[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 14868-14874]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           BLUE DOG COALITION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, this evening as I do each Tuesday evening that 
the United States House of Representatives is in session, I rise on 
behalf of the 37-Member-strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue 
Dog Coalition.
  As you walk the halls of Congress, as you walk the halls of the 
Cannon House Office Building, the Longworth House Office Building and 
the Rayburn House Office Building, it is easy to spot an office that 
belongs to one of the 37 Members of the fiscally conservative 
Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, because you will find this poster as a 
welcome mat by each door of a Blue Dog member.
  As you can see, today the U.S. national debt is $8,419,147,820,878 
and some change. Your share of the national debt, that is every living 
man, woman and child, including the children born today, every American 
citizen's share of the national debt is $28,134.
  As Members of the Blue Dog Coalition, it is what we call the debt 
tax, d-e-b-t, and that is one tax that cannot go away until this 
Republican Congress and this administration gets our Nation's fiscal 
house in order.
  Last week, the President made a big announcement about how the 
deficit really was not as bad as what his White House had first thought 
and reported it would be. I think the best way to sum up the events of 
last week can be found in an editorial, July 11, 2006, from the Los 
Angeles Times entitled ``Another Mission Accomplished,''
  And I will not read the entire editorial, but I think it sets the 
stage for what we plan the spend the next hour discussing this evening. 
It starts off like this: ``The release of the White House mid-session 
budget review is an annual event normally marked by a few wonkish 
observations and the routine updating of various spreadsheets, not by a 
full-dressed Presidential dog-and-pony show. But President Bush plans 
to preside today with Members of Congress and invited guests in 
attendance. By all indications, including his own, in his weekly radio 
address last Saturday, he plans to turn this into a celebration just in 
time for the fall campaign.''
  The editorial from the Los Angeles times dated July 11, 2006 
continues. ``This is proof, if anyone still needs it, that this 
administration is desperate for something to boast about. On Mr. Bush's 
watch, triple-digit budget surpluses have turned into annual triple-
digit budget deficits.
  ``There is no information in the mid-session report to alter that 
utterly dispiriting fact. Yes, the report is expected to project that 
this year's deficit will be somewhat less gargantuan than last year's, 
probably somewhere between $280 and $300 billion versus a $318 billion 
shortfall in 2005.''
  And it concludes, that part of the editorial, by saying, ``That is 
not much to crow about.'' Well, they are right. Last week the 
administration released its mid-session review of the budget. And after 
further examination, let's take a closer look at what the report 
actually tells us.
  The report actually tells us that what we have here is another record 
deficit. The administration's updated estimate of $296 billion deficit 
makes 2006 one of the four largest deficits in our Nation's history. It 
is hard now to believe that we had a balanced budget in this country 
from 1998 to 2001. But it did not take this administration and this 
Republican-led Congress very long to turn fiscal responsibility into 
record deficits.

                              {time}  2000

  As you can see, the largest deficit ever in our Nation's history 
occurred in 2004 when the Republicans controlled the White House, the 
House, and the Senate. It was $413 billion in red ink, in hot checks, 
if you will.
  The year 2003 was the second largest deficit ever in our Nation's 
history, where, for the first time in over 50 years, the Republicans 
controlled the White House, the House and Senate, and they gave us the 
second largest deficit ever in our Nation's history, $378 billion.
  The third largest record deficit ever in our Nation's history again 
occurred while the Republicans controlled the White House, the House, 
and the Senate. It was in 2005, and it was $318 billion deficit, the 
third largest deficit ever in our Nation's history.
  Then this year, the President has a press conference, has a grand 
ceremony and event to announce that the deficit for fiscal year 2006 is 
only $296 billion, the fourth largest deficit ever in our Nation's 
history. I think the editorial in the Los Angeles Times had it right 
when it said that is not much to crow about.
  The administration's updated estimate of $296 billion deficit, as I 
indicated, makes 2006 the fourth largest deficit ever in our Nation's 
history.
  While this number represents an improvement over the 2005 deficit of 
$318 billion, it still ranks as the fourth largest deficit ever in our 
Nation's history. These revised estimates do not account for the extent 
of our budget problems, because they include in the calculation the 
annual surpluses in Social Security.
  The first bill I filed as a Member of Congress when I got here in 
2001 was a bill to tell the politicians in Washington to keep their 
hands off the Social Security trust fund. This Republican Congress 
refused to give me a hearing or a vote on that bill, and now we know 
why, because they are raiding the Social Security trust fund to fund 
tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year.
  They are raiding the Social Security trust fund to fund this out-of-
control deficit, this out-of-control debt, this reckless spending that 
we are seeing occurring in our Nation's capital and the way the 
Republican leadership is running our government and this country. In 
fact, when the Social Security surplus is excluded, as it should be, 
the 2006 deficit is not $296 billion; it is $473 billion.

