Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, on March 11, 2009, the Air Force, the Panama City community and indeed our Nation, lost one of the most respected Airmen in the history of the Air Force--the very first Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force--Paul Wesley Airey.

Chief Airey was an Airman's Airman and a true Air Force pioneer. His legacy is the professional enlisted force we have serving our Nation today.

Chief Airey was born in New Bedford, MA, on December 13, 1923. He enlisted in the Air force at age eighteen, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

The first chief master sergeant of the Air Force was always a leader. During World War II he flew as a B-24 radio operator and additional duty aerial gunner. On his 28th mission, then-Technical Sergeant Airey and his fellow crewmen were shot down over Vienna, Austria, captured, and held prisoner by the German air force from July 1944 to May 1945. During his time as a prisoner of war he worked tirelessly to meet the basic needs of fellow prisoners, even through a 90-day forced march.

Chief Airey held the top Air Force enlisted position from April 3, 1967 to July 31, 1969. During his tenure he worked to change loan establishments charging exorbitant rates outside the air base gates and to improve low retention during the Vietnam Conflict. Chief Airey also led a team that laid the foundation for the enlisted promotion testing system, a system that has stood the test of time and which is still in use today. He also advocated for an Air Force-level Senior Noncommissioned Officer Academy and this vision became reality when the academy opened in 1973.

Chief Airey retired August 1, 1970. He continued advocating for Airmen's rights by serving on the boards of numerous Air Force and enlisted professional military organizations throughout the years. He was a member of the Board of Trustees for the Airmen Memorial Museum, a member of the Air Force Memorial Foundation and the Air University Foundation.

On the north wall of the Air Force Memorial in Washington D.C., Chief Airey's thoughts on Airmen are immortalized, ``When I think of the enlisted force, I see dedication, determination, loyalty and valor.''

Before he became Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, Chief Airey was assigned to the Air Defense Command's Civil Engineering Squadron at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., where he was the unit's first sergeant. Chief Airey and his wife lived in Panama City after he retired. The Tyndall community will greatly miss the chief. An internment ceremony is scheduled for 9 a.m. on 28 May, 2009 at Arlington National Cemetery.

Thank you, Chairman Spratt. I appreciate your work on getting us to this point.

Ladies and gentlemen, you hear from the other side of this aisle criticism of this budget. I assume that means they believe we should go back to the policies that were followed in the last 8 years, and I want to review where those policies got us under the previous administration and the previous Republican-controlled Congress.

Unemployment, when George W. Bush came into office, was less than half of what it is today at 8.5 percent. Job growth in the previous 8 years under President Clinton had been approximately 250,000 new jobs created per month.

This month, after 8 years of the policies that are espoused by the ranking member, Mr. Ryan, and the distinguished minority whip, Mr. Cantor, we are shrinking, losing 650,000 jobs on a monthly basis now.

GDP growth. Under President Clinton, that average growth was 3.7 percent annual rate. Now our economy is shrinking at the rate of 6.1 percent on a monthly basis. Median income, median wages are down.

Deficits. They speak for themselves. When President Bush took over, there was a surplus as far as the eye could see. Under the policies of the previous administration, now we have structural deficits as far as the eye can see. That is what President Obama has inherited.

Health coverage. During the 8 years of the Bush administration, over 5 million Americans lost their health coverage. That is at the very core of our economic problems, the health coverage problems in this Nation. Many would call it the misery index.

President Reagan talked about the misery index. I think if you look at all those economic indicators, there is not one economic indicator that shows that we are better off than we were 8 years ago.

As a matter of fact, every economic indicator indicates that we are much worse off.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for a new direction. We must restore fiscal responsibility into this budgeting process. That's one of the things that Chairman Spratt, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Hoyer have given us through this budget process, and I am very proud to support this budget conference report and ask you to do the same.

I thank my friend, the chairman, Mr. Spratt.

Madam Speaker, I am always intrigued by the rhetoric that comes when we start talking about budgets. And I am so grateful for a gentleman like Mr. Spratt who is not a rhetorical person, but he is a person who wants to

practically get things done and get a budget that makes sense for the American people and how we collect and spend and do our government functions.

Madam Speaker, a budget is supposed to be a roadmap that shows where you are going, how you are going to get there, what your priorities are, how you are going to pay for those priorities. Unfortunately, over the last 8 years, under the leadership of the previous administration and the other party, we didn't have that. A budget was used as a sort of rhetorical tool to say we are going to balance the budget, but then they would come back a day later and say, well, we have got all this emergency stuff that we didn't put in the budget, but we knew all along we needed to do.

