[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 20 (Thursday, February 7, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H798-H804]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz)
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker and Members, colleagues, I am
pleased to open this hour for the 30-Something Working Group, look
forward to my fellow colleagues joining me as we progress through the
hour.
We come to the floor tonight to talk about a variety of important
issues. We are proud and pleased that we sent an economic stimulus
package that was developed in a bipartisan fashion, in a bipartisan
spirit, this evening to the President of the United States. It was a
process that was long negotiated and hard fought, but we were able to
make sure that we focused on the priorities of the American people
during a difficult time economically.
The focus of this economic stimulus package was threefold, and they
all begin with ``t.'' First, an economic stimulus package that we
passed had to be ``temporary.'' We have to make sure that we can get a
temporary infusion of cash into the hands of the middle class and
people who will spend that money, and make sure that we can stimulate
the economy.
It has to be ``targeted.'' It has to make sure that we were getting
it into the hands of people who were actually going to spend that
money, not people that were going to invest it, not people that
necessarily were going to just pay off bills or sit on the money, but
people who were going to use it to spend on items that they needed and
get that infusion of cash into the economy so that we can have a short-
term stimulus.
And, finally, the third ``t'' in the three-legged stool is that it
had to be ``timely.'' We had to do it soon and quickly because in order
to either stave off a recession, or address the one that we're in,
depending on which side of the debate you're on, on whether we're in a
recession or headed towards one, we needed to make sure that we did
this in a timely fashion and made sure that we can get that cash into
people's hands over the next couple of months. And now we look forward
to that happening.
Let me walk Members and others through the process that we went
through. This was truly a bipartisan effort. It continued the
bipartisan spirit that Speaker Pelosi and our majority leadership have
been making an effort at extending our hand across the aisle since
taking over the majority a little over 1 year ago.
In December of last year, the House, under the leadership of Speaker
Pelosi, held a House Democratic Economic Forum to talk about the dire
straits that the economy was facing to really hear about what issues
Americans were struggling with and to begin to figure out what we could
do on a short-term as well as a long-term basis.
{time} 2030
After the beginning of December, we had ongoing discussions between
the House leaders and the administration through Treasury Secretary
Paulson. There were intense and heavy discussions because everyone knew
that something needed to be done. The devil is always obviously in the
details.
But we came together, the administration as well as the Republican
and Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives, we came
together and came up with a bipartisan solution.
There was a Democratic leadership letter to President Bush that was
sent on January 11 urging the President to work with us and make sure
that we could pass an economic stimulus package that was timely and
targeted and that we made sure that it got money into the hands of
people who would spend it.
We saw that Pelosi had a meeting with the Federal Reserve Chairman
Ben Bernanke, and he testified in the House of Representatives on
January 14 and thereafter, and the message that he sent was that an
economic stimulus package was essential and would be helpful in order
to deal with the issues that the economy is struggling with.
After that, we had a meeting between Speaker Pelosi and Leader
Boehner, and they were able to reach an agreement and move in the
direction until we finally reached today where we are able to pass the
economic stimulus package, send it to the President, and over the next
couple of months, I believe the timing is around May of this year, we
will see that those funds get into the hands of people who need it the
most.
One of the most exciting things about this package is that it is not
going to go to the wealthiest few. It is not going to go to people who
are just going to put it into the stock market or sit on it or just pay
off bills or use it to pad fat bank accounts. We were able to
successfully negotiate that the people who received this economic
stimulus, these economic stimulus funds, we were able to stretch it all
the way down to people who earn only $3,000. I mean, that is a category
of person who truly fits the definition of needing the economic
assistance. People who will be able to use those funds to make sure
that they can address their everyday needs and spend those dollars so
that we can put it an injection of cash into the economy and begin to
revitalize it.
We made sure that we also provided some assistance for people who are
struggling with housing issues and with mortgage issues by making sure
that the FHA has a wider ceiling of mortgages in which they can provide
loans to people. We have raised the cap to up over $700,000,
recognizing that the range of the cost of housing is wide across the
country.
It's good to see Mr. Altmire, and I'm glad you have joined us
tonight. I know that the average price of a house in my district, in my
community right now is over $300,000, which, obviously, without an
economic stimulus package raising that cap would make it difficult for
someone to qualify under the FHA's criteria. But we were able to make
sure that we raised that cap for 1 year so that we could address in a
short-term way the third T, which was ``temporary,'' in a short-term
way address the economic problems that people are struggling with right
now.
And we have continued the bipartisan tradition through the economic
stimulus package because last year, when we began and took over the
majority, we adopted the 6 in '06 agenda.
In the first 100 hours of our taking over the majority of the House
of Representatives, the Democratic Congress
[[Page H799]]
acted on issues important to Americans, and the Republicans on the
other side of the aisle joined with us in a bipartisan fashion.
Mr. Murphy has joined us as well.
Let's walk through some of the bipartisan cooperation that we've had
over the last years because there is a lot of words thrown around about
how this is an institution that is being run by Democrats and that
there is not bipartisan cooperation. Let us just show where the proof
is in the pudding here.
We implemented the 9/11 Commission's recommendations which, in
previous years, this was a report that was sitting on the shelf
gathering dust with the Republicans refusing to put that on the floor
and adopt up that legislation. We put it on the floor. It passed 299-
128 with 68 Republican votes.
We had an average of over 60 votes for every one of these bills.
