Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Hill-Smith family reunion and I ask that my colleagues join me in honoring this wonderful occasion. This reunion affirms the importance of family gatherings, drawing together relatives from Atlanta and as a far away as Boston, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut.

The Smith and Hill families celebrate the union of Thomas Landrum Smith and Armentis Hill which joined the two families in 1919. Eight children resulted from this matrimony, and from those eight children, 85 direct descendants and hundreds of other relatives who bear the surnames Smith and Hill.

The Smith and Hill families organized their first reunion in Roanoke, VA in July of 1986. Over the next 20 years reunions were held every two years in New York, NY, Boston, MA, Jonesville, SC, Atlanta, GA, Pacolet SC, and Rocky Mount, NC. This year the Hill and Smith families will reunite in Stockbridge, GA for their tenth bi-annual reunion. Hundreds of relatives coming from every corner of the United States will reunite for a week of activities to reconnect and celebrate the meaning of family. Youth filled with zeal and exuberance along with elders seasoned by the wisdom of years will unite because of this occasion. The Hill-Smith family will welcome Marjorie S. Kirk of New York, NY with a special degree of warmth. At 83, Ms. Kirk will be the oldest family member attending this year's reunion. The youngest and most recent addition to the family is Maleek Thompson, born April 19, 2006. While only a few months old, Maleek will join his family traveling from Maryland to participate in his first reunion.

The governor of the state of Georgia, Sonny Purdue, recognized this momentous gathering with a welcome letter and the host city of Stockbridge, GA issued a proclamation to honor the Hill-Smith reunion. I ask that this great legislative body stand with me and add to these acknowledgements by honoring the Smith and Hill families. I am proud to represent the Hill-Smith family members who call the 13th Congressional district of Georgia home.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the Deal amendment. It is very important to our State of Georgia. Georgia is one of the fastest growing States in this region, and because of this growth, we certainly need to make sure that we have this detrimental language, that would be very detrimental to Georgia, out of this bill.

The manuals have not been updated for 50 years. Common sense would say that the corps is not operating based on the current situation in the area but on outdated population and outdated environmental information that was generated back in the 1950s. It is most important for my people that we have updated information, and that is why it is important for Mr. Deal's amendment to pass.

These old, out-of-date manuals will result in a greatly increased cost of growth, inefficient and unpredictable operation of the river system, and will result in unstable water supplies for the municipalities, for the households and the businesses throughout our State of Georgia.

Moreover, Mr. Chairman, for the last 15 years, the States of Georgia, Florida and Alabama have been engaged in litigation and mediation on this issue and much progress has indeed been made. But by placing this provision in the bill, Congress is now inserting itself into a situation that is best left for the State and the local entities to resolve.

Therefore, I respectfully ask my colleagues to support the Deal amendment and let us move this offensive language out of the bill and move forward in the best interests of the entire region and certainly for the people of Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, this week as we begin to go into this weekend to celebrate Memorial Day, it is most fitting that we take a moment to say a word about our soldiers, those who have fallen, who have given their lives in battle for the protection of this country and the enhancement of freedom around the world. And so it is with great pleasure and honor that I start this recognition off recognizing the great courage and work of our soldiers.

From the Revolutionary War, as we recall, many soldiers who gave their lives to start the foundation of this country, many of those soldiers whose portraits hang in this great Capitol, several of those soldiers who walked with bloody feet through Valley Forge through the winter because we could not get them the proper boots to wear. But they went on and they fought against the odds and brought freedom and started this country; to the War of 1812; all the way through the Civil War, where brother fought against brother; the greatest contests in war that

proved the metal of this country, up through the Spanish American War and World War I and World War II. From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, our soldiers have been there for us. The Korean War and on down through the Vietnam War, maybe not popular, but the soldiers went where they were called and performed admirably; through Desert Storm and now in the sandy storms of Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I was just in Iraq in January, and one of the most memorable experiences I had during that trip was I was able to meet with our soldiers. And there was one soldier that, as I was in Camp Victory in Baghdad, who grabbed me and was hugging me so hard. Tears were coming down his eyes, tears coming down mine. And he said some words to me I will never forget. He said, Congressman Scott, when I am hugging you, it is like I am hugging a piece of home.

I never will forget that. And 3 weeks ago, that soldier was killed. And so, oftentimes, we go about our business, and oftentimes, we take our freedoms for granted. But that is why we have Memorial Day, to say to those who have given their lives for this country, for our freedom domestic, thank you. Because there is no greater love than the one that would give his life for another. To all the men and women in uniform, to all who have served this country, we say thank you on this, the beginning of the celebration of Memorial Day.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. As always, it is indeed a pleasure to join you on the floor of our very distinguished Congress of the United States to address what is without a doubt the most pressing issue facing the American people, and that is security of our Nation, national security, homeland security.

I think it is very important for us to make the first step, to show that we as Democrats are indeed not only strong on security, but we are the stronger party on security.

Our legacy, our history is rich. We have built this military all the way through Democratic Presidents, from World War II with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, through the Korean War with Harry Truman, through all of the crises that we have had with Lyndon Johnson, with John Fitzgerald Kennedy; and with Bill Clinton leaving this Nation with a tremendous surplus and built a military that was capable of moving and being able to handle any threat in the world.

But then 9/11 came and then President Bush's response. And I am here to say tonight that the American people deserve much better than what we have gotten in that response from President Bush and this Republican-led Congress. Let us review for a moment 5 years.

Five years ago, 9/11 took place. And what has happened since that time? Can we say we are safer? Are our ports safer today? Obviously they are not, for not only do you and I and the rest of America know that only 5 percent of our cargo is being checked, the whole world does. The President's response to checking our ports was to turn the security over to a company that was owned by a country, the United Arab Emirates. That was one of only three countries in the world that recognize the Taliban as the ruling authority in Afghanistan.

At a time when our young men and women were dying and are dying and putting their lives on the line fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, our President, this administration, so cavalierly says let these people guard our ports, a nation that we had from our intelligence that proved to be the central banking process that handled the financing of al Qaeda and other terrorists coming through that country; yet this was the country that owned the company Dubai Ports to handle security at our ports, a country that we know from our intelligence that was the cross-trading ground for shipping nuclear material, building fusion material into Iran, who has subsequently said they want to knock Israel off the face of the Earth and then turn and do the same to the great Satan, the United States of America. That has been that response on the port security.

And as Democrats have tried to do time and time again since then, to rein that in, joined by Republicans, we were successful in defeating that move, that very foolish and unwise move made by the President and this administration. And then, as we turn then to one of the worst disasters, perhaps the worst natural disaster in the history of this country, the very first opportunity for this Nation to be responsive to the major threat to homeland security, when Hurricane Katrina rolled in, another disturbing, disappointing, mismanagement, incompetence, and failure of the worst kind that resulted in the loss of over 2,000 American lives, billions and billions of dollars of loss and damage, farms and crops out of place, energy costs zooming, all because of slow mismanagement that we have not been able to recapture our place to this day.

FEMA, the lead organization in homeland security, a total F in response. And right to this day, exactly 14 days before the next hurricane season begins, we do not even have not just an executive director of FEMA, we don't even have a regional director of FEMA in the Atlanta region, my home base, in the region which will be most devastated by a natural disaster and the hurricanes.

And in that region, while I am at it, the response has been, even to reorganizing our military, even to realignment of our military bases, to take the primary base that trains, that deploys all of the National Guard and first responders in the event of a terrorist attack or a hurricane threat, a hurricane hitting this country at Fort Gillam. Instead of responding and building that base up, this administration comes in and recommends that that base be closed. And yet when Katrina hit, where did they have to turn? The only bright spot we had in the whole response to Katrina was to come and take our first responder commander, General Honore, and dispatch him down to the scene. Total mismanagement in every single aspect of response to our homeland security.

Now here we are with a great threat to our borders, which, quite honestly, is perhaps the single most aspect of our own threat to not just homeland security but our national security, untold numbers, thousands of undocumented illegal immigrants sneaking into this country putting extraordinary downward pressure on our wage system, and providing in a way a very serious threat to the basic social services infrastructure of this country.

But it just didn't happen overnight. Where has this administration been? Why are the American people so upset? Why are the polls so low in the face of these Republicans and this administration? It is obvious: slow response, mismanagement. And nowhere is it more exacting and exemplary than with the response to Katrina, a threat to our homeland, and a response to our border security. And that is what is happening.

What is the response? Now it is because in this budget that they get on the floor and they are clapping about that they passed, a budget that cut homeland security by over $6 billion, a budget that would not fund the 1,000 border agents that the 9/11 Commission and a bipartisan group of us Democrats and Republicans in this Congress have recommended. And then to take and overtax the overextended National Guard that has been overextended in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in responding to our hurricanes, and to say now we are going to put them on the border. Too little, too late of the wrong type. And how hypocritical.

How hypocritical to take 6,000 of our National Guard and put them on the border, but to cut the funding for an additional 1,000 to 2,000 border agents that actually need to be there? The American people want some answers to that. That is not an adequate response. America deserves better, and I assure you that Democrats are going to give them better.

Absolutely, and I will tell you another example of the lack of response as well.

Mr. Ross, it is always a pleasure to come down on the floor and talk with you about the pressing issues facing our Nation and the world today.

You know, Mr. Ross, you talked about the debt, and you talked about the budget. It is the budget that provides us with the blueprint.

Just this morning, on my way, before I got on the airplane to get up here, I was talking with one of my constituents out in Cobb County, a town called Austell.

