Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I want to voice my support for the landmark Supreme Court decision to overturn the District of Columbia handgun ban. This was a long and hard-fought battle, one in which I signaled my support for the rights of gun owners by joining many of my colleagues in signing an

amicus brief supporting gun rights. In the end, the Court's decision affirmed that all citizens have the right to keep and bear arms.

I am pleased with this decision because now honest, law-abiding citizens of the District of Columbia, as well as those in Florida and across the Nation, can be assured of the right to self-protection in their homes. As a strong defender of our Second Amendment rights, I am glad to see this outcome from the Courts.

I thank my friend, the ranking member on Rules, for yielding.

It is with very mixed emotions that I come to the floor today to oppose the rule that we are debating at the moment.

As you heard the other speaker say, the underlying substantive legislation is legislation that really needs to be passed by this Congress and signed into law.

You've got a very unpopular war, but as the debate about the policy goes on in Washington, the men and women in the field wearing the uniform need to be provided the funds and the resources they need to carry out that policy until such time as it is changed. And I think many of us feel very strongly about that, so we have to do the war funding piece.

Secondly, you have a significant domestic policy piece, and part of it is the GI Webb Bill, the education benefits package. That needs to be updated, and it's an appropriate thing to do. We are doing it, though, probably in a, if not an unprecedented way, certainly a very unusual way in that we are creating a new mandatory spending program in an emergency supplemental bill. I know that's never been done since I've been here, but nevertheless, it is a piece that needs to be done. I wish it could be debated and funded separately.

We have the unemployment insurance benefits package. Obviously, in today's economy, with a 5.5 percent unemployment rate, is something that I think everybody on this floor supports, and most of us have already voted on it and supported it earlier in the previous week.

As has been stated before, you've got true emergencies in the Midwest with the floods, you've got the Katrina levee piece, which continues to be a problem. And all of these things are items that the government of the richest Nation

in the world ought to be doing, and we ought to be paying for it. But here is the reason I stand here to oppose this rule.

I thank Madam Chairman, my friend.

I would say that the richest Nation on the face of the Earth, we ought to be willing to find a way to pay for these things which are so important for the continuation of this great democracy that we have, the strongest economy in the world. But what we've chosen to do is to borrow the money, not pay the bill, and send the bill to the generations of the future. And I think that's morally wrong. It's a mistake. It's economically a mistake because our children and grandchildren will live in an economy that's much different than the one that our fathers and grandfathers and grandparents built for us.

So I feel very strongly about this. We're making a serious mistake by not paying for these things. I know we have another body on the other side of the Capitol here that doesn't understand this concept. We have a White House which doesn't understand the concept of pay-for, but this House has stood pretty strong on this issue until today.

This bill is $257 billion, over a quarter of $1 trillion. As my friend from California (Mr. Campbell) said earlier, it adds to the already $319 billion existing deficit that we're running in this fiscal year.

I feel strongly about this. I think it's a mistake. And I think it's one that our children and grandchildren will pay for.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, it is great to see you in that chair as a member of the Blue Dogs, a freshman member of the Blue Dogs. We are very proud of you. And also I want to thank my friend and colleague from Utah (Mr. Matheson). Mr. Matheson has been a solid leader of the Blue Dog Coalition since he arrived here 6 or 8 years ago. And he actually, in the previous Congress, served as one of the Chairs of the Blue Dog Coalition. And I am grateful to him for his leadership and also for filling in tonight. Thank you very much, Mr. Matheson.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield as much time as he would consume to our friend, the gentleman from Kansas, Dennis Moore, who is the cochair of the Blue Dog Coalition. He is the cochair for policy. So I will yield at this time to Mr. Moore.

I want to thank my friend and colleague, Mr. Moore from Kansas, for coming tonight to speak to us on behalf of the fiscally responsible 49-member-strong Blue Dog Coalition. Dennis Moore has been a great leader on this issue in Congress ever since he got here 8 or 10 years ago, and I'm very pleased to work with him.

Mr. Speaker, this whole notion of how we run our government's fiscal matters is not rocket science. The people watching us out in the country tonight understand that they have to balance their budgets in their own households. They have to balance their budgets in their own small businesses. They can't spend more money than they take in. In local governments, if they didn't balance their budgets, if they continuously spent more money than they took in, the people would elect somebody else. It's only the United States Government that doesn't put in place a requirement that it lives within its means.

I think it's time that we fix this. The Blue Dogs will continue to press this issue. PAYGO is one of the tools that we can use to make this happen.

I'm delighted to be joined tonight by other Blue Dog members. There is no member who is more passionate about this issue and more principled on this issue than our friend and colleague from Indiana, Representative Baron Hill.

