[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2819-2825]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           BLUE DOG COALITION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dent). 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, I come to the floor of the United States House 
of Representatives this evening as a member of the fiscally 
conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 37 fiscally 
conservative Democrats who are outraged, absolutely appalled by these 
record deficits, record debt and the lack of common sense and fiscal 
discipline that we are seeing in our Nation's government these days.
  I come to the floor and raise these issues not out of partisan 
politics because, Mr. Speaker, I do not know about you, but I am sick 
and tired of all the partisan bickering that goes on at our Nation's 
Capitol. It does not matter to me if it is a Republican idea or 
Democrat idea. My people back home want a commonsense idea, the kind of 
ideas that make sense for them in their everyday lives.
  So I raise these issues, Mr. Speaker, quite frankly because I am 
concerned about the future of our country.
  As you walk the halls of Congress, it is easy to spot one of the Blue 
Dog Coalition Members' offices, because we all have this poster beside 
our front door. Today, the U.S. national debt, just as I got ready to 
come up here this evening, the U.S. national debt is 
$8,270,909,436,190. For every man, woman and child in America, 
including those being born as we speak, the amount of money that each 
person in America shares in the national debt is $27,000 and some 
change.
  It is hard now, Mr. Speaker, to believe that from 1998 through 2001, 
our Nation for the first time in 40 years had a balanced budget; and 
yet, this administration, this Republican Congress, has given us the 
largest budget deficit ever in our Nation's history for what amounts to 
6 years in a row.
  This is the budget that the President of the United States has 
presented to Congress. It is always presented under a lot of fanfare; a 
lot of publicity surrounds this budget. This budget for fiscal year 
2007 totals $2.8 trillion, but what is alarming about it is that the 
deficit totals $423 billion.
  If that is not disturbing enough, Mr. Speaker, as a Nation, we spend 
about a half a billion a day simply paying interest on the debt we 
already have, and on top of that, our national debt is increasing to 
the tune of about $1 billion a day. Our Nation is spending about $1 
billion more a day than it is taking in; $260 million a day going to 
Iraq, $33 million a day going to Afghanistan, and a whole lot more 
going not to fund programs that matter to people because there are 
record cuts in this budget.
  Just yesterday in Booneville, Arkansas, I was at the Dale Bumpers 
Research Center, one of 26 agriculture research centers that are not 
being cut, but being eliminated, under the President's budget for 
fiscal year 2007. Only in America can the President give us a budget 
that cuts the programs that matter to people, Medicaid, Medicare, 
veterans benefits, agricultural programs, and also give us the largest 
deficit ever in our Nation's history at the same time.

[[Page 2820]]