Raising the minimum wage, H.R. 2. It passed 315-116 with 82 Republican
votes.
The funding for enhanced stem cell research, which unfortunately
President Bush saw fit to veto. That was H.R. 3. it passed 253-174 with
37 Republican votes.
We passed legislation to make prescription drugs more affordable, so
that we could allow the Federal Government to negotiate for lower drug
prices with the pharmaceutical industry which, by the way, is currently
prohibited in Federal law. We passed that legislation with 255-170 with
24 Republican votes. And the list goes on.
Cutting student loans in half. That was H.R. 5. Passed 356-71 with
124 Republican votes.
And, lastly, we passed the energy package, which was the effort that
we are making to recognize that global warming, yes, global warming,
truly is a problem and we are committed to ending our addiction to
foreign oil. Adopted the CAFE standards, the first time that we adopted
some improved CAFE standard in 30 years.
H.R. 6 passed 264-163 with 36 Republican votes. In that legislation,
the CAFE standards was legislation that was passed a few months later.
And in this bill we said that we were not going to allow $14 billion in
subsidies to be returned to the oil industry so we could make sure that
we start to address the high cost of fuel.
So we are very proud of our record, our bipartisan spirit of
cooperation, which culminated this evening and will continue, we hope,
through the rest of this election year by passing that economic
stimulus package.
I'm happy to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida, and
I'm glad the chart is up today and our colleagues are able to look at
that.
Those are the six items that we identified as our top six legislative
priorities for the 110th session of Congress and starting with the very
first day, January 4, 2007. So, going back more than a year, we began
work on these projects. And as the gentlewoman pointed out, four of the
six have become law. They've been signed into law by President Bush.
All four of them passed with strong bipartisan support. The other two
that did not become law, both passed the House. In the case of stem
cell research, it passed the House twice and it passed the Senate twice
and was vetoed by the President twice. Unfortunately, we were unable to
override the veto. The Medicare prescription drugs, that failed in the
Senate. But all six of these passed the House with strong bipartisan
support. Four of them have been enacted into law.
I'm glad to hear about the stimulus package, too. That was the vote
that we cast today. And I'm very excited with the quick response that
this House and the Senate gave to the American people. We worked
together in a bipartisan way to address the problems with the economy.
Just about any economist that you talk to, bipartisan, across the
spectrum, will say that we are in great danger of slipping into a
recession if we are not already in a recession.
So coming back at the very beginning of the year, working together,
the first week back, we put together the stimulus package. We passed it
out of the House. We sent it to the Senate. They took a little bit
longer, but they got their work done, and I congratulate them for that.
They passed it today, sent it over to us. We immediately passed it out
of the House, and now we are going to send it on to the President.
And this is a stimulus package that is directly going to impact
people's lives. This is a tax rebate that is going to put money in the
hands of consumers who are going to spend it. And I know we are going
to talk in some more detail about that. I will leave that discussion
for after Mr. Murphy speaks.
But I did want to point out the issue that we are talking about is
bipartisanship. We came back from the holidays, saw the need, heard
from the economists, and immediately sprung into action, put together a
package in a bipartisan way. Got it done. Both sides of this Capitol.
Now we are sending it to the President.
The reason this is so important is because of some of the issues that
Ms. Wasserman Schultz was talking about. The subprime mortgage issue
that we all have heard so much about. One of the issues that people
need to think about among our colleagues is that when you think about
mortgages that are unable to be paid and foreclosures taking place with
the subprime mortgages, in many cases this is not a case of somebody
buying too much house, buying a house they can't afford, being unable
to pay their mortgage. Certainly that does happen.
The bulk of these mortgages that go bad in the foreclosures that take
place are second mortgages. There are people who are unable to pay
their bills because of rising gas prices, because of rising health care
prices, because of higher education costs. They're simply unable to
make ends meet. They take out a second mortgage to pay their daily
expenses and unfortunately get in over their heads and lose their homes
as a result.
So this stimulus package, by putting money into the hands of people
who are going to be able to use it to pay bills and stimulate the
economy and buy merchandise and hopefully get the economy kick-started
again and prevent a recession, or at least lessen the impact of a
recession if we are already in one, this is a very important piece of
legislation that both the House and the Senate passed today.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I want to underscore how
important it is that you have seen a remarkable degree of coordination
and bipartisan cooperation in the House on the second stimulus package.
Because you and I both know as acutely as anybody in this Chamber,
because we were out there campaigning for change here in Washington,
that folks were sort of sick and tired of everything being a fight
here, everything being lined up as Republicans against Democrats,
conservatives against liberals, X against Y, A against B. That was kind
of the order of the day here during the last 12 years before the
election of 2006. Everything was going to be a partisan fight, and
there really wasn't going to be any real effort to reach across the
aisle. That's changed. You and I weren't here, but we know what the
perception was from the outside. And the perception, and I think Ms.
Wasserman Schultz will testify, that was backed up by reality.
Now, cooperation that you see on the economic stimulus package
doesn't mean that you still don't fight for what you believe in when
you have an honest-to-goodness disagreement, and we are going to talk a
little bit tonight about some fights that are about to come, some lines
in the sand that we, as Democrats, are prepared to draw with the
President and his Republican followers here in the House. But there are
so many other things that you don't need to fight about, there is
honest-to-goodness agreement on, whether it be jump-starting this
economy with an economic stimulus package, whether it be passing
reasonable restraints on the mortgage market, opening up access to
liquidity for people who want to refinance their homes, have a means to
do it but can't find anybody to give them the money and the access to
capital. Those are issues that don't have right and left divides. The
economic downturn doesn't discriminate against you whether you're a
Republican or a Democrat.