I would like to yield to Representative Hill now whatever time he may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I know that the viewers can see the passion that exists within Congressman Baron Hill. He is a great Member of Congress. He is a good leader of the Blue Dogs. I am happy to serve with him and to call him my colleague.

He has explained what the PAYGO rule does. It makes us make the hard choices. If money just grew on trees, we could do any program we wanted, but somebody has to pay for these programs, and we either pay for them today or we borrow the money and send the bill to our children, along with an interest bill, down the road. We think that's immoral. We think it's wrong, inherently wrong.

I know Mr. Hill said that the Blue Dogs care passionately about PAYGO and about getting this thing back on track. We went to Speaker Pelosi after the 2006 election and said we would like to do this. We know that we can't get a statutory PAYGO, which is one that goes into law.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, in order for it to go into law, the House would have to pass it; the Senate would have to pass it, and the President would have to sign it. We were assured by some other bodies and the White House that that wouldn't happen.

So we asked the Speaker to at least put a rule in place in the House of Representatives that would make the House abide by PAYGO. We knew it wouldn't be as good as statutory PAYGO, but it would, in some ways, serve the same purpose. It would be a rule for which the House would have to take a two-thirds vote. Even though it would only apply to us in the House, the House would have to take a two-thirds vote to waive that. She agreed to do that, to her credit, and she is a great advocate of the PAYGO principle.

I am grateful to her and the Blue Dogs are grateful to her for her position on PAYGO.

Now, we would like to see PAYGO become part of the law, like it was back in the 1990s. PAYGO, along with discretionary spending caps and other tools that were used, enabled us to dig out of a hole back in 1992, the largest deficit in the history of the Nation at that time, $290 billion.

Congress, working together with the White House, and in the 1990s, that was mid-1990s and late 1990s, that was a Republican-led Congress, and a democratically controlled White House, working together in a bipartisan way, put in place statutory PAYGO, discretionary spending caps and other budget enforcement tools. This enabled us to dig out of that big deficit hole, $290 billion in 1992 is what we were borrowing to operate this government, $290 billion.

For the efforts of the Congress and the White House in the 1990s, tools were put in place. We had an economic turnaround and, lo and behold, the next thing you knew all kinds of good things were happening.

In 1997, Congress put in place The Balanced Budget Act. I had just gotten here as a brand-new freshman, and I was very fortunate to be a part of the Blue Dogs in some ways, and in some minor way involved in helping President Clinton and the congressional leadership get the votes to pass that budget, The Balanced Budget Act.

That was an important act in 1997, and statutory PAYGO, the law of the land, paying your bills as you go, don't borrow money to do it. If you are going to have a program, you have either got to cut spending someplace or find a revenue source. That was a good tool, and it served this country well economically, the greatest economic expansion in the history of this Nation during the 1990s, the greatest economic expansion in the history of this Nation during the 1990s. The government was doing its part, acting responsibly in the discharging of its duties and acting fiscally responsible.

So, what happened, $290 billion deficit in 1992, we worked hard together, we cut spending, we put in place the PAYGO rules. Lo and behold, at the end of the 1990s and the year 2000, we had a budget surplus for the first time, as Baron Hill said, for the first time in 40 years, with we had a budget surplus.

The next year, I think it was 1999, we had our first one. The next year in 2000, we had another one, over $200 billion surplus. It was unheard of in recent American history.

Then what happened? We had an election. The economic forecasters were forecasting over a $5 trillion surplus, its projected surplus. Now, it's not real, it's projected if things worked like they were supposed to for the next 10 years.

We had an election, had a new President, and that President and the Congress decided that they wanted to go a different route, as Baron Hill says. Now, they came and met with the Blue Dogs.

I remember Vice President Cheney and the OMB Director, who now is the governor of Indiana, came and met with us. We told them they needed to do three things with that surplus.

Cut taxes, who doesn't want to have lower taxes? We know what lower taxes do for our people. It gives them more to spend on their own families, and it helps economically. Cut taxes, number one.

Pay down debt, number two. Debt was continuing to climb, and we thought it was important to pay that down.

Thirdly, we could see the baby boomer retirement coming right over the horizon, and we knew Social Security and Medicare were in trouble. Let's take some of that projected surplus and use it to fix Social Security and Medicare.

Those were the recommendations that we as Blue Dogs made to the White House and their fiscal team, their budget team. What do they decide to do? They said, no, we can't pay down debt, and we don't have time to fix Social Security and Medicare. We have got to take all the money we can get our hands on and put it in tax cuts. The number back then was about $1.7 trillion. It was projected now, it wasn't real, it was projected. That was like in June of 2001.

September 11, 2001, everybody here listening knows what happened. All those projections, every assumption that went into that rejection went out the window on September 11, 2001.

