[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11367-11375]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           THE FINANCIAL CONDITION OF OUR NATION'S GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Poe). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

[[Page 11368]]




                             General Leave

  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks 
on this special order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Arkansas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, as whip of the Blue Dog Coalition I rise this 
evening to talk about the financial condition of our Nation's 
government. There are about 35 of us that are fiscally conservative 
Democrats. We refer to ourselves as members of the Blue Dog Coalition 
and we are trying to bring some common sense back to our Nation's 
government as it relates to trying to restore some fiscal discipline to 
the way we operate our government.
  Our Nation today is $7.769 trillion in debt. To put that another way, 
our Nation today is spending $160 billion a year simply paying interest 
on the national debt. That is about $500 million a day. In fact, it is 
$13 billion per month, it is $444 million per day, it is $18 million an 
hour, it is $308,000 a minute, or $5,100 a second. That is how much our 
Nation is simply taking tax money from you and me and using it to pay 
interest on the national debt.
  I have got about $4 billion in road needs in Arkansas's Fourth 
Congressional District, which includes 29 counties and 150 towns and 
three interstate projects that are now under construction. Give me less 
than a week's interest on the national debt and I can put thousands of 
people to work and complete these road projects, like I-49, I-69 and I-
430, and four-laning U.S. Highway 167.
  When we speak about the debt in public opinion surveys, it simply 
does not show up. It is like it is someone else's problem. But, Mr. 
Speaker, I contend this evening that it is every American citizen's 
problem, because every American citizen's share of the national debt 
equals $26,000. $26,000 is each individual's share of the national 
debt, including the children, the babies that are being born today. 
Every United States citizen would have to write a check for $26,000 in 
order to get our Nation out of this hole that we are in.
  Yet our Nation continues to go further in debt. For a fifth year in a 
row, we are seeing a budget that provides this Nation with the largest 
budget deficit ever in our Nation's history, which means more interest 
on more debt, which means more priorities continue to go unmet. Again, 
we are spending $13 billion per month simply paying interest on the 
national debt. We could build 100 brand new elementary schools every 
single day in America just with the interest we are paying on the 
national debt.
  Earlier today the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), a Blue Dog 
member, offered a proposal on the floor of this House to guarantee 
every National Guard and Army Reservist in America health care for 
life. These are men and women that are going to Iraq, they are going to 
Afghanistan. If they have not been, they are headed that way, and if 
they are coming back, they are probably getting ready to go again. Yet 
they are treated different than our full-time men and women in uniform 
at a time when we are really dispatching them the same. The reality is 
they deserve health care for life, they deserve health care like the 
full-time soldiers.
  Yet this House rejected that proposal today because they said it 
would cost $1 billion. Because of the reckless spending going on in our 
Nation, we are spending that much money in about two days simply paying 
interest on the national debt.
  I want to talk more about the debt and the deficit, but at this time 
it gives me great honor to introduce the Cochair For Policy for the 
Blue Dog Coalition to speak more about the debt and the deficit and how 
it impacts all of us as Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, and 
that is my friend the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).
  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding. The 
gentleman was focusing on one of the gravest problems our Nation has 
ever faced, one of the gravest threats to our children's and our 
grandchildren's well-being, because those debt payments the gentleman 
is talking about, the interest payments, they are like a tax that can 
never be repealed until our Nation one day, we hope and pray, will 
return to a surplus. We had a couple years of surplus under President 
Clinton, but, sadly, those days are gone. Now we have plunged deep back 
into debt.
  As the gentleman points out, the debt now is $7.7 trillion. We all as 
Blue Dogs have signs like this outside of our office doors so that 
anybody who visits our offices here in Washington or back home, and for 
me that is Nashville, Tennessee, can see exactly the hole that we have 
dug for our Nation's future and how much it is per person, $26,000 per 
person. So I appreciate the gentleman's focus on this grave problem.
  Blue Dogs have been great leaders on this issue. We will talk in a 
few moments about the 12 step plan that the Blue Dogs have put forward 
to try to rescue our Nation from this debt binge that we have been on. 
It is kind like the 12 step plan for Alcoholics Anonymous, 12 steps to 
get out of a problem that so many Americans are unwilling to face up to 
and recognize.
  Before we do that, I would like to take a moment to give our friends 
in Congress and across the country some key dates so they can write 
these down and look at the deficit and the debt from a little bit 
different perspective.
  Date number one is last year, 2004. Why is that significant? Because 
the auditor for the United States of America, David Walker of the GAO, 
said it was ``arguably the worst year in American fiscal history.'' 
That is pretty grave news. If you had a company and your auditor said 
you have been through one of the worst years in history, you would 
probably be facing bankruptcy. That is what the U.S. auditor said about 
last year. Most people do not know about that. That news should get 
out.
  Take the year 2005, this year. What did we do about the deficit and 
the debt? Well, the Republican majority rammed a budget through this 
body, $2.6 trillion, in a record-setting 2 hours. That is from start to 
finish, from the first moment we could look at the document to final 
passage vote, never get to see it again, $2.6 trillion in 2 hours. If 
that is not financial mismanagement and irresponsibility, I do not know 
what is.
  The next date is 2009. That is the date when we will be spending more 
money on interest on the national debt than we will on all regular 
domestic government in America. Due to the deficits and the debts that 
the Bush administration has accumulated, our debt burden will be so 
great by then, by the last year of the Bush administration, we will 
have to spend more money to our creditors than we will on our citizens. 
In a sense it will be a better deal then to be a creditor of this 
country than to be a citizen of this country. That is an outrage. That 
is the first time in American history that has ever happened.
  Another key date is the year 2012. That is when the Chinese, if 
current rates continue, will own all of our debt. In fact, a firm in 
Connecticut has predicted by February 9, 2012, the Chinese will own all 
of our foreign debt. That is another outrage. The Chinese are not 
necessarily the friendliest holders of this debt. To be financially 
beholden to them is really a national security risk.
  Another key date is 2017. That is the date we will have the first 
honest deficits in America, because that is the date the Social 
Security surplus will diminish down to zero. Then the true size of the 
deficit will be unveiled, because, as the gentleman knows, the deficit 
last year was not $412 billion, like most people think, which is still 
an all time U.S. record. The deficit was $569 billion, because the 
Social Security surplus was $155 billion last year, and it was used to 
hide the true size of the deficit.
  Another key date is 2035. That is when Standard & Poor's, the bond 
rating agency, says that American debt will become junk bond debt 
because we will have so little financial credibility in the markets. 
That is not from a government official, that is from the official 
business rating agency.