So we are passing bills here to deal with this economic slowdown with
Republicans and Democrats behind it, and that's what people want us to
do.
Now, that doesn't mean they want this Chamber to be Kumbaya on every
[[Page H800]]
single issue. They sent us here to fight for what we believe and what
the American people believe in. But you don't have to default to one
position all the time or the other position all the time. You don't
have to be cooperating on everything or fighting on everything. You can
pick and choose. That's what a parent does every day. I mean, you
choose the battles that you are going to fight with your kids. As a
kid, you choose the battles you are going to fight with your parents.
There are things that you get along with them on and things you
disagree on.
This place, for a very long time, resorted to the fault of fight
about everything, never bother to reaching across the aisle, never try
to pass a package with the Republicans and Democrats. I mean, why would
you have to? If you have a majority of Republicans here, you can just
pass it with Republicans. So why reach out to Democrats? The majority
rules in the House.
That's not what the American people want. They want to see that
bipartisan partnership. They want to see bills not passing 51 percent
to 49 percent. They want to see some bills passing by a real majority.
That's what you saw with the 100 hours agenda, and that's what Ms.
Wasserman Schultz pointed out. That's what you saw with the economic
stimulus. You might not see it every time, but you are going to see it
a lot more times in this Congress.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And that's the direction we are going to
continue to go in, because that line in the sand that you referred to,
we have got to draw one. And the place that we draw it is a real
commitment to making sure that we move back into a surplus situation
like we were in before this administration took us to hell in a
handbasket. I mean, let's take a look at the deterioration that our
budget has gone through over the last number of years.
We had a situation where the budget has deteriorated by $8.8 trillion
under Republican policies. In the 2001 fiscal year, we had a $5.6
trillion surplus. Literally leading into President Bush taking office,
we were in a $5.6 trillion surplus.
Now, over the time of this administration, which is approaching 7\1/
2\, almost 8 years, we have gone from a $5.6 trillion surplus to a $3.2
trillion deficit.
{time} 2045
Now, if there is anyplace that I think that this Democratic majority
will draw a line in the sand, it's here, so that we can make sure we
take our established policies and adopt a budget and a plan and a
blueprint to get us back to a surplus situation.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Will the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I think it serves us to point out that
this belies conventional wisdom that Democrats are the ones to draw the
line in the sand when it comes to fiscal responsibility. I mean, the
image out there, for whatever reason, for a long time was that if you
cared about deficit reduction, if you cared about drawing the line on
spending, you might vote Republican. Well, that hasn't been backed up
by facts for 12 years now. It was the Clinton administration that had
record surpluses. It was a Republican President and a Republican
Congress that racked up those enormous deficits. So now, we, as
Democrats, are the ones coming down here and saying, listen, if you
care about fiscal responsibility, this is the party that you want in
charge of your Congress. This is the line that we're going to draw in
the sand.
And it bears pointing out the sort of strange irony of that because
for a long time the conventional wisdom was the opposite. But the facts
back up the reality, which is that if you care about spending, it's the
Democrats that are going to offer to draw that line in the sand.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Exactly. And let's detail some of those facts,
because the mythology that you just laid out, which is that it's
Republicans that are fiscally responsible and that it's Democrats that
cause debt, let's take the reality of the Bush administration's
responsibility and stewardship of our fiscal house over the last
several years.
This administration, under President Bush's leadership, is
responsible for the five biggest deficits in American history. Now,
there was a whole lot of talk, Mr. Altmire, as you recall over the last
year or so, from this administration about how they were going to get
us out of debt over the next 4 or 5 years. Right? Well, the third
highest deficit that exists is proposed in the budget document that
President Bush submitted to the Congress on Monday at $407 billion. The
only two higher deficits that were projected were last fiscal year and
in fiscal year 2004, when it was $413 billion. We're going in the wrong
direction.
Mr. ALTMIRE. I would say, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, not to interrupt,
but the President did tell us last year that he was going to reduce the
deficit, and I see here that last year we had a $410 billion deficit.
And he did, in fact, reduce it. Let's give credit where credit is due.
The deficit this year is only going to be $407 billion.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. That is backing up words with actions, Mr.
Altmire.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Altmire, will you yield?
Mr. ALTMIRE. I certainly will.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you. Because we backed out $3 billion in
deficit in a $3 trillion budget. The budget this year that he proposed
was over $3 trillion.
Mr. ALTMIRE. I'm being facetious, obviously. A $407 billion deficit
for 1 year is a very significant deficit, third highest ever submitted
behind only the budget he submitted last year and the budget from 2004.
But I really appreciate the gentlewoman giving us a little walk down
memory lane because we're in a Presidential election year this year, so
people are thinking about Presidential politics. And I like to remind
my colleagues to think back to the 2000 Presidential election, and
let's remember what the discussion was at that time. The Clinton
administration was wrapping up. We're in our fourth consecutive year of
budget surplus at that time. And as the gentlewoman pointed out with
the previous chart, those surpluses were forecast as far as the eye
could see, $5.6 trillion forecasted deficit over 10 years. So the
discussion during the Presidential election in the year 2000 between
Vice President Gore and then-Governor Bush was, what are we going to do
with all this money? This is an incredible surplus. We're awash in
money. Are we going to shore up the Social Security trust fund? Are we
going to pay down the debt? What are we going to do with this money?