[[Page 14869]]

  Now, throughout the evening we are going to be talking more about 
this, including projected surpluses, and how they became huge deficits. 
I will talk more about that in a little bit, but I have been joined 
this evening by the cochair for policy for the Blue Dog Coalition, Jim 
Cooper from Tennessee. Glad to have you with us this evening.
  Mr. COOPER. Thank you. I thank my good friend from Arkansas, and I 
appreciate your excellent summary of our fiscal situation.
  Because Americans lead busy lives, we were happy to get a little bit 
of good news last week, or what we thought was good news. The President 
and the administration certainly built it up as if it was good news. I 
am glad that the deficit is looking a little smaller than the White 
House had predicted. That is good news, and I appreciate that.
  But it is still very important for Americans to put that in 
perspective. As my friend from Arkansas points out, it is good news, 
and it is not the largest deficit in American history; it is only the 
fourth largest deficit in American history. So that is something to be 
grateful for.
  But it reminded me a little bit of telling somebody, hey, the good 
news is your cancer is in remission. Well, that is good news. It is 
good news the cancer is in remission, but the bad news is you still 
have cancer.
  What we are concerned about as Blue Dogs is not a temporary deficit. 
Sometimes the Nation has to run a temporary deficit. What we are 
concerned about are permanent structural deficits, deficits that grow 
beyond our possible ability to repay the debt, deficits that strangle 
economic growth, that prevent us from building a stronger country for 
our kids and grandkids.
  We are worried about deficits that hurt the middle class, because as 
my friend from Arkansas mentioned, there is a $28,000 per citizen tax 
on everyone in America, man, woman or child. That is a lot of money to 
be born owing the country before you even have a chance to grow up or 
earn a living.
  But I know there are some folks out there who are watching us, and 
they are saying, well, the Blue Dogs, they are only mentioning absolute 
deficit dollars. They are not putting it in perspective with gross 
domestic product. I would agree that is a percent of GDP; we should 
look at it that way too. You can say, well, this is not a percent of 
GDP, the largest or even the fourth largest deficit in American 
history.
  But I brought along a document tonight that I hope everyone in the 
country will pay attention to. I first saw it when it was in the Wall 
Street Journal a few weeks ago. It is a document not from the 
Republican Party or the Democratic Party or anybody connected with 
politics. It is a document from one of the Nation's leading business 
organizations called Standard & Poor's. Now, they are a Wall Street 
outfit, but they are supposed to be the neutral judges of all the debt 
from all the corporations, and all the debt from all the countries, and 
all the debt from all the States and cities and towns in America and 
around the world, S&P, it is called, Standard & Poor's.
  Well, they issued this document on June 6, 2006. To read this 
document, you wouldn't dream that any President of the United States 
could have a press conference a few weeks later championing good news. 
Because what Standard & Poor's says about America is this, it says that 
we are in such bad fiscal shape, and getting worse every year, that by 
the year 2012, which isn't that far away, it is just 5 or 6 years away, 
that America will lose its AAA credit rating for the first time in our 
modern history.
  Now, American Treasury bonds, bills and notes are considered 
basically the gold standard of all debt instruments on the planet.
  If you need to put your money in a safe and secure place and you want 
it to earn interest, Treasury bonds are safer than putting it in any 
bank as a deposit or putting it anywhere else, because they are backed 
by the full faith and credit of the United States Government.
  There is no sounder financial instrument than the U.S. Treasury bond, 
and we should be proud of that.
  But what Standard & Poor's is saying, as a result of the deficits my 
friend from Arkansas is talking about, in just 5 or 6 years, we will 
lose our AAA credit rating. Now that is not just like getting, say, an 
A minus instead of an A in class. What it means is higher interest 
payments.
  It means that every time that America borrows money in the future, 
possibly forever, we will have to pay more for it. Because the good 
part about being a solid credit risk is that you pay the lowest 
possible rate of interest. You are able to borrow money cheap. But by 
losing our AAA credit rating, our interest rates are going up.
  There is another bad part to this S&P report. Again, this is not a 
political report; this is from one of America's leading business 
organizations. It says that by the year 2020, which isn't that far away 
either, that our Treasury bonds will basically be junk bonds, or what 
they call below investment grade.
  Now, that is such a far cry from our current AAA rating, the rating 
that U.S. bonds have had for all of modern American history; it is a 
literal tragedy to see America go from AAA ratings down to junk bond 
ratings in just a few short years as a result of the work of one 
administration, the current administration.
  Because even though the current administration will be out of office 
in 2008, the impact of their fiscal policies stretches for decades 
beyond their time in office.
  That is why this S&P report is so significant. They state carefully 
that it is not a prediction. They are hoping, and I suppose praying, 
that America will change course drastically from what we have seen from 
the current Republican administration.
  But they do say that although it is not a prediction, it is a 
simulation of what will happen if we don't change course.
  So it is a lot like that famous old ship, the Titanic. When they saw 
the iceberg in the distance, did they change course? No, they hit it 
head on.
  Well, America still has a few short months and years to change course 
before we hit the iceberg that literally destroys America's credit 
rating and forces us to borrow money at much higher rates of interest, 
possibly for the rest of American history. That is permanent structural 
damage to our economy. Permanent structural deficits caused that damage 
that hurt the outlook for our kids and grandkids.
  So I hope that people will go to the Internet, check out the Standard 
& Poor's Web site, look for this publication dated June 5, 2006, and 
check it out for yourself. Some of it is written in fairly technical 
business language. You will see that a number of nations face the 
problem that we do in America of an aging population. Some nations face 
it more severely than we do. But we are in such a fundamental imbalance 
that it is important to note that one of the primary causes for that 
imbalance is actually the crowning achievement of the Bush 
administration domestic policy.
  They cite specifically the U.S. position has worsened since 2003 
because of the new drug benefit added to Medicare, which increases 
estimated health care costs by nearly 2 percent of GDP annually by 2050 
and accounts for one-quarter of the rise in spending on the elderly.
  Now, we all want seniors to have medicine. Medicine needs to be 
affordable. But the Wall Street Journal pointed out in their editorial 
that in the Bush legislation that Congress passed and was signed into 
law that only $1 out of $16 by that bill would only actually buy 
medicine, only $1 out of every 16 would go for its intended purpose.
  Mr. ROSS. The gentleman from Tennessee makes an excellent point about 
how we have gotten into this mess with these record deficits. This 
Republican Congress, this administration, gave us a so-called Medicare 
part D prescription drug plan. We all want our seniors to be able to 
have access and be able to afford the medicine that they so desperately 
need.
  I thought that we were going to pass a bipartisan meaningful benefit 
for our seniors, but instead we passed a bill

