congressional delegation of five Members, three of whom had never been 
before and two, it had been several years since they had been. It was a 
bipartisan delegation, a great group of Members to work with.
  We spent several days in the region, one full day in Baghdad. We 
found that morale of our Armed Forces, our uniformed personnel over 
there is very strong and very high. I am proud of that, having served, 
having worn the uniform of this country in Vietnam and served in an era 
when morale wasn't so high and we lost the support of the American 
people.
  It was refreshing to me to see that our morale is pretty high over 
there. I think our soldiers are performing what they are being asked to 
do. They are performing it very well.
  What I discovered is that what we are doing over there is policing 
the streets of Baghdad and refereeing a civil war in Iraq. That's not 
an appropriate role for the United States military. We don't even allow 
our military to police our streets here in America.
  This role has to be turned over to the Iraqi people. General Petraeus 
told us that we can train security forces, and we can get them in 
place, and we can train them, but unless the Iraqi Government can stand 
up and give them the command and control that they need and the 
logistical support that they need to be effective, they never will be 
effective. The Iraqi Government has failed at this point in time to 
stand up because they are fighting each over their sectarian 
differences, and we have to come to grips with that.
  I will close with that it kind of brought all this into focus for me 
and how out of kilter we have gotten on things. One of the briefings we 
have shown was a video that was taken in a fighter plane. I don't know 
what the cost of that Air Force plane was. It was probably maybe a 
quarter of a billion dollars, very expensive plane, delivered probably 
$50,000 to $100,000 worth of munitions to two Iraqis riding a bicycle 
out of a house.
  I thought to myself that we have really lost focus on what our great 
military is supposed to be used for. We should redirect our resources 
into a strategy which will provide long-term security for us around the 
world. That strategy has to be developed, well thought out, obviously, 
developed through a great deal of diplomacy, a great deal of political 
acumen and also the appropriate leverage of our great military that we 
have.
  I want to thank Mr. Ross for putting together this Special Order, but 
also for the many other Special Orders that you have done to try to 
deliver the Blue Dog message to the American people. I want to thank 
you for your service.
  Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), the 
administrative cochair of the Blue Dogs for his insight and examples of 
waste, fraud and abuse that's going on with your tax money over in 
Iraq.
  If you have got any comments or concerns or questions of us, you can 
e-mail us at [email protected]. That is [email protected].
  Again, this is an hour where most Tuesday evenings we come and lead a 
discussion about accountability and fiscal discipline in our government 
by the Blue Dog Coalition.
  If you are wondering how in the world did we get our name, Blue Dog 
Coalition, a lot of folks, especially in the South, have heard of a 
Yellow Dog Democrat, meaning you would vote for a Democrat even if it 
was a yellow dog as long as it was running as a Democrat. Somewhere 
along the way we were Yellow Dog Democrats that felt we were being 
choked blue by the extremes of both parties. Thus the name the Blue Dog 
Coalition, a group of fiscally conservative, commonsense Democrats that 
are trying to restore fiscal discipline and accountability to our 
government.
  At this time I am pleased to turn this thing over to a former policy 
cochair of the Blue Dogs, the gentleman from Tennessee, Jim Cooper.

                              {time}  1900

  Mr. COOPER. I thank my colleague from Arkansas.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to join this Blue Dog Special Order hour 
tonight. I would like to discuss not only the Wartime Spending 
Accountability Act but also another measure that most of the Blue Dog 
leadership has been kind enough to cosponsor having to do with reform 
of all of our entitlement programs.
  But first on wartime spending, there is absolutely no question that 
there's been an astonishing amount of waste, fraud and abuse in this 
conflict in Iraq. I personally was on the tarmac at the Baghdad Airport 
when a C-130 plane flew in, and the Air Force did not want us to see 
that plane land and unload its cargo. Well, why was that? Here are a 
group of U.S. Congressman standing on the runway and they did not want 
us to