Well, now it's 8 years later, and unfortunately we are not having
that discussion anymore, because instead of having had a $5.6 trillion
surplus, as the gentlewoman pointed out, we have had a $3.5 trillion
deficit over just the past 7 years. So that $5.5 trillion surplus was a
10-year projection, $3.5 trillion over 7 years. And as the gentlewoman
points out, that's almost a $9 trillion swing.
And I often ask, when we discuss the budget, if you had said to an
economist or any group of economists after the new administration took
over and they were facing this $5.5 trillion surplus, if you had said,
well, what would it take to have a $9 trillion swing to the negative in
the surplus to a deficit, just about any economist you talk to would
have said, well, that's impossible. You can't possibly mismanage the
economy to such an extent that you would have a $9 trillion swing over
just 7 years. Well, unfortunately, this current administration has done
the impossible; they have added $3.5 trillion to the national debt,
which now stands at $9.2 trillion.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Altmire, we're talking about giant
numbers here, but let me give you another point of comparison. I mean,
there are so many different ways to make this point to the American
people that we have allowed spending in this budget to spiral out of
control under Republican leadership and to hammer home the point that
the problem that the Democratic majority has inherited is one that is
going to take a long time to fix, but it is only going to be fixed by
having a truly fiscally responsible leadership here in the House in
charge.
Here is another way of putting it. I mean, this is remarkable, Mr.
Altmire. And this is a chart that Ms. Wasserman Schultz and Mr. Meek
and Mr. Ryan have shared several times,
[[Page H801]]
but it bears putting out here one more time. Forty-two Presidents took
224 years to rack up about $1 trillion in foreign-owned debt, debt
owned by China, European countries, OPEC nations. 42 Presidents, 224
years, over two centuries they took to get $1 trillion in debt held by
foreign countries. This President, one President, has now, this number
isn't even accurate anymore, has now racked up $1.33 trillion in
foreign-held debt. One President in about 7 years has racked up more
debt than 42 Presidents in 224 years.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Will the gentleman yield for a second?
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Absolutely.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Put the chart back up because I think it's
important to note that when we began using this chart, it was actually
at $1.03 trillion and the bar was a little bit lower. Now, here on this
chart it's 1.19, and it's really $1.33 trillion in foreign debt. The
bar is up to the President's chin. It's actually, the 1.33 I think is
up to his lips. He's about to drown in the debt right here on this
chart. So we really need to make sure, I mean, there are deficits and
there is debt, both are significant, both are important, and both
really hamper our long-term security.
When we talk about the need for homeland security, economic security
for Americans is equally as important. If we can't rely on our
government and our leadership in the government to make sure that we
make responsible fiscal decisions like we did when we reinstituted the
PAYGO rules, when we made sure that the bills that we pass here are
paid for and that we, going forward, aren't going to cause more debt
and more deficits and saddle that burden of debt on future generations,
that's what fiscal responsibility is all about; that's what financial
security is about.
Every single day Americans have to make sure that they don't spend
more money than they take in, and we have families across the country
who make sacrifices in order to be able to do that. They know they're
in trouble if they go in the opposite direction. This administration
has spent like drunken sailors and really, to be honest with you,
treated the resources that we have like it's Monopoly money, like it's
not real, like it grows on trees. I mean, I guess once you get into the
trillions, Mr. Murphy, that's a hard concept to grasp, $3 trillion.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Well, it's not that hard, Ms. Wasserman
Schultz, maybe to grasp over 224 years, but it's hard to grasp how you
do $1.3 trillion in foreign borrowing in just 6 years. And I'll be
honest, I can't name every guy here, but I bet you there are some
pretty wild spenders in that group, and I bet you there were some real
deficit lovers somewhere buried in that group of Presidents. And still,
all of them together, $1.01 trillion, this one President.
Remember, a President alone can't do this, Ms. Wasserman Schultz; you
have to have a Congress that's willing to back you up on this kind of
deficit spending. And he had it, but he only had it for 6 of his 8
years. I mean, that's the difference. He had a Congress that's willing
to spend that kind of money, that's willing to rack up those kinds of
deficits for 6 of his 8 years. For the last two, he doesn't get that
deal. For the last 2 years of his Presidency, he gets a fiscally
responsible Democratic Congress that for the first time in 8 years is
going to push back. It might not be successful every time, but we're
going to push back for the first time in a long time.
Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Murphy, I would like to direct a question to our
colleague from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz). She has been here for
two terms now, we've been here for one, so I'm going to ask her a
question. Maybe she can enlighten us and anyone else that may be
listening.
What are the nations that we're talking about here when we're talking
about foreign-held debt? What are some of the countries that we are
lending this money to?
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I'm glad you asked that question, Mr. Altmire,
because some of these concepts are hard to grasp. I know they're hard
for me to get my mind around sometimes. Like I said, $3 trillion, which
is the budget that this President proposed this year, and $407 billion
in deficit. On top of that, a $1.33 billion foreign debt; that is money
that we owe to foreign governments.