After the Bush economic plan had been put into place, then what do we do as a government? We just charge right ahead with that economic plan. You have seen a continuation or a return to budget deficits that have set records in the last 3 or 4 years, highest budget deficits in the history of this Nation.

You have seen an increase, as Baron Hill said, from $5.6 trillion debt to the a debt that is expected this year to pass $10 trillion, $10 trillion, trillion with a ``T.'' That's a lot of zeros on the end of it. I think it's about 12. I am not even sure.

So the economic policy is wrong, and the Blue Dogs are going to insist that we do it differently. If we have to take baby steps, if we have to do with a PAYGO rule, we are going to stand tough when it comes to the votes on that rule. We are hopeful that the other Members of Congress, House and Senate and the White House, will come to us on this position of fiscal responsibility.

I will be glad to yield to the gentleman from Indiana.

I thank my friend for those insightful remarks.

May I ask the Speaker how much time we have remaining?

I thank my friend, Mr. Hill of Indiana.

You know, looking back at the 1990s and coming out of an era where we didn't have much fiscal discipline in the 1990s and then to a period where we put in place some tools, I want to cite some statistics to you. Of course, I already talked about one, in 1992 this country had a deficit of $290 billion, deficit, annual deficit. That was the largest at that time in the history of the Nation.

By the year 2000, we had turned that into a $236 billion surplus, which was also the largest surplus in U.S. history. Again, that's about a $526 billion swing in 8 years with good fiscal management.

Actually, President Clinton was the recipient of those PAYGO policies, but he was very involved, and he believed in it. He, working with the Congress, helped write those PAYGO policies. He was also committed to fiscal discipline, however unpopular that trend was back then, but it also, by doing that, fostered very rapid growth in net national savings and investment in this country.

In 1992, the net savings in the U.S. economy, the net savings, by all of its citizens, were only 3 percent. Eight years later, after fiscal discipline and moving from a deficit to a surplus, savings was at a 6 percent level, had doubled, from 3 percent in 1992 to 6 percent in 2000. Actually, you know what these savings are due, they are used to finance investment, domestic investment, and it makes the economy grow and everything works better.

Unemployment, obviously unemployment is an issue that we are all very concerned about today. We saw some figures come out last week, we are now at about 5.5 percent.

In the early 1990s, unemployment was at 7.5 percent. Those fiscal discipline tools were put in place and the government began to act responsibly from a fiscal perspective. By 2000, 8 years later that, the unemployment rate had dropped from 7.5 percent down to 4 percent. Now, you know, we are back up at that time 5.5 percent figure.

Let's talk about jobs. The average annual increase in jobs in America during the 8 years from 1992 to 2000 was during the Bill Clinton presidency at a time when Congress and the President were working together to solve this deficit problem. The average job creation number was 2.8 million a year, an additional 2.8 million jobs a year.

Does anybody, do you have any idea what it has been since the year 2000, since the new administration, since this administration came in? It's actually less than a half a million a year.

You figure all that out over a period of 8 years, it's 15 to 20 million jobs that we didn't create. Many of us think it's because of the deficit problems that exist, the irresponsible fiscal policy of this Nation.

I want to recognize my friend from Georgia again, but I want to close this point by reminding our viewers that PAYGO helped with this economic boom. Fiscal discipline and the conduct of the government's business is an important part of how this economy works. We can increase productivity, we can increase gross domestic product, and we increase employment.

I want to remind you that the economic expansion of 1991 to 2000 was the largest in U.S. history. We can do it again, but we have to start disciplining ourselves, and we have to get away from this notion that we can have every program we want, and we can have every tax cut we want, and we go somewhere else and borrow the money and not worry about paying for those programs.

I would like to yield to my friend from Georgia.

I thank my friend from Georgia for bringing forth that point from the foreign affairs perspective. It is a good and valid point.

Mr. Speaker, we live in the greatest and richest Nation on the face of the Earth. We have 5 percent of the world's population and control 25 percent of the world's wealth. If we are not careful and with poor fiscal management, we will shift a good portion of that wealth to other parts of the world.

A couple of statistics, and I don't know what the trade deficit is today, but we are running huge trade deficits as a result of the oil prices. That trade deficit is ever increasing as a result of the increasing cost of oil because a majority of our oil, more than half of our

oil comes from foreign sources. So that is a very serious problem for us.