[[Page H12221]]

see a U.S. plane land because of its cargo. Well, what was in that 
plane that was so secret? Well, the plane landed and they got the 
forklift out and they unloaded six pallets, very well wrapped up, 
absolutely full, very heavy. And what was in those pallets? $1.2 
billion of U.S. cold hard cash, $100 bills. I've never seen that much 
money in my life. I'm not sure if any bank in the country keeps that 
much cash on hand. But that much U.S. currency was flown into Baghdad. 
Why? We were told it was to go to replenish the Baghdad or Iraqi 
Central Bank. It certainly had the most elaborate convoy I've ever seen 
protecting that cash, because if it had been robbed, it would have been 
the greatest robbery in the history of the world. Now, the tragedy is 
we don't know how much of that money disappeared once it got to the 
bank and was in proper hands, because it is widely known that there is 
massive corruption in that country.
  Another incident that most people know about is the fact that U.S. 
contractors, who are supposed to be handling taxpayer money wisely, 
have been seen playing touch football with what, a football? No. With 
small bales of $100 bills. They've been so loose with our money, and 
they have so much on hand, not in single dollar form, but in bales of 
$100 bills, that they've been seen playing touch football with that.
  Another episode we were recently made aware of is due to the Iraqi 
Government's inability to pass an oil revenue sharing law. There's been 
a lot of upset by the Sunnis in al-Anbar province in particular because 
they're worried they won't get their fair share of Iraq's oil wealth.
  Well, recently a shipment was made of millions and millions of U.S. 
dollars to basically dump this money in a town square in al-Anbar 
province just to make sure the Sunnis felt better about themselves. 
That is not a wise use of U.S. taxpayer dollars.
  So the Inspector General in Iraq is doing an outstanding job of 
ferreting out this misuse of U.S. taxpayer money. We have tried here in 
the House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis to strengthen 
inspectors general. They are a wonderful mechanism for ferreting out 
waste, fraud and abuse. We passed a bill to strengthen inspectors 
general in this House by a vote of 404-11, an overwhelming bipartisan 
majority. And guess what the administration response was? They 
threatened to veto that bill. Veto a bill that enjoyed the support of 
404 House Members, overwhelming bipartisan support.
  I think we need to keep on strengthening inspectors general because 
they are finding problems with U.S. taxpayer dollars, and we need to 
root out all this waste, fraud and abuse.
  The other topic I wanted to focus on tonight is a different measure. 
And as important as the war in Iraq is, as important as it is to find 
misspent U.S. dollars, this topic is even bigger. This has to do with 
overall U.S. entitlement spending. And the proposal is H.R. 3654. We 
call it the SAFE Act. What it would do, and my bipartisan cosponsor is 
Frank Wolf of Virginia. David Broder actually commented on this bill in 
his national column today in the newspaper. What it would do is set up 
a bipartisan commission to study the problem of entitlements for 1 
year, then by the time the next President is sworn in, give that new 
President a commission recommendation that's completely bipartisan, a 
50/50 commission. All issues are on the table, so there's no 
favoritism, no exclusion of certain hot-button issues. And Congress 
would be required to vote up or down on the finding of that commission 
as well as on any proposal that the new President or this Congress 
would like to make.
  But the key is, this commission would have teeth. Congress would have 
to act. Reforms would have to take place, because if you look at our 
overall entitlement spending, there are severe problems.
  According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Medicare alone, which is 
one of the most important programs in America, Medicare alone is $32 
trillion in the hole. $32 trillion. That's many times larger of course 
than even $32 billion. This is $32 trillion. And their estimate is, if 
we knew how to measure it, that Medicaid would be in a similar bind. 
That's probably more than this Congress can handle in terms of problem 
solving this late in the session, so that's why we think that a 
bipartisan commission will do the best job and the fairest job and the 
most bipartisan job of coming up with a solution that we can all 
support to solve these fundamental fiscal problems.
  So I would encourage my colleagues to look at H.R. 3654, the SAFE 
Act, to try to remedy the entitlement crisis that we face in this 
country. A wide group of folks from all sides of the political spectrum 
have supported this measure: the Bipartisan Concord Coalition, for 
example, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Heritage 
Foundation on the right and the Brookings Foundation, which is more of 
a nonpartisan organization. So we have wide bipartisan support from the 
think tanks. We have wide bipartisan support in this body, with some 25 
Members from each side of the aisle cosponsoring the measure already. 
So I hope most of my colleagues can see their way clear to going ahead 
and cosponsoring H.R. 3654.
  But I want to thank my colleague from Arkansas, as my friend from 
Florida has said earlier, you've taken the lead on many weeks now to 
bring the message of the Blue Dogs to the American people, that message 
of fiscal conservatism, that message of centrism, that message of 
common sense and trying to do what's right for our country.
  We're fortunate in the Blue Dogs to have members from all corners of 
the country, from California to Maine, from Florida to Washington, it's 
a wide and diverse group, and we're proud of that. But the most 
important thing is the common sense we try to bring to these debates, 
because these shouldn't be highly partisan debates. Most Americans can 
agree when they get around the kitchen table or meet at the Rotary Club 
back home on what the right thing to do is for the country. We should 
show a similar amount of common sense here in Washington. So I thank my 
colleague from Arkansas, Mr. Ross, for holding this important Special 
Order.
  Mr. ROSS. I thank my colleague and former policy cochair for the Blue 
Dogs from Tennessee, Mr. Cooper, for his insight on not only Iraq war 
spending but these other fiscal responsibilities, trying to restore 
fiscal responsibility to our government and those issues surrounding 
that.
  You mentioned Medicare. Medicare is health insurance for, basically, 
it's the only form of health insurance most seniors have to either stay 
healthy or get well, not to be confused with Medicaid, which is health 
insurance for the poor, the disabled, and the elderly.