Let's look at just who it is that we owe this money to: $644.3
billion of that is owed to Japan. China, almost $250 billion, China,
through 11/05. And then China now, $350 billion. Great Britain and the
U.K., $240 billion. The Caribbean, right nearby, our neighbors very
close by, we owe $68 billion to them; $63 billion to Taiwan. The OPEC
nations, where we're trying to move in the direction of weaning
ourselves off our dependence on foreign oil, the nice words that the
President put in his State of the Union a couple of years ago that we
all heard, well, $100 billion of our debt is owed to the OPEC nations.
$70 billion to Korea, $53.9 billion to Hong Kong, and $52.5 billion to
Germany.
So we have a lot of our debt spread all over the world. And we're
supposed to be the strongest and most vibrant Nation in the entire
world, and we have a lot of hands all over us world-wide. And it is not
a good situation to be in. It's a tenuous situation to be in, and it's
fiscally irresponsible. And we've got to make sure, and we're committed
as Democrats under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, to move us in the
right direction and get us out of that debt.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. And Ms. Wasserman Schultz, we're also
committed as 30-somethings. I mean, the reason why this group for 3
years, and before that, before you were here, when Mr. Meek and Mr.
Ryan were down here, talk about this debt that we owe to foreign
countries, talk about the deficit night after night, I mean, people may
wonder, why are these guys and why is Ms. Wasserman Schultz down here
talking night after night about the debt? Well, we're the 30-something
Working Group. We're here, in part, to represent the concerns of some
of the younger voters in this country. And we need people to
understand, we need our 30-something brethren and our 20-something
brethren and even kids in high school to understand----
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And sisterhood.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. That's right, that this is going to be
their problem, that these loans that we've taken out from China and
from the Caribbean and from OPEC nations, they're going to want that
money back. And they're going to want that money back 10 years from
now, 20 years from now when folks who are now in their teens and their
20s and 30s are in their prime earning years. Just when they need to be
mustering the money to send their kids to college, they are going to be
paying exorbitant taxes to the Federal Government because we're going
to have to start paying back that debt.
So this is an issue that the 30-something Working Group talks about a
lot because the problem is today, but even more gravely, the problem is
in 20 or 30 years. And it's our obligation to be making policy not just
for next week, but for the next decade.
Mr. ALTMIRE. And I know that the gentlewoman is going to talk about
this next issue, and Mr. Murphy and I talked last night at great length
about the fact that the second largest line item on the budget that the
President submitted to us on Monday, the second largest line item in a
$3.1 trillion budget that is literally a foot thick page by page is
interest on the national debt. The Pentagon budget is first, and
interest on the debt is second. I believe the gentlewoman has a chart
showing it's approximately $240 billion, just interest, on the national
debt.
So when you think about that $407 billion deficit for 1 year that the
President submitted to us, more than half of that is due solely to
interest on the debt that he has accumulated over the last 7 years.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That's exactly right. And it's important to
show this debt and the impact of it in different ways because different
people think and look at things through a different prism.
So the second highest line item in the budget that he submitted was
the interest on the debt. And as you can see, like Mr. Altmire pointed
out, we're at about $240 billion, which is the net interest that we're
paying on that debt.
[[Page H802]]
{time} 2100
Now, expressed comparatively to the other things that we believe are
incredibly important in terms of improving the quality of life of
people in America and moving this country in a new direction, which is
what we were committed to doing when we took over the majority and that
we promised the American people that we would do, so we are at $240
billion in net interest on the debt. That is as compared to what we
spend on education, what the President proposes to spend on education,
which is at about, let's say, a little less than $50 billion, a little
bit less than that for spending on veterans health care, and then a
little bit less than that on homeland security.
Now, what's mind-boggling is, if you listen to this administration
and to this President and to our colleagues on the other side of the
aisle, you would think that the most important thing on the planet to
them is homeland security and making sure that we provide adequate
funding for homeland security. Well, if you take education, veterans
health care, and homeland security combined, combined those items don't
equal the payment of interest on the national debt.
I mean who is for homeland security and who just talks? I mean you
have to back up words with action. We do all this right out in the
open. People can see where the priorities are because, as the Speaker
always talks about, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Altmire, the Speaker always
talks about how the budget is an expression of our values. And we are
going to show the American people the difference in our values as
Democratic Members of Congress, who are the leaders of this coequal
branch of government, versus the expression of values that President
Bush put forward on Monday, which clearly are dramatically different
than the priorities of the American people.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, I know we want to
talk about that budget and how clear, once again, the President has
made it, that his priority is going to be to turn the Federal
Government's back on regular working folks out there who need a little
bit of help getting their parents into a nursing home, who need a
little bit of help getting quality education for their kid, who want to
make sure their streets are safe. We're going to talk about that.
But I think it's worth noting that we've gone through one budget
cycle already here with Democrats in charge of the House, and we have
shown this place, Washington, D.C., that we have shown everybody out
there in America that you can have a responsible budget that sets you
on a path towards balancing that budget within 5 years, and you can do
it in a way that is still compassionate about the people out there who
need a little bit of help from their government. You can do both.
Mr. Altmire, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, and I all come from pretty
fiscally conservative districts. We have people who want to see the
Federal Government spending their money right. But we also come from
districts full of people who do want to help their neighbors, who do
want to reach out and give a helping hand when it's needed and when it
can be done on a reasonable and efficient basis. And the budget we
passed last year, it has a very modest growth in spending, but it
invests in the right programs. It gives increases to programs like
health care, research. It gives investments in community policing. It
gives increases for elementary education. And it does it all while
setting a course to balance the budget in 5 years.