                              {time}  2115

  So as an American, I rise this evening out of concern. As a small 
business owner, I rise this evening out of concern about these record 
debts and these record deficits. And at the end of this hour, Mr. 
Speaker, we will change this number to show how much the national debt 
has risen just in the hour we have been on the floor this evening 
trying to talk about accountability and fiscal responsibility.
  The numbers I have presented to you are bad enough. Lord knows we 
don't need to make them any worse. They are already the largest budget 
deficits in our Nation's history that this Republican leadership has 
given us, but what we have recently learned is, actually, when you look 
at America, the way that America requires corporations to look at 
accounting, the deficit is even worse than what we thought.
  At this time I would call on the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
Cooper), the co-chair for policy in the Blue Dog Coalition, who has 
helped discover this little-known publication, which is very, very 
disturbing.
  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to my friend from Arkansas, 
and I appreciate his yielding to me. I am about to say something that 
very few people in America know. Hardly anyone in Congress knows it. 
This is not a partisan comment. I am about to reveal a document printed 
by this administration that received less distribution than the secret 
NSA domestic wiretapping activities of the administration.
  This is a document that coincidentally was revealed sometime close to 
Christmas Eve last December. It is a document that was issued without a 
press release. There was no press notification about this at all. 
Instead of being like the budget that my friend from Arkansas showed, 
that was distributed to every Congressman, every Senator's office, with 
great fanfare, this document was distributed to fewer than 20 Members 
of the House and Senate. It probably went to about a dozen. It was 
mailed in. It was not noticed, apparently, by anyone.
  And what does the document reveal? Well, first of all, this is it. 
When I called the Department of the Treasury, they laughed when I asked 
for multiple copies. This is the Financial Report of the United States 
Government 2005. This is the closest thing our Nation has to an annual 
report. Most Americans are familiar with those. All public companies 
are required to issue an annual report so that the shareholders can 
find out how the company is doing. Well, this is the annual report for 
America, and yet it was hidden in plain sight. Hardly anyone knows 
about this document.
  The first page is signed by the Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow, 
and the first page reveals a pretty shocking fact. It reveals the fact 
that for all that Mike Ross was talking about, about our terrible debt 
and deficit situation, situations that are driving up interest rates 
and putting a terrible debt burden on the backs of our kids and 
grandkids, according to that green document my colleague from Arkansas 
held up, the deficit last year was $319 billion. That is a lot of 
money. That is ``b'' for billion, or ``b'' as in, boy, that is a lot of 
money. Well, guess what this document shows on its first page, signed 
by Secretary of the Treasury John Snow? The real deficit last year for 
2005 was not $319 billion, it was, get this, $760 billion.
  So there are two big questions here. Why did the administration try 
to hide this from Congress and the American people? Why was there no 
press release? Why did it receive minimal distribution? And, second, 
why is the Secretary of the Treasury so heavily at odds with another 
part of the administration, the Office of Management and Budget and the 
director there, John Bolton? How could one gentleman say that the 
deficit was $319 billion last year and another gentleman say it was 
$760 billion?
  Well, the difference is this: the budget of the United States uses 
what is called cash accounting, and only the tiniest businesses in 
America are even allowed to use cash accounting. Why? Because it gives 
you a very distorted picture of a business or of a government. This 
annual report for America, the financial report signed by Secretary of 
the Treasury Snow, uses real accounting. It is called accrual 
accounting, and it keeps the books in a much more accurate way.
  So I think most Americans would be shocked, as my colleague from 
Arkansas knows, that the U.S. Government, Uncle Sam, is keeping two 
sets of books. One has relatively good news, the other has terrible 
news in it. And guess what, they are trying to hide the second set of 
books from the American people.
  I would encourage people to go to the Blue Dog Web site. We can allow 
you to download this document, or you can go to the U.S. Treasury Web 
site and download the document. It will not be obvious, though, on the 
Treasury Web site. It is pretty well hidden on that Web site. It is 
pretty clear on the Blue Dog.com Web site. So I would encourage people 
to check this out and see what it says in cold hard print and ask the 
logical question of why the President's budget is so radically and 
totally different from the document issued by his own Treasury 
Department.
  I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for yielding to me.
  Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for bringing this to 
the attention of America, the ``Financial Report of the United States 
Government for 2005,'' printed by our government, signed by our 
President's appointed Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow.
  And as the gentleman from Tennessee has explained quite well, when 
our government says we have a $319 billion deficit for 2005, that is 
based on a form of accounting known as a cash-basis form of accounting. 
Now, I am a small business owner; and as a small business owner, our 
government does not allow me to base my business on a cash-basis form 
of accounting. I am required by our government to use an accrual-based 
form of accounting. And if I do not, I am in a lot of trouble with the 
IRS and will probably end up in jail.
  However, our government, when we talk about the budget and the debt 
and the deficit and we talk about it in terms of this $319 billion, we 
find in this publication, the ``Financial Report of the United States 
of America for 2005,'' that it does not use a cash-basis form of 
accounting. It uses an accrual-basis form of accounting, and we know 
this only because the government, by law, requires the Secretary of the 
Treasury to print this document. He does not print tens of thousands of 
copies the way he does the budget. Only a handful are printed because 
they do not want the taxpayers of this country to know what is really 
going on here.
  The truth is this: when we look at our government, the way our 
government requires businesses to report their dealings with the IRS, 
our deficit was not $319 billion in 2005. Again, there is no reason for 
us to try to make these numbers any worse than they already are. They 
are already as bad as they have ever been in the history of our 
country. And these are not our numbers. These are numbers from the 
Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow. The deficit for 2005 was not $319 
billion when using the accrual-basis form of accounting; it was $760 
billion. That is a difference of $441 billion.
  Now, John Snow, Secretary of the Treasury, in this report said: 
``Including these future financial responsibilities in this report 
gives a more complete and long-range look at the government's 
finances.'' That is the Secretary of the Treasury, appointed by 
President Bush. That is John Snow, in his words, which can be found on 
page 1 of this report.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield once again to the gentleman from Tennessee.
  Mr. COOPER. I thank the gentleman for yielding, because there are 
probably some listeners who are confused about cash-basis accounting 
versus accrual accounting. The simplest way to explain it is this way. 
If you were to look at giant U.S. companies like General Motors or 
Ford, they would be just fine today if you look at them on a cash basis 
because they are generating cash. But if you look at them on a more 
accurate basis, the way the stock market

[[Page 2821]]