I was talking to Ms. Winnie Smith, putting in a yard sign in her yard. She came up to me and she said, ``Congressman, our country is moving in the wrong direction. If you could just do four things. The four things I wish you all could do something about right away, one is secure our borders. We have a terrible problem with our borders. If we could just protect this country and protect our porous borders.''

Then she said, ``Bring down these gas prices. Please do something about the gas prices.''

Then she asked me, she said, ``Lord, if you could just do something and get our young men and women home out of this mess in Iraq. And then, Congressman, if you could just do something about this debt.''

I told her, ``Ms. Smith, you hit four things right there on the button.''

I want to just talk, if I can just take a few brief moments on each of these little points, and I want to use the budget that we probably may vote on, I hope we don't, because I truly believe that there are enough Republicans who are able to look through this smoke and mirrors of this budget and see that it is not the blueprint, it is not the direction that we want to go.

Mr. Ross, if we could just take the first item that Ms. Smith, my constituent down there on Clay Road in Cobb County talked to me about this morning, and that is our borders. I thought I would get here and I would try to go through the budget here for a moment, because it is the blueprint.

There is a howl and a cry the likes of which I have not seen in my whole 32-year history of being an elected official. For 32 years, every other year my name has been on the ballot somewhere in Georgia. Thank God the people of Georgia have voted me in each of those 30-some years, and I appreciate what the people of Georgia have done.

But the cries from the people of Georgia and all across this Nation, nothing is as piercing and as meaningful as what they feel about the insecurity of the borders. Immigration issues, all of the other issues aside, what we do with the 11 million or 12 million illegals that are here, how we deal with that, all registers with folks, but the most important thing is what are we going to do about the borders?

So I got here today and I went to work, and I want to report on exactly what this Congress, what the President, is proposing to do to secure the budget.

You can have a lot of talk. I just listened intently to our friend Mr. King here a few minutes ago talking eloquently and very passionately about the border and the need to do so, and I concur with him. But the point is, what are we doing about it?

Well, the American people need to know. I want to point out tonight what shows the shortcoming in this budget for four of the most pressing issues facing the American people today.

The 9/11 Commission has given this Congress and this President a D on collaboration on border security. The 9/11 Commission December 2005 report card, Washington Republicans got a D on international collaboration on border security. The commission points out that there has been no systematic, diplomatic effort to work with other countries on shared terrorist watch lists to ensure terrorists cannot get across our borders.

I start off with the motive of terrorism rather than immigration so the people understand that the insecurity of our borders is paramount in our war on terror.

But as we get down to the immigration fight, and we just look at the one most important area, there are 1,000 fewer additional Border Patrol agents than were promised in the 9/11 act. This Congress, under the leadership of Republicans, and I must say that, not to be partisan, because I want to correct something immediately here. There are Republicans and Democrats who are equally concerned about this issue. That is why that budget has not passed yet. So I don't want this to be just purely partisan. This is not a Republican or a Democrat issue. This is an American issue, and this President and the Republican leadership of this Congress, not all the Republicans in the Congress, are clearly out of step, for they have broken the promise made on funding for additional Border Patrol agents. Quite honestly, Mr. Ross, we need at least three times as many agents.

Immigrant enforcement agents and detention beds. Specifically in 2004 Congress enacted the 9/11 act, the Intelligence Reform Act, for those watching C-SPAN and want to check it, it is Public Law 108-458, which mandated an additional 2,000 Border Patrol agents being hired over each of the next 5 years. Yet for this fiscal year 2006, this Republican-led Congress has funded only 1,000 additional agents.

Is it any wonder that our own citizens are taking it upon themselves, called Minutemen, to patrol our borders, because our government is letting them down, and it is clear in this budget. We funded only 1,000. The 9/11 act also mandated an additional 800 immigration enforcement agents over the

next 5 years. Yet in this FY 2006 budget the Congress has funded only 350 additional agents. It mandated an additional 8,000 detention beds, yet in the 2006 budget the Congress funded only 1,800 additional beds. So it is no wonder that they are having difficulty getting this budget increased.

Now, let me just say on this point of immigration, because I want everybody to understand exactly where this Congressman is coming from, earlier tonight I was watching on TV the Asian Pacific Caucus on this floor. It was a very moving presentation by them about the contributions that the Japanese Americans and Asian Americans have made, and particularly the Japanese Americans, particularly during World War II as their people were being interned in camps. Yet, similar to African Americans, they still fought for this country in the face of tremendous bigotry and odds, because they wanted to show we are Americans.

That is what this immigration fight is about. Yes, we want to secure the boarders, but it is about being Americans.

I was just in Miami, Mr. Ross, this past weekend with my wife. I was down there with the congressional wives and their foundation. I took it upon myself to visit and to do a little field work there.

While I am at it, I want to give congratulations and kudos to the hospitality that the people of Miami Beach showed and the leadership Kendrick Meek and his wife provided for us as the host. It was wonderful.

But the one interesting thing about Miami Beach that I found was most everybody is from somewhere else. If you want to see a melting pot, really want to see immigration and America at work at the same time, visit Miami Beach. I haven't been there for a while.

I spent 3 days there this weekend. I talked to everybody. Whether they were Cuban or Mexican or Latin American or Caribbean or Jamaican or Haitian or Asian, they are all there in different ways.

One of the things I did, Mr. Ross, was every time I would say thank you, I would add the phrase when I said thank you and shook their hand, I would say, ``You are a good American.'' And when I said ``you are a good American,'' a smile came over their face. I ask you to try it sometime, or anybody in country to try it sometime, and you will see people in this country understand and they get the point.

This is America. We must translate that to some of those who are slipping and sneaking into this country to understand this is America, to understand it is one America, to understand that there is one language, English, there is one flag, there is one National anthem, there is one set of values. We have got to work to get that through.

That was the story that came through so passionately on this floor earlier today with the story of the contributions of the Japanese Americans, because it says we are a country of immigrants.

But on this issue, we want people to be legal, to pay their taxes and work hard the American way, learn our language, learn our values, as everybody else did. But the most important thing before we get to all that point is to secure our borders.

I want to just mention quite quickly what we Democrats are doing, because a lot of times when we come up here and we talk, we talk about what the Republicans and the President are doing. Here is what I want the American people to understand, what we are doing on border security.

On border security, since 9/11 House Democrats have repeatedly tried to increase appropriations for border security. For example, Representative David Obey, our senior Member on Appropriations offered a motion to recommit the conference report on the fiscal year 2005 supplemental appropriations bill with instructions to add $284 million to fund an additional 550 border patrol agents. That is securing your border.

And also an additional 200 immigration agents. That is dealing with the immigration problem where it counts, and border aerial vehicles, using our technology. But Republicans defeated that motion to recommit by a vote of 201-225.

Senate Democrats on the other side, as far as border security, Senate Democrats have also repeatedly fought to increase the border security appropriations. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia offered an amendment to the fiscal year 2005 supplemental appropriations bill to increase funding for border security by $390 million, providing for the hiring of additional border patrol agents and the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles.

With support from 21 Republicans, Democrats succeeded in adopting the Byrd amendment by a vote of 65-34. That is what I said earlier. It is not just a Democratic fight, there are Republicans who are working with us on this.

However, most of this additional border security funding was removed by the Republicans in conference. That is why when you look at the polls, when you look at what the American people are seeing, it is not just us here. The American people are not dumb. They know who is running this place. They know who is responsible for these high gas prices. They know who is responsible for the lack of appropriations and a lack of a budget with a proper blueprint that shows the vision this country ought to have on these critical areas.

And these Republicans, they have got to plan for the blame for this bad situation with our budget and our deficit.

And the people are not asking for these tax cuts. They are not demanding these tax cuts. They are demanding that the borders be secure. They are demanding that gas prices come down. And it is a shame that this budget is not addressing this.

And the President is about tax cuts. Well, they are not really tax cuts. They are deferred tax increases. Somebody has got to pay for those. And the tragedy is, Mr. Ross, that we are at the mercy in borrowing money from foreign governments.

And not just any foreign governments. It is very important that we take a look at the major players on the international stage now as far as our basic fiscal insecurity is concerned.

90 percent, 90 percent of everything we are spending to run this Government of the United States today is on borrowed money. From China, nearly $300 billion. From Japan, nearly $700 billion. From Taiwan, $118 billion.

From Hong-Kong, $127 billion. From the OPEC nations of Saudi Arabia and others in the Middle East, staggering, over $200 billion.

You look at those countries, Mr. Ross, and you must realize that those are some of the same countries that are eating our lunch on this oil. The other countries that are eating our lunch on oil, Iran, Iraq, where we are mired, Saudi Arabia, again, where we are, and the Middle Eastern countries underneath have about 30 to 40 percent of all of the known oil reserves at this time.

So if on the one hand you are borrowing money from the very same people who are holding you hostage for oil, that is a bad situation to be in. And the American people want us to address those issues. And they realize it takes resources to do that.

Furthermore, we have to pay for these tax cuts, Mr. Ross. It is so disheartening to me that to pay for those

tax cuts on the backs of our veterans. We are cutting veterans programs by $1.2 billion. We are raising their copay for their insurance that they use to buy their medicines over 100 percent.

That is wrong, Mr. Ross. That is not what the American people are after. And that is why they are expressing it. As I said before, the American people have had it up to here.

Mr. Speaker, under today`s prices, that $100 would get you two fill-ups if gas is at $3.25

Again, Mr. Ross, we must repeat because it is very important, we are here to do America's business. Every waking moment this Congress should be preoccupied with the three or four basic concerns that are threatening the quality of life in this country and very well threatening our own security, our borders.