For the first time in 8 years you have before you an honest document, which is an honest roadmap that explains our situation and lays out an avenue to get to a better place. Now, honestly, it's not a pretty picture, but it is an honest picture. We haven't had an honest picture in 8 years. It is an ugly picture when it comes to the numbers. But the numbers are honest, and it lays out a roadmap to get us out of this economic mess that President Obama has inherited. I am proud of Mr. Spratt and the work that he has done, and the House of Representatives, and their work in passing this budget.

Now, what does that roadmap say and what does it do? It says, first of all, we are in an economic mess; revenue collections are going to be down, economic activity is down, we all know about that. That wasn't the fault of this sitting President; he inherited that mess. But what it does is say, these are the problems that exist and have to be resolved for us to come to a better place.

President Obama believes strongly in a couple of things, and we are trying to outline how we deal with those things in this budget.

Number one is he thinks that you can't really fix the economic mess until you deal with the health care issue. Health care accessibility is a problem in this Nation when you have 48 or 50 million people who cannot access the health care system, and it's also a problem in that costs are rising at the rate of 3 to 5 percent above inflation. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that doesn't work too long.

It only carries us deeper into the economic mess. So he says we got to deal with that problem, and this budget lays out that avenue, that blueprint to deal with that problem.

Secondly, and this is another important factor relative to how we got into this economic mess, and that is the energy crisis, the energy situation. When you got a run up in the cost of oil to $145 a barrel when it traditionally had been below $30, that was one of the catalysts that took us into this economic collapse. And we have known for a long time as a Nation that we had to deal with this energy crisis, climate change, energy, all sort of interconnected.

So this budget also lays out an avenue or a roadmap to get to this energy legislation. It doesn't go into details. The President hasn't even talked too much about details. He wants to leave that to Congress.

I do know one thing. To solve those two problems, Madam Speaker, it has to be a bipartisan work. Madam Speaker, Mr. Ryan knows that every major piece of legislation that has ever come out of this Congress to be effective must be bipartisan. We need bipartisan cooperation and support. We need constructive ideas.

We, as a minority, need to be inclusive, but the majority party, when it comes to the table, needs to be constructive and not obstructive. And I think that's what we, as Blue Dogs, who consider ourselves the most fiscally conservative, constructive folks in the Congress, 51 of us--and I serve, have been a part of that group for a long time--we would like to work with the people on the other side of the aisle in a constructive manner. But up to this point our attempts have been thwarted.

So we again thrust out that olive branch to work on both sides of the aisle to solve these problems. You can't get out of this economic mess without dealing with the health care problems and the energy crisis that we have in this Nation.

So in that process the President believes in health care reform, he believes in energy reform, he believes in education reform, and, fourthly and most importantly, fiscal responsibility.

As the folks, Mr. Ryan and others have said consistently, we have to get back to being fiscally responsible. It's something we completely threw out the window over the past 8 years. We have to go back to a path that leads us down to a balanced budget.

Can't get there overnight, but this budget developed by Mr. Spratt, which we would like to get in a conference mode, will do that. And I want to be a part of that.

Would the gentleman yield?

You make a fair point, but I would remind the gentleman again that reconciliation is probably being insisted upon because of the obstructive nature, the ``just say no'' nature of the minority party.

And what we would like to see is some constructive engagement in the process about how we solve some of these problems.

Madam Chair, I want to thank Chairman Spratt. He and his staff have provided great leadership over the last month or so on the development of this budget resolution, and he has had many difficult positions to reconcile. He has worked closely with myself and with my Blue Dog colleagues, since the new President came into office, to put this budget resolution in place.

In March, Madam Chair, for the first time in 8 years, Congress had a President who sent us a budget blueprint that was honest and that laid out for the American people all of the expenditures and all of the projected revenues, projected expenditures, in an honest way so that the American people could see it.

What do I mean by that?

What I mean is, for the last 7 or 8 years and prior to the new administration coming in, when the President's budget came to Capitol Hill, it neglected to include massive spending obligations such as war- cost funding, Alternative Minimum Tax fixes, the Medicare physician payment fixes--these are all items that the American people and the Congress knew that we would do--disaster relief, middle-class tax cuts, and other tax provisions like the estate tax, which needed to be fixed because of the convoluted mess that was put in place in 2001 under the Bush tax plan.

Therefore, the budget President Obama sent us is honest. But honestly, it left a lot of us with sticker shock when we saw it because I don't think many of us and many of the American people realized how bad the situation had gotten over the last 7 or 8 years. I think we as a group--and I speak for the group that I work with, the Blue Dogs--we had two options: We could say ``no'' or we could work constructively to place this country back on the right track to fiscal discipline and fiscal responsibility. We chose the latter path, and that is to work with Chairman Spratt to see if we couldn't get this country back on track.

We inherited a mess. The numbers are bad. But we, working together, we can get back on the right track to start with an honest document, an honest budget, and this certainly provides that.