  Your bill, as you discuss the entitlement programs and find ways to 
put an end to these deficits, I applaud you for trying to do this in a 
bipartisan manner and having support on both sides of the aisle.
  Do you have any other examples you'd like to share with us on this 
legislation?
  Mr. COOPER. Well, we probably should mention the meeting that you and 
I had with all the other Blue Dogs with three remarkably distinguished 
Americans this afternoon because they, too, gave us some insight in our 
current fiscal situation in this country. I don't think you've 
mentioned this before earlier in the hour, but former Secretary of 
Treasury Bob Rubin came to meet with us, as well as former Secretary of 
Treasury Larry Summers, as well as former Deputy Secretary of the 
Treasury Roger Altman. One of our group called them actually the dream 
team of treasury management in recent American history, because under 
Secretary Rubin, Summers and Altman, we had 8 of the greatest years of 
growth in all of American history, certainly the longest sustained 
period since World War II. It was an amazing performance, an amazing 
feat, one that I hope that future treasury secretaries can try to live 
up to.
  But the key was sound fiscal management. Secretary Rubin in 
particular set the tone by making sure that the markets in this country 
were strong, making sure that growth was strong, making sure that 
prosperity was strong. So it was an amazing thing to hear these three 
gentlemen.
  And they're very concerned today because, unlike the surpluses that 
were being accumulated in the Clinton administration, especially in the 
last 3 years, now, of course we've sunk into terrible deficits. And 
they basically told us today that our number one

[[Page H12222]]