We have not heard enough of what we are going to do to secure our borders. We need to hear from this leadership, and we are hearing it from Democrats. I assure you, Democrats will control our border. Democrats will put the military on our borders.

Let me tell you something, Mr. Ross. I worked for a while as a teacher, and my favorite subject to teach as was history because it taught you so much. And one of the things that you look back on history is that history teaches us a couple of things. It teaches us that if you forget your history, you are doomed to repeat it. And if you forget the bad parts of your history, they will certainly reoccur.

We are at a very, very serious point in our country of having a very, very significant time of keeping our progress moving forward on each level of security.

Let us first of all talk about this Nation's security. History shows us when we look back and we evaluate how we came about to formulate what is now called the National Guard was a need to do exactly what the National Guard was set up to do, guard our Nation. The first order of business to secure our borders is, number one, to put in the process of hiring and tripling the number of agents, putting forth the technical surveillance on our borders. But until we can get up to speed on that, we need to put our military strategy on our borders and send a message.

We cannot take any more illegal immigrants coming into this country. It threatens the country. Even our immigrants who are here are saying the same thing. We can no longer not have our borders secure because of the war on terror.

CNN is doing a wonderful report on our borders, and I am not just talking about the Mexican border. I am talking about the Canadian border as well, and if I am watching CNN and you are watching CNN, and Anderson Cooper is doing this wonderful special on CNN, I hope people will watch it because it is very revealing. I saw it this weekend.

It showed about this little area up in Canada on the Canadian border somewhere north of Minnesota or something where the border is so porous up there that a guy comes in, goes into a little shack, opens the shack, speaks into a microphone, looks into a camera, and says I am so and so, I am crossing the border, thank you very much, and that is it, for those who will stop.

I am scratching my head and I am saying, in this time of terror, if I am watching this, surely al Qaeda's watching it. I am telling you, it is just a matter of time before we get an attack as a result of not checking our borders.

Some of our law enforcement people who are working some of these borders are saying that some of that may have already happened. I am telling you, if we do not check our borders, it is the most significant thing you can do, and you look at this budget and you show me in this budget where there has any priority or urgency to close down these borders. This is why the American people are upset. It is their security. It is their way of life. It is what we fought for. It is what generations have fought for.

America, it is on the verge of being threatened out of existence. It has happened before. History is cluttered with the bleached bones of many great past civilizations who woke up too late to respond. Go back, look at your history books, look at Rome, look at the Ottoman Empire, look at the Netherlands particularly when it came to energy, and to a degree Great Britain. All of these powers lost because of those four things: global overreach, and not taking care of home and their border; dwindling resources at home; and the third thing, you guessed it, debt in the hands of foreign governments.

We are headed down that path, and the American people are looking for us to change that direction. That is what my folks down in Georgia are saying. That is what they want us to do, and we have got to do it. That is why I am so proud that we are here as Blue Dogs, pointing the way, showing how we will be fiscally responsible. Nobody can take that away from us. There has been nobody manning the watch, watching this debt, long before it was up to this level of priority than the Blue Dog Coalition who have been at the front, Democrats at the front of the line, talking about financial responsibility and, foremost, paying down this debt.

What a tragedy it is for this administration, this Congress to just lark along, borrowing all of this money, putting this extraordinary tax increase on the backs of our children and our grandchildren, and America's getting this.

I was surprised this morning when I was down there in my district in Cobb County, and she mentioned those four things. Iraq, I knew; immigration, I knew, that is hot, that is heavy, oil prices, that is heavy. But then she says: And the debt. America is waking up and understanding this debt situation is placing this country in a very precarious position, and we have got to change it and be responsible.

That is why it is important for us to put in pay-as-you-go measures, measures we have been preaching about for a long time. The American people are ready for that because if we do not, we, too, can go the way of so many of those past civilizations who woke up too late.

This is exactly right. America's not crying out here for tax cuts for the top 1 percent. As a matter of fact, Bill Gates and several others said we do not want it; Mr. President, we do not need it. Those farmers need it for the drought. Those counties need it for the community block grant programs that is a lifeline of these counties. The children need it for their student aid programs and their loans, they need it. Firemen need it. Our first responders need it, and we need it to provide the incentives in place to help with our patrol.

I want to mention because there was so much we wanted to cover tonight, but I cannot leave without saying this one thing. It really points an example of our lack of response, we have talked about it, to the border security problem, but look at our lack of response properly in this budget to our gas problem. Every basic issue that needs to be responded to, American people know we did not get to this point by just one thing. Oil companies have a lot to do with it, but their profits are not the real reason.

The real reason is we have a serious shortage because we are being held hostage by most of the petroleum producing countries and because we have not planned properly with our refineries and because we have not planned properly with our automobiles and our guzzlers, and even when we move to do that, with one example, I just point out to you, the hybrid cars. The one good program that we could use would be that.

There is nothing in the budget that even approaches what we need to do to give our American people true incentives, serious tax incentives to purchase hybrid cars, hybrid cars whose engines are run on a combination of electric batteries and gasoline. The key to our success, as far as bringing down these energy crises and stop making us so dependent on these other volatile Nations for our energy is to lower our consumption of oil, and to lower our consumption means we need to go elsewhere to find the fuel mix to do it. We can do it. We have got the American know-how.

You take the hybrid engine. They have got, what is it, $2,000 for the tax credit now. It is going up to $3,400, but then there is all kind of complications in that make it so confounding that dealing with it is for the first manufacturer to produce 60,000 cars, then it goes down every quarter. It just gets so

complex that the poor American people do not even have a clear angle with which to attack it and go out and purchase the automobiles. We need to clear that up.

We need to put in this budget that we will give a 50 percent increase at least on the tax incentives and make that a going up scale so that we can get more hybrid cars running. We need to go and start giving incentives to farmers who are producing corn and soybeans, creating a new industry with which to produce ethanol, and mix that with our gasoline to be able to carry our fuel much like Brazil is doing. We need to enrich conservation programs to conserve our energy, and then, finally, we have got to do all we can to get the American people out of their automobiles, the commuter rail and with mass transit.

But where is the will? Where is the direction? Where is the encouragement? Where is the inspiration to say let us go, America, we can do it? That is what the American people are waiting on, and we have got to provide the direction for them to do it. It is not this budget, and that is why it is not passing.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to one of this country's most important allies in the War on Terror, the State of Israel. Fifty-eight years ago today, at 4 p.m., 5th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar, David Ben Gurion read the Israeli Declaration of Independence over the radio ending 2,000 years of exile and persecution and fulfilling God's promise to return the Holy Land to the hands of the Jewish people.

The Israeli government was founded to ``ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex,'' principles we here in this country cherish as well. By holding regular free elections, Israel has been an oasis of democracy in a vast desert of theocracies, serving as a beacon of hope for oppressed people everywhere.

In less than 60 years, this open society has allowed the country to prosper economically, creating vibrant agricultural, industrial and technological sectors virtually from scratch and leading to successful foreign trade agreements. Israel has worked tirelessly to promote peace in the Middle East by achieving peace accords with Egypt and Jordan, an idea that would have seemed impossible in 1948. The Jewish State's many positive contributions to the world community exemplified by the Nobel Prizes in economics, chemistry, literature and peace that have been awarded to its citizens.

It is hard to believe that all of this has come out of a country no bigger than New Jersey and that it perseveres in the face of constant adversity. If one of the main planks of our foreign policy is to spread democracy and promote freedom around the world, then I can think of no better way to accomplish that goal than by strengthening the bond between our countries and offering it as an example to the rest of the world.

Israel Independence Day, or Yom Ha'atzmaut in Hebrew, provides Jews in this country an opportunity to demonstrate their solidarity with and strengthen their alliance with the State of Israel. It is fitting, then, that I stand here at the beginning of the very first Jewish American Jewish Heritage Month in which we will celebrate the 352 year history of the Jews' contributions to American culture.

Therefore, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this resolution, congratulating Israel on 58 years of independence and I look forward to building an even stronger relationship with our friends in the years to come.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be on the floor to set the record straight. I, too, heard what the Republicans were just saying. The American people are a lot of things, but they are not fools. They know that the President is a Republican. They know that the Senate is in the hands of the Republicans. They know that this House of Representatives is in the hands of the Republicans. The Republicans are leading the country.

When Democrats were leading this country, at least one of our Presidents, President Truman, said, the buck stops here. Not these. They say the buck stops with the Democrats when we are the minority party. There is not a bill we can get passed here because we are the minority party. It is wrong as wrong can be for the Republicans to point fingers and try to blame the Democrats for this huge increase in prices. This belongs where it ought to be: On the failed policies of the President.

Now, I like the President. I find the President to be a very fine person, and I hold him in great personal esteem, but I totally disagree with his policies. And the people of this country disagree with his policies.

Now let us talk about the truth. We have had the Truth Squad just speak, and I am sort of reminded of this story of a good friend of mine. Her name was Isabella. One day in New York City Isabella had a vision, and so she changed her name to Sojourner Truth. She went all over this country speaking, and everywhere she went, people would ask her about her funny name.

She would say, Let me tell you about my funny name. The Lord gave me ``Sojourner'' so I could travel the world showing the people and speaking to them. But I told the Lord I needed another name, and he gave me ``Truth'' so I could tell the truth to people.

Mr. Ross, that is what the American people are expecting us to do tonight, to be sojourners of truth and to tell the truth. There is no more burning issue. Yes, we must talk about the deficit, but we have to talk about this gas price. We have to talk about the raising of it because it is what is on the hearts and minds and souls of the American people. They are fed up to here with these huge, gigantic gas spikes and gas prices.