does and the way investors do, you will see that a cash basis ignores 
future obligations. For example, for retirees, for health care, for 
other benefits and obligations that should be kept and that have to be 
acknowledged.
  That is what accrual accounting does. And lest people be confused, 
accrual accounting is not cruel, the way it may sound. Accrual 
accounting is actually the most compassionate form of accounting, 
because cash-basis accounting forgets the retirees and the sick. 
Accrual accounting remembers them. And it is vital we remember all of 
our retirees and our sick because their health benefits matter, and we 
have to take them into account in this country.
  I know the gentleman is about to show the rule for business. This is 
a tough rule, and I look forward to the gentleman's explanation.
  Mr. ROSS. Well, every business in this country is required to use the 
accrual method if the business has inventory, if the business is a C 
corporation, or if gross annual sales exceed $5 million. So for any 
corporation, any business that meets one of these criteria, our 
government says you must use the accrual method of accounting.
  Our own government, however, though requiring businesses to use the 
accrual method of accounting or you go to jail and get in a lot of 
trouble with the IRS, that is what the government says to businesses, 
but the government says, well, that makes us look like we are being 
even more fiscally irresponsible than we want, so we will not use this 
accrual business. We will go back and trick the taxpayers by using the 
cash basis of accounting.
  At this time, I want to recognize a real leader within the Blue Dog 
Coalition, my friend and colleague from Georgia (Mr. David Scott).
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. It is great to be with you, Mr. Ross, and with 
my colleagues from the Blue Dogs and our distinguished cochairman.
  I think this startling information that you have just made known to 
the American people speaks to the fundamental issue at hand, and it is, 
in one word, security. Financial security. We cannot have national 
security if we do not have financial security. We cannot even have 
homeland security if we do not have financial security or health care 
security. Whatever our security is, it is anchored in financial 
security.
  With security comes the word ``confidence,'' and you have just 
shattered that realization by bringing this information to the 
forefront and revealing how badly we need to restore the confidence of 
the American people for this government's ability to handle their 
financial security.
  But I will tell you something that really adds and complements what 
you have brought to the American people tonight, because I have a bit 
of information that ought to be startling as well. As we look at this 
report, as we basically see firsthand that the books have been cooked, 
so to speak, by this revealing document, which almost doubles the $319 
billion deficit, because now we know it is $760 billion deficit by the 
words of the Treasury Secretary, but let me add this to this important 
discussion we are having this evening.
  I do not believe the American people know that this President, 
President Bush, has borrowed more money from foreign governments in his 
5 years than all of the preceding 42 Presidents in the history of this 
country.

                              {time}  2130

  I know the American people are shaking their heads and asking, is he 
saying what I think he is saying? Let me repeat it.
  President Bush has borrowed more money from foreign governments in 
his 5 years, since 2000, since he first took office, than all of the 
preceding 42 Presidents from 1789 to 2000, 211 years. Here are the 
figures. From 1789 to the year 2000 of our Nation's history, 42 U.S. 
Presidents borrowed a combined $1.01 trillion from foreign governments 
and foreign financial institutions, according to the Treasury 
Department.
  And now, just in the last 5 years, President Bush has borrowed a 
staggering $1.05 trillion, larger than the total from all the previous 
42 Presidents. If that does not tell you we have a crisis here, I do 
not know what does. And you combine that with this information that our 
co-chairman has brought to us about how the books were cooked; and, in 
fact, according to the more accurate accounting procedure, it is more 
than $760 billion.
  It is remarkable. It is phenomenal. The American people deserve the 
truth. We have got to give it to them because, as the Bible says, you 
should know the truth. It is the truth that will set you free. We are 
going to set America free tonight.
  Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott) for his 
knowledgeable input about this debt and deficit and budget process. I 
might add, in defense of the President, the President, during his 
tenure in office, it is true that he has borrowed more money from 
foreign central banks and foreign investors than the previous 42 
Presidents combined. But in fairness to the President, he could not do 
that alone. It took this Republican majority in this Congress to give 
him a budget to allow him to continue to raise the debt limit to allow 
him to borrow more money in the last 5 years than the previous 42 
Presidents combined.
  I think the American people are starting to get it at the youngest of 
ages. My teenage daughter was reading the paper today and she sent me 
an e-mail, and I will just read to you what my teenage daughter said 
after reading the paper this morning. She wrote, ``I read that they are 
wanting to increase the limit of the debt. Please do not let them do 
this. Make them start paying it back.'' That is a message from a 17-
year-old junior in high school who is concerned about the reckless 
spending, the fiscal irresponsibility going on in our government 
because it is her generation, it is our children and grandchildren's 
generation that gets saddled with these bills.
  I encourage folks every Tuesday night, as members of the Blue Dog 
Coalition, we are here on the floor talking about fiscal responsibility 
and about our ideas to balance the budget. We have a 12-point plan for 
meaningful budget reform that will allow us to have a balanced budget 
and allow us to get our fiscal house in order.
  For folks that are interested in e-mailing us their thoughts, 
opinions or questions, I encourage them to do so at 
BlueD[email protected]. We are the Blue Dog Coalition, 37 members 
strong, fiscally conservative Democrats that are here to hold this 
Republican Congress responsible for a record deficit and a record debt.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).
  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, let me say amen to my friend's comments from 
Georgia. That was outstanding.
  I have the pleasure of serving on the Budget Committee and this week, 
probably on Thursday, we will start marking up the budget for the 
United States of America. That is one of the most serious 
responsibilities that we could ever undertake. It is an incredibly 
complex document and process. You are talking about $2.7 trillion. You 
are talking about not only all the defense programs, you are talking 
about Social Security and Medicare and a world of other programs, 
parks, agriculture, you name it; everything that the Federal Government 
is involved in.
  In the span of a few short hours, we will be able to offer a few 
amendments, and we try to do this on a bipartisan basis. It is hard, 
but let me report on what happened last year in last year's markup.
  I offered a number of the Blue Dog amendments as part of our 12-point 
plan for reform. They were individual, commonsense measures such as, 
for example, getting a cost estimate on every bill here so we know the 
cost of what we are voting on; having a recorded vote so that the 
members of this body go on record when large amounts of money are 
spent. We were one of the first groups in the country to go ahead and 
require transparency for earmarks so the public, everyone, would know 
what individual spending items were being requested. But probably, most 
importantly, we favored domestic spending caps so budget spending could 
not keep going up and up, and a pay-as-