[[Page 14870]]

that was written by the big drug manufacturers. In fact, the chairman 
of the committee writing the bill at the time left the committee and 
took a multimillion dollar job as the head of PhRMA, the association in 
Washington D.C. that represents the big drug manufacturers.
  Now, every State in America, through its Medicaid programming was 
negotiating with the drug manufacturers to reduce the cost that those 
States paid for the Medicaid program.
  When this Medicare part D program became law, they shifted Medicare-
eligible seniors that were poor enough to be on Medicaid away from 
Medicaid and on to Medicare and into a bill that actually has language 
in the legislation.
  I thought this was going to be a bill to help our seniors with the 
high cost of medicine. But this legislation included language that said 
the Federal Government shall be prohibited from negotiating with the 
big drug manufacturers to bring down the high cost of medicine. So we 
shifted that cost from the States and, more importantly, from the big 
drug manufacturers, because every manufacturer out there was giving 
rebates to the States to help offset the costs to the program and to a 
Federal program where the Federal Government is prohibited from 
negotiating with the big drug companies to bring down the high cost of 
medicine.
  We are seeing, as a result of that, our seniors not really getting 
that good of a benefit, and yet it is a program that is causing these 
deficits to go up.
  Mr. COOPER. Today's news revealed that that bait-and-switch provision 
that was in the Medicare drug bill would add $2 billion in additional 
profits to our drug companies this year.

                              {time}  2015

  Two billion, billion with a B as in boy, and that is all as a result 
of this sleight of hand that was engineered in part by the committee 
chairman who left public service to go almost immediately to represent 
special interests, and not just any special interests but the very drug 
manufacturers for whom he had just passed legislation.
  Think of $2 billion extra profits in one year as a result of this 
technical switch with a lot of seniors from Medicaid to Medicare, from 
a program that could negotiate for lower prices to a program that 
cannot, by law, negotiate for better prices. It is outrageous, and some 
of the money in that horribly expensive bill has gone not to help 
seniors get more affordable medicine but to line the pockets of major 
drug companies.
  We are all thankful for the life-saving discoveries they make. We are 
thankful for the research and development, but I am less thankful for 
the advertisement and TV ads where things like that are not helping 
create new medicines. They are more trying to make money off people's 
illnesses, and there has got be a better way.
  We live in the greatest country on Earth in the history of the world, 
and there has got to be a better way to do is this so we can live 
within our means, so we can treat everybody fairly, so we can build a 
stronger middle class, so we can be strong so we can be the world's 
only superpower. We are not living up to that potential today.
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I thought we would go through a few other 
charts that we have here and talk a little bit more about this entire 
discussion about the projected surpluses becoming huge deficits.
  When the administration took office in 2001, it had an advantage no 
administration in recent times has enjoyed, a 10-year projected surplus 
of $5.6 trillion. The administration has replaced that surplus with 
recurring deficits and a record debt.
  When the cost of items omitted from the mid-session review are 
included, the deterioration in the budget between 2002 and 2011 is 
about $8.5 trillion. Although these numbers are more positive than the 
administration's February forecast, which some would argue they 
inflated again so they could boast now about not having the largest 
deficit in our Nation's history, but rather having the fourth largest 
deficit in our Nation's history, they unfortunately do not represent 
any significant improvement in the long-term budget picture.
  Even the administration's 5-year forecast, which omits the cost of 
certain planned policies, never shows a deficit smaller than $123 
billion. You can see here in 2000 we had a real, actual surplus of $236 
billion. In 2001, we had a projected surplus of $281 billion, which in 
the end result ended up being $128 billion.
  And then as you can see, when the Bush administration came here, 
surpluses were projected for year 2002 through 2006; but, instead, we 
got deficits, including four of the largest deficits ever in our 
Nation's history. This was a $610 billion swing from having the first 
balanced budget in 40 years to having the largest debt ever in our 
Nation's history and having the largest deficit ever in our Nation's 
history for 4 years in a row.
  I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.
  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, we are, like all Americans, acutely aware of 
the terrible tragedy that happened on September 11, 2001. That changed 
the world, but we should not make the mistake of thinking that it gave 
us all these deficits because that claim, that belief would not be 
true. It hurt our economy temporarily, but we were already pulling out 
of a shallow recession, and we have not been in a recession since. So 
you cannot blame our overall economic condition for that.
  What it is the result of, and again, do not take our word for it, 
read the reports from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative 
foundation think tank here in Washington; read the reports of the CATO 
Institute, a libertarian organization, and they will tell you, they 
will demonstrate to you that the Bush administration is the biggest-
spending administration since at least Lyndon Baines Johnson and 
probably even way before LBJ.
  It has nothing to do with defense or homeland security, budget needs 
that are really set more by our enemies than by ourselves. It has 
everything to do with a wasteful and mismanaged and sometimes 
incompetent government like we saw in Hurricane Katrina relief.
  That is a waste of taxpayer money. That is a shame for everyone 
because no one wants to pay more taxes. We are not for more taxes. We 
want every tax dollar to be spent wisely so the taxpayers think their 
government is on their side instead of working against them, but we 
really have not been seeing that and especially with these deficits.
  Adding these taxes to our kids and grandkids, a tax that can never be 
repealed, a debt tax as the gentleman so ably described it a while ago, 
is limiting our growth in future years. It is crippling America's 
future potential. As I showed with this S&P report, it is destroying 
America's credit rating, and yet the administration holds triumphant 
press conferences as if they are announcing good news.
  A lot of folks think maybe we have been cured, but the cancer is 
still there, and we have got to get at that cancer.
  Mr. ROSS. This administration has told us for 5\1/2\ years now that 
if you cut taxes on folks earning over $400,000 a year, I do not have a 
lot of folks in my district who earn that kind of money, but this 
administration, this Republican-led Congress, for 5\1/2\ years has been 
telling us about that trickle down business, that if you cut taxes on 
those earning over $400,000 a year, it will eventually trickle down to 
everyone else and stimulate the economy and bring in new revenues and, 
therefore, a stronger economy and a stronger government.
  Well, as you can see here, the realistic estimate shows a bleak 
deficit outlook for those tax cuts for people earning over $400,000 a 
year. All they have gotten us is in the business whereas of today our 
Nation is borrowing $1 billion a year, 45 percent of which we are 
borrowing from places like China, Japan, Hong Kong and Korea and, oh, 
yeah, OPEC nations.
  In fact, these tax cuts for folks earning over $400,000 a year, what 
they have gotten us is not only a record debt and