Many people can't even make it. I was just out in my district in Douglas County down on Dorsett Shoals Road this past Sunday. And one of my constituents, a little lady, came out and said, Congressman, please do something about these gas prices. Where is our country headed? Where are we going? Please do something about securing our borders. Where is our country going? I am here to tell you, Mr. Ross, the American people are very, very concerned about the lack of direction and going in the wrong direction that this country is headed in. Nowhere is it more startling than in these gas prices.

Now, let me bring this to your attention, Mr. Ross, because this really gets to me. And I want to talk about this for a moment. In this article, I think it was from one of the media, the New York Times or Washington Post. I don't have it correct. But they began to talk about something that brings home the point.

Now, let me preface this by saying, I am a capitalist. I was trained at the best school of business in the world, the citadel of capitalism, the Wharton School of Finance where I got my MBA. Served on the board of directors there for 6 years. So I am a capitalist. I believe in the profit motive. I understand all of that.

But listen to this that we hear about the CEO at Exxon-Mobil. For his efforts, Mr. Lee Raymond, who retired in December, was compensated more than $686 million from 1993 to 2005, according to an analysis done for the New York Times by Brian Foley, an independent compensation consultant. That amounts to $144,573, every day.

Now, I am for profit. But there is a difference between profit and greed, and that is what is upsetting the American people. At a time when we have diminishing oil resources, at a time that the fuel prices are skyrocketing, these oil companies are making huge profits.

Now, all I say is this: Don't we owe it to the American people to ask these executives from these oil companies to come before Congress and explain this to us?

The American people are asking questions. I know your constituents are asking questions: How can it be? And not only that, if we move over to Chairman Ray Irani of Occidental Petroleum, He received $63 million in

total compensation just last year. And over the past 3 years, Irani has reaped more than $135 million.

I am not kicking anybody for making money. This is a free enterprise system. It is a capitalistic system. But we are not dealing with peanuts. We are not dealing with renewable stuff. We are dealing with a life and death, very valuable diminishing resource called oil that we are dependent on, not just for us to make our economy go. It also is the juice that enables us to fight our wars, protect this country. There is a lot at stake with this.

Meanwhile, we want the truth. Here are the facts: the price of gas, while all of these profits are going on, the price of gas has doubled. Profits for big oil and gas companies have quadrupled at the time that gas prices have zoomed up, while American families' incomes have been stagnated.

Many small independent gas stations are reporting that they are being gouged by big oil companies. Now, if they are saying that, shouldn't we investigate? Shouldn't we take a look? That is all that I am saying. I am saying we need to bring the oil industry individuals in and get them under oath to provide us with some answers.

No, this is not a Democrat or Republican situation. It is all of our situation. But I tell you, when they are in charge, it is wrong to blame us.

The gentlewoman from Texas brings up a very interesting point in terms of our energy crisis and how it dovetails with our debt, one of the important points we have got to look at so we can see the dangerous track we are on. Mr. Ross, you just went through one of the most disturbing facts of our debt and that is the indebtedness that we are in to our foreign investors, borrowing more money from them than all the 42 Presidents combined. But let us look at who they are. Let us look at who they are who are controlling our financial security. They are the very same nations that are controlling our energy security. China and India, on the one hand, Japan, the OPEC countries, the countries in the Middle East, on the other hand. Each of these areas are controlling our debt, and they are controlling our oil.

The United States of America consumes 25 percent of the world's energy. But we produce or have access to just the refining and production capacity of just 5 percent. Put that together with the fact that one thing nobody mentions, not the President, not anybody, but it needs to be mentioned, and that is that why should we be taking this time to plan the future of this great country on a diminishing resource?

Every point, and I bring this to you again, this is a quote from a president, former president of Exxon-Mobil. I talked about the other's salary a minute ago to show the discrepancy. Here's what, 3 years ago, John Thompson, president of Exxon-Mobil said. He said, we estimate that the world's oil production from existing oil fields is declining at an average rate of 6 percent a year. To meet projected demand in 2015, the industry will have to add about 100 million barrels a day in new production. That is equal to 80 percent more than we are producing today, and oil is not a replenishing asset.

That brings me to the issue of where we really need to be planning for the future of this country is not on a diminishing resource of oil that is not

going to be there in the future. We have got to look elsewhere. And I tell you this, Mr. Ross: if Brazil can take sugar cane and solve their energy crisis and turn it into fuel for their automobiles with ethanol, why in the world can't we do that in America with our corn or with our other biofuel capacities, with our research? We have got the American can-do spirit. The problem is we need to unleash it, and we have got to do it, not depending upon oil that is a diminishing resource, but have the vision, have the courage to look to the future.

And I tell you, surely, if Brazil can solve their problem with using one of their natural replenishable resources of sugar cane to provide their major source of fuel, surely we can do as well as that. And we must do that.

The American people are fed up with this, I assure you.

Mr. Speaker, one of the points, just to add to what you are saying to show the real gravity of this situation, is this: Just the interest, just the interest alone that we are paying back on this, is the fastest growing part of our budget. Just the interest. Combined, that interest amounts to more than all of what we are spending for veterans, for education and for our own homeland security. The interest just is overwhelming.

Now, I want to make a point, because you brought it home, and as you were explaining that, the gentleman from Tennessee, I was reminded of a little history lesson here. If you would look back through history at all of the great civilizations, great nations, from the Roman Empire to the British Empire to the Ottoman Empire, they all collapsed from three important things: Global overreach, diminishing resources at home and an overwhelming, irresponsible debt in the hands of foreigners.

We are on the verge of handing our country over to foreigners, in our fiscal area, in our petroleum area and because of a lack of security on our borders.

I tell you, Mr. Ross, the American people are dialed in on this. They are concerned about this and they want some leadership. They want vision. They want our borders secure. They want America to be America.

Why can't we be independent in our resources, if we can make fuel to run our automobiles from corn? We know we can. Do you know why? Because the very first automobile manufactured by Henry Ford, the Model T, you know what it was fueled by? Ethanol made from corn. What more evidence do we need?

Mr. Speaker, it is a double-ended stick too, because we must understand what this means in terms of the President will say, well, we are borrowing this money, we are making these budget cuts for tax cuts, so we can give tax cuts to the top 10 percent of this country, when they are not tax cuts. America needs to understand, they are not tax cuts. They are deferred tax increases, deferred tax increases, because somebody has got to pay for that.

It is not fair. I have got two lovely little grandchildren. I love them to death. I have got two children. That debt is going to be on them. That is not fair. It is not fair to do that.

Now I need to talk about one other thing so that we will know clearly, as you spoke on renewable energy programs and as we talk about this budget, the budget that again we will hopefully not have the votes for again. But let's talk about it, because you have got to look at the President's actions and the Republican administration's actions.

Like I said earlier when we first started out, you can't blame the Democrats. We are not in charge. I hope that the American people will give us that opportunity this November to be in charge. Then we will be responsible.

But I guarantee you one thing; we won't point the finger at the Republicans. We will say, as Harry Truman said, ``The buck stops here.'' We will say, as John Fitzgerald Kennedy said, ``Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.'' We will do what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, ``The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.''

That is what the American people are waiting for. They are waiting to be challenged. They are waiting to be inspired. We don't need our country run by the Middle East, by Iran, Iraq or Saudi Arabia. We don't need it run by China or India. That is not what made America great. America became great because of our own inventiveness. We can become energy independent. All we have to do is unleash the mighty, free enterprise spirit within America.

If we know that oil is a diminishing resource, it is foolish for us to plan the future of this great Nation on a ready supply of oil, when we know it is running out. We have proven that. We have got to be bold. We must have vision. We must understand, and we must not be like those other previous civilizations on whose bleached bones are written those pathetic words, ``too late.'' Rome moved too late, the Ottoman Empire moved too late, the Dutch Netherlands moved too late and even Great Britain moved too late.

Will we move too late, Mr. Ross? I don't think so, because there is too much can-do spirit in this country. That is what made America what it is, and that is what is going to take us forward. We have the leadership, we have the will, we have the vision, and we can be what the American people want us to be.

Mr. Ross, you cannot help but feel compassion for the American people. They deserve much better than this, with Katrina, the natural disasters that are happening and the lack of response of FEMA. You talk about FEMA. I had a similar problem in my own district, where we had literally thousands of trailers sitting right there on the campus of Ft. Gillem.

Weeks, weeks, weeks went by, not going down into the Louisiana area. Lack of coordination, lack of proper direction.

The American people deserve much better than this, and we are going to give them much better. We have got to change the direction of this country. It is implicit in the debt that we are having. It is implicit in the response and the concerns with the rising gas prices. It is implicit in what is happening with the depletion of our military and our armed services, in the service of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is implicit in the situation with the Dubai Ports deal, even to think that they would turn over the security of this country to a company owned by a country who was only one of three countries to recognize the Taliban as the authority, ruler, in Afghanistan, while we have got our young men and women dying and fighting the Taliban. A tremendous disconnect.

And it is obvious it is there. As I said at the outset, we are here to be sojourners of truth. And we are sojourners of truth here tonight.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to be on the floor with Mr. Schiff. I commend his leadership on the national security issue. It is so important for the American people to be able to understand and know wholeheartedly that Democrats are the strongest party on national security. Our record speaks to it, all the way from Franklin Delano Roosevelt who shepherded us through World War II and built up our Army, to Truman, all the way up to John Kennedy. No stronger Presidents have we had on national security.