[[Page 2822]]

you-go approach so expansion of government was paid for, so that this 
generation paid our obligations, so we did not saddle future 
generations, including our men and women in uniform, with these 
terribly burdensome debts.
  I offered that last year in the Budget Committee markup. My amendment 
passed on a 19-17 vote because four brave Republicans were willing to 
cross over and endorse a commonsense measure like that. But then the 
chairman of the committee realized that common sense had prevailed, and 
he leaned over and twisted the arm of a freshman Member of Congress and 
forced that gentleman to change his vote right in front of everybody. 
So then it was not a 19-17 victory for our side and common sense, 
suddenly it turned into an 18-18 tie, and, under the rules of the 
committee, you lose on a tie vote.
  That was as close as we came last year to getting some of these 
commonsense principles involved. Even most State legislatures have 
rules like the ones I am describing. Most Americans would be outraged 
to learn we do not have these rules here.
  We are going to try a similar approach on Thursday. I hope we 
prevail, and I hope Americans will tune in to see what happens, because 
we do try to work on a bipartisan basis. The Blue Dogs are Democrats 
and we are proud of that, but we reach across the aisle.
  In fact, tonight, most of the Special Order is devoted to revealing 
the Republicans' Treasury report, because they did not want it to get 
the publicity that it deserves. This is one of the most important 
documents of government, and I have yet to meet another Member of 
Congress who knew about the existence of this document. It has been 
required by law to be published for over a decade now. Senator John 
Glenn of Ohio was the first person to author a bill to get this done. 
The former Secretary of Treasury, Bob Rubin, and the Clinton 
administration, championed this document. Back then the news was good. 
We were headed toward surpluses, and we achieved surpluses. But in the 
last 5 years, this document has been buried deep underground. I think 
it is high time we brought it above surface.
  Mr. ROSS. I appreciate the co-chair for policy of the Blue Dog 
Coalition and a very important member of the Budget Committee bringing 
to the taxpayers' attention this little-known document, the financial 
report of the United States Government. Again, our debt is 
$8,270,909,436,190.
  Now, as members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, we 
do not come here on Tuesday nights to simply complain about how this 
Congress is out of control with its spending without also offering a 
solution. As the gentlemen from Tennessee and Georgia mentioned, we 
have a 12-point reform plan to cure our Nation's addiction to deficit 
spending. And I can tell you, one of the problems that taxpayers in 
this country have with this debt and with these deficits is the lack of 
accountability. I want to talk about that for a moment.
  Some of you have heard this before and I am going to continue to talk 
about it until every one of these 11,000 fully furnished, brand new 
manufactured homes sitting in a pasture in Hope, Arkansas, get to the 
victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.
  Mr. COOPER. Are those the famous FEMA trailers?
  Mr. ROSS. Those are the FEMA trailers. FEMA has spent an estimated 
$431 million of our tax money purchasing some 11,000 brand new, fully 
furnished, manufactured homes.
  Mr. COOPER. Who is living in those homes?
  Mr. ROSS. Nobody. Here is the story. FEMA shows up in Hope, Arkansas, 
my hometown. I now live 16 miles down the road in Prescott, Arkansas. 
They show up at city hall and say, we understand you have these 
inactive runways as a result of World War II. We want to use them as a 
so-called FEMA staging area.
  The idea was these manufactured homes were going to come into Hope 
and then go to the people who lost their homes and everything they 
owned as a result of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. They started 
coming. They started coming in October, and they came and they came, 
but they never went.