[[Page 11369]]

  Finally, probably the worst number of all, this is truly so hard to 
believe that I think it needs a chart to display it, the General 
Accounting Office says that by the year 2040 it will take all revenues 
collected by the Federal Government just to pay interest on the debt. 
In other words, by the year 2040, just 35 years from now, there will be 
no money left, not one red cent, for any of our national defense needs, 
for any Social Security, for any Medicare, for any anything. It will 
take all of that money just to pay interest on the debt. That is an 
outrage, and it is a particular outrage if our only creditor then is 
the Chinese government.
  We are clearly on a road to ruin. We have to change our course. We 
need to change our course immediately. Sadly, this Congress is not 
doing that. They need to follow the Blue Dog 12 step plan.
  I appreciate the gentleman's great leadership on this issue as one of 
our leading Blue Dog Members.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from 
Tennessee. If I understand the gentleman correctly, what the gentleman 
is telling us is that basically the government of the United States of 
America as we know it today ends in 2040 if we continue down this path 
of reckless fiscal spending?
  Mr. COOPER. The gentleman is exactly correct. We are the greatest 
Nation on Earth, we are the greatest Nation in the history of the 
world, and that will probably end well before 2040 if we keep on the 
current path.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, it sounds outlandish, until you stop and look 
at history. No country has stood forever. Every country has undergone 
changes. What the gentleman is saying is according to the Government 
Accounting Office, not some Democratic Party group or some Republican 
Party group, but according to the Government Accounting Office, if we 
continue to spend at the rate that we are spending today, if we 
continue to borrow at the rate we are borrowing today, what the 
gentleman is saying is that the Government Accounting Office is saying, 
we are not saying this, the Government Accounting Office, not a 
bipartisan, but a nonpartisan Federal agency, is saying that beginning 
in 2040, every dime of every tax dollar in America will simply go to 
pay interest on the national debt?
  Mr. COOPER. The gentleman is exactly correct. And it is terrible to 
deliver such tough news to the American people, but the GAO is telling 
us the truth, in a nonpartisan fashion, as the gentleman indicates. And 
this bad news is not 35 years off. As I indicated earlier, the GAO has 
already said that the year 2004, last year, was ``arguably the worst 
year in American fiscal history.'' They are saying that is only going 
to get worse still on the path that we are on, on the high deficit, 
high debt path we are on.

                              {time}  2245

  Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, what the gentleman from 
Tennessee is talking about is the debt. We are not even talking about 
the deficit yet, but debt. Again, our Nation is spending $13 billion a 
month, over $13 billion a month simply paying interest on the national 
debt. That is $444 million a day, that is $18 million an hour, that is 
$308,000 a minute, or $5,100 a second.
  On top of that, we have the deficit, and the gentleman from Tennessee 
talked about this a little bit. It is hard now to think back that we 
had a balanced budget in this Nation from 1998 through 2001.
  Mr. COOPER. Just 5 years ago.
  Mr. ROSS. Just 5 years ago. Ever since I was a small child growing up 
in Hope, Arkansas, I heard people talk about how it was the Democrats 
who spent all the money; yet it was President Clinton that left this 
Nation with a balanced budget from 1998 to 2001. Now, this 
administration, this Republican Congress has given us the largest 
budget deficit ever in our Nation's history for a 5th year in a row.
  It started in 2001. The deficit was $128 billion, with Social 
Security, and what I mean by that is they borrow money from the Social 
Security Trust Fund to pay for government spending that is above and 
beyond what tax dollars bring in. No wonder they are talking about the 
need to reform Social Security. No wonder they would not give me a 
hearing on a vote on the first bill I filed as a Member of Congress 
back in 2001, which was a bill to tell the politicians in Washington to 
keep their hands off the Social Security Trust Fund.
  In 2002, the deficit was $157 billion. In 2003, it went to $377 
billion. In 2004, it went to $412 billion. In 2005, it went to $427 
billion. That is counting the money that is borrowed from Social 
Security. If it was not for Social Security, those numbers would be 
much larger. If it was not for the money being borrowed from the Social 
Security Trust Fund, last year's deficit would have been $567 billion; 
this year's deficit, $589 billion.
  Now, where is this money coming from that we are borrowing? Japan, 
$702 billion. We have borrowed $702 billion from Japan. Mr. Speaker, 
$250 billion from China, the Caribbean Banking Centers, I have never 
heard of such; $103 billion our Nation has borrowed from the Caribbean 
Banking Centers to do what? To run our government where we are spending 
more than we are taking in.
  Now, some people may want to pause and say, well, America is at war. 
Well, that is true, and no one supports our troops any more than I do. 
I have a brother-in-law in the U.S. Air Force, I have a first cousin in 
the U.S. Army, and I am so very proud of them. Last August 11, I was in 
Iraq to see some 3,000 National Guard soldiers from Arkansas; and as 
long as we have troops in Iraq, I am going to support them and provide 
them the funding they need to get the job done and to get home as 
safely as they possibly can.
  But that makes up about 20 percent of this deficit. Eighty percent of 
it is coming from reckless spending and from tax cuts. This is the 
first time in America's history that we have cut taxes when America is 
at war. So we are asking these men and women to take a year to a year 
and a half away from their jobs and away from their families and go to 
Iraq and fight this war, and then come home, go back to work, and pay 
taxes to pay for the war they fought. This is the first time we have 
ever cut taxes when America is at war. It may make for good politics, 
but it makes for bad, it makes for horrible fiscal policy.
  I did pretty good off of tax cuts last year, but my kids have to pay 
for them someday, because we borrowed the money from the Caribbean 
Banking Centers to give me a tax cut. And the list goes on and on. 
Korea, we have borrowed $67.1 billion. OPEC nations, I mean, we wonder 
why gas is over two bucks a gallon. OPEC nations have loaned our Nation 
to fund our government and our tax cuts $65.3 billion. Germany, $59.5 
billion; Taiwan, $59.1 billion; and Mexico, for crying out loud, has 
loaned the United States of America $40.6 billion to pay for tax cuts 
for the wealthiest people in this country, and then ask our men and 
women to go to Iraq, fight this war, come home, get a job, pay taxes, 
and pay for the war that they have fought.
  There is so much more that we could talk about, but before I get too 
carried away, I would like to yield back to the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).
  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is focusing on the problem, 
and I think the American people are hungry for more facts, more real 
information about the situation we are in. I would like to encourage 
them to look on the Web site of an institution called the Cato 
Institute. It is here in Washington, D.C. It is not a Democratic group. 
If anything, they are mainly Republican, but they issued a report on 
May 3, 2005. It is by Stephen Slavinski, and it talks about how under 
this Republican-only government, because Republicans run the White 
House and the Senate and the House of Representatives, we have seen the 
biggest spending binge since Lyndon Baines Johnson in the 1960s.
  It is not just defense-related. If we look at nondefense spending 
programs, it is the biggest spending binge since Richard Nixon. Most 
Americans do not