I talked earlier about the savings having been 3 percent in 1992 and we moved it to 6 percent, those are American citizens saving their bucks, saving for the future. You know, for the first time since I think maybe World War II, 2 years ago this country had a negative savings rate. That goes directly to the management of our fiscal policy and the performance of the economy. I think that it is sad that we as a nation have a negative savings rate. We need to turn that around and one of the things that we can do as a government is do our job well. Let's identify those functions that we are supposed to do as a government, national security, transportation, education, and environmental protection. We need good strong foreign policy, and there are some other areas. But we ought to be willing and make sure that we perform those functions well, and we ought to be willing to pay for them and we ought not be wasting money.

I agree with many on the other side of the aisle that we can root out some waste. There has to be tremendous cooperation between the legislative body and the executive branch to figure out how to do that because the executive branch obviously operates those agencies that we appropriate money for. So it is their job to operate them and operate them efficiently, and we have an oversight role and we ought to continue to do that.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Georgia for being here and I want to thank the other Blue Dogs who came in and helped today. I see another good Blue Dog in the Speaker's chair now, Representative Space from Ohio, one of our freshmen members, and we are very pleased to see you. You look good up there, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the chairman, my friend from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), for not only the time but for his hard work in bringing this blueprint to the floor, for our vision about how this government ought to be run and how we manage the economic model.

Mr. Speaker and ladies and gentlemen, running a government shouldn't be rocket science, especially a great government like ours and a great country like ours. You identify the priorities that government should do. You perform those priorities well. They are limited. You know what they are. And you are willing to pay for them. That model, ladies and gentlemen, should continuously strive to enlarge the middle class. Let me say that again. This economic model and this government function should be continuously striving to enlarge and enhance the middle class of this country.

For the last 8 years, 7\1/2\ years, we've had policies which have shrunk the middle class. We have had a continuous increase of spending, continuous decrease in revenues. We go to the People's Republic of China and other lenders to fund the difference, and we've got a fiscal mess.

This vision, this blueprint, this budget that John Spratt and Senator Conrad have brought to us in the form of a conference report changes that and puts us on a path to balancing our budget, complying with the PAYGO principles, which we strongly believe in, and also performing the functions that a government should perform in this great Nation of ours.

I strongly urge and hope that you will vote for this conference report. Again, I want to thank Chairman Spratt for all his hard work in getting us to this point.

I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, the last GI Bill was written after World War II, and 64 years later we're passing a new expanded GI Bill that will provide important education benefits for our veterans. Simply put, ladies and gentlemen, it's the right thing to do.

In the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our guardsmen and our reservists have been used and deployed by our Commander in Chief at a level that we haven't seen since World War II. Many of these guardsmen and reservists were in a career profession before these wars, and many will come home unable to continue that career profession because of physical or mental injuries sustained during their service in that war.

This GI Bill will restore the promise of a full 4-year education for our benefits, 60 years since the last one was written, and make the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan part of the American economic recovery efforts just as the veterans of World War II were.

I want to thank the Speaker and the House leadership for bringing this bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, this bill was brought to the floor in a fiscally responsible manner. By fully funding this GI Bill for the next 10 years and paying for it up front, we have made this legislation better for our veterans and better for the American people.

We are asking those who benefit the most from living in a strong country to pay to take care of those who risk their lives to defend it instead of borrowing the money from China or bucking the costs to our children and grandchildren.

Supporting this bill is the right thing to do. And I want to thank Chairman Obey and Chairman Murtha for also including the Iraq loan provisions which will require the Iraqis to pay for the security training of their own people and the reconstruction efforts.

Madam Speaker, last week, I missed the final vote on H.R. 2830, the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows: H.R. 2830. Recorded vote. 24- Apr-2008, 3:13 p.m. Question: On Passage. Bill Title: Coast Guard Authorization for 2008.

``Aye'' for Mr. F. Allen Boyd, Jr.

Madam Speaker, I want to commend the House and Senate leadership on their negotiations throughout the last year on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They have worked diligently on this issue and I rise today to encourage them to finalize a version of the bill that protects the civil liberties of our citizens, provides comprehensive guidelines for our intelligence community and reaffirms the importance of private industry cooperation in government investigations.

The right to privacy has long been regarded as an inherent American value and it is our Government's responsibility to strike a balance between protecting that constitutionally protected right and securing the country against future terrorist attacks. I have been pleased to support the Democratic led efforts towards Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorization that have made it clear that these rights are to be at the forefront of actions taken by Government officials.

In addition to this emphasis, I believe it imperative that a final bill exempts from liability the telecommunications companies who participated in the Bush administration's requests for information on customer records. I join the National Sheriffs' Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Fraternal Order of Police, members of the 9/11 Commission and the Florida State Attorney General Bill McCollum in urging this protection. A provision as such will ensure that the cooperative relationships that law enforcement and the private sector have will continue to facilitate critical information exchanges that protect this Nation and its citizens.