[[Page 14871]]

record deficit and in the business of borrowing $1 billion a day. It 
has also resulted in our Nation spending a half a billion dollars every 
day simply paying interest on the debt we have already got.
  Again, as Blue Dog members, fiscally conservative Democrats, we 
coined the phrase the ``debt tax,'' D-E-B-T, which is one tax that 
cannot be cut, cannot go away until we get our Nation's fiscal house in 
order.
  As you can see, we had actual deficits back in the 1980s and the 
1990s; and then in 1998, under the leadership of President Clinton, we 
popped into a surplus, first time a Democrat or Republican had done 
that in 40 years. We saw a surplus. We saw a balanced budget from 1998 
through 2001, and then look what happened, and then tax cuts for those 
earning over $400,000 a year, and we started seeing record deficits.
  This administration, this Republican-led Congress have given us four 
of the largest deficits ever, ever in our Nation's history. The 
administration's estimated future deficits failed to include the full 
cost of items on its agenda; and once likely costs are included, the 
deficit is never better than $229 billion for the foreseeable future.
  The true state of the budget is worse than the administration's 
forecast depicts because it omits certain costs. When realistic 
adjustments are made for omitted items, annual deficits never improve 
to better than $229 billion for any year over the next decade, and by 
2016, the deficit grows to $444 billion.
  I think it is important to note that the administration's new 
estimates for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan reflect a total of $110 
billion for 2007, $60 billion more than the President's February 
budget. However, beyond 2008, the administration provides no further 
funding for these efforts. It is like the White House is telling us 
that everything will be rosy in Iraq, Afghanistan and all of our troops 
will be able to come home by 2008.
  It is time for some truthful budgeting in our government. Based on a 
model presented by the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, costs for 
military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could run as much as $371 
billion over the next 10 years, from 2007 to 2016, and this calculation 
is likely conservative.
  I have Middle East experts at the State Department telling me that we 
will be in a situation that is costing us billions of dollars in Iraq 
at least for 10 years, some believe for as much as 30 or 35 years; and 
yet this administration can look the American people in the eye with an 
honest look and an honest face and say that there is no reason to 
budget for the war beyond 2008.
  It is time for this administration and this Republican-led Congress 
to be truthful with the American people and to give this government, to 
give the people of this country an honest budget.
  The report also estimates that the President's plan to partially 
privatize Social Security will worsen the unified deficit by $721 
billion over the next 10 years.
  Finally, the report does not include the cost of addressing Medicare 
physician payments which must be addressed. A long-term fix could cost 
from $127 billion to $275 billion over the next 10 years in the absence 
of other policy changes, another omission from the numbers presented to 
us in this mid-year report that the President presented last week.
  I am also joined this evening by our cochair for communication with 
the 37-member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog 
Coalition, and that is the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardoza) who 
I yield to.
  Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from 
Arkansas (Mr. Ross). You have been so gracious to lead the Blue Dog 
effort here on Tuesday nights for several weeks now, and I consider it 
an act of patriotism what you are doing here because, truly, it is 
something that the American people must know, and it is what we will do 
to strengthen our country and our fiscal order if we can simply pass 
half of the accountability measures that the Blue Dogs have put in 
place, the 12-step Blue Dog program that I am sure you have talked 
about tonight because you have talked about it so many times on the 
floor. Hopefully, the American people are listening and the Congress is 
listening that we must, in fact, bring accountability to our 
government.
  As you said, the Blue Dogs have been fighting for greater 
accountability in Washington for over 10 years now. We have argued for 
a return of pay-as-you-go budgeting to balance our budget. And as I 
said, we offer a 12-step reform plan to cure our Nation's addiction to 
deficit spending.
  We have argued that all earmarks should require written justification 
from a Member of Congress before being considered, and now the Blue 
Dogs have authored and endorsed two bills that strike at the heart of 
this administration's mismanagement and its fiscal mismanagement of our 
government.
  We have introduced the Blue Dog accountability package, and one is a 
bill that I authored which requires the reconfirmation of any Cabinet 
official whose agency cannot produce a clean audit for 2 consecutive 
years.
  The second piece of legislation, written by our colleague from 
Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) requires an oversight hearing 60 days after the 
Inspector General reports waste, fraud and abuse above $1 million in 
any Federal Department.
  I would like our audience tonight to consider these facts: in 2004, 
the Federal Government spent $25 billion of everyone's tax dollars, 
yours, mine and everyone else who pays taxes in America, $25 billion 
that it cannot account for.