[[Page 11370]]

know this, and they do not know that we just went through arguably the 
worst year in American fiscal history. So I appreciate the gentleman 
sharing the message.
  Several of our colleagues have arrived, and it is probably 
appropriate at this time to recognize them.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Tennessee 
joining us tonight as we talk about this huge crisis facing America, 
the debt and the deficit, and the Blue Dog Coalition's desire to try to 
restore some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's 
government. This is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. This 
is a commonsense issue, and this is about trying to restore some fiscal 
discipline and common sense to our Nation's government.
  Mr. Speaker, when we talk about the deficit this year, $589 billion, 
someone the other day asked me, they said, Mike, what is $1 billion? I 
put that number in my calculator and get that little E at the end. 
Well, a billion seconds ago, Richard Nixon was President. Mr. Speaker, 
6.8 billion seconds ago, President George Washington was sworn into 
office. A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ, and to 
count out 1 billion nonstop without sleep or eating would take 38\1/2\ 
years.
  So we are talking about a number with a lot of zeroes, and we are 
talking about money that is going down this deep, dark hole to simply 
pay interest on the national debt due to reckless fiscal policies that 
could be going to build new elementary schools, to invest in education, 
to invest in our teachers, to provide our National Guard and Reservists 
with health insurance, not just during a time of war, but all the time. 
We could build roads, we could create jobs, we could create economic 
opportunities in this era where 9 million people are out of work. None 
of these things are being done because of this horrible, reckless, 
irresponsible fiscal policy.
  To talk more about this, a fellow Blue Dog member, another one from 
Tennessee, Tennessee is full of fiscally conservative Democrats, and 
that is my colleague, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis), and I 
yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. DAVIS of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from 
Arkansas; and, certainly, it is a privilege to serve in the U.S. House 
with my good friend, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper). The 
gentleman at one time served the district that I represent, and he is 
one of the few great intellects we have in Tennessee. He is, in my 
opinion, very analytic on this issue, and it is certainly a pleasure to 
follow the gentleman, although sometimes quite difficult, obviously, 
but he is someone we can be proud of.
  I am extremely pleased to be a part of a group who call themselves 
Blue Dog Democrats, and there is a reason for that. We truly believe 
that deficit hawks and defense hawks are something that America 
believes in, and that is why I can believe in this group, in this 
caucus of 30-some-odd individuals who have committed themselves to 
fiscal responsibility and being sure that our Nation is defended 
against our enemies, and our enemy today comes in more than one way. It 
certainly can come in the form of what happened on September 11 from 
individuals who want to do harm to liberty and freedom. It can also 
come from an economic assault on this Nation.
  I want to talk some about that in a few moments. But as we look at 
what has happened in this country since 2000 and look at the huge 
deficits, and it is my understanding that if we take the trade deficits 
in the last 4 years and total those up, I have heard that it is greater 
than the entire deficits, trade deficits in the history of this 
country.
  What does that mean, and what does that do for us? It means we are 
losing our jobs. It means that as that continues to happen, we will 
also start losing our revenue streams. So we have got to start looking 
at putting our house in order and managing what we are doing today. 
Otherwise, this country not only could be attacked by some military 
power; I am not sure there is one in the world that would threaten to 
do that, by those who are terrorists who would threaten this country or 
attack this country, but the economic threat to our Nation is almost as 
equally dangerous today unless we get our fiscal house in order.
  To my colleagues and folks back home who may be watching, this may 
sound a little partisan to you, but a lot of folks back home on both 
sides of the aisle I think that have supported me, and I appreciate 
that, but I think it is time that I expressed my views pretty strongly 
because I love this country. I want my grandchildren to be sure that 
they enjoy the same liberties and opportunities and options in their 
life that this wonderful country gave me.
  I do believe that this administration and the Republican majority has 
spent a great deal of time in the first session of the 109th Congress 
trying to convince the American people that Social Security is in a 
crisis. Well, that is debatable, and I am sure Congress will spend 
valuable time over the next few months arguing about how to fix this 
system. While I think that we should address Social Security's pending 
solvency problems at some point in the future, I truly believe the 
responsible and moral thing for this Congress to do is to address the 
crisis that is knocking at our front door.
  That crisis is a $7.7 trillion national debt, over $600 billion a 
year in trade deficits, and over $400 billion a year in budget 
deficits. These numbers are so big that they sound like something out 
of a science fiction movie. If only they were science fiction. Sadly, 
it is really the fact.
  Since this administration has taken office, we have seen, as the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) said a moment ago, the largest 
Federal increase in spending since Lyndon Johnson. Our friends on the 
other side of the aisle often cite that 9/11 and the war on terrorism 
are responsible for this. There is no doubt it is true that the new 
threats to our security has caused a need for new spending in the areas 
of defense and homeland security. But even if we exclude those spending 
increases, we have still seen under this administration and Republican 
majority the largest spending increase in the past 30 years. I find it 
ironic that the party of small government has overseen a 33 percent 
growth in government during the President's first term.
  As a recent publication by the Cato Institute says, the GOP 
establishment in Washington today has become a defender of big 
government.
  Mr. Speaker, maybe this is just a result of partisan politics during 
the Clinton administration, but Republicans and Democrats were forced 
to work together if they were going to get anything done. What 
happened? From fiscal year 1998 to 2001, we actually had budget 
surpluses and a projected overall surplus in the range of $5 trillion. 
Even if we remove the Social Security surpluses from the total budget 
line for these years, we still had budget surpluses in fiscal year 1999 
and 2000, and the largest budget deficit we saw was $32 billion.
  Under this administration, we have seen on-budget deficits as high as 
$567 billion, a remarkable turnaround. In my humble opinion, the 
Republican majority has been reckless and spent the taxpayers' money 
like drunken sailors on a weekend pass.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time to resolve that pass and to revoke it and 
take a stand for all of the American people because, sadly, the Members 
of Congress currently serving are not going to have to pay off this 
debt. Instead, our children and grandchildren will have to pay it off. 
Our soldiers who are serving us so bravely in Iraq will come back home 
and find they have to foot the bill for the war we sent them off to 
fight; and this is simply wrong. It is simply immoral.