Madam Chairman, I have several Members that would like to speak, and at this moment I am going to yield 2 minutes to a fellow Blue Dog from Louisiana, one of the leaders of the Blue Dogs, Representative Melancon.

I thank the gentleman from Louisiana for his work, and obviously, he has laid out what the problems are that exist before us. And one of the things that we wanted to do in this budget is make sure that we reincorporated the tools, the fiscal responsibility tools that were put in place in the 1990s by then-President Clinton, a Democratic- controlled White House, and a Republican-controlled House and Senate working together to put in place tools that would discipline the Congress in the way it collected and spent this money. Those tools were the PAYGO principle. Pay as you go. If you are going to create a new program or a new spending program or new tax cut, you had to figure out where the money was going to come from to pay for it so it would be budget deficit neutral.

Discretionary spending caps, a very important tool that I am sure that some on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Ryan and I, would certainly agree upon.

So those tools were put in place in the 1990s but then allowed to expire in 2002 shortly after the Bush administration came into power in January of 2001.

After those tools were allowed to expire, then you begin to see spending run out of control. And we had increases in all kinds of spending: defense spending, nondefense discretionary spending, mandatory--there were new mandatory programs created like the Medicare Prescription Drug Program without any accommodation for where that money would come from to pay for that.

So that's the kind of lack of discipline, lack of enforcement tools and lack of fiscal management that existed in the first 8 years of this decade. No more.

We have to discipline ourselves, and the Blue Dogs said we want PAYGO back in the statute. We want the tools that are needed to get us back on the fiscal track to get back to balance. We want them back in law. And Chairman Spratt has accommodated us, and he put statutory PAYGO into this budget resolution, assumes that it will be passed by the House and the Senate and signed into law; and President Obama has committed to work with us on that.

So this has been a top priority for the Blue Dogs for years. We want to see programs like the Medicare Doctor Fix and tax relief and AMT and disaster relief, we want to see those benefit the American people. We want to also say to the American people, This is what your government is doing for you, and this is what it's going to cost you. I think it's time that we had that kind of straight talk for the American people, and this budget presumes that kind of straight talk.

So, Madam Chairman, I am extremely proud of what Chairman Spratt has done to accommodate these provisions that the Blue Dogs have asked for.

On a more specific note, some of the things that we wanted done is we wanted these new initiatives of the President, we wanted them to be deficit neutral. Health care reform is going to be a major undertaking of this United States Congress and the new President, but we think it's something that's important for us to do for the benefit of the American people. And Chairman Spratt has put in this budget resolution that we can do but it needs to be budget-deficit neutral. We don't have to go out and borrow the money some place to pay for that new program.

Climate change, another provision, energy, the whole climate change energy debate that we're going to have this year, and some things have to be done there. We want those provisions to be budget-deficit neutral. And they will be per this budget resolution.

There is always a debate about the amount of nondefense discretionary spending. Nondefense discretionary, you take the discretionary spending, you remove defense from it and then you have your other domestic discretionary nondefense spending and how much do you increase that or do you try to. Our objective was to try to get it as close to inflation with literally no increases until we get back on a good footing financially. And Chairman Spratt has accommodated that request. I mean, the number--the increase in that number is 1.9 percent above inflation. That is a very, very small number. And we know that the American people are going to have to sacrifice, and we are willing to get into that sacrifice with them.

I see that we've just been joined, Madam Chairman, by the gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Moore, and if Mr. Moore would approach the microphone, I would love to yield him some time.

Representative Moore from Kansas has been a leader in the Blue Dogs for a number of years now, and I would yield to him.

Madam Chair, may I inquire how much time is remaining?

Madam Chairman, I would like to remind the American people that there are some--and my friends on the other side of the aisle-- there are some one-time costs accommodated for in this budget. And some may not think they are important, but I think they are certainly government responsibilities.

And one of these is the one-time cost of the census, the 10-year census. That's coming up soon, and we have to accommodate that census in the spending bill. So I would remind the American people that that is being done and that is a nondefense discretionary spending item.

There is also an item in here that relates to Farmers Home Administration defaults. Obviously, we are in a very unique time in this Nation's history in terms of home mortgage failures and foreclosures, and there are some extraordinary costs that are happening in the Farmers Home Administration as a result of these very difficult economic times we're in. So I would like to remind the American people that we have put some additional money in this budget to accommodate the associated costs with those foreclosures.

Madam Chair, the average level of nondefense discretionary spending between 1969 and 2008 was 3.8 percent. This budget projects a better path on spending than there was under the previous President. I and my Blue Dog colleagues support controls on nondefense discretionary numbers as a way to get our country back on track, and we have made tremendous progress in this budget to control government spending and growth.

Madam Chairman, to close out the few moments that I have left, I would like to call on my friend from Louisiana again, Mr. Melancon.