  So as a result of that, 25 percent of them now sit on these inactive, 
closed military runways, and 75 percent of them are sitting in a cow 
pasture. That is 11,000 brand new, fully furnished, manufactured homes 
sitting in a pasture in Hope, Arkansas, and FEMA owns them, they have 
already bought them. And FEMA at the same time is spending our tax 
money to provide housing in hotels and motels for some 12,000 storm 
victims.
  If that is not enough, we all know about the tent city that is set up 
near Pass Christian, Mississippi, where families in the winter are 
living in a tent while FEMA has 11,000 brand new, fully furnished 
manufactured homes sitting in a cow pasture in Hope, Arkansas. That is 
an aerial photo of some of the 11,000. There is the barbed-wire fence, 
and there are the manufactured homes. Most of them are 14 feet wide, 60 
feet long. Some are 80 feet wide. And now that the drought is about to 
end and the rains are starting to set in, I do not have to tell you 
that they are going to be sinking. They are going to be sinking. They 
are going to be damaged.
  What is FEMA's response? Oh, no, not to get them to the people that 
need them, the people living in hotels and motels and tents 6 months 
after the storm. Their response is we are going to spend $6-8 million 
graveling this 290-acre cow pasture so we can store these manufactured 
homes for a future disaster. FEMA refuses to move these manufactured 
homes into a flood zone.
  Normally I would say that makes sense, but the reality is in this 
instance, everybody that lost their home as a result of Hurricane 
Katrina lost their home because they lived in a flood zone. FEMA says 
if you have land, we will give you a manufactured home. Everybody that 
lost their home as a result of Hurricane Katrina, they had land but it 
is in a flood zone. That is why they lost their home.
  Mr. Speaker, I appeal to the President and to the director of FEMA, 
what is worse, to have 11,000 brand new, fully furnished manufactured 
homes spread out over Mississippi and Louisiana and Alabama with the 
storm victims who lost their homes and everything they owned in a bunch 
of different flood zones, or have them all grouped together in a cow 
pasture at the Hope airport, an area prone to tornadoes, an area that 
is going to have a tornado warning probably about every 10 days for the 
next 3 months?
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to come to the floor of this Chamber and talk 
about this until FEMA gets moving, until FEMA comes to Hope, Arkansas, 
picks up these 11,000 manufactured homes they have purchased, and gets 
them to the people who desperately need them, people who for the sixth 
and seventh month in a row are living in hotel and motel rooms, people 
who are living literally in tents in Pass Christian, Mississippi.
  This ran on the front page of the Arkansas Democratic Gazette back in 
December. I do not know if this gentleman is still living in this tent 
or not. He was in December. I can tell you about 100 families are 
living in tents in Pass Christian right now. It is appalling to know as 
a country we are allowing people to live in tents. He has found a job. 
He is back at work, doing the best he can for himself and his family. 
He is waiting on housing, and yet we have 11,000 brand new, fully 
furnished, manufactured homes purchased by FEMA, sitting in a cow 
pasture in Hope.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit that as a member of the fiscally conservative 
Blue Dog Coalition, this is the kind of government waste that turns 
people off. I grew up in a little country church outside of Prescott, 
Midway United Methodist Church, and I heard a lot of sermons about 
being a good steward, and I can tell you FEMA is not being a good 
steward of our tax money with what they are doing. It is a total 
disgrace. It is an outrage.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Scott.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ross has so eloquently stated 
the great failure in our American government today. The whole situation 
of Hurricane Katrina marks one of the