So you can do both. You can get fiscal responsibility, and you can
make sure that you're covering your bases in the programs that help
regular, average Americans. And we did it as a Congress. The President,
once again, has submitted a budget to us that isn't going to do that.
Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to talk a little bit about the
chart that Ms. Wasserman Schultz was referencing and still has up. It
shows the interest on the national debt and how that account dwarfs
spending on education, veterans, and homeland security. But the truly
sad part of that chart is that the red bar that shows net interest on
the national debt is growing exponentially while the President, in the
budget he submitted to us, slashes funding for education, for veterans,
and for homeland security. And Mr. Murphy and I went over this a little
bit last night in our talk on that 30-Something Group. But I just
wanted to talk about those three accounts, education, veterans, and
homeland security, and talk about what the President has decided to do.
Instead of investing in innovation in the classroom, his budget
eliminates the $260 million program providing grants to States for
classroom technology and freezes the $179 million mathematics and
science partnerships. Now, that's a program that's targeted at
improving achievement in math and science. And instead of making
college more affordable, something that this House took a giant step
towards doing just today, the President's budget inexplicably
eliminates supplemental education opportunity grants. And the Perkins
loan program, one of the staples of higher education assistance in this
country, the President eliminates it in his budget. He also eliminates
the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership program, the LEAP
program that we know about. And they all provide necessary funding for
needy students. His budget also eliminates funding for vocational
education. This is completely unjustified.
We talked about homeland security, something that's very important to
every Member of this House. Well, the President's budget slashes
funding for State Homeland Security Grant Programs. And I would repeat
that. I'm speaking correctly. It slashes funding for State Homeland
Security Grant Programs at a time when we're at war.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If I could just reclaim my time for one second
because different people would have different definitions of ``slash.''
So since we know actually by what percentage he slashed it, let's
underscore. The Department of Homeland Security State responder grants
that he slashed, he slashed by 78 percent. So we're not talking about
just a little nick here. We're talking about cutting the legs out from
under a program that provides assistance for homeland security efforts
locally, not just for New York and Los Angeles and the places with big
tall buildings, but places all over this country which have vulnerable
sites that any wise, smart-minded terrorist would love to catch a
community sleeping that doesn't have a coordinated effort and a plan to
make sure that they can take care of their community and ward off a
potential terrorist attack, which could happen anywhere.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, let me just get
this right. So we have spent billions upon billions of dollars, another
170 this year, on the war in Iraq, which is feeding the international
terrorist movement, and this isn't our saying it, that's the 22 most
important national intelligence organizations through the National
Intelligence Estimate, that is feeding the frenzy of international
terrorism and is growing the ranks of the people who want to do harm to
us. So we're spending money in Iraq to increase the ranks of people who
might do harm to us, and then we are cutting the money here at home
that would make sure that none of them lands on our soil and does harm
to us. That is a very odd thing for the President or the Republicans or
anyone who supports that policy to have to explain to somebody.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. All the while with the President's continuing
to insist that we make the tax cuts permanent, that we extend permanent
tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, to cut more of our ability to
make sure that we can fund first responder grants for communities
across this country, and all the while having a $407 billion deficit
and a $1.33 trillion debt. I don't know. In my dictionary, fiscal
responsibility, that doesn't meet any of the definitions in the
dictionary that I use. Maybe the dictionary in bizarro world. Maybe
there's some opposite universe. I remember when I watched Star Trek,
there was a bizarro world, opposite universe episode, and everything
that was one way in one universe was the opposite way in the opposite
universe. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe that aisle right there, maybe
that side of the Chamber is actually a parallel universe, and so
everything we believe is the opposite on that side. That's what it is.
I figured it out.
[[Page H803]]
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. If the gentlewoman would yield, it's a
wonderful world to live in, though, Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I mean this
world in which you can spend money on all of these things that you want
to spend money on, that you can have no one pay for it, that you can
kind of convince yourself that all of the people that are lending you
the money aren't going to really ever ask for it back, that you can
additionally convince yourself that the fact that you owe money to all
of your enemies isn't going to have any consequences when you want to
fight them or negotiate with them. I mean, that's a great place to live
in. A world full of no consequences. A world full of postponing all bad
things until a moment in which no one is here to answer for them
anymore. It's a wonderful place to live.
But I've got to believe that that's why Mr. Altmire and I got sent
here as part of the new class last November, that the American people
kind of figured out that it was a myth. I mean, they figured out that
it was an alternative universe. Now, they might not be as big a science
fiction fan as you are, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, but they figured out
that something was up. I mean, I come from a district that was
Republican for 24 years that has these Rockefeller Republicans that are
sort of socially moderate but fiscally conservative, and they came out
and voted for Democrats in droves this year because they figured out
what you knew all along, that this was just a made-up world here where
you could just spend wildly on a war in Iraq, that you could borrow in
order to pay for it, that you could rip the guts out of social
services, and everything would be all right. So the American people, I
think, have figured it out and they sent us here to fix it.
Mr. ALTMIRE. And, Mr. Murphy, you're leaving out one of the key
facts, that they live in a world where you can charge everything to the
national credit card. Everything that you do, every expense of the
Federal Government, just charge it to the credit card, and that bill is
never going to come due.