                              {time}  2300

  There is hope. It is called the Blue Dog Coalition 12-point plan. And 
I am up here to ask for an up-or-down vote. We have heard that a lot 
recently, have we not? An up-or-down vote for the people of America. An 
up-or-down vote, because ultimately this issue does not just affect 
people in certain districts. It affects all Americans.
  So I am here for the American people asking for an up-or-down vote. I 
want

[[Page 11371]]

an up-or-down vote on H.R. 903, the Fiscal Accountability and Honesty 
Act of 2005. This will, among other things, extend PAYGO that expired 
in 2002 and close the loopholes on emergency spending.
  I want an up-or-down vote on H.R. 121, a package of rules changes for 
the House. These changes will require a rollcall vote on raising the 
debt ceiling and give Members of Congress 3 days so that we can 
actually read and study the bills we vote on. I mean, if the Republican 
majority is so confident that the legislation they send to the floor is 
right for the American people, should it not withstand 3 days' public 
scrutiny? What is there to hide? Why not an up-or-down vote on 121?
  I want an up-or-down vote on House Joint Resolution 22, the Balanced 
Budget Amendment. This amendment has already been passed by the House 
as part of the GOP Contract with America.
  Now, the Blue Dogs, in an effort to provide security for our current 
and future retirees, have added language to protect Social Security 
benefits from being cut to balance the budget. There are 49 States in 
this Nation that require a balanced budget. If it is good enough for 
them, it is good enough for me.
  Mr. Speaker, I will repeat this three or four times. Give us an up-
or-down vote on budget restraint issues, measures that have been 
introduced, get them out of the committee, bring them on this floor. 
Give us an up-or-down vote, an up-or-down vote. If it is good enough 
for judges and Presidential appointees, it is good enough for all 200-
some-odd million people who live in this country.
  So to the majority on this floor, I ask you, an up-or-down vote. Now 
is the time. It is time to get it done.
  Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis). And just 
to quickly quote, I believe the newspaper there in Tennessee is called 
The Tennesseean, and on May 9, in an editorial they said this: ``If 
Members want to get serious about addressing deficits, they should take 
an approach more like those proposed by the Blue Dog Coalition, which 
includes Tennessee Democrats John Tanner,'' one of the founders of the 
Blue Dogs, ``Jim Cooper,'' who has been with us here tonight and will 
return, ``Lincoln Davis,'' who just spoke, ``and Harold Ford, Jr. The 
Blue Dogs not only emphasize the need to balance the books, they 
advocate bringing down the national debt, which has climbed to more 
than $7 trillion and is becoming a national security issue since much 
of the debt is in the hands of foreign investors.'' Again, the 
Tennesseean editorial on Monday, May 9, 2005.
  As the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis) indicated, this is not 
about partisan politics. I do not know about you, but I am sick and 
tired of all the partisan bickering that goes on at our Nation's 
Capital. It should not be about whether it is a Democratic idea or 
Republican idea. It ought to be about is it a commonsense idea, and 
does it make sense for the people that sent us here to be their voice 
and to represent them.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.
  Mr. DAVIS of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, thank you for an opportunity to 
be here tonight. And I deeply appreciate it. This is my second term, so 
I am kind of new as far as being a Member of Congress. But it is a 
delightful group that I am with, and I certainly look forward to this 
Nation having better leadership with individuals like those I serve 
with who are Members of our Blue Dog Coalition.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
Davis) for joining us this evening and for his commitment to trying to 
restore some fiscal discipline to our Nation's government.
  You know, when you hear about the Blue Dogs, this group of fiscally 
conservative Democrats, a lot of people think we are all from the 
South, and they all think we sound kind of like I do. And that is not 
the case at all. We stretch from California to Long Island.
  Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield as much time as the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel) might consume. The gentleman from 
New York will talk more about this crisis that we find ourselves in, 
and in a little bit we will be coming back as a group to talk more 
about this 12-point plan that we have to try and help get us out of 
this hole that we find ourselves. But at this time I yield to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).
  Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, the gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Ross). The gentleman and I were elected in the same 
class, in 2000. I thank the gentleman for his leadership for so ably 
representing the conservative values of his district. I do not agree 
with every one of his positions, but nobody advocates more fearlessly 
for the interests of his district than the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. 
Ross).
  Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
Davis). I am honored to be on the floor with both of them this evening.
  The gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross) noted that I am from New York, 
from Long Island, New York. One of the wisest decisions that I ever 
made in coming to Congress with the gentleman was to join the Blue 
Dogs. And, in fact, most of the Blue Dogs do come from the South. I am 
probably the only Blue Dog who speaks with a distinct New York accent. 
Sometimes we need a translator to figure each other out.
  But it really does not matter whether you are from the Deep South or 
the south shore of Long Island. What binds Blue Dogs are principally 
two issues: Number one, a sense of fiscal responsibility. We believe 
that we ought to play by the same rules on the floor of the House that 
every American family has to play by at their kitchen tables. You have 
got to balance the books. Those folks do not have the ability to simply 
print money in their basements. They have got to balance their books. 
They have got to reconcile their checkbooks. We believe the same.
  The second thing that we believe is that we have got to have a strong 
and robust military, something I agree with passionately.
  Now, I have the privilege of serving with the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) on the Armed Services Committee. There are only 
two New Yorkers who serve on the Armed Services Committee. I am the 
only New York Democrat on that committee. And I call myself a Harry 
Truman Democrat. I believe in a strong and robust defense. I spend most 
of my time on this floor in this Congress thinking about how to keep 
our country stronger and safer. And what I want to talk about just for 
a few minutes this evening is the linkage between this $7 trillion debt 
and our national security, our national defense, because this figure 
does not make us stronger in the long run.
  Think about what happened on the floor of the House just a few hours 
ago. We spent the day debating a Defense authorization approaching $500 
billion. And at the end of that debate, our Blue Dog colleague, the 
gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), stood up and suggested that we 
make a simple, but important, change in the budget that was about to 
pass. He said to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, it does not 
matter whether you are Republican or Democrat; let us do the right 
thing for our Guard and Reserves. Let us provide them with health care. 
Let us not tell a single American Guard or Reservist that if you are 
going to go fight for us in Iraq or Afghanistan, 40 percent of our 
military in Iraq, Guard and Reserve, if you are going to do that, when 
you come home we are not going to abandon you, abandon your families 
with respect to health care. If you need health care, we will take care 
of it. If you are willing to sacrifice yourself for us, we are willing 
to take care of your health care, your health insurance, not just while 
you are fighting, but after.
  And what was the response that we heard? It is the same response that 
we hear time after time after time on the floor of the House. It is not 
that anybody is against our Guard and Reserve. It is not that anybody 
is against providing health care for our military. It is just that we 
cannot afford it because of this number.