[[Page 2823]]

darkest spots in American history. But there is a pattern here of a 
lack of response. There is a pattern of whatever it goes through, 
security, homeland security, national security. Hurricane Katrina is 
just one example. We need look no closer than our port security. What a 
debacle.
  That same kind of lack of proper research, proper debate, and you are 
absolutely right, a lackadaisical congressional leadership, a 
Republican leadership that simply has just bent over for this 
administration. We have made a mockery of what our Founding Fathers 
said we should be doing as checks and balances. That is why they set 
three branches of government: the judicial, executive and legislative 
branches.

                              {time}  2145

  It is our job to provide the oversight, the investigation, the 
enforcement arm, to be able to make sure that there is a proper check 
and balance. But this House of Representatives under this Republican 
leadership has all too often just caved in and caved down, and that is 
why we are in the shape that we are in today.
  Now, if we can talk just for a moment, which I want to do, about this 
port security situation that again points up the same fallacies.
  Mr. ROSS. It is about accountability.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. It is about accountability, and it is also 
about our budget. For example, if you remember, after 2001 Congress 
appropriated a total of $765 million for port security programs, 
including $173 million for FY 2006, to help our seaports adopt 
important security enhancements.
  The Coast Guard came and told us they needed more like $6 billion. 
Yet, like last year, the President's budget once again proposed 
terminating funding dedicated to port security, and then turned right 
around and takes that $6 billion and says let's give it over here to a 
company that is owned by a country that has direct financial ties to 
terrorist organizations.
  How do you figure this, that the President's budget would propose 
terminating that funding that our Coast Guard, the one main element we 
have checking our ports, asked for, advocate terminating it, and then 
turn right around and okay a deal that he says he did not even know 
about?
  Now, the truth is plain here, and we owe it to the American people. 
There are some of us in Congress who are willing to stand up and tell 
the truth and deal with this, because our financial security is vital, 
is extraordinarily important.
  I want to just touch upon one additional thing. I want to talk about 
just for a moment, as my good friend from Tennessee pointed to, this 
budget and the meanness of these cuts, but where they hurt the most are 
with our military families, are with our veterans.
  I do not believe that the American people quite understand this or 
quite are aware that this budget would increase the health care costs 
for 1 million veterans. For the fourth year in a row, the budget raises 
health care costs for 1 million veterans by imposing new fees for 
veterans, costing them more than $2.6 billion over 5 years, and driving 
at least 200,000 veterans out of the system. That is what this budget 
does to our veterans.
  It would double the copayment for prescription drugs from $8 to $15. 
That is what this budget does to veterans. It imposes an enrollment fee 
of $250 a year for category 7 and category 8 veterans, those who make 
as little as $26,000 a year. If increases health care costs for 
military retirees. The budget increases TRICARE health premiums for 3.1 
million of the Nation's military retirees under 65. The premiums will 
double.
  It fails to address the strain on our troops. I just returned from 
Iraq and Afghanistan. I was there talking with the troops. Despite 
recent reports of the tremendous strain that the Iraq and Afghanistan 
wars have placed on our troops, the President's budget fails to fund 
and plan adequately to recruit the number of forces that are authorized 
under the law to help with that strain. The budget would fund 17,000 
fewer Army National Guard and 5,000 fewer Army Reserve than are 
authorized by law. But it does not just stop there. It goes on and on.
  You talk about your folks in Hope, Arkansas, and what they are faced 
with. Let me tell you what my people are faced with so much in Georgia, 
in one county, Cobb County alone, just from the cuts in the Community 
Development Block Grant program.
  This is what the President has proposed cutting: one center that is 
in great need of help in terms of being built and being sustained 
through the Community Block Grant program of $3.1 million, the Ron 
Anderson Center over in Powder Springs in Cobb County. Another center 
for senior citizens where they need it the most, cut out of this 
budget, another $2.5 million. Those community block grants are the 
lifeblood of many communities in Hope, Arkansas; in Tennessee; and all 
over.
  Now, I mention this, as we will mention a few other things. There is 
so much in this budget that goes at the heart of cutting out almost the 
heart and the hope of our people.
  You showed an extraordinary picture there a moment ago, Mr. Ross. You 
showed a victim down there under just a cover, all he had, just sitting 
there. It showed great hurt, great need. There is a great hurting and a 
great need of the American people, and we do not need to pass this 
budget that cuts the very programs that will help our people in need.
  Mr. ROSS. Again, it takes a lot of skill for this administration, 
this Republican-led Congress, to give us the largest budget deficit 
ever in our Nation's history while also managing to cut all the 
programs that matter to people at the same time. How do they do that? 
By tacking on tax cut after tax cut.
  Following us this evening, I am pretty confident that the other side 
will show up, which I think probably is an indication that we are 
making progress here in getting our message out about trying to restore 
some fiscal discipline and common sense to our Nation's government, and 
they will probably talk about how we had an opportunity to cut, to cut, 
$40 billion in spending and how we voted against it.
  But what they will not tell you is that it was $40 billion in cuts to 
the most vulnerable people in our society. Medicaid, eight out of 10 
seniors in Arkansas are on Medicaid. One out of five people in Arkansas 
are on Medicaid. Cuts to Medicaid, cuts to student loans to the tune of 
$40 billion, followed by what are we doing this week and next week? 
About $90 billion in additional tax cuts for those earning over 
$400,000 a year.
  I wasn't real good at math back in high school or college, Mr. 
Speaker, but the last time I checked, $90 billion in tax cuts from 
borrowed money because we don't have a surplus and $40 billion in cuts 
from the poor, the disabled, elderly and college students equals $50 
billion in new spending. Only in Washington would you entitle a bill 
that increases the national debt by $50 billion the Deficit Reduction 
Act. Yet that is exactly what we will probably hear more about tonight, 
just as we did last week.
  I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).
  Mr. COOPER. The gentleman makes an excellent point. I would like to 
challenge those who speak after us, if they even know about the 
existence of this ``Financial Report for the United States in 2005.'' I 
bet that no Republican in the House even knows this report exists, even 
though it is signed by the Secretary of the Treasury, it is an official 
U.S. Government document, and it reveals the true deficit for America 
last year as being $760 billion.
  If my friend would put back up the Blue Dog debt and deficit sign, 
please, I think it is very important that people compare that. Those 
numbers are truly staggering, $8.2 trillion debt; and your individual 
share back home is $27,000 for every man, woman, and child.
  But, guess what? That is the good news. If you look at this document 
from the Department of Treasury, guess what our real debt is? It is not 
$8.2 trillion. I wish it were. It is a staggering $46 trillion. That is 
an unimaginable figure, $46 trillion. That is an unimaginable sum of 
money.
  But get this: every American's share, every man woman and child in 
this

[[Page 2824]]