Democrats are very strong on national security. I want to spend my remarks here speaking from my own experience. I have been overseas visiting our troops on four different trips, to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and to Lithuania, into Germany, visiting them at Ramstadt Hospital and the air force base. I have been to Camp Victory at Baghdad on the front lines, as well as with our group on national security to which every Thursday we bring in the experts. We bring them in whether they are Republicans or Democrats, from Newt Gingrich to Sam Nunn to Andrew Young. We have had people there with experience because we want the American people to know that this Nation is secure, has been secure, and will be secure in the future in the hands of Democrats.

I want to spend just a few moments in talking about where we are in this 21st-century of our military. We have the finest military in the world, but since 9/11 our Nation's Armed Forces have become overextended. There is no mistake about it. Some of our recruiting goals have not been met.

But under Democrats we will make sure, and we have already begun the process to make sure, that our Armed Forces are not overextended and to make sure we have policies and procedures in place to help us meet our recruitment goals.

As you well know, Mr. Schiff, we have an all-volunteer Army. The draft is no longer applicable, nor will it be in the foreseeable future. With the advances in technology, we are going to be competing at a high level with private industries and others to get those high- caliber individuals to volunteer. Even the M-116 rifle is basically a computer. We must have soldiers who are well equipped, well prepared. So we have to go out and compete for those soldiers, and we have to realize what this 21st century means.

The men and women of America's Armed Forces and our first responders here at home have met every challenge with skill, with bravery, and selfless dedication. They along with veterans, military retirees, and the families of those who have given their lives to defend our country deserve our utmost gratitude; and we give it to them with our support. That is why we Democrats are launching our effort here. We want to make sure that America knows this

country will be safe with us, that we have the record and we have the program.

Much has been said and, yes, we have criticized the President. We have criticized the Republicans because it is due, because there has been failure after failure and bad planning. We know that now. And bad intelligence. But I assure you, if Democrats are in control, we will never send our troops into harm's way with inaccurate intelligence and not equipped with the body armor that they need to do their job.

It is important for the American people to know what we are doing now and what we plan to do. The whole world sees what is wrong step by step with our policies. I want to point out to the American people some facts they may not know about what Democrats are doing now and what our record has been.

We are committed to strengthening our military, but we have been fighting to make sure, we have been at the leadership in making sure that our troops have been fully equipped. Every step along the way, it has been Democrats who have sought to ensure that our troops were fully equipped for this war in Iraq. It was not a war of our choosing, but it was a war that was decided upon based upon incomplete and inaccurate information that we know now, but did not know then.

And Democrats stood strong and said we have to go based upon our information. But once our troops were in harm's way, once they were sent and it was found out that they did not have the body armor and their Humvees did not have the equipment to sustained the underbellies for the improvised explosive devices, it was Democrats who provided the leadership.

For example, because of Democratic efforts, the 2003 Iraqi supplemental budget included more funds for Humvees, body armor, and jammers to prevent the detonation of explosive devices. It was Democrats who offered amendments to shift $322 million from reconstruction for safety equipment for U.S. troops in Iraqi. It was Democratic Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut who led that fight, and to shift $4.6 million from Iraqi reconstruction for support and safety of our troops, including critical funding for repairing and replacing the critical equipment for combat in Iraq. That was Mr. Obey, our ranking member on the Appropriations Committee that led that fight.

Although both of those efforts were at the need, when they needed that armor, that is when Democrats stepped forward. It was Republicans who rejected those amendments. But we Democrats did succeed in requiring the Department of Defense to at least reimburse those servicemembers for the cost of their protective safety and health equipment that had to be purchased by them and their families.

You remember the newscasts. We had our soldiers searching through dung heaps, land fields and junkyards in Iraq and the Middle East trying to find metal to protect themselves. It brought tears to my eyes to think that this Republican administration would send our young men and women in harm's way and not have them armed with body armor. They were writing back home to mom and daddy saying, send me some money so I can buy something to protect myself. Never again can we let that happen, and it is we Democrats that are providing the way on this.

I want to make sure we cover one other point.

We are going to vote on a budget at some point. Luckily, they didn't have the votes tonight; but just to show you cut after cut after cut, $1.5 billion cut to veterans. The Democrats will treat our veterans with the respect they deserve, and we will put together a GI Bill of Rights. We will get rid of the military tax on widows. We will increase the benefits, and we will make our military proud and strong. And we will make sure that the rotation cycle is not two and three and even four tours of duty at a time, because our military is stretched thin.

We will strengthen our military. We will move us into the 21st century, and Democrats will provide that leadership. I am proud to be with you here tonight and my colleagues.

Absolutely not. Our President, it brings chills to me when I remember what President Roosevelt said: ``We have nothing to fear but fear itself,'' to raise people, our people, to that level. Or President Kennedy saying: ``Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.''

Always a pleasure to be with you, Mr. Ross, and with you, Ms. Bean. It is always a pleasure.

You were talking about the young kids, and you have got to think about those young kids. You have got to think about the generations coming behind us. Some of those are watching C-SPAN tonight as we speak, and hopefully all across America they are beginning to pay attention to what is happening here on the floor of this Congress.

And as I stand here, I am reminded of what happened on the floor of a Congress and a Senate a few centuries back and is captured really greatly in a play by the great William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare wrote a brilliant play called Julius Caesar. And in that play, a very important part was as Caesar was on the floor as the senators were surrounding him and knives going

into him, he looked out at all of the senators and saw them, Cicero and Cassius, and then he leaned over and he looked over caught the eye of Brutus and grabbed him as Brutus stuck the knife into his ribs. And he said ``Et tu, Brutus. Yours is the meanest cut of all.''

Well, I am here to tell you and tell America, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ross, Ms. Bean, that the meanest cut of all in this budget is the cut to those law enforcement folks, those people that are on the front lines at home, who have our security in their hands, our police officers, our firemen, our first responders and the military, our veterans, our Air Force, our Navy, our Marines, who are being cut unmercifully, Brutus- like, in this budget.

I just want to highlight for the American people so they can actually see and hear how this budget is devastating those that we place our security in their hands. Just think that this budget includes a cut in the funding of first responders by 25 percent at a time when we are in such great need.

Police Departments nationwide do not have the protective gear to safely secure a site after a detonation of a weapon of mass destruction in this country. Fire Departments have only enough radios for half the firefighters on a shift.

And yet, this budget, this Republican budget that they are asking us to vote on in the next day or two, includes a cut in first responder funding within the Department of Homeland Security of $573 million, 25 percent. And within this total, the budget slashes the Firefighters Grant Program by $355 million and eliminates all funding for the law enforcement terrorism prevention, reduction of $385 million.

When we look at our veterans, we are treating them so badly under this budget. It increases the health care costs for one million veterans.

America, we need to pay attention to what this Republican budget is doing. For the fourth year in a row, the budget raises health care costs for 1 million veterans by imposing new fees on veterans, costing them more than $2.6 billion over 5 years and driving at least 200 veterans out of the system.

It doubles the copayment for prescription drugs from $8 to $15, America, and imposes an enrollment fee of $250 a year for Category 7 and 8 veterans who make as little as $26,000 a year.

This is the truth. This is what they are asking us to vote on. And I pray and I hope that we will have enough Republicans to stand with us Democrats and reject this as not in the best interest of the American people.

It fails to address the strain on our troops. Now, Mr. Ross, I have been over to Iraq, just came back in January; went over to Afghanistan. I have been in the hot spots. I have seen our military, and they are doing a fantastic job in extraordinary circumstances. We are talking about 19- and 20- and 21-year-old kids out there handling extraordinary pressures.

And I will tell you an experience that I had that I will never forget. When I was in Iraq, I went into Camp Victory, standing in the middle of Camp Victory, and I met and was hugged by a soldier. And both of us in the middle of Camp Victory hugging, tears coming down my eyes and down his, and he says to me, ``Congressman Scott, when I am hugging you, it's like I am hugging a piece of home.''

I vowed in Iraq on that spot that night, having dinner with those soldiers in Iraq, that I would fight tooth and nail on this floor to treat our veterans and to treat our military right.

And, Mr. Ross, as I told it to you, what is in this budget, it refuses to end the disabled veterans tax. This Republican budget fails to repeal the veterans tax, which forces disabled military retirees to give up $1 of their pension for every dollar of disability pay they receive. Added to that it fails to end the military family tax, the survivor benefit plan, penalizes survivors, mostly widows, of those soldiers who are killed as a result of combat. That is what this budget does. That is why I say that the meanest cut in this budget is to our military, to our veterans, to our law enforcement people who put their lives on the line for little or no pay. And the only reason to do it is to offset this tax cut for the 1 percent wealthiest people in this country and then have to go borrow the money to pay for that at the sacrifice of our first responders.

This is why I am praying with every ounce of strength in me that this body will stand up to this Republican budget and vote it down because it is not in the best interests of our Nation's security, our national security, or our homeland security.

Will the gentleman yield?

Excellent point. And there is no greater emergency in this country than addressing the plight of African American males. No group in this country has paid the price, has made the contributions, has gone through the struggles, and has faced the vicissitudes of racism as the African American community. Structure, discipline, sanctioned by law. And yet if there was just one tenth of the effort to correct that imbalance, but on every score, you go down the line, and you mentioned them, education, the college grant. They say No Child Left Behind. An excellent idea but underfunded by 3 or $400 billion, not putting the money in. Black college Presidents have come up to this Congress hat in hand, begging, pleading for money for scholarships, and have not gotten a response.