I am confident that Congress will continue the role intended by our forefathers to oversee the past, current and future actions of the executive branch, particularly in regard to these bedrock issues that make the United States the greatest country in the world. Our intelligence community deserves updated direction and guidance on these issues backed by the force of law, and I urge our leaders to continue their good work.

Madam Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman, my friend, Chairman Spratt, for yielding the time.

I rise today to speak in support of the budget resolution that Chairman Spratt and his committee have crafted and brought to the House floor. Madam Chairman, in 2001, January of 2001, when this Republican administration came into office, and since that time, the 47-strong Blue Dog Coalition, fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, has been sounding the alarm about the terrible financial management of our country's resources and financial resources, and we have been calling for fiscal sanity in terms of how we perform our duties as a government and how we pay for those duties.

Unfortunately, for the first 6 years of this administration, those calls fell on deaf ears of this Republican administration and in the Republican Congress. Since last January, a year ago, there has been a change in course in how this country, this government, this Congress does its business as it relates to managing the fiscal resources that our citizens here in the United States of America give to us to perform our community functions and our government functions.

And so we have before us today a budget resolution which meets the guiding principles that the Blue Dogs have laid out over the last 2 years in how we should manage ourselves fiscally.

And so I am extremely delighted to be here today to support the budget resolution that Chairman Spratt brings and tell you that those guiding principles of having a balanced budget by 2012, an AMT fix that's paid for, abide by PAYGO rules, which is a very important tool, providing for the resources for the defense of our country. As a matter of fact, we used the President's defense number. All of those principles have been met in this budget, and I'm delighted to support that budget.

At this time, I would like to recognize the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) to address the budget resolution.

Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee. He's been a leader on this issue for a long time and the leader of the Blue Dogs.

And at this time, I would like to recognize another one of our leaders from Arkansas (Mr. Ross).

Madam Chairman, it's my privilege to recognize at this time one of what we call our ``Blue Puppies,'' the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mahoney).

Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mahoney). He's been a great leader, and he's been successful before he got here, and he's going to be a successful Member of Congress.

I will call at this time on really the fiscal conscience of this House of Representatives, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).

I thank the gentleman from Tennessee.

May I inquire of the Chair how much time we have left.

Let me simply close, Madam Chairman, by saying that there is always a lot of rhetoric and accusations flying around at budget time in the House of Representatives, and you will hear much talk about this budget raising taxes. Let me tell you, this budget does not raise taxes. The independent, nonpartisan groups outside of this body say that. Listen to them. They certainly would come at this in an objective manner.

What this budget does do is it sticks to the principles that the Blue Dogs have laid out. It adheres strictly to the PAYGO principle, a principle that helped us get the Federal Government budget back in balance in the nineties that this Congress in 2002 allowed to expire, the PAYGO principle.

This budget also provides for a fully offset AMT fix, fully offset. What does that mean? It's paid for. You either find spending cuts or other revenue sources to do it.

This budget also provides for adequate defense funding. One of the things that we said is let's not have the debate in this budget about the war. We know what the policy is now of this administration; let's provide the funds for our troops overseas and not have that debate here. This budget does that.

And most importantly, Madam Chairman, it provides a glide path for balance, gets this Nation's fiscal issues back into balance by 2012.

If I could, Madam Chairman, the gentlelady from South Dakota (Ms. Herseth Sandlin) has just arrived and I would like to yield to her.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend Mr. Neal for yielding.

And let's be clear that the passage of this suspension of the rules abandons our commitment to fiscal responsibility and waives the PAYGO rules that were put in place by this Democratic majority back in January. And the blame lays squarely at the feet, Madam Speaker, of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and those in the United States Senate who, at the behest of the President, have blocked all attempts for this Congress to responsibly pay, responsibly pay for an AMT fix.

It is a sad, sad day, Madam Speaker, and it's a strong testament to how far we have gotten off track as a United States Government.

The Republicans are expected to vote almost unanimously for the rule that waives PAYGO. It is abundantly clear that they have chosen to abandon fiscal responsibility.

Madam Speaker, the Blue Dogs are standing firm on PAYGO, and in the coming year we will continue to fight for what's right, for a Congress that pays its bills and for strict adherence to the PAYGO rules.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 1184, I was unable to vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the distinguished chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Mr. Peterson, for granting me time to speak on behalf of this legislation and also thank him and the ranking member, Mr. Goodlatte,

and his representative for supporting this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the Apalachicola National Forest is the largest of Florida's three national forests. It contains 564,000 acres, and its rivers and streams provide a steady freshwater flow to some of the most productive coastal bays and estuaries known for shellfish and other commercial seafood. Portions of the forest are in wet lowlands and they abound with cypress, oak and magnolias. Watching wildlife, hunting and fishing are popular recreation activities in this beautiful national forest. Visitors to the forest also enjoy swimming, picnicking, boating, and camping.