country, the share isn't $27,000 like you have on your sign; the share 
is $156,000 apiece. For every full-time worker's family, the share is 
$375,000 apiece.
  Mr. ROSS. If the gentleman would yield, the point is we are not 
trying to make this any worse than it is. We wish it wasn't bad. We 
wish we had a balanced budget. We wish the debt was being paid down. We 
wish we were not deficit spending. We don't have to try to make the 
numbers any worse than they already are. They already are setting 
records.
  Just to clarify, the difference between these numbers and your 
numbers, the difference between the numbers in the budget and the 
numbers in the financial report of the United States Government is 
basically this simple: our government, our budget uses a cash-basis 
form of accounting, which gets you to these numbers.
  Mr. COOPER. Which is illegal for most every business in America.
  Mr. Ross. Yet our very government, which uses a cash-base form of 
accounting, requires every business in America for the most part to use 
an accrual base of accounting.
  Mr. COOPER. This is real accounting, and people back home need to 
know that for every working family, it is a $375,000 obligation 
already. So what the gentleman is talking about, this $27,000, that is 
the price of a pretty nice car. This is the price of a luxury home. 
This is what every working family already owes to pay for the promises 
this Congress and this administration have already made for our Social 
Security beneficiaries, our Medicare beneficiaries, so many other good 
and worthy programs.
  As my friend, the gentleman from Georgia, pointed out, today we are 
having to borrow most of this money from foreign countries. President 
Bush has borrowed more money himself from foreign nations than all 
previous Presidents in American history combined. That is a staggering 
thing to comprehend.
  I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
  Mr. ROSS. Based on the accrual-basis form of accounting, the real 
United States deficit in 2005 was $760 billion.
  Mr. COOPER. Over twice as large as the administration will admit.
  If the gentleman will yield for one more moment, the Director of 
Office of Management and Budget, Josh Bolton, says the deficit is only 
$319 billion; it is actually getting smaller, it is turning up. He says 
the President in just a few years will cut the deficit in half.
  That is according to the cash basis. According to accrual, according 
to real accounting, guess what? The deficit is $760 billion, and 
getting bigger all the time. So it is going in the opposite direction 
from what Director Bolton says. So who do you believe, Director Bolton 
of the OMB, or the Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow?
  I think the American people need to know that both of these documents 
exist, both of them are official U.S. Government documents, put out by 
the Republican administration; but this is the one they have tried to 
keep hidden from the American people.
  Mr. ROSS. A highlight from the financial report of the United States 
Government, this official government publication, you can find this on 
page 23, of the 26 agencies scored under the President's management 
agenda, 17 of them were deemed to have ``any of a number of serious 
flaws when it comes to financial performance.''
  Then you go on to page 28, and this is a quote from David Walker, the 
Comptroller General of the United States of America: ``The current 
financial reporting model cash-basis accounting provides a potentially 
unrealistic and misleading picture of the Federal Government's overall 
performance, financial condition and future fiscal outlook,'' which is 
exactly why our government requires businesses to not use the cash-
based form of accounting, rather accrual-based form of accounting.
  Yet when you hear from our government, they never want to quote this 
report. They want to report the budget which uses what the Comptroller 
General of the United States refers to as an unrealistic and misleading 
picture, through the cash-based form of accounting.
  I yield to the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Scott.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. When you combine this with the startling 
revelation that half of this debt is being held by foreign countries, I 
go back to that word ``security.'' Is it in our best security interest 
to have our financial well-being held in the hands of foreign 
countries? That is about as ridiculous as holding our port security in 
the hands of a foreign company owned by a country that had terrorist 
dealings, that provided nuclear materials to Iran, a country where two 
of the hijackers came from. This word ``security'' needs to reverberate 
throughout the American psyche.

                              {time}  2200

  We are depending too much on our financial security and our national 
security and port security from foreign interests. We Americans need to 
control our ports, and we need to have Americans at ports where they 
are originating shipments coming in.
  And we need to check 100 percent of our cargo. Mr. Ross, if Hong Kong 
can check 100 percent of its cargo coming into its ports, and it checks 
22 million cargo pieces a year, we check only 11, Hong Kong is not even 
a terrorist target and we are. Hong Kong checks 100 percent.
  They are not a terrorist target; we are a terrorist target, do not 
check but 5 percent. As Ethan Hunt said in Mission Impossible, the NOC 
list is out. It is out in the open. They know that we do not check but 
5 percent of our cargo.
  But the point I wanted to make in terms of the foreign lenders is, 
because I think it is important, Mr. Ross, that the American people 
know who is holding our debt. Let me just tell them for a minute. Japan 
holds $682.8 billion of our debt.
  Communist China, Communist China holds $250 billion of our debt. 
Great Britain, $223 billion. The Caribbean banking centers, $115 
billion; Taiwan, $71 billion; OPEC countries, $67 billion; Korea, $66 
billion; Germany, $65 billion; Canada, $53 billion; Hong Kong $46 
billion.
  This is not in the best interests of the security of this country and 
it has to change,
  Mr. ROSS. The gentleman is so right in his assessments. We do need to 
be borrowing money from foreign central banks and foreign investors. 
And, in fact, I believe it should be an American company that manages 
our ports. And with the cuts, we know what has happened in terms of our 
country becoming way too dependent on foreign oil.
  And yet, if we are not careful with the proposed cuts to agriculture, 
we are going to become dependent on foreign countries like Brazil for 
our food and fiber. Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, I submit to you that 
having a safe and reliable source for food and fiber here at home from 
America's farm families is every bit as much critical to our national 
security as oil is.
  Now, the gentleman from Georgia made some good points. And, you know, 
this is not partisan debate. This is not a Democrat or Republican 
issue. It may be the first time in 50 years the Republicans have 
controlled the White House, House and Senate. It may be the Republican 
leadership that has given us the largest budget deficit ever in our 
Nation's history for the sixth year in a row.
  But it is not a Democrat or Republican issue, it is an American 
issue, because this debt, this reckless spending, affects all of us as 
citizens of this country and as taxpayers. And, Mr. Speaker, we are all 
citizens of this country, first and foremost.
  But to validate what the gentleman from Georgia is saying, again I 
quote from David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States 
of America, found on page 28 of the Financial Report of the United 
States Government for 2005, ``Continuing on this unsustainable path 
will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage our economy, our standard 
of living, and ultimately our national security.''
  He goes on to say, ``More troubling still, the Federal Government's 
financial condition and long-term fiscal outlook is continuing to 
deteriorate.''