In this budget itself, do you know that the fastest growing part of this budget is the interest we are paying? And the interest we are paying is more than all that we are spending totally on primary education, secondary education, college education, everything education, as well as the environment and veterans. This is dastardly wrong.

The American people are expecting us to.

I just share with you my own experience. Every weekend I get home, by the time I get off the airplane, I get in my tee-shirt and my jeans and I get out and walk door to door in my district, about 50 percent of which is new out in Cobb and Douglas Counties. And there is a certain experience that you get when you go knock on doors and you talk to your constituents and they say, Oh, the Congressman is here. And, Mr. Ross, let me tell you America is worried. The people in America are worried about the direction of this country.

At one stop a lady comes out and she says, Yes, put a yard sign in, and I give her a tee-shirt. And she says, Congressman Scott, what are we going to do about our education? I am not just talking about the money, but I am talking about the fact that my kid is sitting in a hallway because there is no room, there is no classroom. And in many of our counties across this country, they are meeting in trailers because we have not put the money in the budget in order to deal with it.

Now, I got the latest figures because I think it is very important that the American people know why we must vote down this budget come tomorrow or Thursday. The budget provides $15.4 million less, a cut in funding for education, than promised by the No Child Left Behind. No Child Left Behind. No Child Left Behind, but we are leaving them behind and not only leaving them behind but we are leaving them on the floor, in the hallways to study, overcrowded classrooms, teachers without adequate pay to do all the paperwork and not paying them for it. They are meeting in fire stations. They are meeting down the road in an old church basement. They are meeting in trailers. Damp, unsafe, unsanitary trailers. This is what this budget is doing to our American children.

Under this Republican budget, the cumulative funding shortfall for No Child Left Behind is $55 billion. This Republican budget, as we talked about before about the need, especially in some of our hard cases, this Republican budget completely eliminates several important education programs, including vocational education State grants, educational technology State grants. We are talking about those institutions that are actually taking our youngsters and training them with jobs that are being cut. Americans are worried about that.

Veterans are worried. Down the street another one says he is standing in line, not being able to get his treatment at a VA hospital. We are calling and he says if it was not for this congressional office calling, what would happen? But there are literally thousands of Americans out there, veterans, who are facing these dilemmas every single day. And they are upset about these unwise, foolish, mean, and unnecessary cuts to vital programs not because we cannot afford it, not because we are not wise to do it, but we are doing it just to offset costs for a tax cut for the wealthiest 1 percent in this country.

Even them, even Bill Gates and others at that level, are saying, ``We don't need it.'' But our veterans need it. Our teachers need it. Our children who are in these trailers, they need it.

And here is the danger. Here is the danger when you put your financial security in the hands of foreign nations at the rate that we are doing it. Now we have to worry that some of these nations could very well sell their U.S. dollars in their reserves and then they could switch their currency into other nations. They could do a lot of things when they have our debt.

What happens if they lose patience here? By having so much of our debt in the hands of foreign interests, we place our whole financial security in great peril.

China now has $250 billion of our debt, Japan has $687 billion of our debt, Taiwan has $117 billion of our debt and Hong Kong has $67 billion of our debt. I mention these because these are countries in the Asian Basin. If collectively they came together, for surely geography puts their direct interests more at stake than it does us over here in the Western Hemisphere, if they came together with a pact and just made a decision on what to do with our debt or whether they are going to sell U.S. dollars or reinvest in other countries or do things that will drive down our financial security, look at the bad position that places us in. And when you combine that with the fact that India and China have taken over our manufacturing capabilities, it shows the seriousness of the situation.

Thank you very much, Mr. Ross. And, as always, it is indeed a pleasure to be with you on these special orders.

I want to agree with our distinguished majority whip, who has distinguished himself in his years of leadership here, who has been fighting this fight for so long. And our whip pointed out an important point that is registering with the American people, and that is this: There is great concern all across the breadth and the depth of this country concerning the degree of foreign ownership of our country.

Mr. Ross, we have time and time again been on this floor pointing out

the danger of foreign investment that we are overwhelmingly dependent upon. We are not critical of being an open, free society in which we are open for investors from all around the world to come and participate in our great economy. We are certainly not against the trade policies that involve all of the globalization. That is very important. We are very much involved and in support of opening up free markets so that our goods and our products are being traded.

But, Mr. Ross, it is a dangerous, dangerous situation when we are overwhelmingly now dependent for our wherewithal on foreign interests. The fact that now that foreign investors control and own over 52 percent of our debt is not a healthy position for us to be in, for the mere fact that right now we are borrowing at a rate, that we are spending more just on interest to these countries than what we are spending on our own homeland security, our veterans, and our education, combined.

Here is the question: What will happen if this dries up? What will happen, let us say, in our negotiations and our dealings with China, from whom we are borrowing and who holds $250 billion in our debt? Or with Japan, that controls over $658 billion of our debt? Or with Taiwan, who controls over $117 billion? Or Hong Kong at $80 billion? Or the OPEC and the Middle Eastern countries, who control, combined, over $75 billion of our debt?

The issue here is that these are countries in which we have severe differences with who can use this at an inappropriate moment of strategic blackmail in so many financial areas and national security areas. Speaking of which, we cannot have any national security if we do not have financial security.

Mr. Ross, I am glad you mentioned your trailers. I had a town hall meeting back home in one of my communities called Riverdale in Clayton County, and my Uncle Eugene said, You know, I was watching you all on television. I want you to ask your partner there, Mr. Ross, have they moved those trailers yet?

Three hundred of them are moved. But they have still got so many there.

We are in a very, very delicate situation financially and a very insecure position financially, particularly as the world is looking at us.

But the most important point that I want to make, as I turn it back over to one of my other colleagues, is this. In my office today I had a visit from a group of my constituents who run a program called TRIO.

TRIO is the overlaying umbrella of a series of upward-bound programs that help young people who need a helping hand to get them into college. And that program is being axed by the President. I just left this morning, a group of us in a CODEL, with Congressman Jerry Moran, who is a good friend who is on the Republican side, but is a good subcommittee chairman of our commodities group.

We had a hearing on the farm bill. And the two most important issues that they were saying is, please, Congressman, do not let the Bush administration cut our farm programs, our conservation programs. We had another visit from another group of folks who were senior citizens: do not let them cut our Medicare and our Medicaid programs. From the veterans themselves: please do not let them cut any more of our programs.

So when we look abroad at the foreign situation and we look here at home, we see pressing concerns and threats to our financial security that is at the hands of this administration and its very, very unresponsive, irresponsible and reckless financial policies.

And I am just proud to be here with the Blue Dogs this evening to point those issues out and make sure that the American people are aware of the great, great issues that we are faced with.

Just to add to that point, just to add to that, in addition to all of what you just said, when you add the fact that this country is borrowing $2 billion every day from foreign governments, just to finance our trade deficits, we have just been talking about the budget deficits.

But when you turn and you add our trade deficits to that, and Mr. Ross, again, a point that came out of my agriculture hearing just today in Valdosta, Georgia, was the point that now for the first time, just 10 years ago, the United States, on our agriculture we controlled or held 17 percent of all of the world's exports on agriculture products.

Now, do you know that that is down to less than 10 percent? And the fact of the matter is, we are now exporting more of our foodstuffs into this country than we are exporting out. This is not good for our national security, for this country, not only depending upon our finances from abroad; but, good Lord, if we get to the point where we are depending on our food from abroad, we are in serious trouble.

I just want to say, because we are going to get ready for our Republican friends, some of them, to come and try to refute what we are saying, but as the good book, the Bible, says, ``Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.''

We have done that tonight. And even Mr. Armey, the Republican's former leader of this House, complained bitterly about the Republican leadership and the direction they were going when he said, ``They are in control. They control this town,'' he said.

There is no reason for us to have these deficits. They cannot refute the fact that under this Republican administration, under this Republican-led Congress they have borrowed more money, they have run up this debt, they have borrowed more money from foreign governments than all of the last 42 Presidents and administrations combined. They cannot argue that point.

They put forward a budget that slams right into the face of homeland and national security by cutting our veterans, by refusing to deal with the concurrent receipts measure, by cutting aid to veterans by a million dollars, and education up and down the line.

So the truth is speaking tonight, Mr. Ross, and it has been indeed a pleasure for us to be here to tell the truth and set America free.

Madam Speaker, I thank very much my distinguished friend from Tennessee. It is a pleasure and, quite frankly, an honor to be on the floor with you tonight to talk about this extraordinary problem and crisis that this country is faced with.

Without question, you are absolutely right. We cannot have national security if we do not have financial security, and we do not have financial security today. Now, let me just tell you and I hope the American people are paying attention to us tonight because we are here to state some important truths and facts about the financial health of this country, and our financial health is not well.

This President, this administration and this Republican-controlled Congress is heading us straight down the path of financial ruin and financial disaster.

Let me just give you one very salient point. Under this President, this Republican-controlled Congress, we have borrowed more money from foreign governments and from foreign interests than all of the preceding 42 Presidents in the history of the United States. Hear me again. If that does not wake you up and let you know that we are headed for disaster, this President, this Republican-controlled Congress has borrowed more money from foreign governments and foreign financial institutions than all of the preceding past 42 Presidents.

That means that since 1789, the very beginning of this country, to the year 2000, 211 years, through the Revolutionary War, through the foundation of the country, through the Spanish-American War, through the Civil War, through the Mexican War, through World War I, through a depression, through World War II, the Vietnam War, through the Korean War, through all of the upheavals, the economic downturns of this great country, through all of that, yet this President in the last 5 years has borrowed more money from foreign governments than all of our previous Presidents in this history. That is phenomenal. That lets you know that we are in serious, serious trouble.