The Apalachicola National Forest is truly a national treasure, and I am very proud that this legislation will help strengthen and sustain one of our Nation's most valuable natural assets.

As the chairman and the ranking member have said, this enables the national forest to sell a piece of property that really lies right on the south side of Tallahassee, Florida, in Leon County. It actually comes up to the beltway, or what we call the Capital Circle and is surrounded on three sides by commercial development. It is detached from the rest of the national forest, and so it is really, as you have heard earlier, an unmanageable piece of land. And with those proceeds, we are going to use the proceeds to go and purchase some privately held holdings within the confines of the 564,000 acres, what we commonly know as ``inholdings,'' and that is the only purpose that those funds can be used for. There are about 2,000 acres of inholdings, privately held lands within the Apalachicola National Forest, and that is what those funds, Mr. Speaker, would be used for.

I want to thank Mr. Joe Baca, the Forestry Subcommittee chairman, and his staff director, Lisa Shelton, for helping guide this legislation through the subcommittee process. And also I want to thank my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Hoyer, for scheduling. I encourage our colleagues to pass this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardoza) for leading this debate.

Let's be very clear. I think it is well understood by the country, the fiscal recklessness of the period, the 6-year period from January 2001 to January 2007, a recklessness which included record spending levels at the same time revenues were being reduced to a level that created record deficits during that period of time which are going to have a serious negative effect on the future of this country, the economy, the kind of life that our children and grandchildren will see if we don't get under control this recklessness that has been demonstrated over the last 6 years since the 2000 Presidential election.

Madam Speaker, you have to fix those problems by, first of all, believing in some principles. And the principle that we believe in is if you are going to have a program, you ought to be able to pay for it. We all understand the serious consequences of the AMT and we want to fix it, but many of us believe if you are going to fix it, you are going to do it in a revenue-neutral way. That is the difference between this leadership and the previous 6 years' leadership, which says just damn the port, torpedoes, full steam ahead; tax cuts and increased spending, it doesn't make any difference, as long as everybody is happy at the moment. Our children and grandchildren are the ones who are going to pay that bill in the end.

And I want to thank Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the majority leader, Steny Hoyer, for standing tall with us on this principle of PAYGO and this particular vote on the AMT as we send another AMT, paid-for AMT to the Senate. It is a very critical time in the future of this country and how we are going to handle our fiscal responsibility.

Again, I want to thank our leader, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardoza) and the Speaker of the House.

I thank my friend, Madam Speaker, for yielding, and it is a great privilege to join my Blue Dog colleagues here on the House floor to talk about these issues that are of such great import to the American people and to the children of America today, because they are the ones who will be, in the end, mostly affected by these policies that we are having great debates about today.

Now, my fellow Blue Dog colleagues have spoken very eloquently and succinctly about PAYGO, what it is, how it got started, how it works, and the importance of it. Just in brief summary, I will remind our viewers that PAYGO was a principle that was first put in place in 1990 by then-President George H.W. Bush, commonly referred to around these parts of the country as Bush 41.

With a Democratic Congress and Republican administration, they began to realize the misguided policy of deficits, large annual deficits, so they did something about it. After the election in 1992, when President Clinton became President, and then in 1994, the Republican revolution where you had a

Democratic President and Republican-led Congress, in 1997, those principles of PAYGO were continued in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.

In 1999, we saw for the first time in 30 years a balanced budget. And we could see surpluses, Madam Speaker, as far as the eye could see. It looked great for America at that point in time. We had money to deal with national security. We had money to fix the problems that we know exist in Medicare and Social Security, the long-term problems, which are so important. Those two programs are so important to the future of this country.

What happened? In 2001, we got a new President, President George W. Bush, commonly known in these circles as Bush 43. And this administration, along with the Congress back then, decided that PAYGO wasn't a good idea because they couldn't do the policies of their tax cuts they wanted, as much as they wanted to do and live within those rules of PAYGO, so they abandoned the PAYGO rule, the PAYGO principle.

As a result, from 2000 to today, 2007, you have had a swing of several trillion dollars in terms of the surpluses versus the deficit. So we are in a bad situation. We are in a bad situation; and during the campaigns last year, people running for the House and the Senate across this country campaigned on this issue, that we had to restore fiscal responsibility to our government. You heard from four members of the Blue Dog, freshmen members, who are brand-new here tonight. This is their first term as Members of Congress. They campaigned on this issue. They understand it. They understand the importance of it. Their constituents back home do.

