Charles W. Stenholm

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 2856 and support its passage. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Goodlatte) and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Chairman Lucas) for working with the leadership to schedule consideration of this bill today. This is an issue that has needed attention for some time, and I am pleased we are finally addressing it.

The conservation title of the 2002 farm bill made a major investment of new funding in a variety of existing and new conservation programs. I was proud to have played a role in that effort to help our farmers and ranchers conserve and enhance the natural resources under their control.

Many of us, as well as producers out in the field, were frustrated by the actions taken by USDA to try and address how to provide technical assistance for the Conservation Reserve and Wetland Reserve programs. Borrowing from some programs to pay for the technical assistance to carry out WRP and CRP was not a good solution. It was a solution forced upon them by OMB after dueling interpretations by this administration based on language included in the 2002 farm bill. We never intended such draconian measures, which required them to rob Peter to pay Paul. This bill corrects and guides the administration on the implementation of these vital conservation programs after several attempts made by Congress to fix this problem.

There is currently a $3.4 billion backlog of applications in the various conservation programs that have not been funded, despite the infusion of new money from the 2002 farm bill. Passage of this legislation will be a small but important step in helping to address that backlog. It will also provide for some certainty for those landowners who are signing up for the CRP and WRP programs and allow us to fulfill our commitments made in the 2002 farm bill to conservation.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Holden), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Conservation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Holden), and I thank my chairman for the kind words. I do believe this is the last time that I will occupy this mike. I thought it was so a few weeks ago, but it was not; we had one more shot. But I do very much appreciate the kind words that have been said, and we will miss this place. Mr. Speaker, we will miss you. You do an excellent job of conducting House business. Every time you handle the gavel, you do it in a way that is very fair and very professionally done.

Mr. Chairman, it has been a pleasure serving with you, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte). I would be less than honest to not say that I would much rather have had the titles reversed, but that was not to be. And were it not to be, then I appreciate the fact that the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) has maintained the same bipartisan, nonpartisan activities on his part that has made the House Committee on Agriculture one of the few committees of this body that still works in the way in which I think our forefathers intended that it work: full consultation.

Listening to some of the previous comments about staff and what have you, I can honestly say that we have never had that problem on the House Committee on Agriculture, to the best of my knowledge. Our staffs, both committee and subcommittee, have always worked together in a way in which we put forward the quality work that I believe this committee has put forward to this House in the 26 years that I have had the privilege of serving here.

I want to thank my staff, those who are with me on the floor, and those who are not, who have worked and served with me, some of them my entire 26 years. We cannot do without staff. Many times they get the blame for things that go wrong, and we get the credit for things that go right. But day in and day out, this body cannot operate without the professional staff, and I want to thank my staff and thank the majority staff. Because I truly, truly mean it when I say what I already said a moment ago about the manner in which the House Committee on Agriculture has worked.

I have no further requests for time and, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by congratulating my Republican colleagues for bringing this bill to the floor today, clean, up and down. There is a certain amount of justice to this because those who have built up these deficits should have the courage to vote to increase the debt ceiling for the policies of which they have been very successful, and that is commendable.

I sincerely say that, even though my opposition to those policies help contributed to my defeat. Because I have stood on this floor many times, Mr. Speaker, asking that PAYGO be reinstated, but it was never the right time, and, according to the Committee on Rules, it is not the right time today to bring up pay-as-you-go.

But we can talk about these deficits and debt and my friends on the majority side can continue to explain them as they really do not matter anymore. It does not matter that we have borrowed $570 billion in the last 12 months, that we borrowed $1.5 trillion in the last 3 years, that we are going to borrow who knows how much more, continuing to fund the same policies. Because I assume if one was elected on these policies they will continue them. That means, based on most economists, the deficit is going to explode into the next year, 2, 3, 5, 10 years.

I hope I am wrong. I want to say here today to my friends on this side of the aisle, I sincerely hope they are right because our country will be so much better off if they are right than if they are wrong, because I detect in today's motion a reluctance to change anything.

I have come to the conclusion now that politics are not going to change my colleagues' policies. They have got the majority in the House. They have got the majority in the Senate. They have got the White House. Therefore, they are going to do what they believe is in the best interest of our country.

I just do not share the belief that deficits do not matter. I just do not share the belief, and I never dreamed I would be a member of the party of fiscal responsibility, which my party has become.

Based on historical records, they talk about a trillion and a half is not much money, $800 billion, not much money. Well, it took our country 204 years to borrow the first $1 trillion. Today, we are going to make it possible to borrow another $800 billion, and it probably will occur in the next 12 to 18 months.

It is not politics that is going to ultimately decide this question. It is the market that is going to decide this question, and I would encourage my friends on this side of the aisle to start paying attention to the market.

It was not insignificant that 2 months ago the Japanese, for the first time since 2002, chose not to increase their holdings of United States Treasury notes. It is not of some insignificance that the European community is concerned about the fall of the dollar.

Much of what the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) has said I agree with him on. I agree with Mr. Rubin, Secretary Rubin. I agree with him 100 percent. I am glad the gentleman repeated it twice for the Record because more Members of this body need to read that and understand that what he is talking about is exactly as he has restated it.

