[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6714-6715]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     NATION'S LOOMING FINANCIAL CRISIS NEEDS A BIPARTISAN SOLUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 4, 2007, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, as a nation, we are moving closer and closer 
to the edge of the financial cliff. A few steps forward and we will 
start the free fall into a canyon of debt which is bad for our country.
  The baby boomers start retiring at the end of this year, and that 
will bring unprecedented levels of entitlement and other program 
spending. If left unchanged, in just a few decades there will be little 
money left for transportation, education, health care, medical 
research, cancer research, veterans, the environment, and all the other 
important programs. We cannot continue to keep borrowing and mortgaging 
our future to countries like China that carry our debt.
  Young people should be clamoring for Congress to act; they have the 
most to lose from our inaction. It is their future that is being 
mortgaged, and every day we don't act we increase the debt burden they 
must repay in the future.
  I have a bill which offers an opportunity to change the current 
course. Senator Voinovich and I first introduced the SAFE Commission 
last summer, and we reintroduced it in January.

[[Page 6715]]

  Our country is in trouble, and we cannot afford to wait much longer. 
The bipartisan SAFE Commission will put everything on the table, 
entitlements and other Federal spending and tax policies, as it comes 
up with recommendations. It will hold town hall meetings across the 
country to explain the financial crisis we face and discuss the issue 
with the American people. I believe the American people, given the hard 
facts from a bipartisan panel, will understand that solving this 
problem will take some sacrifice from everyone.
  The commission's recommendations would then come to Congress and we 
would take an up or down vote on the proposals in their entirety, 
similar to the BRAC process. Mandating congressional action on the 
panel's recommendations is what makes this unique.
  There is also an opportunity for Congress to put forward an 
alternative proposal to reach the same goals at the same time the SAFE 
Commission recommendations are voted on. Holding out some hope that 
Congress would act on its own, the legislation also has a provision 
that if Congress were to pass a measure making substantive changes in 
entitlement spending and taking other action to get our financial house 
in order, the commission would cease to exist. But if Congress doesn't 
act no later than 17 months from the organization of the commission, it 
would be required to vote up or down on the SAFE Commission.
  I have written a number of Dear Colleagues and personally talked with 
a number of my House colleagues about joining this effort. While 20 
Republicans have signed on, including minority leader John Boehner, 
this effort has fallen on deaf ears on the other side of the aisle. I 
have personally sent a letter to each Blue Dog Coalition member 
appealing to them to step forward and join me in focusing national 
attention on this critical crisis. I have a history of working in a 
bipartisan way in this panel, and yet I hear absolutely no support or 
interest from the other side of the aisle.
  I have also written to media and public opinions and leaders about 
this issue over the year. I certainly understand how the issue is 
competing with other national priorities, including the war in Iraq, 
but I fear that if we can't get Congress to move this year, there will 
not be another opportunity for a couple of years, with the 2008 
presidential campaign heating up. This is a moral issue that this 
Congress is not addressing.
  As a father of five children and a grandfather of 12, the fiscal 
challenges facing the Nation with the baby boomers retiring strike me 
as much more than a routine policy discussion. Without action, what 
kind of future are we leaving to our children and our grandchildren? In 
a word, ``bleak.'' We owe a debt to previous generations, to our 
parents and our grandparents for the sacrifices that they made for our 
country to make our country so great. Likewise, our generation, those 
who serve in this Congress and serve in the administration, must find 
the resolve so that generations to come will have the same type of 
financial future that our parents and grandparents gave to us.
  I ask Members of Congress to look at this and join in a bipartisan 
way to deal with this issue in this Congress. And I also urge the 
administration, which has been silent on this issue, to stop, to break 
the silence. And for Rob Portman and the Secretary of Treasury and 
others to come up here and support this so we can make sure that we 
give our children and our grandchildren the same opportunities that our 
mothers and fathers gave to us.

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