Madam Speaker, our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, our majority leader, Steny Hoyer, our Ways and Means chairman, Charlie Rangel, and our budget chairman, John Spratt, and other Democratic leaders, in addition to the Blue Dogs, vowed to put an end to the reckless fiscal policy that has existed in our government for the last 6 years. And under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer, and with the help of the Blue Dogs, we put in place this PAYGO principle on the very first day when this new Congress took power in early January of this year.

That is what the American people wanted us to do. They wanted us to stop acting foolishly when it comes to fiscal management. We are like a board of directors, Madam Speaker, of a major corporation. It is our job to manage the resources, the fiscal financial resources, of this country in a prudent way for our stockholders, who are our people back home.

And we said we have to stop spending more than we take in. There are lots of tools that you can use, as has been said here earlier, but the one that we have in place right now, the one that we have been able to get in place, given the current political environment, is this PAYGO rule, and we need to abide by it. We don't need to abandon it.

Congress without those tools in place has not exhibited the willpower, if you will, to make tough choices when it comes to spending or tax cuts. So that is why it is important that we have tools like PAYGO. If you don't have the ability, the will or the backbone to make choices about how we responsibly spend the taxpayers' money, then what are we doing here? This Congress, under the leadership, under the Democratic leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer has shown that it has the ability and the will and the backbone to be good stewards of the taxpayers' tax dollars that they send here for us to spend. Every single bill, Madam Speaker, that is passed by the House this year has complied with PAYGO rules. Whether it was the farm bill, SCHIP reauthorization, or AMT relief, every bill has complied with the PAYGO rules. And do you know what, Madam Speaker? Seventy-five percent of the pay-fors have been spending cuts and not revenue raisers.

Sadly, very sadly, the Senate last week failed in their duties as leaders of this country and as responsible stewards of our taxpayer dollars when they passed an AMT bill that was not paid for. The Senate was held hostage by the Republican caucus in the Senate and they blocked a House AMT bill that was paid for from even being heard on the Senate floor.

The Blue Dogs, Madam Speaker, and the House leadership are standing behind PAYGO for one simple reason: it is the right thing to do. It may not be the easy thing to do or the politically easy thing to do, but, Madam Speaker, I didn't take this job because I thought it was going to be easy. I took this job to do right by the people of the Second Congressional District of Florida and the American people.

The House of Representatives will again pass an AMT bill this week that is paid for. It is possible to do it. The Senate will have another opportunity to do what is right and responsible. And I strongly urge the Senate to have the gumption and the will and the good sense to keep the promise they made to the American people to be good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars and pass an AMT bill that does not violate the PAYGO rules and that is paid for.

Again, I want to thank my fellow cochair, Mike Ross from Arkansas, for his steady leadership on this issue and so many others, but also steady leadership in forming these Tuesday night Special Orders, in which we have had a chance to come talk to the American people about issues of much importance.

I want to thank my friend Mike Ross from Arkansas, the communications cochair of the 47 member strong fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats.

I came down here tonight to join him to try to continue to deliver the message to the American people that I think in some ways this administration and this Congress have lost their focus on what's important to keep America great and strong.

I noticed today that the President of the United States and the minority leader and the minority whip stood before the American people and talked about vetoing an appropriations bill which funds the health and education agencies of our Federal Government simply because that bill would increase spending over last year at a rate, I think, of some $9 billion or $10 billion, which is actually below inflationary and population increases. At the same time, the President of the United States has sent in a supplemental request down here for funding for the Iraq war, which I believe is to the tune of $49 billion or $50 billion to get us through the next few months.

I think we have just lost our sense of balance, or our sense of what we have to do to keep America strong and keep it a great Nation. I want to refer, if I could, if we think about those numbers, about an agency of the Federal Government that helps provide health care and education benefits to the people of the United States of America, while we are thinking about that, I want to refer you to a recent report released by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. In that report, we uncovered the waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayers' dollars caused by the lack of necessary oversight by the U.S. Government. This is something that the Blue Dogs have been focused on for a long time, is the government, we as a government being good stewards of our taxpayers' dollars that we take involuntarily from our citizens to run the government, to provide security, transportation and other things, the other functions of a government.

This quarterly report, which details progress in the U.S. Government's reconstruction of Iraq, uncovers continuing problems which have left millions of dollars, billions of dollars unaccounted for and a large number of products unfinished in Iraq. In fact, the Inspector General himself has stated that 40 percent of all projects in Iraq are in danger of not being completed under the original contract and ``virtually every project in Iraq has cost more or taken longer than expected.''

The Inspector General also noted that some projects are never finished.

In one recent case, the Federal Government invested $90 million in a project to overhaul two giant turbines at a plant south of Baghdad. However, the multimillion dollar project, which is critical to providing power in Baghdad, has not been realized because of weak operations and maintenance practices by the Iraqis after the project was turned over in April of 2006.