As I have said time and time again, no greater founding father was there than Alexander Hamilton who founded the financial system of our country, and it was Alexander Hamilton who said, Woe be it unto this country if we fall under the heel of our finances being controlled by foreign interests. Alexander Hamilton himself was a foreigner, as were many of the Founding Fathers of this country. They understood that, and here we are today beholden on our financial security.

Here are the facts. In the last 211 years, from 1789 to 2000, under 42 Presidents, this country borrowed $1.01 trillion. In the last 5 years, under this Republican President and this Republican-led Congress, we have borrowed $1.05 trillion. That is not healthy. That is not the way you have got to go to have a solid country, and now we are here saying we are going to raise the debt ceiling so that we can borrow more. We are dealing with a budget that is ratcheted with devastating cuts time after time.

As the gentleman from Tennessee pointed out, just look at how this Nation is aching and hurting from the mismanagement of Katrina. Families still devastated, an entire important coastline of this country devastated.

And we cannot even deal with that. And some of the very programs, community block grants, being cut. Aid to our veterans, talk about national security, being cut by $2.1 billion. Help to our farmers, to help them with the drought, to help them with the devastation of Katrina, cut, all for the purpose of making unwise tax cuts to the top 10 percent of the wealthy in this country permanent at a time of such great uncertainty.

And then to borrow the rest of the money for the tax cuts from, guess where, from China, from Japan, from India and from OPEC. Now, let me tell you how serious this is, ladies and gentlemen. The U.S. is becoming too increasingly dependent on foreign lenders for our debt. We are handing over this country on a platter to foreign countries. The Dubai Ports deal was just the beginning, just the tip of the iceberg.

And I just want to say how proud I am to say I am a United States Congressman. Because finally this Congress stood up to this administration, both Democrats and Republicans, and said no, no more, and turned down that Dubai Ports deal. Can you imagine? How unwise, to turn our port security over. Even the thought of it.

And that is what disturbs me so much when we talk about security. When you talk about national security and financial security, that is the number one issue on the minds of America today. Two things: Can this government keep us safe as a country? Can they keep us alive? Can they keep our lives safe, and then can they keep our money safe? Well, you can't keep our money safe; you certainly can't keep our lives safe. And that is the particular situation we are in today.

Let me just tell you how serious this issue is. Foreign lenders hold a total of $2.174 trillion of our public debt. And quite honestly, in the last 10 years, they hold 90 percent of it. In other words, every dime that we are using for our government right now we are borrowing it from China and India. Japan, for example, now owns $682.8 billion of our debt. China owns $250 billion of our debt. England, the United Kingdom, owns $223 billion. The Caribbean Banking Center owns $115.3 billion. Taiwan, $71.3 billion. OPEC countries, OPEC, already in the Middle East we are so dependent on oil that they are holding us hostage on that now, but some of these same companies are holding our debt.

America, wake up. We have got to begin to step forward and take responsibility for our financial house. I am here to tell you there is nothing more important than keeping our money straight. Lord knows, if the American people across this country, if they ran their little families, if they ran their businesses the way we are running this government, it would be bankrupt.

So I am delighted to be here tonight to join with my distinguished colleague, Mr. Tanner, to talk about this issue. Because I believe that it is the number one issue facing the survival of this country. And let me just say this. If you look through the history books, John, the history books are cluttered with the wreckage of so many great civilizations. And on the wretched bones of those great civilizations are written those pathetic words: Too late. They moved too late to save themselves.

Let us not move too late in this country. The American people are expecting us not to move too late, and we must not. And one of the first steps is to follow your lead and get some sanity. Let us instruct the conference committee to not increase the debt and let us not raise the debt ceiling limit.

Madam Speaker, first, I want to respond to something my distinguished colleague from the other side said. Now you talk about smoke and mirrors. For him to say on our side that we are talking about raising taxes is so disingenuous. Nobody is talking about raising taxes. We are talking about fiscal responsibility and pay-as- you-go responsibilities.

We are saying that we do not want to cut vital services to the American people and then go borrow more money that we have to pay interest on. That, in effect, when you put it altogether, if anybody is talking about raising taxes, it is the Republicans. Somebody has to pay for this. You know who is going to pay for it, our grandchildren and our children based on their proposals.

No, sir, you are not going to be able to depend on Democrats this night that we are talking about raising taxes. Democrats are talking about keeping our taxes low and bringing fiscal responsibility back to this House.

You talk about responsibility. When Democrats were in control, when President Clinton was there, he left a several trillion dollar surplus. In just 5 years, this President and this Republican-led Congress has squandered that surplus. So when you talk about who is more responsible for the taxpayers' money, it is Democrats, not Republicans. And the American people are not going to be fooled by this smoke and mirrors of consistently trying to paint the Democrats as being for raising taxes and they for not. The Republicans are for raising taxes and raising the debt ceiling.

Madam Speaker, I want to show this chart. It is not as big as your chart, but the Republicans have increased the debt limit by $3 trillion. I have been here 4 years, and this is the fourth time that the Republicans have asked to raise the debt ceiling so they can borrow more money.

In June, 2002, they asked to raise the debt ceiling by $452 billion. In May, 2003, they asked to raise the debt ceiling by $984 billion. In November of 2004, they raised the debt ceiling by $800 billion, all of which we are borrowing against, against the best national security interests of this country, against the best financial security interests of this country.

Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Madam Speaker, let me assure the gentleman it was not beating him up. He is a great gentleman, but it is some of the policies that have been emanating from the gentleman's leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Dixon Grove Baptist Church on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Dixon Grove Baptist Church has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to its surrounding community and the state of Georgia.

The late Reverend John Arthur Dixon founded Dixon Grove Baptist Church in 1956 and declared that the church would be built by faith. Reverend James E. Harris assumed leadership of the church in 1979. As a result of their combined leadership and vision the church rose from its humble beginnings in a schoolhouse with a congregation of fewer than 50 members to a multi-acre facility that accommodates the 600 members that attend the church today.

Reverend James E. Harris continues to uphold the vision and mission set by Reverend John Arthur Dixon of adhering to Biblical principles while improving the lives of people in the community. Reverend James E. Harris demonstrated his leadership through community, civic, and religious involvement by accepting my request to represent the 13th congressional district at the White House Conference on Aging in December of 2005.

Through faith in God and commitment to service, church ministries expanded under

Reverend James E. Harris to include: Family Counseling and a Youth Christian Basketball League to reach the youth of the Clayton County community. After the most devastating natural disaster in the history of the United States struck in 2005, Dixon Grove Baptist Church responded to the needs of evacuees by providing assistance through its Community Food and Clothing Co-operative.

Please join me in honoring Dixon Grove Baptist Church and Reverend James E. Harris for their commitment to Jesus Christ's example of faith and giving. It is my sincere hope that the ministry and work of Dixon Grove Baptist Church prospers for another 50 years.

It is great to be with you, Mr. Ross, and with my colleagues from the Blue Dogs and our distinguished cochairman.

I think this startling information that you have just made known to the American people speaks to the fundamental issue at hand, and it is, in one word, security. Financial security. We cannot have national security if we do not have financial security. We cannot even have homeland security if we do not have financial security or health care security. Whatever our security is, it is anchored in financial security.

With security comes the word ``confidence,'' and you have just shattered that realization by bringing this information to the forefront and revealing how badly we need to restore the confidence of the American people for this government's ability to handle their financial security.

But I will tell you something that really adds and complements what you have brought to the American people tonight, because I have a bit of information that ought to be startling as well. As we look at this report, as we basically see firsthand that the books have been cooked, so to speak, by this revealing document, which almost doubles the $319 billion deficit, because now we know it is $760 billion deficit by the words of the Treasury Secretary, but let me add this to this important discussion we are having this evening.

I do not believe the American people know that this President, President Bush, has borrowed more money from foreign governments in his 5 years than all of the preceding 42 Presidents in the history of this country.

I know the American people are shaking their heads and asking, is he saying what I think he is saying? Let me repeat it.

President Bush has borrowed more money from foreign governments in his 5 years, since 2000, since he first took office, than all of the preceding 42 Presidents from 1789 to 2000, 211 years. Here are the figures. From 1789 to the year 2000 of our Nation's history, 42 U.S. Presidents borrowed a combined $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and foreign financial institutions, according to the Treasury Department.

And now, just in the last 5 years, President Bush has borrowed a staggering $1.05 trillion, larger than the total from all the previous 42 Presidents. If that does not tell you we have a crisis here, I do not know what does. And you combine that with this information that our co-chairman has brought to us about how the books were cooked; and, in fact, according to the more accurate accounting procedure, it is more than $760 billion.

It is remarkable. It is phenomenal. The American people deserve the truth. We have got to give it to them because, as the Bible says, you should know the truth. It is the truth that will set you free. We are going to set America free tonight.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ross has so eloquently stated the great failure in our American government today. The whole situation of Hurricane Katrina marks one of the darkest spots in American history. But there is a pattern here of a lack of response. There is a pattern of whatever it goes through, security, homeland security, national security. Hurricane Katrina is just one example. We need look no closer than our port security. What a debacle.

That same kind of lack of proper research, proper debate, and you are absolutely right, a lackadaisical congressional leadership, a Republican leadership that simply has just bent over for this administration. We have made a mockery of what our Founding Fathers said we should be doing as checks and balances. That is why they set three branches of government: the judicial, executive and legislative branches.