[[Page 11372]]

  Mr. ROSS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ISRAEL. I will be happy to yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. ROSS. The gentleman is telling us that we, tonight, the majority 
in this Chamber refused to provide health insurance every day of the 
week, every week of the month, every month of the year for our men and 
women who have gone to Iraq, who are going to Iraq, or who have been to 
Iraq, because they said we could not afford it
  Mr. ISRAEL. That is exactly what happened.
  Mr. ROSS. And it was going to be a billion a year.
  Mr. ISRAEL. The gentleman is correct, a billion a year.
  Mr. ROSS. And this is the same crowd that gave us a budget this year 
that includes $106 billion in new tax cuts.
  Mr. ISRAEL. These are the Members of this body who argue that we can 
afford to make every single penny of tax cuts permanent, but we cannot 
afford to provide health care for Members of the National Guard and the 
Reserve who are fighting for survival around the world.
  Mr. ROSS. If the gentleman would yield, so what you are telling me is 
that the majority on the floor of the U.S. House this evening decided 
it was more important to maintain $106 billion in tax cuts and not 
provide health insurance year round for our Reservists and Guardsmen 
that have either been to Iraq, are going to Iraq, or just got back from 
Iraq or are in Iraq today. They were not willing to take $106 billion 
in tax cuts and make it $105 billion so they could take care of our men 
and women in uniform?
  Mr. ISRAEL. If the gentleman would yield, the gentleman is precisely 
correct. That is the decision that was made tonight. But it gets worse, 
because many of us on the Armed Services Committee approached our 
colleagues and said, you know, if somebody is willing to go to Iraq and 
they lose their life, we ought to be able to take care of their life 
insurance. We ought to pay for their life insurance.

