[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 21 (Tuesday, February 3, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H915-H918]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE BLUE DOGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Melancon) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. MELANCON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be on the 
floor tonight with my fellow Blue Dogs, and we were just going to make 
some remarks and talk about the Blue Dogs' concern with fiscal 
responsibility in previous Congresses and in Congresses going forward.
  Over the long haul, the Federal budget has been in a downward spiral 
with the national debt growing faster than the economy. With this grim 
fiscal outlook, it is more important than ever that Congress and the 
administration work together in a bipartisan manner to address the 
needs for long-term fiscal sustainability.

                              {time}  2000

  Back in this 1990s, under the administration of Bill Clinton and with 
the cooperation of the Congress led by the Blue Dog Coalition, PAYGO 
rules were put into statute, put into law that required that the 
Congress of the United States pay for that which they wished to spend. 
So no new spending could be appropriated and spent without the author 
or the party or the group that wanted to propose new spending finding a 
means or a place to cover the cost.
  About 8 years ago, the PAYGO rules were abolished out of statute, and 
since that time and in the period of 8 years, the Government Accounting 
Office in the projections for 10 years out showed that the budget was 
estimated to have a surplus of $5.5 trillion in the next 10 years. As I 
stand here today with my colleagues, we are now projecting an excess of 
$10 trillion deficit. That's a $15.5 trillion swing.
  And if you actually looked at government accounting, or if you looked 
at accrual accounting rather than government accounting, you will find 
that--those of you that are in business out in this country will know 
that a $56 trillion deficit projected is the real number.
  Because of the deficits that exist in so many programs, entitlements 
and others, we have spun ourselves or spent ourselves into a hole that 
will take us quite a while to climb out of.
  I have one grandson. His name is Jack, and he's 2\1/2\ years old. For 
Christmas, I got one of those video frames that changes the pictures 
out. And it is one of the greatest things that my family could have 
given me because Jack's there every day to remind me of the reason why 
I need to be here, why the Blue Dogs have continued their attack on the 
budget, why they have continued the march and the drumbeat of PAYGO and 
fiscal responsibility when neither side of our Congress would face up 
to the facts.
  If in fact we are to leave them a good world, we need to face up, 
just like every American does, to the bills that confront us; and we 
can't spend more than we take in. We need to, as was done back in the 
1990s, go back to statutory PAYGO, live within our means, make sure we 
have the money to pay for those things which are good for our country--
not squander the future for our children and our grandchildren--but to 
make sure that their future has a potential to be a bright one, as mine 
was, because of my parents' and my grandparents' efforts during their 
time.
  I would like to ask my friend, Congressman Baron Hill, to make a few 
comments.
  Mr. HILL. I thank my friend from Louisiana for yielding me this 
dedicated time.
  Fourteen days ago, Mr. Speaker, Barack Obama became President of the 
United States. And listening to some of my colleagues earlier in the 
evening, you would have thought by listening to them that the $10 
trillion deficit that we're now facing was created by President Obama 
within the last 14 days. And we all know that that is not true.
  As a matter of fact, the largest budget deficits that we've ever had 
have, quite frankly, come under the presidencies of three Republican 
presidents: one in the 1980s, one in the 1990s, and this last President 
that we've had for the last 8 years.

[[Page H916]]