problem is a lack of savings in this country, a lack of personal 
savings, because the average American is having trouble paying their 
bills, doesn't put anything away for a rainy day, too tempted by credit 
cards, have to buy things. And now the Christmas season is coming up so 
there's a lack of personal savings, but there's also a huge lack of 
government savings, because when you run a large deficit, as we're 
doing, that's dissavings. That's the opposite of savings. So they 
pointed out that both things are problems for this country.
  And I know the gentleman also enjoyed their presentation. It was 
quite an honor for the Blue Dogs to have them ask us to share a few 
thoughts with them. And they are promoting, of course, their Hamilton 
Project, which is a centrist think tank here in Washington supported by 
these gentlemen and others to try to bring more common sense to 
Washington policy debates and economics.
  But I thank the gentleman for referring to those issues.
  Mr. ROSS. It was a fascinating discussion, and you raise a good 
point, and that is that it wasn't too long ago that Members of Congress 
were coming to this floor to debate how to spend a budget surplus, how 
to invest a budget surplus. You know, it was under President Clinton. 
I'm proud to say it was a fellow Arkansan from my home town of Hope, 
Arkansas, where I grew up and graduated high school, who gave us the 
first balanced budget of any Democrat or Republican President for the 
first time in what, 40 years?
  Mr. COOPER. Since 1969.
  Mr. ROSS. And he did that. There were several contributing factors 
that allowed him to be able to lead us in that direction, one of which 
was having what's called PAYGO rules on the floor of this very House, 
something the Republican leadership threw out the door with this new 
Republican President back in 2001. And what PAYGO rules mean is it 
means pay as you go. PAYGO is an acronym for pay as you go, which means 
exactly what it sounds like it means. If you've got an idea for a new 
program that's going to cost money, you've got to show how you're going 
to pay for it. No more of just borrowing money from China. If you want 
to cut taxes for folks earning over $400,000 a year, you've got to show 
how you're going to pay for it. No more borrowing money from China.
  And I'm proud to tell you that in this new Democratic Congress, 
there's a lot of discussion about the first 100 legislative hours where 
we raised the Federal minimum wage and where we implemented the 9/11 
Commission recommendations, where we said Members of Congress who break 
the law will no longer receive a pension, where we passed earmark 
reform, where we have passed SCHIP to ensure that the children of 
working parents receive health care. We've done a lot in this session 
of Congress. Unfortunately, a lot of it is sitting over on the Senate's 
doorsteps waiting for Senate action, which is somewhat disappointing 
for a lot of us that come here every week and work hard to pass these 
policy initiatives that are good for working families, good for 
children and good for seniors.
  But not in the first legislative 100 hours, not in the first 9 months 
of this new 110th Congress under a Democratic majority, but in the 
first hour on this very floor of the United States House of 
Representatives, this new Democratic Congress reinstituted a House rule 
known as PAYGO.
  You want to expand on that?
  Mr. COOPER. Well, the gentleman's exactly right. An authority of no 
less than Alan Greenspan said that PAYGO was the most important reform 
that this Congress could undertake to right our fiscal imbalance.
  PAYGO was actually started under the first President Bush in 1990. It 
was instituted on a bipartisan basis. It worked extremely well for 12 
years, from 1990 to 2002. And then sadly the Republican majority here 
allowed it to expire. And that's when, really, our fiscal wheels 
started running off the track.
  So we swung from a surplus, a surplus that was growing so fast there 
was actually fear that the United States would be debt free, as if you 
could be afraid of that, that would have been a glorious moment in our 
history for our children to be unburdened by interest payments and 
future generations. That was the prospect when President Clinton left 
office.
  And then to swing from that into, as all Blue Dogs have, we have the 
debt sign outside of our office. Now it's $9 billion, $29,000 for every 
man, woman and child in this country. But it's growing so rapidly. And 
that doesn't even take into account our Medicare, our Social Security, 
our Medicaid and other entitlement program liabilities. So it's a 
monster of a problem, and it's going to take a bipartisan commission to 
deal with it.

                              {time}  1915

  But PAYGO, according to Alan Greenspan and other authorities, was the 
single most important reform step that we could undertake. The Blue 
Dogs are responsible for that reform. It's working. I am proud of our 
Democratic leadership here because they have been remarkably strict in 
making sure that every bill that reaches this House floor adheres to 
PAYGO requirements.
  And as you said, it is completely common sense. If you want something 
new, pay for it. Don't charge it. And that is the way America needs to 
be acting in the future.
  So I think it will not inhibit new ideas. It will just make sure that 
new ideas are fiscally responsible and paid for so we are not adding to 
the debt load of our kids and grandkids, and, as the gentleman said, 
not borrowing any more money from foreign countries, because we've done 
too much of that already.
  Many Americans don't realize that President Bush, his administration, 
has already borrowed more money from foreign nations than all previous 
Presidents in American history put together. What a sad record to hold, 
to have borrowed more money from foreign nations than all previous 
Presidents in American history combined. That's not good medicine for 
America. That's not good fiscal policy. And the Blue Dogs are leading 
the way in helping to change that.
  Mr. ROSS. That is a national security issue, in my opinion, Mr. 
Cooper. What if those countries decide to call those loans? What does 
that mean? The ``dream team,'' Mr. Rubin and the others told us today 
what it meant, and I think you asked the question. And it means higher 
interest rates. They will have to raise interest rates in this country 
to where it's attractive for other countries to buy our paper, to buy 
our money. That is, I think, directly a threat to our national 
security.
  And to put it in perspective, the total national debt from 1789 
through 2000 was $5.67 trillion. But by 2010, the total national debt 
will have increased to $10.88 trillion under this Republican 
President's administration and under his budgets that he sends to 
Congress. This is a doubling, a doubling, of the 211-year debt in just 
10 years. Interest payments on this debt are one of the fastest-growing 
parts of the Federal budget, and the debt tax is one that cannot be 
repealed. For every man, woman, and child in this country, you take the 
national debt and divide by the number of people. It is about $29,000 
per person. And that is one tax that cannot be cut until we get our 
Nation's fiscal house in order.
  Our Nation, under this Republican President's budget, is borrowing 
about a billion dollars a day. But before we borrow another billion 
dollars a day, we are spending about a half billion paying interest on 
the debt we have already got.
  This puts it in perspective. Interest payments on debt dwarf other 
priorities, the 2008 budget authority in the billions of dollars. The 
red box is the amount of money, your tax money, Mr. Speaker, that is 
going to pay interest on the national debt, to repay the loans to 
places like Japan and China and the United Kingdom and OPEC and Korea 
and Taiwan and the Caribbean Banking Centers and Hong Kong and Germany 
and Mexico.
  We talk a lot about education. We talk about how we want our children 
to receive a world-class education. But the turquoise box, this box, 
Mr. Speaker, reflects how much of your tax money is going to educate 
our children compared with the amount going in the red to pay interest 
on the national debt.
  We say we want to keep our promises to our veterans. We say we want 
to provide our veterans with world-class