                              {time}  2310

  The answer was, great idea, we cannot afford it. After all, we have a 
$7 trillion debt. Nobody ever says, we do not care about our troops; 
nobody ever says, we do not care about our military.
  It all comes down to this: We used to have a $5.6 trillion surplus. 
Maybe in those days we could support our military and our military 
families, but now we have got into deep debt. We have got to make tough 
decisions so we can improve life insurance for our troops, our military 
families. We can pay a very modest amount in health care for our Guard 
and Reserve because of this debt, but also because we want to make sure 
we can make those tax cuts permanent. Now, that is fundamentally 
unfair. That is just bad priority.
  Meanwhile, as we are telling our Guard and Reserves that we cannot 
afford their health care, which does not make us stronger, for 2 years, 
as we told military families that we could not take care of their life 
insurance, increase their life insurance, increase the death gratuity.
  Meanwhile, we continue to engage in reckless fiscal policies with the 
enemies that we are told that we will have in the future, namely, the 
Chinese. Every time you have a briefing they tell you, you have to 
start worrying about China, but meanwhile we are allowing them to 
finance our debts.
  So the adversaries that we are told we should worry about in the next 
few years are keeping the lights on in the House of Representatives, 
are running our Humvees in Iraq. How can you have a coherent national 
security policy when you have to rely on the adversaries that you 
expect to finance your Treasury, when they own 40 percent of your debt? 
It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
  The final point I want to make is this: This is bad enough. The 
decisions that are made on the floor of the House with respect to our 
military are bad enough, but think about what our children are going to 
have to deal with when they are here on the floor of the House, when 
they have to figure out how they are going to pay their taxes, balance 
their checkbooks.
  We have a $2.5 trillion budget right now. In 10 years when my kids 
are approximately my age or approaching my age, think about what that 
budget is going to do to them. Their defense budget, the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) probably knows this, will likely approach $600 
billion. Interest on the debt which they have to pay will likely 
approach $500 billion. And everything else, whatever is left in the 
budget will be allocated to all of their needs, Social Security, and 
Medicare, the FBI, education, environmental protection, crime 
reduction.
  That is an intolerable budget that we are inflicting on them.
  One of the things that the Blue Dogs emphasize is our fundamental 
responsibility to be fiscally conservative, but to give our kids a 
better, safer, stronger world than we have today. What we are doing 
with these numbers, with these policies is raising our kids' taxes, 
straining their military, mortgaging them to our potential adversaries.
  And I am reminded of the very profound words of one of our 
distinguished colleagues, another member of the Tennessee delegation, 
the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), who last spring said to a 
gathering of Blue Dogs that no nation in the history of humankind has 
ever been strong, free and bankrupt.
  If nothing else, our obligation in Washington, DC, in the 
administration, in the House of Representatives, is to put politics 
aside and agree to make sure that we are strong, free and not bankrupt. 
And all we have done over the past several years is to strain our 
military, deny military families the basic, decent conditions they 
need, the health care they need, the life insurance they need; and end 
up owing more to the adversaries we are told to worry about more and 
more every day.
  We have an obligation to treat our military families better, to treat 
our troops better, to treat our kids better. Thank goodness the Blue 
Dogs take that obligation seriously. I thank the gentleman for giving 
me this time.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I would advise the gentleman to continue to 
join us if he will.
  The gentleman speaks to us on these veteran issues and these military 
issues with a lot of authority as a member of the House Committee on 
Armed Services. And I want to thank the gentleman for what he does for 
our veterans and our men and women in uniform as we continue to try and 
advance health insurance around the clock for our men and women in the 
National Guard and our Reservists.
  I think what the gentleman from Long Island has basically summed up 
for us this evening is about priorities. It is about, do we want 
another $106 billion in tax cuts when we borrow 45 percent of that 
money from Japan and China and the Caribbean banking centers and Korea 
and the OPEC nations and Germany and Taiwan and Mexico? Or do we want 
to do right by our men and women in uniform, by our veterans?
  Do we want to build the kind of roads we need to create jobs and 
economic opportunities for the future and do we want to fix Medicare? 
All this talk about Social Security, if we do not touch it, the first 
reduction in benefits happens when I am 91 years of age. And yet 
Medicare, which is what our seniors count on to stay healthy and get 
well, is bankrupt in 14 years. And yet no one is talking about that.
  These are priorities that are important to those of us in the Blue 
Dog Coalition. And we understand that as long as we continue to borrow 
money from foreign countries, as we continue to borrow money to the 
tune of $1.1 billion per day, think about that, as a Nation we are 
spending $1.1 billion a day more than we are taking in.
  It is about priorities. And until we get our fiscal house in order, 
we are not going to be able to meet the needs of our children, our 
grandchildren and the future of this great country.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield at this time to the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cooper), the cochair for policy for the Blue Dog 
Coalition. I thought we could engage in a colloquy to discussing the 
12-point reform plan.

[[Page 11373]]

We do not just want to beat up the Republicans for bankrupting this 
country. We want to offer a solution, and we have got one.
  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. There 
are several ways out of this terrible dilemma that we are in an as a 
Nation.
  First, we have to acknowledge that we have Republican cosponsors for 
our proposal. Particularly the Republican Study Committees deserves 
great thanks for their lending a hand to our proposal. A number of us 
have cosponsored their proposals. The solution out of this has to be 
bipartisan.
  Our 12-point plan includes the following elements: It includes a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States. 
Remember, that was part of the Republican Contract with America, but 
somehow they have forgotten about it these last 10 years. We need to 
have a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, this is important to note, and the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Israel) mentioned it earlier this evening, those of 
us with families, we get around the kitchen table and we have to 
balance the family budget. My wife and I own a small-town family 
pharmacy with 12 employees back home. We have to have a balanced 
budget. Forty-nine States in America, I was in the State Senate in 
Arkansas for 10 years; 49 States in America require a balanced budget.
  Is it asking too much of the politicians in Washington to give the 
citizens of this country a balanced budget? That is what we are talking 
about doing here.
  Mr. COOPER. The gentleman is correct. Our balanced budget amendment 
would completely protect Social Security so it would not in any way be 
endangered by this. It would also require a three-fifths majority of 
this House in order to raise the debt limit. So it would really do a 
lot to control the spending binge we are on.
  Another key element of the plan is, pay as you go. In other words, 
this Congress could no longer buy on credit. We would take up the 
national credit card, cut it up, put it away.
  Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, says this is 
probably the single most important policy reform we could undertake. 
Why does he say that? Because we had it for 12 years and it worked 
brilliantly. We had it in place from 1990 to 2002. And under Republican 
leadership they let it expire, so the pay-as-you-go principle no longer 
operates. We need to reinstate PAYGO.
  Mr. ROSS. So the gentleman is saying that under President Clinton 
that we had what was called pay-as-you-go rules in place, which meant 
that if you are going to raise spending, you have got to cut spending 
somewhere else, which led to the first balanced budget in 40 years; and 
now that no longer applies to the House here?

