[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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