I thank my friend, Mr. Melancon.

And I would say as we close, Madam Chair, to the American people and to my chairman, Mr. Spratt, I want to thank him for the great work he's done, and to the ranking member on the Republican side, Mr. Ryan. He's a wonderfully smart man, and we reach out a hand to work with him as we bring the country out of these very difficult economic times that we have.

This budget resolution, ladies and gentlemen, directs the Education and Labor Committee to find savings via the reconciliation process. As we know, President Obama's blueprint budget assumed that those savings would come from providing all future student loans through the government's direct loan program and ending the Federal Family Education Loan program.

I'm here today to express my concern that, if this reconciliation bill implements the President's proposal, it could prove detrimental to thousands of employees who serve in the current student loan industry throughout this country, 650 of which are located in Panama City, Florida.

While I'm supporting stabilizing the student loan industry and am supporting initiatives to make our Federal Government more efficient, I believe it is prudent for us to find a way to continue to use the present Federal Family Education Loan industry to preserve efficiency and to provide employment to these many Americans during this time of economic crisis.

Chairman Miller, in light of these concerns, this budget resolution includes report language that urges your

committee to review the options for the student loan program that will maintain a role for the Federal Family Education Loan program limits. I would like to put this question to you, sir, as chairman of the Education and Labor Committee:

As your committee moves forward this year, Chairman Miller, will you be willing to work with me and with other members with similar concerns to preserve a role for the private student loan program infrastructure that currently exists and that services 75 percent of all loans at American colleges and universities?

Before yielding to Mr. Miller for his response, Madam Chair, I would like to yield first to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge).

(Mr. ETHERIDGE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Chair, I would like now to yield to the gentleman from California, the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, Mr. Miller.

I thank the gentleman from California.

Madam Speaker, due to personal reasons, I was unable to attend to several votes. Had I been present, my vote would have been ``yea'' on H. Res. 201, Recognizing Beverly Eckert's service to the Nation and particularly to the survivors and families of the September 11, 2001 attacks; ``yea'' on H. Res. 195, Recognizing and honoring the employees of the Department of Homeland Security on its sixth anniversary for their continuous efforts to keep the Nation safe; and ``yea'' on H. Res. 45, Raising awareness and promoting education on the criminal justice system by establishing March as ``National Criminal Justice Month''.

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to have had Rev. Michael Askew from Tallahassee, Florida, as our guest chaplain today to lead us in prayer this morning. I appreciate his insightful words and spiritual message.

Rev. Askew joins us from the Trinity United Presbyterian Church of Tallahassee, Florida, where he has led the congregation since September of 2008 after arriving there from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Rev. Askew has an impressive 20-year career as an educator and careworker to at-risk youth. He is a man of God, a man of service, and a spiritual leader and teacher in the Tallahassee community.

I would like to commend Rev. Askew for the positive impact he has made on so many lives in my community and others. We are grateful for his service, and I wish him the very best as he continues to guide his congregation in the coming years.

Madam Speaker, I rise today with mixed emotions to pay tribute to my departing Chief of Staff, Libby Greer. Libby has spent the last 7\1/2\ years with my office, where she has served as my trusted advisor, my right arm, and my friend.

As people who know her will tell you, Libby has a knowledge of policy and a political acumen that have made her a compelling force. She has been a steadfast leader in both my office and within the Blue Dogs, while serving as a mentor to countless folks. Her contribution to my public service and commitment to the people of North Florida have made a lasting impression from Washington, D.C. all the way down to Florida.

It is with immense gratitude that I thank Libby for her years of service and friendship. Words simply cannot express how much she has meant to me, to my family, and to my public service efforts for the past 7\1/2\ years. Today, I join my wife, Cissy, in wishing her much happiness and the best of luck in this new chapter of her life.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

I want to commend House Leadership and President Barack Obama for ushering this legislation through a tricky process. Though this may not be the perfect bill, we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Frankly, our economy is in uncharted territory. At a time when unemployment is pushing 7.6 percent and key economic indicators show a downward spiral, Congress has a duty to come together and act on behalf of the people. I worked in conjunction with my Blue Dog colleagues to ensure that the final version of this bill was better than the original House version and was streamlined towards effective spending and tax provisions that are temporary, targeted, and timely.

Stimulative spending including the funding for transportation and education infrastructure projects, job training and workforce development, and critical investments in rural communities like broadband services and wastewater projects will be extremely beneficial to communities in Northwest Florida. The temporary tax provisions, such as the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and the increase of the refundable portion of the child credit, are also critical to bolstering the economy by ensuring that money will quickly get into the hands of Americans who are going to spend it. Additionally, H.R. 1 increases unemployment benefits, provides more funding for food stamps and a one-time payment to recipients of Social Security and veterans receiving disability compensation and pension benefits. Finally, this bill helps small businesses quickly recover costs of new capital investments by extending the bonus depreciation for making investments in plants and equipment. In the end, these combined provisions are our best bet for a shot in the arm of this economy. H.R. 1 will create or save over 8,300 jobs alone in the 2nd district of Florida which I represent and over 200,000 jobs statewide.