Well, guess what? That bill has come due. And the reason we're facing
a recession right now is because we have been living through that
fiscally irresponsible time.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Altmire, can I ask you a question? Because
you were going through the details of the cuts that the President has
proposed in his budget that he submitted for fiscal year 2009 on
Monday.
There was a program that was first implemented and proposed and
funded by Congress but proposed by President Clinton called the COPS
program, which put 100,000 police officers on the street and made sure
that we had first responders, police officers, on the streets,
patrolling our communities, making sure that the streets of America
were safe. And how much did President Bush propose for the COPS program
in his fiscal year 2009 budget?
Mr. ALTMIRE. The gentlewoman may have a different chart than I have.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I have zero, because the number that I have is
that he cut the entire program, 100 percent cut to the COPS program,
zeros it out, so that there would be no COPS program, no funding to put
police officers on the streets in our local communities.
It's just unbelievable. We continue to hear the rhetoric come from
this administration. I mean, it's nice, happy talk. It's nice, happy
talk that you can stand behind the podium and say whatever you want and
live in bizarro world across the other side of the aisle and just
ignore reality and squeeze your eyes shut and hope that people don't
notice that what you're saying is not true.
Mr. ALTMIRE. And it's particularly frustrating to Mr. Murphy and I,
who are in our first term and we had our second State of the Union
address just last week, a week ago, and the President of the United
States stood right behind where I am standing right now and said to the
Congress you need to be more fiscally responsible. And he lectured us
on how he perceived this Congress to have been fiscally irresponsible.
And literally a week later, 1 week later to the day, he drops on all of
our desks a budget that is out of balance by $407 billion. So when you
talk about living in a world where you can say one thing and do
another, I would suggest you look no further than that budget that was
submitted to us.
And the gentlewoman asked about the COPS program, and I appreciate
her bringing that to our attention. I had in front of me funding for
something that's near and dear to my heart, and that's for veterans,
which was the third category on the chart that she showed several
minutes ago when we talked about education funding and other accounts
that pale in comparison to interest on the national debt. I just wanted
to talk about what the President's budget does for veterans. It cuts
health care for veterans by $20 billion over 5 years and cuts funds for
constructing, renovating, and rehabilitating medical care facilities in
the year 2009.
And I would remind everybody what happened at Walter Reed, which is a
defense health care facility, last year, at about this time last year,
when we heard reports of substandard living conditions and paint
peeling and rodents. And we are then going to look at the VA, according
to the President's budget, and actually cut funds for constructing,
renovating, and rehabilitating medical care facilities at a time when
we've had a national scandal at one of those facilities? I think that's
disgraceful.
And for the 6th year in a row, the President's budget raises health
care costs on 1\1/2\ million veterans by imposing $5.2 billion in
increased co-payments on prescription drugs and new enrollment fees for
veterans.
{time} 2115
Mr. ALTMIRE. I can't think of a group that we should be helping more
than our Nation's veterans. And to have a budget submitted to us at a
time when all of us can agree that there is nothing more important than
taking care of the people who are putting their lives on the line for
us, wearing the uniform of the United States every single day, making
every possible sacrifice, and to have a budget submitted to us that
slashes funding for veterans programs is an offense. It literally is an
offense.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Altmire, I have to compliment you because
the people of western Pennsylvania, when they made a decision to elect
you, sent a champion for our Nation's veterans to this institution.
Since day one, I don't remember a day that has gone by that I have not
heard you talk about the plight of our veterans and the importance of
not forgetting them, and making sure that we are going to appropriately
fund and adequately fund their health care needs, provide for their
needs when they come back from their service to our country and
continue to take care of them in the variety of ways that we should
instead of forgetting them like so much dirty laundry and make sure
that they don't get left behind. It is another example of the new
direction that the people of America wanted. And when they elected you,
that is exactly what you have delivered to them. And I know your
constituents really appreciate it.
You mentioned the lecture, which is a good description for what the
State of the Union was last week that we got from President Bush, and
Mr. Murphy, I would like to say our caucus chairman, Rahm Emanuel, did
a good comparison, or timeline, of where we were at the start of the
administration almost 8 years ago and where we are now. He did a press
conference and talked about, gave a speech, a really good speech on the
floor and just showed where we were at the start and where we are now.
So, Mr. Murphy, I know you have some of the information in front of
you, as well, just to walk people through where we were then, at the
beginning of this administration. At the beginning of this
administration, we started with a record $5.6 trillion surplus when
President Clinton left office. And President Bush will be leaving
behind, Mr. Murphy?
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Annualized $400 billion operating
deficits, the three largest operating deficits in the history of the
Republic under the Bush administration, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you. And at the beginning of the Bush
administration, Mr. Altmire, we were on track to pay down all of our
publicly held debt. All of it. I am not sure if you have the chart in
front of you right there; but, Mr. Murphy, we were
[[Page H804]]
on track to pay down all of our publicly held debt. And what is the
Bush administration leaving behind?
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Curiously, as we talked about here, a $9
trillion debt owed mostly to foreign nations, a President that has
racked up more publicly held foreign debt and privately held foreign
debt than any other Presidents combined in the history of the Republic.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It is really astonishing, the dramatic
difference and the swings we have gone through in the last 8 years. Who
would have thought that we could go through that type of rapid
deterioration?
