[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 22988-22989]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE GROWING NATIONAL DEBT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, any day now, the United States of America 
will have borrowed over $8 trillion. That is not an occasion to 
celebrate. That is an occasion to be very worried about the future of 
our country. $8 trillion is a fantastic sum of money. To see how long 
it is, all those numbers stretched out, just look outside the office of 
any Blue Dog Member of this Congress and you will see a chart like 
this, because it will show you that as of today, the debt is $7.989 
trillion. That means we are only $11 billion away from passing the $8 
trillion threshold.
  How quickly are we approaching that threshold? We are borrowing 
almost $1 billion a day. That means within the next week or two, we 
will pass the $8 trillion threshold. Of course, much of the money we 
are borrowing, we are borrowing from foreigners, and increasingly from 
the Chinese. So all Americans need to be on alert, because this is 
something that has never happened before in all of American history. We 
have had ups and downs, we have had the Depression, we have had the 
Civil War, but we have never been borrowing money at this rate.
  Let me put it in historical perspective. It took the first 204 years 
of our Nation's history to accumulate $1 trillion in debt. And now we 
are doing that every 2 or 3 years. Our Nation's top accountant, David 
Walker, of the GAO has said that arguably the year 2004 was the worst 
year in America's entire fiscal history. Why would our top accountant 
say something like that? First of all, because he believes it is true, 
and it is also because this Congress promised $13 trillion worth of new 
spending in one year, none of which is paid for. Imagine promising $13 
trillion and not even beginning to pay for it.
  Later this week under a newly resolved Republican majority, they are 
planning on increasing the amount of reconciliation that we will 
undertake by some $15 billion. That sounds mighty good on the surface, 
but that is about 2 weeks' worth of this borrowing. I do not think 2 
weeks' worth is going to be good enough for our kids and grandkids who 
want to know that we are leaving our Nation stronger than the way we 
found it. Instead what this Congress is doing and this administration 
is leaving us weaker than we used to be. There should be more 
leadership in this body, but with 435 people all contending to 
represent their districts back home, it is hard to characterize 
Congress as much more than an organized appetite. That is why our wise 
Founding Fathers gave us what they thought would be presidential 
leadership. That is why they gave the President the veto, for example, 
so that he could take a congressional bill and veto it.
  Right now under President George W. Bush, we have the first President 
since James Garfield in 1881 never to have vetoed a single bill. 1881 
was a long time ago. Poor President Garfield was only in office for 6 
months. President Bush has been in office for 5 years,

[[Page 22989]]

without a single veto. So you really have to go back even further than 
President Garfield to find a President who has accepted every bill that 
Congress sent him as if it were perfect. For that, to find a President 
who served two full terms, you have to go back to President John Quincy 
Adams. You can see his portrait right outside this Chamber. That is not 
a record to be proud of. Because this Congress needs to be tamed, it 
needs to be disciplined and the veto is the constitutional power the 
President has to do that.
  But that is not the only power the President has. He also has the 
power of rescission. Every President since Richard Nixon has had that 
power. Every President since Richard Nixon has used that power except 
for President George W. Bush. He has never used the power. Let me give 
you an example. President Clinton used it 163 times. President Bush, 
Sr. used it, I think, 400 times. President Reagan used it 600 times, 
saving billions and billions of dollars of unnecessary spending as they 
use it. President Bush has never used that power.

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