  And the Blue Dogs have the special hour here today, and for years we 
have been coming to this microphone to talk about the dangers to the 
long-term economy by driving up these deficits. And we have had a day 
of a reckoning that happened several months ago that, in part, was 
caused by wasteful spending and deficit spending. What we have been 
warning this Congress about for many years is that if we do not get a 
fix on our national deficit, it is going to have a devastating effect 
upon our economy.
  Now here we are standing before the American people telling the 
American people that that day has arrived.
  Now, in totality, it was not the fault of the Federal budget deficit. 
There were a lot of things that were going on with the financial 
markets that were no good, but here we are trying to figure out what to 
do next.
  Now, the Blue Dogs did something that was extraordinary, or at least 
most of the Blue Dogs--not all of the Blue Dogs--but many of the Blue 
Dogs felt like that this economy was in such dire straits that we had 
to forego the disciplines that we have practiced for many, many years. 
In light of the fact that our economy was tanking, many of us felt like 
we should borrow more money in order to stimulate the economy.
  But in the process of doing that, we have had ongoing negotiations 
with the folks in the Obama administration that while many of us were 
willing to suspend our feelings about fiscal discipline in order to 
jump start the economy, that somewhere down the line very soon, as a 
matter of fact, that we had to implement new PAYGO rules in order to 
get a handle on this spiraling budget deficit that is out of control.
  Now, it's going to take some time to climb out of the hole that we 
find ourselves in after 8 years of the Bush administration. But we must 
start now to impose fiscal discipline on the Federal Government so that 
our children and grandchildren do not bear the burden of our debts.
  Blue Dogs know that we need to work quickly to put budget enforcement 
tools, like statutory PAYGO, in place so that we can begin paying down 
the national debt that's crippling our economy and putting future 
generations of Americans in jeopardy. This is why we have been working 
with our leadership in the House, as well as newly appointed Office of 
Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, to make sure that we put 
our country back on a path to fiscal responsibility and economic 
sustainability.
  Now just recently, at the Blue Dogs' asking, Dr. Orszag recently sent 
a letter to the House leaders stating the President's support for a 
return to PAYGO budgeting: ``Moving forward we need to return to the 
fiscal responsibility and pay-as-you-go budgeting that we had in the 
1990s for all non-emergency measures. The President and his economic 
team look forward''--this is not me reading my words; this is Dr. 
Orszag saying this, ``The President and his economic team look forward 
to working with Congress to develop budget enforcement rules that are 
based on the tools that helped create the surpluses of a decade ago. 
Putting the country back on the path of fiscal responsibility will mean 
tough choices and difficult trade-offs, but for the long-term health of 
our economy, the President believes that they must be made.''
  That letter was sent to the leaders of this Congress at the request 
of the Blue Dogs who have been consistently and perpetually making 
sure, Madam Speaker, that this Congress get its fiscal house in order.
  President Obama has been very clear about his intentions to clean up 
the Federal budget, cut out wasteful spending, reinstitute pay-as-you-
go budgeting, and address the long-term fiscal challenges facing the 
country. As a strong, moderating force within the House of 
Representatives, we look forward to continuing work with the President 
and others in Congress to put forward a plan for real fiscal reform 
over the long term.
  The bottom line is that our country is maintaining an unsustainable 
level of debt that is threatening not only our economy, but our 
national security and the quality of life of every single American. We 
have to do something about it now, and the Blue Dogs stand ready to 
make the difficult decisions necessary to reverse the out-of-control 
spending and reckless fiscal policies of the last 8 years, not the last 
2 weeks.
  And so, Madam Speaker, the Blue Dogs look forward to working with 
this President and working with the leadership of this Congress to make 
sure that after we've done the stimulus that we start the process of 
getting our fiscal house in order by paying pay-as-you-go statutory 
PAYGO rules.
  With that, I yield back to my good friend from Florida, Alan Boyd, 
who's been a stalwart champion in this regard as the leader of the Blue 
Dogs for the last 2 years. We welcome his remarks here this evening.
  Mr. BOYD. Madam Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, thank you. I thank my 
friends, my friend from Indiana, Baron Hill, and from Louisiana, 
Charlie Melancon, both who are current leaders of the 51-strong 
fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, a group which has spent the 
last 12 or 14 years in this Congress touting fiscal responsibility and 
trying to continuously take the message to the American people that the 
United States Government, the United States Congress, should act just 
like our families and our small businesses and our local governments 
do, and that is we should act responsibly when it comes to spending our 
money and how we collect and spend our money.
  I think most Americans, most people watching these proceedings here 
tonight, understand that 8 years ago in early 2001 at the end of 
President Clinton's administration that this country's government stood 
in great shape with a balanced budget and surpluses--as Congressman 
Hill and Congressman Melancon have talked about--as far as the eye 
could see with an opportunity to do many things in terms of reducing 
taxes and paying down debt and fixing some long-term entitlement 
program challenges that we have.
  The Congress and the administration in the coming years after 2001 
passed on that opportunity and instead led us down a path of fiscal 
irresponsibility where we have continually spent, borrowed, and spent 
and told the American people they could have anything they wanted and 
they didn't have to pay for it.
  Now, the chickens, so to speak, have come home to roost; and you are 
beginning to see the results of this horrible fiscal policy, economic 
policy, of the last 8 years.
  Some would say that because we're in a recession now is not the time 
to worry about the consequences of government spending. Madam Speaker, 
I and my Blue Dog colleagues would argue the exact opposite--that now 
is exactly the time to address the fiscal situation that we as a 
country are facing.
  We have an opportunity under new leadership, under the leadership of 
President Obama, to tackle the problem in a multi-faceted manner and 
recommit not only to stimulating and jump starting and getting our 
economy going again, but also to put in place the tools that we need as 
a Nation to have fiscal discipline in the future and lead us back 
toward fiscal responsibility, a balanced budget, and establish 
ourselves again as the economic, military, and political leader of the 
world.
  My friends, Mr. Melancon and Mr. Hill, have talked about PAYGO and 
the history of PAYGO; and, yes, it was, it was a tool that was used in 
the 1990s to get us into that position where we had surpluses and we 
were balancing the budgets and we were acting responsibly. Those tools 
were allowed to expire in 2002. And that's when everything kind of ran 
amok and we began to spend, spend, spend, we reduced revenue base; and 
as a result, we went overseas to borrow the money. And now, instead of 
a $5 trillion national debt, we've got over a $10 trillion national 
debt.
  In this fiscal year, Madam Speaker, this Nation, this government, 
will sustain a $1 trillion-plus deficit in its budget, $1 trillion-plus 
deficit. And that's unheard of. That's like 6 or 7 percent of the gross 
domestic product of this country that we're going overseas to borrow, 
mortgaging the future of our children to run the operations of this 
government.
  And some of us believe that's irresponsible, it's unethical, immoral.
  Now, what do we do? We have spent years and years of passing the buck 
on these issues, but now is the time to