[[Page H12223]]

health care and housing and education when they return home. But in the 
green box, Mr. Speaker, you will see the amount of money we're spending 
on our veterans compared to the red box, the amount of money being 
spent on interest on the national debt.
  And, finally, the purple box, homeland security. Now, I came here in 
2001. The first 9 months of 2001, I don't think I ever heard the word 
``homeland security'' mentioned once. But that is now a household name, 
a household phrase, a household word. Homeland security. It make us 
feel good. We go through the metal detectors at the airport and we feel 
safer. We take our shoes off and I always take my pen out of my pocket, 
and we feel safer. And what most of us don't know is about half the 
belly of a plane is not your suitcase that you saw X-rayed. It's 
freight, freight that continues to go unchecked. About one out of every 
100 containers that enter our ports, five out of every 100 containers, 
maybe 10 out of every 100 containers that enter our ports are checked.
  And what about the food we put in our body? Mr. Speaker, for all the 
seafood and fruits and vegetables that come into this country from 
other countries by way of port, do you know how many FDA inspectors 
there are at those ports? Not per port. But for all the ports in 
America. For all the seafood, fruits, and vegetables coming into 
America from all over the world, there are about 70 FDA inspectors. Not 
per port, not per shift, not counting the ones that aren't sick or on 
vacation. There are 70 total. Homeland security, the purple box, this 
is how much we are really investing in protecting our homeland. And 
that is why a recent nonpartisan assessment indicated that we are less 
safe today in America than we were on September 11, 2001.
  These priorities, education, veterans, homeland security, will 
continue to go unmet until we get our Nation's fiscal house in order.
  Deficits matter. They reduce economic growth. They burden our 
children and grandchildren with liabilities. They increase our reliance 
on foreign lenders who, as Mr. Cooper pointed out, now own 40 percent 
of our debt. That's right. Our Nation, the U.S., is becoming 
increasingly dependent on foreign lenders. Foreign lenders currently 
hold a total of $2.199 trillion of our public debt. Compare that to 
only $623.3 billion in foreign holdings in 1993. It's kind of like 
David Letterman and his top 10 list. The top 10 countries, this 
Republican administration, this Republican Congress for the past 6 
years time after time after time has borrowed money from foreigners to 
fund tax cuts in this country for folks earning over $400,000 a year.
  And whom have we borrowed the money from? Japan, $637.4 billion; 
China, $346.5 billion; United Kingdom, $223.5 billion; OPEC, $97.1 
billion; Korea, $67.7 billion; Taiwan, $63.2 billion; Caribbean Banking 
Centers, $63.6 billion; Hong Kong, $51 billion; Germany, $52.1 billion.
  And rounding out my version of David Letterman's top 10 list, the 
10th country that we have borrowed the most money from, number 10 on 
the list, all this debate these days about immigration policies, and I 
think we do need to secure the border and I think that we should have 
those who want to come here and live among us play by the rules, 
respect our laws, learn English, respect our flag. I believe those 
things. No amnesty, as Mr. Reagan gave us during his years in office. 
We learned that doesn't work. But rounding out the top 10, while 
everybody is focused on immigration: Mexico. The United States of 
America has borrowed $38.2 billion from Mexico to fund tax cuts in this 
country for folks earning over $400,000 a year. Those are the facts.
  I am pleased to be joined by a fellow Blue Dog from the State of 
North Carolina, Mr. Mike McIntyre.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. McINTYRE. Thank you, Congressman Ross, for yielding and thank you 
for leading this discussion, a very important one, to show the Blue 
Dogs' commitment to common sense with regard to the American taxpayers' 
dollar.
  And I want to focus, in the few moments we have left, on our 
commitment to helping business, American businesses, that provide jobs. 
We know that the Blue Dog Coalition has tried to do everything it could 