                              {time}  2030

  Now, Mr. Ross, you and I, when we write a check out of our account, 
we have a check stub. But for some reason the Federal Government has 
lost $25 billion in check stubs. They are our tax dollars.
  That same year, 2004, only six of the 63 Pentagon departments were 
able to produce a clean audit, about 10 percent.
  For 2005, the General Accounting Office reports that 19 of the 24 
Federal agencies can't produce a clean audit or fully explain how they 
have spent our taxpayer dollars.
  In March of 2005, the Veterans Affairs Inspector General issued a 
report calling for agency information systems to be upgraded for 
security purposes. As you probably know, no action was taken; and since 
that time, the personal information of millions of our veterans has 
been stolen or lost, putting millions of our veterans' personal 
information and virtually their financial history in jeopardy.
  Mr. ROSS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CARDOZA. Certainly.
  Mr. ROSS. Actually, my office received a call today from the GAO, and 
I have got some good news. We have been saying, I have been saying, 
that the GAO reported that 19 of 24 Federal agencies were not in 
compliance with all Federal accounting audit standards and could not 
fully explain how they had spent taxpayer money appropriated by 
Congress. I am here to correct that. The GAO convinced me today that 
that statement is not true. Here is what they tell me is true: that the 
GAO reports that 18 of 24, not 19; 18 of 24 major Federal agencies have 
such bad financial systems that they don't even know the true cost of 
running some of their programs. I don't really see the difference, one 
sounds about as bad as the other to me, but the good news is we no 
longer have 19 of 24 major Federal agencies that can't produce a clean 
audit. Instead, we have 18 of 24 major Federal agencies that have such 
bad financial systems that they don't even know the true cost of 
running some of their programs.
  And yet Republican leaders in this Congress did not force these 
agencies to fully account for how the money was being spent before 
doling out billions more of taxpayer dollars for the same programs. And 
that is why I am so proud of our 37-member strong, fiscally 
conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition for coming forward, not just 
to criticize the Republican leadership on this. You can bet we are 
going to hold them accountable. But we are going to do much more than 
that.
  We have offered up a bill, it is led by one of the founders of our 
Blue Dog Coalition, Mr. Tanner of Tennessee, and

[[Page 14872]]