Despite the positive aspects of the bill, I do have concerns with the bill and even more serious concerns with our long-term economic problems.

For one, billions of dollars to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax are included in this bill. Though this prevents many middle-class families from tax increases, it does so in the most fiscally irresponsible way possible. It is not justifiable emergency spending. We need a long term, sustainable solution to this problem and I have consistently voted to support a paid-for, offset Alternative Minimum Tax over the years.

Furthermore, I would have chosen a better, more inclusive process in considering this bill. I would have preferred more time to study the major incentives for health information technology, increased federal assistance for higher education programs, and alternative energy investments, even if they are provisions that will make our economy stronger and more innovative. My Blue Dog colleagues and I appreciate the recent commitment of the Leadership of the House to have a return to regular order and process in this body.

I was also concerned that the House voted on this bill before having two days to review

the final text. I voted against the Previous Question and the Rule for the bill to make this point.

Finally, I am very concerned about the unprecedented federal deficits and burden to future generations that the levels of spending in this bill will create. We are living in unparalleled economic times with regards to loss of jobs, houses, and credit throughout the country and I firmly believe that only by tackling long-term fiscal issues can we ensure a prosperous nation today, tomorrow, and well into the future. I will continue to work with my colleagues in Congress to balance our annual budgets and address the entitlement spending issue that threatens our future.

I am heartened that President Obama committed to a ``Fiscal Summit'' later this year to tackle the issues of long-term fiscal responsibility. These actions, coupled with a commitment to address the underlying causes in the housing and financial markets at the root of our economies woes, are encouraging.

Despite the concerns I have outlined, I stand in support of H.R. 1 and I will continue to work with fellow elected officials at all levels of government to oversee accountability and transparency during the spending of the stimulus funding provided by this bill.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I'm delighted to be here with you, Mr. Chairman. You have been a great leader for us on these fiscal issues and budget issues of the United States Government. You understand how our economic model works as well as anyone. And the fact that if we, as a government, as a people, if we're going to provide services which are normal government functions for our people, those services have to be paid for in some way.

Mr. Speaker, I came to this Congress 12 years ago, 12 years ago last month, having campaigned much on the idea of fiscal responsibility. At that point in time, the Congress was controlled by Republicans, and the administration was in the hands of a Democrat. They were working very hard to solve a serious fiscal problem that was inherited in 1992 by the then-new Clinton administration. And this Congress and that administration worked hard. I came in in the middle of that and was happy to play some very minor role in moving this country toward fiscal responsibility, moving out of a period of 30-plus years of deficit spending toward recognizing the fact that we needed to pay our bills and that we should have enough money to do that, either by cutting spending or by making the revenue and the spending match in some way.

In 4 short years, by 2001, when President Bush took office, this country had moved to a surplus situation, as you have heard described here, surpluses as far as the eye could see. We had our budgets in balance. And there were a group of us fiscal conservatives, and a group I work with, called the Blue Dogs.

As President Bush came in and proceeded to advance his economic package, we told him there were three things he needed to do with that surplus. Number one is cut taxes, lower taxes. All of us want lower taxes. If you have a surplus, then you have room to do that. You should do it.

Secondly, you should deal with the long-term problems that this country faces. We all knew back then, as we know now, that Social Security and Medicare, the entitlements, are going to be a serious, serious drain on this Nation as we move forward from this point. It is much more critical now than it was even back then. So let's take part of that surplus and deal with and fix the structural problems that existed in Social Security and Medicare so that those programs would continue to exist on into the 21st century and continue to create a lifestyle when people get into retirement that enables them to be productive rather than to be a drain on society.

And thirdly, we should take the balance of the money and pay down debt. This country had been running deficits and creating debt for 30 years running. And it was time to stop that and to begin to lower that debt bill, that side of the ledger, if you will. Why would you want to do that? Number one, is you always prepare something for the downturn days. Those were good days economically. But we knew, all of us knew that wouldn't last forever, that you would eventually have a downturn in the economy, and you would need some cushion to make sure that you could survive those downturns. We also know that from time to time in the history of this Nation we have disasters, whether they be natural disasters or manmade disasters. And in this case, the 9/11 disaster was a manmade disaster, but nevertheless one we that had to deal with. And so you look at things like that and you want to have a reserve. And this package that the then-President Bush pushed overlooked that and didn't accommodate that.