This report goes on to cite several examples of the same egregious waste, fraud, and abuse. I want to outline some of those; I want to give you six specific examples of the waste, fraud, and abuse identified in this Inspector General report.

Number one was a 50-bed children's hospital in Basra, a 50-bed children's hospital in Basra, Iraq, which was originally expected to cost $50 million. This might be appropriate, because we have heard the previous speakers in the previous hour talk about how SCHIP ought to be vetoed, SCHIP, which would provide health care services to our children here.

We just spent $50 million in Iraq on a children's hospital. That hospital is a full year behind schedule. The contractor responsible for the project left the hospital only about half complete, yet 100 percent over the original cost estimate. We haven't heard a lot of fuss about that from the previous majority.

Number two, due to inefficient oversight by the State Department, the Federal Government spent $44 million on a residential camp for refugees that has never been used. Another $36 million was spent on weapons and equipment which are now unaccounted for.

Number three, oil contract overcharges and contract mismanagement recently cost the U.S. Government $263 million. Oil contract overcharges and contract mismanagement, $263 million.

Number four, due to poor contractor oversight, a failed oil pipeline project wasted nearly $76 million of your taxpayers' dollars.

Number five, according to an Iraqi estimate, $5 billion per year, this is according to the Iraqi estimate, $5 billion per year is wasted due to widespread corruption in Iraq.

Number six, after allocating $17 billion in U.S. funds to the security and justice reconstruction sectors in Iraq, only four of those, 18 of those sectors, only four have transferred to Iraqi control.

This quarter's report also included a financial review of large contractors funded by the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund. International Bechtel is the largest Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund contractor, and there were many examples of waste and fraud and abuse discovered in that report when analyzing the Bechtel contracts.

This report analyzed 24 job orders that Bechtel contracted to perform at a total cost to the government of $761.2 million. Of those 24 job orders, only 11 were successfully completed, 10 were incomplete, canceled or transferred to someone else, and the other three, they could not determine status of.

You see that there are many, many problems in Iraq. I think that the American people have figured out that we have some serious, serious problems over there, not only with the policy as it relates to how we keep ourselves secure, but also to our involvement over there and our spending of, as Mr. Ross has shown you, $135 billion on an annual basis.

That is $16 million an hour, $2.5 billion a week, $135 billion a year; and we seem to, in many cases, send that over there without asking a lot of questions about where the money is being spent and what we are getting for it. At the same time, we talk about vetoing an SCHIP bill which is $7 billion a year, which will go to cover 10 million additional children in the United States of America. I think we have just lost our way in terms of priorities.

I want to wind up by telling our viewing audience that recently I took a trip to Iraq. It was my first visit over there. I led a congressional delegation of five Members, three of whom had never been before and two, it had been several years since they had been. It was a bipartisan delegation, a great group of Members to work with.

We spent several days in the region, one full day in Baghdad. We found that morale of our Armed Forces, our uniformed personnel over there is very strong and very high. I am proud of that, having served, having worn the uniform of this country in Vietnam and served in an era when morale wasn't so high and we lost the support of the American people.

It was refreshing to me to see that our morale is pretty high over there. I think our soldiers are performing what they are being asked to do. They are performing it very well.

What I discovered is that what we are doing over there is policing the streets of Baghdad and refereeing a civil war in Iraq. That's not an appropriate role for the United States military. We don't even allow our military to police our streets here in America.

This role has to be turned over to the Iraqi people. General Petraeus told us that we can train security forces, and we can get them in place, and we can train them, but unless the Iraqi Government can stand up and give them the command and control that they need and the logistical support that they need to be effective, they never will be effective. The Iraqi Government has failed at this point in time to stand up because they are fighting each over their sectarian differences, and we have to come to grips with that.

I will close with that it kind of brought all this into focus for me and how out of kilter we have gotten on things. One of the briefings we have shown was a video that was taken in a fighter plane. I don't know what the cost of that Air Force plane was. It was probably maybe a quarter of a billion dollars, very expensive plane, delivered probably $50,000 to $100,000 worth of munitions to two Iraqis riding a bicycle out of a house.

I thought to myself that we have really lost focus on what our great military is supposed to be used for. We should redirect our resources into a strategy which will provide long-term security for us around the world. That strategy has to be developed, well thought out, obviously, developed through a great deal of diplomacy, a great deal of political acumen and also the appropriate leverage of our great military that we have.

I want to thank Mr. Ross for putting together this Special Order, but also for the many other Special Orders that you have done to try to deliver the Blue Dog message to the American people. I want to thank you for your service.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor for H. Res. 106.