you have been discussing that bill in your comments tonight, and I 
appreciate you doing that. It is about accountability, and it is about 
restoring some common sense and accountability to our government.
  And with that I will yield back to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. CARDOZA. I thank the gentleman for the correction. I am not sure 
that 18 out of 24 is a whole lot better than 19 out of 24. Maybe they 
got one of the little departments to come into compliance. I think the 
year before I think it was 16 out of 24 or 23. So it is sort of like 
the Bush deficit numbers. You inflate them one year so you can show 
improvement the next. It boggles my mind that they can't find $25 
billion in check stubs. You would think that they would be able to do 
that. But I guess when they think it is not their money, they are not 
so worried about it. But I have got to tell you, I am worried about it, 
and I know you are, Mr. Ross, because when we lose the confidence of 
the American people for our voluntary tax system that we have, and when 
people don't think that their money is going to be used the correct 
way, I think this Nation is in serious, serious trouble.
  Mr. ROSS. I share your concern because we have been sent here. We 
have been sent here by the people to be their representatives. And part 
of being their representatives is to ensure that their tax money is 
being accounted for and being spent in a meaningful way and in a way 
that we would deem responsible.
  It kind of reminds me growing up at that little country Methodist 
church just outside of Prescott in Hope, Arkansas, Midway United 
Methodist Church. I still try to get back there every year for 
homecoming. My parents still go there. My mom still plays the piano 
there.
  And growing up there at Midway United Methodist Church, every Sunday 
I heard the preacher talk about being a good steward. Being a good 
steward. And I think that the American people have sent us here and 
expect us to be good stewards of their tax money and make sure that it 
is being accounted for and make sure that it is being spent in a 
responsible way, a way that will help lift people up, a way that will 
invest in their children and their education and their future. And that 
is why I am so very concerned about this.
  That is why we are pleased to offer up a 12-point plan for budget 
reform, to cure our Nation's addiction to deficit spending. That is 
why, as Blue Dog members, we are pleased to offer up this 
accountability plan under the leadership of Mr. Tanner, one of the 
founders of the Blue Dogs, and that is why I am so pleased to be a part 
of your legislation, Mr. Cardoza, another part of our Blue Dog package, 
to basically tell Cabinet-level agencies that Mr. Secretary, Madam 
Secretary, if you can't produce a clean audit, then you have got to go 
back to the Senate and have a reconfirmation hearing.
  And there is another bill that you have got that I am real proud of, 
and that is, again, about being good stewards, about the public trust 
that is being placed in us to come here and to represent the people 
from back home. They place a lot of trust in us. And when we violate 
that trust, when we break the laws that we helped write as Members of 
Congress, we shouldn't be held to the same standards as every other 
citizen in this country. We should be held to a much greater standard. 
And we should have to serve even longer prison terms and have even 
bigger fines than everyone else, because if we are going to come here 
and violate the public trust and break the laws that we helped write, 
we should be held to an even more strict standard.
  And I am proud of the bill that we have on that. And I will yield to 
the gentleman from California to describe that piece of legislation
  Mr. CARDOZA. I thank the gentleman. And in fact I will describe it. 
But before I do, I just want to say one thing. You know, you talked 
about your growing up in rural Arkansas. I grew up in rural California. 
My grandparents were all Portuguese immigrants. They all naturalized, 
became legal citizens, proudest day of their lives was when they got 
their citizenship papers. And they imbued in me and my parents, who 
couldn't speak English when they were growing up, a sense of duty and 
responsibility. And you did the right thing.
  I will never forget my grandmother, she wasn't so excited when I got 
into politics because she said, you know, Dennis, that is a dirty game 
sometimes. And if you are going to get in that business, you just make 
sure you do the right thing.
  And when I introduced the legislation that you described, it is 
really holding us to a higher standard. And the legislation says that 
if you break the public trust and you enrich yourself while you are 
standing here in the Halls of Congress that you would have to serve the 
time that you would get convicted for fraud or for all the other kinds 
of things that you can do to get put in jail, but you would have to 
serve a sentence enhancement for two additional years because you broke 
the public trust, the trust that the people gave you when you signed up 
to run for this office.
  And I hold that sentiment very strongly, that that is something that 
we should all stand up and be held accountable to a higher standard if 
we are going to take the oath of office. So I thank you for raising 
that issue and that I could talk about my bill tonight.
  I want to also tell you that the work that we are doing with regard 
to oversight and demanding that this Congress do oversight, that is one 
of the fundamental jobs of Members of Congress, to hold hearings and to 
examine where our tax dollars are going. And we simply, as a Congress, 
are not doing that anymore. It is part of the problem with having one-
party government that there is nobody to hold it accountable. And we 
can't get the power of the subpoena to go in there and look and see 
what is going on. And we need to examine the books. We need to audit 
the books in a more effective way. We need Mr. Tanner's bill that says 
if the Inspector General finds fraud and abuse, that we will, in fact, 
do a hearing in the Halls of Congress. And I see you putting up a 
poster.
  Mr. ROSS. You have been there.
  Mr. CARDOZA. I have been there. We went together, and we saw, talk 
about waste, fraud and abuse. What we could do for $1 billion in this 
country is just amazing. We can educate so many kids, send our kids to 
college. We can do so much good for $1 billion. And here we are looking 
at about a half a billion dollars. You tell the story, Mr. Ross, 
because this is in your district. You took me down there. We did some 
uncovering of some waste, fraud and abuse.
  And I will yield back to the gentleman from Arkansas.
  Mr. ROSS. I just want to quickly make the point as I do every Tuesday 
and I am going to as long as these things are still down there. But the 
reason that we have House Resolution 841 by Mr. Tanner and those of us 
in the Blue Dog Coalition, this is a bill about accountability and 
about holding agencies accountable. This is why we need legislation to 
restore accountability within our government.
  I don't know how good you can see this, Mr. Speaker, but this is the 
airport in Hope, Arkansas. Hope used to be known for something else. 
Now we are known for the trailer houses, mobile homes, manufactured 
homes. As you can see, this is an active runway at the Hope Airport. 
And these are old World War II proving ground runways that are no 
longer being used. So FEMA decides they are going to go out and buy 
about 20,000 brand-new, fully furnished, microwaves built in, whirlpool 
tubs built in. We have been in them. We have seen them.
  Mr. CARDOZA. Jacuzzi tubs. It is amazing.
  Mr. ROSS. I don't know if they are Jacuzzi brand but they are 
whirlpool.
  Mr. CARDOZA. That is what we call them where I come from, even though 
that might not be the brand.
  Mr. ROSS. They are fully furnished, 16-foot wide, 60-foot long mobile 
homes, about a half a billion dollars worth of them. And they are 
parked here at the airport in Hope, Arkansas. Except the theory was 
they were going to bring them in and then take them to the storm 
victims from Hurricane Katrina.