The other thing you do by lowering debt is you lower your debt service, your interest costs that you have to pay annually, and you are able to spend more of your revenue base on the programs that are important to Americans, whether it be Medicare, Social Security, health care, education or national security or whatever it may be. Why would you want to take the money and pay debt service, interest, if you will, rather than put it in the programs that are important to people and help people? So we explained all this to the President and to his team, his OMB director and his Vice President. They kind of made fun of us and said, oh, no, no. We're going to have plenty of money. If you pay down debt, you pay it down too fast, and there would be prepayment penalty problems. And gosh knows, I wish we had that problem today.

We are in a very serious situation now as a result of those policies. Even on the tax-cut side, we had an opportunity to fix some very serious problems in our Tax Code that we talk a lot about today. The AMT, the alternative minimum tax, could have been fixed permanently in 2001. The estate tax, all of us know the problems that the estate tax causes our small business people, our ranchers and farmers. That could have been fixed permanently in 2001. How about the child tax credit? How about the marriage penalty? All of those problems that we face today could have very easily been permanently fixed in 2001. And it was passed on to jam the money into the marginal tax bracket categories.

So, we find ourselves 8 years down the road, as Mr. Spratt and others have talked about, in a very serious, serious hole. America has found itself in this kind of place before. And we will buckle up. We will put our shoulder to the wheel. And Americans will, as they begin to understand this a little bit better, as our new, wonderful President Barack Obama takes this message out to the world, out to the country, then Americans will be asked to do the things that we have to do to restore our position in the world as the economic, the political and the military leader of the world.

So, again, I want to say to you, Mr. Speaker, to my constituents and to the rest of the world out there, I stand ready to work with Mr. Spratt, Speaker Pelosi, Mr. Hoyer, our majority leader, and our new President, President Obama, to tackle these tough problems. Some tough decisions have to be made in the coming months as to how we blunt the effects of this economic downturn, how we soften the impact, how we shorten the length of the economic downturn. It's going to be a very difficult thing to do. And it's going to be painful. But we can do it.

I want to thank Mr. Spratt for leading this Special Order.

Madam Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, thank you. I thank my friends, my friend from Indiana, Baron Hill, and from Louisiana, Charlie Melancon, both who are current leaders of the 51-strong fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, a group which has spent the last 12 or 14 years in this Congress touting fiscal responsibility and trying to continuously take the message to the American people that the United States Government, the United States Congress, should act just like our families and our small businesses and our local governments do, and that is we should act responsibly when it comes to spending our money and how we collect and spend our money.

I think most Americans, most people watching these proceedings here tonight, understand that 8 years ago in early 2001 at the end of President Clinton's administration that this country's government stood in great shape with a balanced budget and surpluses--as Congressman Hill and Congressman Melancon have talked about--as far as the eye could see with an opportunity to do many things in terms of reducing taxes and paying down debt and fixing some long-term entitlement program challenges that we have.

The Congress and the administration in the coming years after 2001 passed on that opportunity and instead led us down a path of fiscal irresponsibility where we have continually spent, borrowed, and spent and told the American people they could have anything they wanted and they didn't have to pay for it.

Now, the chickens, so to speak, have come home to roost; and you are beginning to see the results of this horrible fiscal policy, economic policy, of the last 8 years.

Some would say that because we're in a recession now is not the time to worry about the consequences of government spending. Madam Speaker, I and my Blue Dog colleagues would argue the exact opposite--that now is exactly the time to address the fiscal situation that we as a country are facing.

We have an opportunity under new leadership, under the leadership of President Obama, to tackle the problem in a multi-faceted manner and recommit not only to stimulating and jump starting and getting our economy going again, but also to put in place the tools that we need as a Nation to have fiscal discipline in the future and lead us back toward fiscal responsibility, a balanced budget, and establish ourselves again as the economic, military, and political leader of the world.

My friends, Mr. Melancon and Mr. Hill, have talked about PAYGO and the history of PAYGO; and, yes, it was, it was a tool that was used in the 1990s to get us into that position where we had surpluses and we were balancing the budgets and we were acting responsibly. Those tools were allowed to expire in 2002. And that's when everything kind of ran amok and we began to spend, spend, spend, we reduced revenue base; and as a result, we went overseas to borrow the money. And now, instead of a $5 trillion national debt, we've got over a $10 trillion national debt.

In this fiscal year, Madam Speaker, this Nation, this government, will sustain a $1 trillion-plus deficit in its budget, $1 trillion-plus deficit. And that's unheard of. That's like 6 or 7 percent of the gross domestic product of this country that we're going overseas to borrow, mortgaging the future of our children to run the operations of this government.

And some of us believe that's irresponsible, it's unethical, immoral.

Now, what do we do? We have spent years and years of passing the buck on these issues, but now is the time to

stop passing the buck and address these issues and confront them head on.

There are a couple of specific pieces of legislation that I would like our viewers to know about.