This is not a budget vote. What we were talking about last night in asking my colleagues to make pay-as-you-go a part of this rule is changing the policy just a little bit in reinstating pay-as-you-go which worked in a bipartisan way in 1993 and 1997. But this bunch, those of my colleagues who control this House today, have said, nope, that is not any good anymore. We have got a new and better policy. Some of us disagree with that, and we just ask respectfully that we be allowed to vote on that today, but my colleagues said no, and this is their prerogative. That is their prerogative.

To those of my colleagues who believe that the amount of deficits this country is running today and will run under the policies they advocate, if they are going to make the tax cuts permanent, if they are going to continue to have the reductions in the amount of revenue, if we are going to continue to fight to a successful culmination, which I hope we do, of the wars, if we are going to do that, I think there may be a little justice in this for the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds), and I hope you will be up to it.

Going to the Committee on Ways and Means means the gentleman is going to be part of the ways and means of solving this problem, sooner or later, but not today, obviously. Sooner or later, the gentleman is going to have to be part of that, I believe.

So, again, I conclude by congratulating my colleagues for bringing this bill up for a clean up and down vote. If they would have allowed pay-as-you-go, I would have been one of those votes, but I am not going to ratify a policy that I believe is going to drive this country to the brink of ruin, and the market will ultimately be the judge of this, not any vote in this body according to the majority today.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to commit.

I most certainly am, in its current form.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking our leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), and I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady) and the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) for their kind remarks about me.

I want to say it is with a little bit of mixed emotion tonight that I address this body for the last time. I guess it kind of came to me in a real way just a moment ago when my grandson, who is sitting beside me, asked me a moment ago, ``What are you going to be doing?'' I said, ``I am going to offer a motion.'' ``Are you going to win this one?'' I said ``No, we are not.'' And he said, ``Why?''

Well, that is a question that a 9-year-old would ask. It is also a question a lot of 50- and 60-year-olds ought to be asking. Why is it those of us on this side who used to vote with my colleagues on that side on fiscal restraint have been losing every single vote for the last 4 years? What is it that has changed?

I listened to some of the rhetoric tonight, and I want to say with great respect tonight I recognize the right to have disagreements on this floor. It is so important that we do and that we do it without being disagreeable. But for the life of me I cannot understand how the majority can march in lockstep on this side and build up the largest fiscal deficits in the history of our country and explain it away in saying deficits really do not matter anymore.

Now, I know so many of my colleagues so well, and I appreciate everyone in this body. But when you come up to me privately and say, Charlie, you are right, but I cannot vote with you, I ask the simple question, why?

Now, I understand there has been an election and I understand you won, and I commend you for winning. But that also means you now have the responsibility of your actions.

It was amazing to me that some tonight tried to continue to blame it on Democrat spending. They know better than that. The minority cannot spend. Yes, I say to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady), we can take credit for some things within the budget because we are not for zero spending.

I tried to offer an amendment to this bill to say pay-as-you-go, which worked, bipartisanly. It worked. Why did my colleagues choose to knock it out in 2002 and say we are not going to have pay-as-you-go anymore? Why do you insist on that when you know in your heart that it works? We tried to do this in the rule today, but we lost, because you said, no, we are going to increase the debt ceiling by $800 billion. So I assume that means you are going to continue with the same policies that you have been carrying for the last 4 years.

Here I will say I hope and I pray you are right. Our country will do better if you are right. But you should be getting a little bit nervous tonight because, ultimately, politics and arguments across this side of the aisle in which you are going to in fact have 100 percent party loyalty is not going to cut it. The market is going to ultimately determine whether our fiscal policies for our Nation are correct or incorrect. You know that and I know that, and you should be getting nervous, as I am getting nervous.

The Japanese, for the first time since 2002, did not buy the amount of debt that they had previously been buying. You should be a little bit worried about the Chinese beginning to become our bankers at the rate that they are becoming our bankers. That should bother you a little, but it does not seem to.

Now, I hope you are right. Because for the good of the country, continuing down the economic path you are insisting on going down, in my judgment, is going to create a major problem. But that helped me lose an election, because the people in my district agree with you and, therefore, I respect the people of my district, and I hope and pray you are right.

But, tonight, let me conclude by saying this: Yes, I have one of Cindy's and my three grandchildren on the floor. And a lot of people have asked why I have been so involved in Social Security. I wish we had spent a part of the last 4 years dealing with the future of Social Security, because everyone in this room knows that we are 4 years closer to D-Day on Social Security, but we have done nothing on that. We tried. That got me opposition from my opponent in this race. But we are going to have to face up to it. You are.

Well, our grandchildren do not have a vote tonight. And to those of you who believe we can fight two wars, win the war on homeland security and do it with continued borrowed money and believe that our country is going to profit, then vote against the motion to commit. It is pretty simple. All we are saying tonight is, increase the debt ceiling until next April 15 and give the new Congress a chance to go in and reexamine the economic policy that we are following and, as many of you have said, you like pay-as-you-go. All we are saying with this motion to commit is, let us do it in the new Congress. That is all we are saying.

You have already said you did not want pay-as-you-go, but you said you might want it next year. All we are saying is, reduce the amount we can borrow and force bipartisan cooperation. Allow the Democratic Party and those on this side who believe, as many of you say you do, allow us the chance in the next Congress to do it.

That is what this motion to commit is all about tonight. It is increasing the debt ceiling just enough to get to April 15 so the 109th Congress can do everything that both sides are saying need to be done.

Please vote for the motion to commit.