                              {time}  2320

  Mr. COOPER. The gentleman is exactly correct. And if you cut taxes, 
you have to make up the lost revenue, either through spending cuts or 
other taxes. And it is an important way to live within your means, by 
cutting up the credit cards so you are no longer borrowing more than 
you can afford. It is a key principle.
  Another element of the Blue Dog spending plan is to put spending caps 
on spending, so that we live within our means; so that we live within 
our own budget; so that the budget does not become a joke, as it so 
often does within this House.
  Another element of the Blue Dog reform plan is to require our Federal 
agencies to live within their means and get their fiscal houses in 
order, because so many Federal agencies are not auditable. They do not 
know how to account for the money that they are charged with, and it is 
very important that they live within their means just as any family or 
business has to do in this country.
  Mr. ROSS. If the gentleman will yield for a moment there, I want to 
go back and make sure I understand. When you talk about requiring 
agencies to put their fiscal houses in order, you are talking about 
Federal agencies?
  Mr. COOPER. Exactly.
  Mr. ROSS. It is my understanding that the Government Accounting 
Office found that 16 of 23 major Federal agencies cannot even issue a 
simple audit of their books.
  Mr. COOPER. They would be pretty much out of business if they were a 
public company in this country, and they are all large enough to be 
giant public companies. And the Federal Government simply cannot find 
$24 billion. They do not know where it went.
  This is an outrage. And guess what the worst offending Federal agency 
happens to be? The U.S. Pentagon. And it is not because we are at war. 
Even during peacetime, the Pentagon has not been able to account for 
the money it is spending.
  Mr. ROSS. That is the agency that spends $800 on a hammer and $600 on 
a commode seat?
  Mr. COOPER. That has been true in the past. We hope that is not true 
today.
  Mr. ROSS. So you are saying, if the gentleman will continue to yield, 
that the Federal Government cannot account for $24.5 billion that it 
spent in 2003; and what this plan would do is it would say to those 
agencies that we are going to freeze your budget until you learn how to 
be fiscally responsible?
  Mr. COOPER. We have heard their excuses for too long. So this would 
freeze them until they learned how to behave and learned how to count 
the money they are entrusted with.
  Another key element of the plan is that Congress has to tell 
taxpayers back home how much we are spending, because right now many 
bills go through this body with a voice vote, with no cost estimate. So 
we are proposing, just as a place to start, not that this is a perfect 
number, but any bill that spends more than $50 million we will have to 
have a recorded vote on so that the taxpayers back home will know who 
voted for what; so there is finally some accountability in this body.
  Mr. ROSS. So if the gentleman will yield, right now, with the 
leadership in this House, under the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), 
they will allow a voice vote without an actual rollcall vote on 
millions, if not billions, of dollars of taxpayer money being spent; 
and what we are saying here is, if you are going to spend $50 million 
or more of taxpayer money to fund our government, it requires a vote of 
the full Congress?
  Mr. COOPER. A recorded vote so that people back home can tell how we 
behave up here.
  Mr. ISRAEL. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. COOPER. I would be delighted to yield to the gentleman from New 
York.
  Mr. ISRAEL. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Does the gentleman 
recall when the House of Representatives voted on the entire $2.5 
trillion budget resolution?
  Mr. COOPER. That was some 3 weeks ago we had the budget resolution. 
They rammed it through here in 2 hours.
  Mr. ISRAEL. And would the gentleman state how long Members of 
Congress actually had to read that $2.5 trillion budget?
  Mr. COOPER. The gentleman asks an interesting question. I am on the 
Committee on the Budget, and we were only allowed 2 hours from first 
glance of the document, and this is a complex document, any document 
would be that spends $2.6 trillion, and 2 hours later, final passage 
and you never see it again.
  That is an outrage to ram through a budget like that. No responsible 
board of directors in America, no responsible businessman or woman 
would tolerate that situation, yet it has become commonplace in the 
U.S. House of Representatives under Republican leadership.
  And lest this be viewed as partisan, check again the Cato Institute 
report. They say that government accountability has suffered terribly 
under our all-Republican government because there are no checks and 
balances any more. There is nobody calling them to task, and so we have 
got to restore fiscal sanity to this Nation.
  Another key element of the Blue Dog spending plan is to set aside a 
real

[[Page 11374]]