One is a bill that's sponsored--the two primary sponsors are Congressman Jim Cooper, who is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition from Tennessee, Democrat, and Congressman Frank Wolf from Virginia, a Republican. It's called the SAFE Commission Act.

This particular piece of legislation offers solutions to place the U.S. Government on a course to ensure the solvency of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for the coming century.

The SAFE Commission creates a nonpartisan, 16-member commission to examine all areas of Federal spending and revenue, including entitlement spending. The two primary entitlement programs, as you know, are Social Security and Medicare. This bill has real teeth. Once it passes, it will require that Congress vote on the legislation that comes out of the recommendations of the commission within 90 days.

This country needs something like this because Congress has shown an inability--certainly shows it doesn't have the will--to address these challenges head-on otherwise.

Our sustainability challenges are not new. Now, I think most Americans understand kind of the lay of the land here, what happened, where we were in 2000 and 2001 in terms of our government and its financial situation versus now, and there's been a lot of angst and polarization around party lines, and it just hasn't worked very well for the last 6 or 8 years.

But Madam Speaker, the new President, President Obama, and I think many of us in the majority here in the House are offering our hand of bipartisanship across that aisle, to work together with members of the minority party in tackling these issues because they're not Democratic and Republican issues. These are not problems that one party or the other can take sole ownership of, but in solving them, we have to reach across the aisle and develop bipartisan solutions.

President Obama has taken a very solid step, in my feeling, toward putting our country on the right path by the recent announcement of a fiscal summit in the near future. The fiscal summit will be headed up obviously by his economic team, Dr. Orszag, the new OMB director, and others and so we look forward to participating in that summit and are hopeful that out of that summit will come some very solid ideas that the President can then advance and work with the Congress in putting into law.

Madam Speaker, we've got some very serious challenges as a Nation in front of us. I have been in legislative politics for 20 years, not nearly as long as some of the other folks who serve in this body, but I've never seen the challenges and the problems faced so dear.

And we can all agree that if our kids are to have any kind of future that we have to figure out a way to give them the good standard of living, and we need to fix our budget problems, and we need to fix them quickly, and we need to focus on stimulating the economy, but also, we need to focus on the long-term fiscal discipline and restoring commonsense budgeting and commonsense fiscal management to the operation of this government.

I want to thank my friend Mr. Melancon from Louisiana for his leadership in the Blue Dogs, for his leadership on the issues of fiscal responsibility, and also for allowing me a few moments here to come speak to the Nation.

Would the gentleman yield?

I know that the gentleman and our viewers understand that America is the richest country on the face of the earth. America a few years ago, with 5 percent of the world's population, controlled 25 percent of the world's wealth. But 8 years ago we decided we didn't want to pay our own bills. That was the effect of those decisions that were made and that we would go into the capital markets to borrow that money. That's not the way our economic model is set up, and that's the mindset that we really have to change.

Now it's my belief that President Obama, whom I think many of us ad-

mire because he's going to lead us through this, he understands what you have to do. Some tough decisions have to be made. He's been given a very tough hand to play with the economic and fiscal situation of this country at the moment, but I believe that all the Nation wishes him well, and we want to work with him to get us back on the right path and fiscal responsibility.

Let's do some hard, tough work on Medicare and Social Security. We've known for years that those programs have to be reformed, that insolvency for these programs is right around the corner, and we have punted that ball down the field for many years now. He knows you can't do that anymore, and he's making the right calls and getting the right people together and getting the right team in place to move forward with this and get it done right.

So I want to thank my friend for getting this hour for us to speak for a few minutes about fiscal issues in the country and our economic situation.

Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 8 o'clock and 30 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, February 4, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate Congressman Bud Cramer on his many years of service to our Nation and to the people of Alabama's Fifth District.

Since I first came to Congress in 1997, Bud has been a respected colleague, a good friend, and a personal mentor. Over the years, I often have looked to him for guidance on different issues before Congress, and he has always given me wise and thoughtful advice. Bud's work on the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee has served as a model for me. I have seen firsthand his ability to work across the aisle to advance good policy to the benefit of our national defense efforts, our military community, and the American people.

As a founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition, Bud has dedicated his time in Congress to being a good steward of taxpayer dollars and creating a more fiscally responsible government. The Blue Dogs have been able to grow and continue our message of fiscal responsibility because of the groundwork that Bud and other founding members laid over 13 years ago.

Bud, as your friend and colleague, I will truly miss your leadership in Congress. I wish you the best of luck in all of your future endeavors and hope you enjoy your much deserved retirement.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr. Arcuri, my follow Blue Dog from New York.

I'm always intrigued by the arguments made on this floor. But, ladies and gentlemen, I need to tell you the debate here today is about an underlying principle that most Americans understand very well, but a principle that the folks who have been running Washington, DC, for the last 8 years don't have a very good handle on.