How about the economy? We are certainly not facing a strong economy
right now. At the beginning of this administration, as President
Clinton was leaving office, Mr. Murphy, we had the strongest economy in
three decades. We had 22 million jobs that had been created. We had a
record surplus. We had a thriving economy by any definition. And now
that we are wrapping up the Bush administration, what is this President
leaving behind?
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Well, we know he is leaving behind one of
the weakest and one of the most fragile economies that we have seen in
a very long time. Today we get reports from the Nation's largest
retailers telling us that they still have not unburied themselves from
the holiday malaise. We had a report recently from the service sector
showing the service economy starting to bottom out. We have news
yesterday from the Labor Department telling us that worker productivity
continues to slow. We have an economy after 6, 7 years of the Bush
administration's policy left over from 12 years of neglect by the
Republican majority that is as weak as it has been in a very long time.
Mr. ALTMIRE. I want to talk about a few things that the President is
leaving behind as he leaves office going into next year, and we look
forward to working with him certainly throughout this year, $400
billion in annual deficits, deficits as far as the eye can see, as Mr.
Murphy talked about, an exploding debt burden, a slowing economy; and
this is something that I think really needs to be talked about because
we had in January a net loss of 17,000 lost jobs. And there was a lot
of talk in the administration about how, well, this was the first loss
in 4 years in job growth in a month, which is true.
Now, any economist will tell you, anyone who studies these issues
will tell you that because of the population growth in the country that
works, we are experiencing in any given month, it takes between 100 and
150,000 new jobs being created just to keep pace with the increase in
population growth in the country. So just to maintain, you have to have
at minimum 100,000 new jobs. Well, many of the months that we are
talking about going back 4 years, we have had much fewer jobs created
per month than 100,000. And in fact, this administration, if you look
at the job growth that has taken place over the 7-plus years of this
administration and pro rate it, this is the weakest record of job
growth in any administration since the Hoover administration.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Did they have good job growth in the
Hoover administration?
Mr. ALTMIRE. Right. And Mr. Murphy held up his chart with all the
Presidents on it and talked about big spenders and fiscally
irresponsible people, and I think Mr. Hoover may not be remembered in
those categories, but he is certainly not going to be remembered as a
job creator, let's put it that way. So for this administration to have
the worst record of job creation since the Hoover administration, I
think really spells out the failure of these economic policies.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Absolutely. And as we begin to wrap up,
getting back to the lecture that you referred to earlier, Mr. Altmire,
that we received from President Bush last week, the matter of
transparency is incredibly important. This is a President who talked
about how we need to make sure that we disclose earmarks, which we took
the lead on when we became the majority and made sure that we put our
names next to the earmarks that we get in the appropriations act, and
we are the ones that made sure that there was full disclosure and
adopted the ethics package that was the most comprehensive in American
history.
And with this President's proposed budget this week, let's outline,
and we are going to have some of these charts next week that are blown
up so that people watching can see, but let's talk about what was left
out of the budget, because he talked very nicely about transparency,
and make sure that people really understand clearly what we are doing
here. He left out of his budget any war costs, any costs for the war in
Iraq and Afghanistan beyond the first half of this year. He also left
out AMT reform beyond 2008. So all of the millions and millions of
taxpayers that we helped avoid be subject to that AMT tax when we
passed that legislation at the end of last year, there is no fix for
them. And President Bush doesn't even count them as that going forward,
which we know we are obviously going to have to do.
It is fake. It is just, again, bizarro world. We can just make stuff
up in the budget and hope that people believe that it is true. This was
a fairy tale document that he gave us on Monday. The good news is that
the Congress actually writes the budget when push comes to shove.
Then in terms of any spending policy details beyond fiscal year 2009,
there was nothing detailed in this President's budget. Let's just give
you, as I wrap up and then turn it over to the two of you to bring us
home, let's just go through last year. In fiscal year 2008, President
Bush requested $193 billion, Mr. Murphy, for the war in Iraq. And in
the fiscal year 2009 budget he just proposed to us on Monday, he asked
for $70 billion. Good news. We are only going to spend $70 billion on
the war in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. We get some discounts this year.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Wow, that is so exciting. Again, we have to
make sure that we are honest, transparent, and forthcoming with the
American people. We can't fake it. We can't gloss it over. We have to
make sure that we give them the straightforward facts and be honest
with them in the budget document and in everything that we do.
Mr. Murphy, why don't you bring us home. It is a privilege to be here
again with you and Mr. Altmire, and we miss our colleagues, Mr. Ryan
and Mr. Meek, tonight; but the 30-Something Working Group is always
here to talk about the issues that are important to the American
people, but particularly to our generation of Americans who are going
to inherit the results of the decisions that we make here.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, just to leave on
some good news, I think the passage with the Republican and Democratic
votes of the economic stimulus package shows that this Democratic
Congress has the potential to reach across the aisle and push back on a
lot of these policies that we have been talking about today. This is
bad news, the President's budget he submitted to us. It is not a good
budget for people, for families, or for fiscal discipline.
But the good news is that we have shown a record here of being able
to work together, Republicans and Democrats, to be able to push back.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz, if you want to get in touch with us, you can
e-mail us at [email protected] or go to www.speaker.gov
to visit our Web site.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you, Mr. Murphy.
Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the opportunity that has been given to us
by the Speaker.
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