[[Page 14873]]

We are coming up on the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and 
Hurricane Rita. And so the theory was that they were going to be coming 
in and then going out. This would be a FEMA staging area.
  Well, they all came and never went. And as a result, they quickly 
filled up these old World War II-era proving ground runways and started 
parking them just in the hay meadow. I mean, just literally on the 
pasture.
  And then the Inspector General noted that with the rains they were 
going to start sinking this past spring. Lord knows, we would love to 
have rain now. It is awful hot and dry in Arkansas.
  But FEMA's response was not to get the homes to the people who need 
them. FEMA's response was to spend 4 to $7 million putting gravel on 
200 acres of hay meadow pasture land at the Hope Airport to keep these 
mobile homes from sinking.
  The bottom line is, if you can't really get a good look at it there, 
if you have ever wondered what 9,959 mobile homes look like, that is 
what it looks like. At one time we had 10,777. We finally have got it 
down to 9,959. But this is a better look of what it looks like. I mean, 
there is a fence, barbed wire fence and pasture. They are just sitting 
there on the areas. Here, as you can see, 16-foot wide, 60-foot long, 
mobile homes; 9,959 of them sitting there at the airport in Hope, 
Arkansas, 450 miles from the eye of Hurricane Katrina nearly a year 
after the storm.
  Now, FEMA buys these for victims of Hurricane Katrina; and then FEMA 
says, well, we are not going to put them in a flood plain. Well, 
everybody that lost their home and their housing in Hurricane Katrina, 
they loss it because they lived in a flood plain.
  It is time to restore some common sense to FEMA, and it is time to 
find a good use, a responsible use of these 9,959 mobile homes that are 
simply parked there at the airport in Hope, Arkansas, an example of 
mismanagement by a Federal agency. Example of mismanagement by the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency. An example of why we need to 
restore accountability in our government. And I am not going to let up 
on this until every single one of these mobile homes that taxpayers 
have paid for, about $400 billion worth, are put to good use.
  They are not serving anybody any purpose. They are not doing anyone 
any good sitting in a hay meadow at the Hope Airport in Hope, Arkansas.
  This is a symbol of what is wrong with this administration. This is a 
symbol of what is wrong with this Republican-led Congress. It is a 
symbol of what is wrong with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
  I yield back to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. CARDOZA. The gentleman is absolutely right. And it is interesting 
that so many of our Departments are run this way. But the Office of the 
Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security Department, 
which FEMA is part of, was quoted recently as saying: ``Unfortunately, 
the Department had made little or no progress to improve its overall 
financial reporting during the whole fiscal year of 2005.'' And KPMG 
accounting firm was unable to even provide an opinion on the 
Department's balance sheet because the books were in such bad shape.
  Another example is the Inspector General for NASA, in its 2005 
financial statement said: ``In the enclosed report of independent 
auditors, Ernest & Young disclaimed an opinion on NASA's financial 
statements for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2005.''