And that principle is, is that if you want to buy something, in a business or whether it be in running your local home budget, or whether it be in a local government, or in the Federal Government, if you're going to buy something, you have to be willing to pay for it. We do that in our own home budgets, we do it in our own businesses and our local governments. But in Washington, DC, since 2001, we have said to the American people, You don't have to operate the Federal Government that way. We can spend and buy anything we want, but we really don't have to pay for it. We will go into the capital markets and borrow the money.

There are many of us who have been saying for years that that will work for a while, but when the economic markets, the financial markets, figure out what is going on, then the house of cards will come tumbling town. We have been told for years, up until last Wednesday afternoon a week ago, about 10 days ago, that everything was good, the underlying economy was good even though many of us have been saying there are problems looming.

On Thursday afternoon, the Secretary of the Treasury of this administration and the Federal Reserve Chief appointed by this President, came to Congress, House and Senate, Republican and Democratic leaders, and said, ``Ladies and gentlemen, we have a crisis. The financial markets are about to crash, and we need $700 billion to rescue the financial markets and the economy of this Nation.'' Seven hundred billion dollars. Just 3 days ago we'd been told everything was cool.

The underlying problem is the fiscal and monetary mismanagement of this government by this administration for the last 8 years. And the chickens have come home to roost, as they say back home. That's the underlying discussion we're having here today about whether we would pay for a spending program or tax cut or whether we just go into the capital markets to borrow it.

You can't spend your way out of this. You can't tax-cut your way out of it. You need good, solid economic fiscal and monetary policy, and we haven't been getting it.

Now, this bill does just a couple simple things, and I want to tell you what they are.

It extends the production tax credit, energy production tax credit, investment tax credit, and all other energy-related tax provisions. They're very similar to the Senate bill.

And it uses the same offsets as in the Senate energy amendment and mostly has to do with oil production. It takes away some of the favors that we've given away to the oil companies in the tax code and uses them in alternative energy production.

Those who oppose it say we ought not to do that, just leave the existing tax credits for the oil companies and don't find any new pay- fors and just let it go.

The other thing that this bill does is it's a 2-year extension of expiring business and individual tax credits that relate to research and development, and it also has provisions in it which go to the State and local sales tax deductibility for individuals, mental health parity, and a third provision which addresses the education needs of those who have rural schools and who have United States forests in their counties.

This is paid for--now get this--this is paid for by offshore deferred compensation: those people who take their money offshore and put it in an account so they won't have to pay U.S. taxes on it.

It would be awful to ask those people to pay for a spending program we may have or another tax cut, wouldn't it? Also, the other part is worldwide interest allocation. Again, moneys that are taken offshore, companies, major public companies that operate in other places and get a tax break because they operate in other places in addition to the United States.

This is the right thing to do. This is a very basic principle that our constituents understand that if we're going to have a spending program, if the United States Government buys something, it's going to have to pay for it, and we ought to start right here today.

I thank my friend.

Let me thank my chairman, Mr. Edwards, for yielding.

Ladies and gentlemen, when our men and women are committed into combat, that has very long and costly consequences. Sometimes I think people in this town don't recognize this. But I can tell you there are some people in this Chamber, particularly Chairman Chet Edwards, Ranking Member Zach Wamp, who do understand that commitment into combat has very long and costly consequences.

Mr. Chairman, I see a lot of ``Support Our Troops'' slogans around. I see a lot of yellow bumper stickers and those great things. I see people going to churches and preparing care boxes to send overseas.

But that's not enough. That's not enough. We must make a commitment to take care of the families of those who put on the uniform when those in uniform are deployed. We must make a solemn commitment to provide for the health care and education benefits for those who come home after wearing the uniform. Many of them come home injured.

Mr. Chairman, there are some folks in this Chamber that understand that. Congressman Dave Obey clearly understands that. Congressman Bill Young, whom you just heard from. I saw Congressman Steve Buyer earlier, Bob Filner from California. Those are the folks who were involved in the writing of this legislation which provides the benefits and the commitment that we have made to our men and women.

We have got a whole new generation of veterans who need our support. Those are veterans of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, obviously, it's our moral duty to provide them with the care and benefits that they need.

You've heard in detail about the details of what's in this bill. Mr. Wamp and Mr. Edwards have explained that. But it's important that we do this, ladies and gentlemen. This is a promise we've made, and it's simply the right thing to do.

If not for those who answered the call of duty, we would not be the great Nation we are today. For their service and sacrifice, we as Americans are eternally grateful, and I encourage this Congress to honor them by supporting this bill.

And, again, I want to thank the bipartisan work of Chairman Chet Edwards and Ranking Member Zach Wamp, our committee leaders, for what they have done.