to help our businesses, especially small business, as many of our 
districts we know look to small business to help that economic engine 
churn. Indeed, 99 percent of all business is small business. And when 
we talk about that, it means that we have an opportunity to work with 
businesses who help to provide better health care for their employees, 
who also help people to pursue their dreams and provide college 
education for their children, who help their family members with their 
personal needs and through our small businesses who help not only with 
charitable contributions in their communities but community leadership, 
civic engagement, and a myriad of other positive activities that affect 
the American family and, indeed, our American communities.
  I want to talk about for a moment how we are doing that in very 
specific ways when we look at prosperity and the protection and the 
progress we have made in trying to help small business. And what it 
means is that we use a commonsense approach when it comes to our 
checkbook, that we don't spend more money than we have, than any of us 
would do in our own checkbook. And there are three specific ways that I 
want to remind us this year that the Blue Dogs have sought to do this. 
And that is through a package that we introduced a few months ago and 
are continuing to work on that has different ways that we can put 
together legislation to restore fiscal discipline to the Federal 
Government after years of budgetary mismanagement and irresponsible 
deficit spending.
  The first part of this legislation is the Blue Dog fiscal 
accountability package. It is the opportunity for us to be able to 
strengthen fiscal responsibility and accountability by making sure we 
do follow the statutory PAYGO rules, or pay-as-you-go, a commonsense 
term that our leadership has adopted to make sure that we are 
implementing multiyear discretionary spending caps. This would make 
sure that we are not spending any more of the taxpayer dollars than we 
have in our budget, that we get out of the habit of running up the 
national debt.
  And as you pointed out earlier tonight, right now the national debt 
stands at a figure that means about $29,888 for every man, woman, and 
child in America. And that is totally unacceptable.
  The second part of our legislative package, in addition to making 
sure we have accountability and honesty in our budgeting, is the 
Balanced Budget amendment, which so many of us have supported, to 
provide a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to balance the 
Federal budget every year. This legislation allows for flexibility 
during times of war, natural disaster, or economic downturn by giving 
Congress the ability to waive the balanced budget requirement with a 
three-fifths vote in the House and Senate. And it also prohibits cuts 
in Social Security benefits from ever being used in order to balance 
the budget. So it protects our senior citizens as well.
  We have got to make sure that we are paying down this national debt. 
It's not fair to mortgage our children's future. It's not fair to 
mortgage our grandchildren's future. It's not fair to put a price tag 
on every baby born in every hospital in America of $29,000 in debt from 
the second they take their first breath. And that bill is being put not 
only on children but on family members of all ages, even our senior 
citizens. That has to stop.
  The third piece of legislation we have also deals with strengthening 
the budget process, to make sure the Members of Congress have a 
sufficient amount of time to properly examine legislation and its 
actual cost implications, to make sure there is transparency in the 
process and requiring the Congressional Budget Office to have a cost 
estimate accompany any bill or conference report that comes to the 
House floor.
  And, Mr. Speaker, these are only practical ways that the Blue Dogs 
are seeking to make sure we have honesty, transparency, and common 
sense in our budgetary process. The central guiding battle cry that we 
as Blue Dogs have is make sure that we are accountable and make sure 
that the taxpayers' dollar is only being used in the most fiscally 
responsible way, as any of us would want done with our own money. After 
all, it is the taxpayers' dollars, and that is to whom we are 
accountable and want to honor.