[[Page H917]]

stop passing the buck and address these issues and confront them head 
on.
  There are a couple of specific pieces of legislation that I would 
like our viewers to know about.
  One is a bill that's sponsored--the two primary sponsors are 
Congressman Jim Cooper, who is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition from 
Tennessee, Democrat, and Congressman Frank Wolf from Virginia, a 
Republican. It's called the SAFE Commission Act.

                              {time}  2015

  This particular piece of legislation offers solutions to place the 
U.S. Government on a course to ensure the solvency of Social Security, 
Medicare and Medicaid for the coming century.
  The SAFE Commission creates a nonpartisan, 16-member commission to 
examine all areas of Federal spending and revenue, including 
entitlement spending. The two primary entitlement programs, as you 
know, are Social Security and Medicare. This bill has real teeth. Once 
it passes, it will require that Congress vote on the legislation that 
comes out of the recommendations of the commission within 90 days.
  This country needs something like this because Congress has shown an 
inability--certainly shows it doesn't have the will--to address these 
challenges head-on otherwise.
  Our sustainability challenges are not new. Now, I think most 
Americans understand kind of the lay of the land here, what happened, 
where we were in 2000 and 2001 in terms of our government and its 
financial situation versus now, and there's been a lot of angst and 
polarization around party lines, and it just hasn't worked very well 
for the last 6 or 8 years.
  But Madam Speaker, the new President, President Obama, and I think 
many of us in the majority here in the House are offering our hand of 
bipartisanship across that aisle, to work together with members of the 
minority party in tackling these issues because they're not Democratic 
and Republican issues. These are not problems that one party or the 
other can take sole ownership of, but in solving them, we have to reach 
across the aisle and develop bipartisan solutions.
  President Obama has taken a very solid step, in my feeling, toward 
putting our country on the right path by the recent announcement of a 
fiscal summit in the near future. The fiscal summit will be headed up 
obviously by his economic team, Dr. Orszag, the new OMB director, and 
others and so we look forward to participating in that summit and are 
hopeful that out of that summit will come some very solid ideas that 
the President can then advance and work with the Congress in putting 
into law.
  Madam Speaker, we've got some very serious challenges as a Nation in 
front of us. I have been in legislative politics for 20 years, not 
nearly as long as some of the other folks who serve in this body, but 
I've never seen the challenges and the problems faced so dear.
  And we can all agree that if our kids are to have any kind of future 
that we have to figure out a way to give them the good standard of 
living, and we need to fix our budget problems, and we need to fix them 
quickly, and we need to focus on stimulating the economy, but also, we 
need to focus on the long-term fiscal discipline and restoring 
commonsense budgeting and commonsense fiscal management to the 
operation of this government.
  I want to thank my friend Mr. Melancon from Louisiana for his 
leadership in the Blue Dogs, for his leadership on the issues of fiscal 
responsibility, and also for allowing me a few moments here to come 
speak to the Nation.
  Mr. MELANCON. Thank you, Congressman Boyd, my friend from Florida.
  You know, one of the ironies is that some four-and-a-half years ago, 
or five-and-a-half years ago now when I made the decision to run for 
the vacated seat in the Third District of Louisiana, which is of course 
the coastal district that was hit by both Katrina and Rita and then 
subsequently this past year by Gustav and Ike, we have a lot of 
foreigners showing up on the shores of Louisiana these days. I ran, of 
course. People referred to Democrats as tax-and-spend Democrats.
  One place that I always thought that I had some relationship to 
Republicans was in fiscal matters, and ironically after getting here 
and finding out the situation of our deficit and its continuing to 
grow. I've learned too that we as Democrats or my predecessors as 
Democrats may have been tax and spend, but my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle will go down in history I believe as borrow and 
spend. You can't continue to print money and continue to elevate the 
debt on this country.
  And particularly when you look at the debt of this country as we 
stand here today, in 8 years this deficit has grown to a size that is 
larger than all the cumulative deficits for all administrations from 
George Washington to the start 8 years ago. That's amazing.
  The fourth largest item in our budget is the interest that we pay on 
the money that we borrow. Forty percent of the debt that we owe, the 
people that hold the treasuries and the bonds for this country's future 
are held by China. I wonder why we're so nice to our friends in China.
  So, as we move forward, we need to look at a fiscal policy, but we 
also in a time that is unparalleled, we have to be looking at what do 
we do to preserve the economy.
  This bill, as we've talked about that's presently moving through the 
Congress, is not a perfect bill. I, in fact, voted for the substitute 
presented by the Republicans. I don't know that I can agree with either 
of the bills as being a perfect bill, and no one, because of the nature 
of the animal we're dealing with, can say that the problems will be 
solved.
  If you go back to 1929 when the market collapsed, 2 years later 
Roosevelt was elected. Between that time, the Congress and the 
administration in Washington said the markets will correct themselves; 
we need not do anything. Roosevelt came into office, started the CCC, 
the WPA. People talk about socialized government. That was probably as 
close as you will get to it. Checks were paid to people for work that 
they did, but they managed to put food on the table, however scarce. 
They managed to have a roof over their head, to clothe their children, 
to be able to continue going forward. It was not a glorious time. It 
was one of the blackest times in our history.
  But by--I hate to say this--by coincidence a law came toward the end 
of the 1930s, and as a manufacturing country we got our economy going 
back. And then after World War II we got out of that, laws were passed 
by this Congress, enacted by this Congress, signed into law by the 
President that had preceded us that would have protected America and 
America's economy, had all the regulatory agencies been doing the job 
that they were supposed to have been doing through these periods of 
time.
  There's been a movement towards deregulation, and I'm for 
deregulation, but when you put together people and money you breed 
greed. And what we have caused here was the greed of people and not 
just in this country. We are faced with a worldwide situation, one that 
resembles what happened in the period of 1929 into the 1930s.
  And after listening to my parents through the years, talking with my 
grandparents as I grew up, I don't think that I want to be labeled a 
person who did nothing, a person who said the market will correct 
itself, a person who said they will fend for themselves, a person who 
leaves a debt that my children and grandchildren and my friend's 
children and grandchildren will never ever be able to repay if we don't 
start the march in the right direction this day, in this Congress, in 
this administration, in this city, in this great country.
  Mr. BOYD. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MELANCON. Yes, I will.
  Mr. BOYD. I know that the gentleman and our viewers understand that 
America is the richest country on the face of the earth. America a few 
years ago, with 5 percent of the world's population, controlled 25 
percent of the world's wealth. But 8 years ago we decided we didn't 
want to pay our own bills. That was the effect of those decisions that 
were made and that we would go into the capital markets to borrow that 
money. That's not the way our economic model is set up, and that's the 
mindset that we really have to change.
  Now it's my belief that President Obama, whom I think many of us ad-