[[Page 2825]]

  And I cannot thank the gentleman from Tennessee enough for making the 
people of this country aware of this little-known document. I yield to 
the gentleman from Tennessee.
  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, you know the 9/11 Commission did a great job 
in their report. It became a best seller. It was in bookstores all over 
America, because everybody in America wanted to find out what really 
happened on that terrible day.
  You know, this is a lot like the 9/11 Commission report, because it 
is very readable, and it needs to be in every bookstore in America. And 
yet hardly anyone in Congress has seen it, hardly anyone in the Senate 
has seen it. Everybody needs to read this document, because it is the 
annual report for America.
  It reveals the terrible truth that the real 2005 fiscal deficit for 
America was not $319 billion, it was $760 billion. And every living 
American worker already today owes $375,000 apiece. That is what this 
document says. It is not thick. If you do not find it in the bookstore 
yet, and it will be months probably before that happens, take it off 
the Web site.
  Look at the BlueDogDemocrats.dot.com. If you do not trust our Web 
site, go to www.gao.gov, that is the Government Accountability Office, 
or download it from the U.S. Treasury Web site. But this is a truly 
startling and amazing document, and hardly anybody even knows it 
exists.
  So I encourage folks not to take our word for it, go look at it 
yourself and see what you think about the fiscal finances of our 
country after you read this book.
  Mr. ROSS. Now we have about 6 or 7 minutes left this evening to talk 
about being good stewards of our tax money, about being good stewards 
of the public trust.
  But as I promised at the beginning of this hour, our national debt, 
about an hour ago, was $8,270,909,436,190. In the last 60 minutes, our 
national debt has gone up approximately $41,666.000.
  Mr. COOPER. Forty-one million dollars in an hour?
  Mr. ROSS. In 60 minutes, in 1 hour, our national debt has increased 
to the tune of approximately $41,666,000 and some change. And so you 
can see an hour ago what the debt was: $8,270,909,436,190. That is no 
longer true. It is now $8,270,951,102,190.
  Mr. COOPER. That much damage was done to our Nation's future just in 
1 hour.
  Mr. ROSS. In the last hour.
  Mr. COOPER. And that will continue every hour, every night.
  Mr. ROSS. Again, we have got to be good stewards of our tax money. We 
have got to be good stewards of this country. We have got to get our 
Nation's fiscal house back in order. We must restore fiscal 
responsibility to our government. It affects every one of us in a lot 
of different ways.
  For example, our Nation is spending a half a billion dollars a day 
with a ``B,'' 500 million, a half a billion every day, simply paying 
interest on the national debt.
  We could finish I-69 in Arkansas, creating all kinds of jobs and 
economic opportunities, just with 3 days' interest on the national 
debt, or I-49, again with 3 days' interest on the national debt.
  Many of America's priorities are going to continue to go unmet. Many 
of America's needs are going to go unmet, from health care to education 
to veterans to infrastructure, until we get our Nation's fiscal house 
back in order.
  The Blue Dog Coalition has a way to do that. It is a 12-point plan, 
and the first and foremost of all of those 12 points is require a 
balanced budget. Forty-nine States do. My wife requires one in our 
household in Prescott, Arkansas.
  The family business my wife and I own, our banker requires us to have 
a balanced budget. And it is time for this Nation, it is time for the 
politicians in Washington to have a balanced budget for our Nation.
  I yield to the gentlemen from Georgia.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, it is very important to point out, 
and you touched upon it, that just the interest, just the interest 
alone, is nearly $200 billion.
  Now just think about that. This money that we are borrowing, we have 
to pay for. You got to add in the $200 billion in interest on top of 
that, which is more than five times the amount that we spend on 
education, the environment, and veterans care put together.
  I submit to you, my friends in the Blue Dog Coalition, I just hope 
that the American people have been listening to us tonight, and I 
believe that they have. I hope that we have awakened a sleeping giant. 
Because, like I say, we are here and we are gone tomorrow.
  The President does not have to run anymore. He does not have to go 
out and face the people. I believe, quite honestly, if he had to go out 
and face the people, I do not think he would have made that deal with 
the Arab immigrants. I do not think he would have done that.
  But the fundamental question we have to go back to is from this 
startling information that you have brought to us, the question has to 
be, why? Why are we just discovering it and why is this great 
discrepancy there?
  There are some serious questions that have to be answered by this 
administration. But you know what? They are not going to answer these 
questions unless and until we in Congress stand up and represent the 
interests of the American people and put their feet to the fire. Once 
we do that, then we are truly standing up for America, and America 
deserves that.
  Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and I thank the 
gentleman from Tennessee for joining me this evening as we try to hold 
this Congress accountable and urge a good dose of common sense and 
fiscal responsibility.
  For folks with questions or comments or concerns, I encourage them to 
e-mail us at bluedogs, we are members of the fiscally conservative 
Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, [email protected]. That is 
[email protected].
  And, Mr. Speaker, we are here this evening for a simple reason and a 
simple cause; that is, to try and be good stewards for this Nation of 
the tax money and the trust that has been placed in us for the people.
  We think this Congress is letting the American people down. I yield 
back.

                          ____________________