[[Page H12224]]

  Thank you for this opportunity to address this to my colleague, and, 
Mr. Speaker, it is about prosperity for the American Dream. It is about 
protecting the American taxpayers' dollars and about making sure that 
we are working together for progress in our society.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina.
  In the remaining four or five minutes we have, I want to turn this 
over to one of the founders, one of the long-time leaders of the 
fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, and that is my 
friend from Iowa, Mr. Leonard Boswell.
  Mr. BOSWELL. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate my friend from Arkansas 
giving me this opportunity. And I want to compliment you for the 
untiring hours you've spent in trying to tell this Nation, this 
Congress, and all who will listen that it is time to be fiscally 
responsible. It has been for some time.
  And I would like to associate myself with my friend from North 
Carolina in the comments he just made. Very, very germane to what is 
going on in our country today. In fact, around the world. And as you 
can tell, Mr. Ross, I am one of the older folks around here. I don't 
know if that's something I should be proud of. I guess I'm proud versus 
the alternative. But oftentimes people say to me, You're going to be 
all right. Why are you worried about it so much?
  Well, I am worried about it. Yes, at my age I suppose I'm going to be 
all right. But you know what? I have children and I have grandchildren 
and I am very proud of them, and I want them to have the opportunities.

                              {time}  1930

  In fact, just like you and you and you and anybody else that's paying 
attention, we all want it better for our children, that's just 
inherent. And they're not going to have that opportunity if we don't do 
something about this. And that's what you display right there on that 
chart.
  That figure of $9 trillion-plus is staggering, and it's growing; it 
has been for the last number of years. And we went from the opportunity 
of being in a surplus to this unbelievable deficit situation. And it 
really ties our hands as to what we can do as we think about our 
leadership in the world we know today.
  This very day I'm quite sure that we've had people from our Treasury 
Department over in China trying to borrow money so we can continue to 
run on deficit, and this just won't work. You can't do your business in 
Arkansas, you can't do it in North Carolina, I can't do it in Iowa, 
nobody can.
  There comes a time when you have to face reality. And Mr. Stenholm 
used to tell us from time to time that if you realize you're in trouble 
and going into a hole, the first thing you do is quit digging. And 
there is something to that. Well, we need to do it, and we need to do 
it badly.
  So, I am pleased to associate with the Blue Dog Coalition, I have 
been for some time, and the leadership that Mr. Ross and others, Mr. 
Boyd and others, have given to trying to make this point come to life 
in the sense that we've got to do it for our country and for our kids 
and our grandkids. This is something we must do, and there is just no 
choice about it.
  I think there is a lot of hope for us in the world that we're living 
in today. I have a lot of hope, and I want to keep it that way. At the 
same time, I'm fully aware from my travels and from my life experience 
that the world is in a perilous situation. And we won't always be in 
this leadership position if we don't take a hold and get our arms 
around this situation. But we've got to do it.
  And as we well know, the time is now at hand, I think it's already 
here, that China is a superpower. They are certainly going to be if 
they're not; I think they probably are. India, the demands they're 
putting on us. The big trade deficits we've got, we can't sustain 
those. And you put all this in line with this tremendous debt we have 
and what we're paying for interest annually, it equates to something 
like $250 billion a year. It equates to one of our major line items for 
our department. We can't afford to do that, and we have to face 
reality.
  So, I really appreciate the efforts being made by you, Mike, and all 
of us to try to do something about this, and the fact that the 
leadership of this Congress has accepted our idea of PAYGO. And it's 
something we have decided upon and we've got to stick to it. There are 
going to be a lot of temptations to vary from that. And as we went into 
the farm bill, for example, it was so hard to do it, but we stuck with 
it, we worked hard and we came up with a viable solution. We've got to 
do it in all the things that lay before us. We've got to set the 
priorities and get those things done.
  I see the time is about up. So I yield back to you, Mr. Ross, for the 
closing comment, if you would like. I just want to say I appreciate 
coming here this evening and sharing some of my concerns for this 
situation at hand. We have to take it as a real situation. It's here. 
And if we don't do our job, we're going to leave it on our children and 
our grandchildren, and we don't want to do that.
  Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman from Iowa.
  The gentleman from North Carolina.
  Mr. BOSWELL. Just the last word I'll say is we always want to 
remember it's the taxpayers' money. It's not Washington's money, it's 
not the government's money, it's the taxpayers' money, and we want to 
do everything we can to make sure that everything is honored. That's 
the Blue Dogs' battle cry, and that's where we stand. And I thank you 
for this opportunity to share in this.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, this evening you've heard from Blue Dog 
members from Kansas, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, Iowa and 
Arkansas. And we're a group of 47 fiscally conservative Democrats that 
are simply trying to restore common sense and fiscal discipline to our 
Nation's Government as we try to offer up commonsense, practical ways 
to put an end to this reckless spending and hold this government 
accountable for how your tax money is being spent.

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