[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6165]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           IRAQ AND OUR TAXES

  (Mr. MORAN of Virginia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Madam Speaker, yesterday our constituents 
filed their tax returns, but I wonder how many American taxpayers 
realize that the average tax return will be consumed in less than half 
a second in the Iraq war. When we grant the President the additional 
$100 billion he is asking in emergency funding for Iraq, we will be 
spending $5,000 a minute and $12 billion a month in a lost cause.
  The American taxpayer is still paying for Iraq's garbage collection, 
their schools, their health clinics and their roads. When the Iraqi 
people themselves are running a surplus. They have almost $70 billion 
in accumulated surplus now.
  The last couple of years, they have had $100 billion come in from oil 
revenue, and they budgeted it at about $55 a barrel. It is now about 
$112 a barrel. They are generating an enormous surplus that they don't 
know what to do with, and a whole lot of it is being stolen.
  And yet we are paying still to collect their garbage. There is 
something wrong with this picture and the American taxpayer needs to 
stand up and speak out about it with a full measure of outrage.

                          ____________________