                              {time}  2045

  The disclaimer resulted from NASA's inability to provide Ernst & 
Young with auditable financial statements and sufficient evidence to 
support the financial statements'' that they did have ``throughout the 
fiscal year and at year end.''
  Basically it is what we were talking about earlier. The Federal 
Government is writing checks and does not even keep its check stubs. 
They cannot find $25 billion of our taxpayers' money, and then they 
want to spend more of it. And it is just a crying shame that we cannot 
do a better job, and it is a crying shame that we are not doing the 
accounting and the investigative hearings and the oversight hearings 
that is the job of this Congress. It is an abdication of our duty as 
Members of Congress, and it is an indication that we need to change the 
one-party system that we have got going on here because we need to 
audit the books. It is just a basic fundamental necessity of running a 
good government. And what it means is that we have gone, like that 
chart you showed, from a situation where when we had a Democratic 
President, we were actually paying off the national debt, and now we 
are going in the wrong direction. We are going into a deep trough, and 
I see the slide that you have put up now. This is what the resulting 
action is. First of all, we are not able to do what we need to do for 
education, send our kids to college, do all the things that we need to 
do proactively to prepare our country for the next century, but we are 
having to do instead what you are about ready to talk about, Mr. Ross.
  Mr. ROSS. Since President Bush took office, the amount of foreign-
held Treasury debt has more than doubled, increasing from $1 trillion 
to $2.1 trillion, meaning that this administration has already accrued 
more foreign debt than the previous 42 Presidents combined.
  Let me repeat that. This President and this Republican-led Congress 
has borrowed more money from foreign central banks and foreign 
investors than the previous 42 Presidents combined.
  As you can see here in 2001, the amount of money borrowed from 
foreign central banks and from foreign investors was $988 billion. That 
was troubling enough. In 2006, we are up to $2.66 trillion that has 
been borrowed from foreigners. Unlike deficits in earlier years, 
current deficits have been primarily financed by foreign investors with 
the rise in foreign-held debt equaling three-fourths the increase in 
publicly-held debt since the start of the current administration in 
2001.
  This rise in foreign-held debt is troubling because it makes our 
economy beholden to foreign creditors and represents another financial 
burden passed on to future generations. Foreign-held debt is 
fundamentally different from domestically-held debt, since the interest 
payments on foreign-held debt flow outside the United States of America 
and reduce Americans' standard of living.
  The cost of servicing foreign-held debt is high. Local, State, and 
Federal Government interest rates to foreign investors totaled $114 
billion in 2005, an amount that will grow rapidly if the Treasury 
continues to sell debt to foreign investors at the current rate. 
Compare this to only $23 billion in foreign holdings in 1993. Today, 
the debt, the foreign-held debt, is $2.1 trillion.
  And just like David Letterman, I have got a ``top ten list.'' The top 
ten current lenders, again, our government is borrowing $1 billion a 
day. We keep passing tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year. 
And where does the money come from? We have got record deficits. Where 
is the money coming from to give tax cuts to those earning over 
$400,000 a year?
  Here is the top ten: Japan, our Nation has borrowed $640.1 billion 
from Japan; China, $321.4 billion.
  Mr. CARDOZA. Is that Communist China, Mr. Ross?
  Mr. ROSS. Yes.
  Mr. CARDOZA. I thought it was.
  Mr. ROSS. That would be Red China, Communist China. Our Nation has 
borrowed $321.4 billion from China to fund tax cuts for folks earning 
over $400,000 a year at home, leaving our children and grandchildren to 
foot the bill. That may be a tax cut for the wealthiest people in this 
country now, but it is nothing more than a tax increase on our children 
and our grandchildren.
  The United Kingdom, $179.5 billion. OPEC, imagine that one, OPEC, our 
Nation has borrowed $98 billion from OPEC. And we wonder why gasoline 
is approaching $3 a gallon.
  Korea, $72.4 billion; Taiwan, $68.9 billion; the Caribbean banking 
centers, $61.7 billion; Hong Kong, $46.6 billion; Germany, $46.5 
billion. And get a load of this, rounding off the top ten: Our Nation 
has borrowed $40.1 billion from

[[Page 14874]]

Mexico to fund this reckless spending, these record deficits and this 
record debt given to us by this Republican Congress and this 
administration.
  Now, as members of the Blue Dog Coalition, why do we raise this 
issue? We have got just a few minutes left here. We raise it because 
our Nation is borrowing $1 billion a day. Never mind that. On top of 
that, we are spending a half billion dollars a day paying interest on 
the debt we have already got. That is a half billion dollars a day that 
cannot go for education, cannot go for health care, cannot go for 
infrastructure improvements. It has got to go to service the debt. It 
has got to pay back these foreign countries, these foreign central 
banks and foreign investors that are funding these record debts and 
record deficits in this country.
  In fact, as you can see here, like interest payments on a family's 
credit card, every dollar spent on the national debt is a dollar that 
does not educate a child, build a road, or keep the Nation secure. 
Because of recent record deficits, the government's annual interest 
payment is the fastest growing category of Federal spending over the 
next 5 years and has posted double-digit percentage growth for the past 
2 years. Interest payments dwarf spending on most national priorities 
such as homeland security, education, and veterans health care. By 2011 
annual interest payments under the administration's proposed budget 
will grow to $302 billion, a 38 percent increase from the current 
level. As you can see here, the amount of money we are spending in 
billions of dollars simply paying interest on the national debt, this 
is the amount of money going to pay interest on the national debt. This 
is the amount of money being spent to educate our children. This is the 
amount of money going for homeland security to keep America secure. And 
this is the amount of money going to keep our promises to our veterans. 
America's priorities are not being met because of this Republican 
Congress' reckless fiscal mess.
  It is time to put an end to these record debts and record deficits. 
It is time to restore some common sense and fiscal discipline to our 
Nation's government.
  Mr. Speaker, if you have any comments, questions, or concerns about 
what we have been discussing in the past hour, you can e-mail us, Mr. 
Speaker, at [email protected]. That is [email protected].
  I want to thank the gentleman from California for joining me this 
evening.
  As we are out of time, I want to leave you with how we started. When 
we started this hour, I pointed out the national debt was 
$8,419,147,820,878 and that every living soul in America's share was 
$28,134.
  Just in the hour that we have been discussing trying to restore some 
common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government, this 
number, our Nation's debt has gone up another $41 million, roughly 
another $41.666 million.
  As members of the 37-member strong fiscally conservative Democratic 
Blue Dog Coalition, we come to this floor of the United States House of 
Representatives every Tuesday night to talk about restoring 
accountability and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government. We are 
going to hold the Republican leadership accountable for the reckless 
spending and the lack of accountability, but we are also going to offer 
up commonsense solutions to fix these problems, to ensure that we leave 
this country just a little bit better than we found it for the next 
generation.
  Does the gentleman from California have any closing thoughts?
  Mr. CARDOZA. I would just like to say thanks to the gentleman from 
Arkansas for hosting this once again. We are going to make fiscal 
responsibility a priority for this Congress. It is a shame that we have 
not spent more time this year dealing with these matters. Hopefully, we 
will have some oversight hearings.
  Thank you for conducting this, and I just say we will continue to 
work on it.

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