[[Page H918]]

mire because he's going to lead us through this, he understands what 
you have to do. Some tough decisions have to be made. He's been given a 
very tough hand to play with the economic and fiscal situation of this 
country at the moment, but I believe that all the Nation wishes him 
well, and we want to work with him to get us back on the right path and 
fiscal responsibility.
  Let's do some hard, tough work on Medicare and Social Security. We've 
known for years that those programs have to be reformed, that 
insolvency for these programs is right around the corner, and we have 
punted that ball down the field for many years now. He knows you can't 
do that anymore, and he's making the right calls and getting the right 
people together and getting the right team in place to move forward 
with this and get it done right.
  So I want to thank my friend for getting this hour for us to speak 
for a few minutes about fiscal issues in the country and our economic 
situation.
  Mr. MELANCON. I thank my friend from Florida, and in closing, let me 
just say there's an expression that you will hear in Washington, and 
it's called kicking the can down the street and refers to one party or 
another party or one administration or another administration or one 
politician or another politician taking the issue and just moving it 
down the road and trying to avoid having to face the hard issue of 
picking it up and resolving what the issues need to be.
  We can no longer, as a government of this great country, kick the can 
down the road. We need to pick it up. We need to face the issues. We 
need to do it in a bipartisan way. We need to go back to regular order, 
take bills the way they used to be, where people debated them, they 
negotiated them. And a good deal or good bill has always been, in my 
mind, one where both parties either leave unhappy or both parties leave 
happy. When one party leaves happy and the other one isn't, then it's 
not a good deal, and it particularly is not a good deal for the great 
American citizens that put up with what has gone on through the 
decades.
  We need to reform the way we do our business by going back to regular 
order, by making sure that there's transparency in our government, that 
people that are in this body have an opportunity to participate in the 
legislative process and pass bills that can muster votes from both 
sides of the aisle. Then we can say we're starting to act like American 
citizens and American politicians should.
  So with that, Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity for the 
Blue Dog Coalition to be here tonight.

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