rainy day fund. We know that emergencies and tragedies are going to 
occur. Let us set aside a little money in advance so that not 
everything becomes an emergency here.
  We spend tens, sometimes hundreds, of billions of dollars a year here 
because it is a so-called emergency. And some of them are. But in the 
most recently past emergency supplemental bill of $82 billion, a lot of 
that was for our troops in Iraq, and we are all for that; but a lot of 
it was for other stuff that powerful Congressmen and Senators snuck in 
the bill because they knew they could get away with it.
  Mr. ROSS. If the gentleman will yield on that, I think it is so 
important that we do have a rainy day fund. We have had natural 
disasters every year since I have been here. We either have droughts or 
floods, and sometimes both depending on where you live; and we have to 
be there for our farm families if we want to have a safe and reliable 
source for food and fiber, which I believe is every bit as important to 
our national security as oil.
  But what is so important about the need for a rainy day fund, I 
believe, is it helps stop the deficit spending. You have money set 
aside in a fund knowing that something is going to happen.
  And the gentleman raised the issue of the $82 billion supplement. 
Most folks think that went to support our troops. I supported it, 
because a large part of it did go to our support our troops. But the 
reality is during that same week on the floor of the House we did two 
things: we passed a budget that included $500 million in cuts to farm 
families in this country, and in the same week we passed $82 billion, 
and most people think it was all to support our troops. I supported it 
because part of it was and I support our troops, but what most people 
do not know is that that bill included a $266 million buyout, you have 
heard of tobacco buyouts, to do a buyout of opium farmers in 
Afghanistan.
  Now if we cannot find Osama bin Laden hiding in the hills over there 
in Afghanistan, how in the world are we going to police what thousands 
of Afghan farmers are or are not growing? Just one example of what the 
gentleman is talking about that goes on that I believe people need to 
be held accountable for.
  Mr. COOPER. The gentleman is exactly correct. The other elements of 
the Blue Dog reform plan, point number seven, would be let us have real 
votes, recorded votes, on raising the debt ceiling for this country.
  A lot of Americans think we vote on that here. Well, we used to, in 
the good old days. But now, under Republican leadership, if you voted 
for Speaker Hastert, you also voted to make debt ceiling votes 
disappear. They no longer happen anymore.
  And to put it in perspective, it took the first 204 years of our 
Nation's history to run up the first $1 trillion in debt, and now we 
are doing it about every year or two. That is an outrage. And no one is 
recorded in their votes when we do that. Every year or two it is 
another trillion; we raise the debt ceiling. And that vote has simply 
disappeared.
  Mr. ROSS. If the gentleman will yield, he is absolutely right. It 
took 200 years to go $1 trillion in debt, and now we do it every 20 
months in this Nation. But in terms of raising the debt limit, it is my 
understanding that what the gentleman means by that is it is kind of 
like a credit card with a credit limit. And when the Federal Government 
reaches its limit, the Congress has to vote either by voice vote or 
rollcall to raise the debt limit before we can exceed whatever it was 
before.
  And it is my understanding that we exceeded the debt limit back in 
October of 2004, but we really did not want to bring attention to it. 
The leadership here did not want to bring attention to the fact. They 
did not want to bring us back to raise the debt limit weeks before the 
election, so they literally used Federal employees' 401(k) savings 
contributions to fund our government for 2 or 3 weeks, to buy time 
until the election was over and bring us back up here.
  As a small business owner, if I do that with my employees' 401(k) 
plans, I go to the Federal pen. And yet it is my understanding that is 
how we ran our government in late October and early November of 2004.
  Mr. COOPER. Sadly, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is exactly correct.
  In the little time we have remaining, let me make sure we finish the 
remaining Blue Dog points here.
  We have to admit that Congress likes to spend money on its own pet 
projects. It is called earmark spending. We do not ban that, but we 
require a written justification for every project, so that things like 
Senator Charles Grassley's $50 million indoor rain forest in Iowa would 
no longer happen without written justification. The Wall Street Journal 
reported ``it would be cheaper to fly everyone in Iowa to a real rain 
forest rather than build a fake one somewhere in Iowa.''
  Another key element of the Blue Dog reform plan is to give us the 3 
days that we have under House rules to read these bills so that we have 
a chance to know what is going on; so we have a chance to share with 
our constituents back home what is in these bills so we can get their 
ideas. That is the best way to represent them, instead of ramming 
things through here, like our budget 3 weeks ago in 2 hours, or other 
legislation they rammed through in 1 day under what they call the 
martial law rule. That is not a pejorative; that is what they call it, 
a martial law rule for running our democracy.
  Another key element of the Blue Dog reform plan is let us get an 
honest cost estimate for every bill. I mentioned earlier let us have a 
recorded vote for the larger bills, but we need to know what each bill 
costs so we have some idea what we are spending.

                              {time}  2330

  Most Americans back home are probably shocked that after 200-plus 
years of this great democracy, we still do not know what bills cost.
  Finally, we need to make sure that each piece of legislation fits 
within the budget, so we do not routinely bust the budget. Last year, I 
think four or five of the appropriations bills busted the budget.
  Finally, Congress needs to make sure that we do a better job of 
keeping tabs on government programs. This Congress has failed 
miserably, and even the most partisan Republican would admit that. Most 
of the oversight subcommittees have been abolished. They do not exist 
anymore. There is no one to hold hearings to make sure that the 
taxpayers' money is being well spent. Those are the key points in the 
12-point Blue Dog reform plan.
  We have bipartisan support for this. Many of the elements are shared 
with the Republican Study Committee Plan. Many of us have also 
supported their reform efforts. We need to work together to form a 
bipartisan majority, much as our Senate colleagues did to avert the 
nuclear showdown on judicial nominations, get the sensible center of 
this Congress to come together and do the right thing for the American 
taxpayer.
  We are so close because if just 10 or 20 of the Republicans would 
break from their leadership, they could do as the CATO Institute report 
suggests, start reforming the budget process in this House. All it 
takes is 10 or 20 renegades on their side to stand up for the American 
taxpayer. We can get budget reform. It may be the Republican Study 
Committee that does it. It may be the Mainstream Republicans, or the 
Tuesday Group that does it, but I believe the Blue Dog Democrats will 
be there to make sure that sensible fiscal policy is restored to this 
Nation.
  I appreciate the gentleman holding this special order.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I would thank the gentleman from Tennessee.
  Mr. Speaker, one of the 12 points is to ensure that the Congress 
reads the bills we are voting on. We cannot pass a law to make Members 
of Congress read a bill, but several examples have been given this 
evening of what we are talking about here.
  Last year, before the election, there were 13 spending bills that had 
to pass to fund our government. Two were passed before the election. 
They brought us back up here after the election, saying that they could 
roll all 11 into one and call it the omnibus spending bill and pass it 
in 3 or 4 days, and they did.

[[Page 11375]]

  The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader, did. It 
was over 1,000 pages, over 12,000 local spending projects. We had just 
a few hours to read it. Sure enough, it was full of errors, including 
allowing congressional staffers to look at people's tax returns. And so 
all 435 Members had to fly back up here to fix that, among other 
things.
  That is just one of 12 common-sense budget reform steps that we think 
have to happen before Democrats or Republicans can provide a truthful, 
meaningful budget again.
  Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, just one concluding point. This Blue Dog 12-
point plan is not radical or inventive. It is what every American 
family has to abide by every single day. All this plan says is, we will 
play by the same rules that our businesses are supposed to play by and 
our families are supposed to play by. I do not know of a single 
American family that can just decide to go beyond their means and tell 
their bank, I want to borrow more. We should play by the same rules.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross) and the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) for their stalwart leadership on 
fiscal responsibility and common sense.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, in the hour that we have discussed the debt 
and the deficit, our Nation has borrowed $48 million. On top of that, 
our Nation has paid $18 million in interest on the national debt. That 
is $66 million that our Nation has spent during the 60 minutes we have 
been here.
  It is about priorities. That money could have gone for better 
education, better roads, and better veterans' benefits.
  Mr. Speaker, I raise these issues because my grandparents left this 
Nation better than they found it for my parents. And my parents left 
this Nation better than they found it for our generation, and I believe 
we have a duty and an obligation to try and leave this country just a 
little bit better than we found it for our children and grandchildren.

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