It is our job to provide the oversight, the investigation, the enforcement arm, to be able to make sure that there is a proper check and balance. But this House of Representatives under this Republican leadership has all too often just caved in and caved down, and that is why we are in the shape that we are in today.

Now, if we can talk just for a moment, which I want to do, about this port security situation that again points up the same fallacies.

It is about accountability, and it is also about our budget. For example, if you remember, after 2001 Congress appropriated a total of $765 million for port security programs, including $173 million for FY 2006, to help our seaports adopt important security enhancements.

The Coast Guard came and told us they needed more like $6 billion. Yet, like last year, the President's budget

once again proposed terminating funding dedicated to port security, and then turned right around and takes that $6 billion and says let's give it over here to a company that is owned by a country that has direct financial ties to terrorist organizations.

How do you figure this, that the President's budget would propose terminating that funding that our Coast Guard, the one main element we have checking our ports, asked for, advocate terminating it, and then turn right around and okay a deal that he says he did not even know about?

Now, the truth is plain here, and we owe it to the American people. There are some of us in Congress who are willing to stand up and tell the truth and deal with this, because our financial security is vital, is extraordinarily important.

I want to just touch upon one additional thing. I want to talk about just for a moment, as my good friend from Tennessee pointed to, this budget and the meanness of these cuts, but where they hurt the most are with our military families, are with our veterans.

I do not believe that the American people quite understand this or quite are aware that this budget would increase the health care costs for 1 million veterans. For the fourth year in a row, the budget raises health care costs for 1 million veterans by imposing new fees for veterans, costing them more than $2.6 billion over 5 years, and driving at least 200,000 veterans out of the system. That is what this budget does to our veterans.

It would double the copayment for prescription drugs from $8 to $15. That is what this budget does to veterans. It imposes an enrollment fee of $250 a year for category 7 and category 8 veterans, those who make as little as $26,000 a year. If increases health care costs for military retirees. The budget increases TRICARE health premiums for 3.1 million of the Nation's military retirees under 65. The premiums will double.

It fails to address the strain on our troops. I just returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. I was there talking with the troops. Despite recent reports of the tremendous strain that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have placed on our troops, the President's budget fails to fund and plan adequately to recruit the number of forces that are authorized under the law to help with that strain. The budget would fund 17,000 fewer Army National Guard and 5,000 fewer Army Reserve than are authorized by law. But it does not just stop there. It goes on and on.

You talk about your folks in Hope, Arkansas, and what they are faced with. Let me tell you what my people are faced with so much in Georgia, in one county, Cobb County alone, just from the cuts in the Community Development Block Grant program.

This is what the President has proposed cutting: one center that is in great need of help in terms of being built and being sustained through the Community Block Grant program of $3.1 million, the Ron Anderson Center over in Powder Springs in Cobb County. Another center for senior citizens where they need it the most, cut out of this budget, another $2.5 million. Those community block grants are the lifeblood of many communities in Hope, Arkansas; in Tennessee; and all over.

Now, I mention this, as we will mention a few other things. There is so much in this budget that goes at the heart of cutting out almost the heart and the hope of our people.

You showed an extraordinary picture there a moment ago, Mr. Ross. You showed a victim down there under just a cover, all he had, just sitting there. It showed great hurt, great need. There is a great hurting and a great need of the American people, and we do not need to pass this budget that cuts the very programs that will help our people in need.

When you combine this with the startling revelation that half of this debt is being held by foreign countries, I go back to that word ``security.'' Is it in our best security interest to have our financial well-being held in the hands of foreign countries? That is about as ridiculous as holding our port security in the hands of a foreign company owned by a country that had terrorist dealings, that provided nuclear materials to Iran, a country where two of the hijackers came from. This word ``security'' needs to reverberate throughout the American psyche.

We are depending too much on our financial security and our national security and port security from foreign interests. We Americans need to control our ports, and we need to have Americans at ports where they are originating shipments coming in.

And we need to check 100 percent of our cargo. Mr. Ross, if Hong Kong can check 100 percent of its cargo coming into its ports, and it checks 22 million cargo pieces a year, we check only 11, Hong Kong is not even a terrorist target and we are. Hong Kong checks 100 percent.

They are not a terrorist target; we are a terrorist target, do not check but 5 percent. As Ethan Hunt said in Mission Impossible, the NOC list is out. It is out in the open. They know that we do not check but 5 percent of our cargo.

But the point I wanted to make in terms of the foreign lenders is, because I think it is important, Mr. Ross, that the American people know who is holding our debt. Let me just tell them for a minute. Japan holds $682.8 billion of our debt.

Communist China, Communist China holds $250 billion of our debt. Great Britain, $223 billion. The Caribbean banking centers, $115 billion; Taiwan, $71 billion; OPEC countries, $67 billion; Korea, $66 billion; Germany, $65 billion; Canada, $53 billion; Hong Kong $46 billion.

This is not in the best interests of the security of this country and it has to change,

Mr. Speaker, it is very important to point out, and you touched upon it, that just the interest, just the interest alone, is nearly $200 billion.

Now just think about that. This money that we are borrowing, we have to pay for. You got to add in the $200 billion in interest on top of that, which is more than five times the amount that we spend on education, the environment, and veterans care put together.

I submit to you, my friends in the Blue Dog Coalition, I just hope that the American people have been listening to us tonight, and I believe that they have. I hope that we have awakened a sleeping giant. Because, like I say, we are here and we are gone tomorrow.

The President does not have to run anymore. He does not have to go out and face the people. I believe, quite honestly, if he had to go out and face the people, I do not think he would have made that deal with the Arab immigrants. I do not think he would have done that.

But the fundamental question we have to go back to is from this startling information that you have brought to us, the question has to be, why? Why are we just discovering it and why is this great discrepancy there?

There are some serious questions that have to be answered by this administration. But you know what? They are not going to answer these questions unless and until we in Congress stand up and represent the interests of the American people and put their feet to the fire. Once we do that, then we are truly standing up for America, and America deserves that.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Watt and certainly Mr. Rangel for their leadership on this, and Mr. Ney of Ohio for his leadership on this.

What an honor it is for me to stand here and to speak some words about the extraordinary contributions that the Tuskegee Airmen have made. Let me begin by simply setting the stage, because I think it is very important for us to understand the environment, the time that this activity happened in American history, for us to truly understand the significance of the Tuskegee Airmen. Let us go back for a moment to that time, and let us take a look at what was going on at that time.

In 1921, Benjamin O. Davis had early on, as one of our leading African Americans in the military, put forward the proposition that black men should be trained to fight, but yet there was great hesitation. As a matter of fact, the Federal Government issued a study which said that African American men were incapable, did not have the skill, the courage, the fortitude, and, in fact, they felt inferior to white people, so that they did not have the courage to do this, this at a time in 1921 when the first woman to even get a license to fly was an African American woman by the name of Bessie Queenie Coleman, and she flew as a daredevil.

Circle back to 1941. It was not until then that they gave the Tuskegee Airmen an opportunity at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, founded by Booker T. Washington.

And the story tells it all. For there is no greater story of freedom and American democracy than that story of the Tuskegee Airmen who, with bravery and courage, went and fought for the freedom of this country and the world while yet back at home African American citizens were second-class citizens.

So when we talk about the Tuskegee Airmen, it is more than just their flying. It is their extraordinary stand for courage in the face of difficulty. We salute the Tuskegee Airmen.

Thank you so much, Mr. Ross. It is always a pleasure to come and be a party to our efforts here on behalf of the Blue Dog Coalition as we work very hard to try to bring some reason and sanity to this whole issue of our budget, our obligations, our responsibilities to the people of this country, and our allies and partners around the world.

I have just returned from Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan on an extraordinary trip. And I went firsthand so that I could see exactly what it was like on the ground, where I could talk to our soldiers, where I could be there with them, where I could also talk to the generals and see what was going on.

As I got there, it was very interesting for me to have one extraordinary experience. We went into Camp Victory, and I ate dinner with our soldiers. And this solder grabbed me and hugged me so tight. It is a moment I will never forget as long as I live. As he was hugging me, we both were in tears and he said to me, Congressman Scott, when I am hugging you, it is like hugging a piece of home.

I can tell you I will never forget that.

Mr. Ross, do you know what crosses my mind as we look at that situation with the debt? It is that that soldier that hugged me, those soldiers that are going out and giving their lives every day on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, their salaries are being paid for by borrowed money from Communist China, from Japan, from foreign countries. As a matter of fact, 90 percent of every dime that we are spending in this country today for our government to carry on its business is being borrowed from foreign countries.

And when you mention those tax cuts, the other terrible stab at the American people is that to make these tax cuts permanent means to borrow more money from these countries on top of what we are borrowing. And to offset those tax cuts in the Federal budget, the President and the Republican administration is advocating cutting the very programs that the people of America need and are hurting for.

You mention Katrina in your district. I am from Georgia. We are the third largest recipient of evacuees from this terrible, terrible, terrible tragedy. But the fact of the matter is that we are not responding to the needs of the American people when we look at this budget and the cuts: $19 billion cuts to student loan programs; over $200 million just from the first phase to child care programs, for the seniors. On top of that, the cuts that hurt the most to me at a time of war is the cut to our veterans to offset for the tax cuts.

The point that I think we want to bring home to the American people tonight is that we have a terrible situation that is ratcheting at the foundations of our country and that is a lack of financial security and a lack of financial responsibility. The architect of our financial system was none other than Alexander Hamilton, and Alexander Hamilton it was who laid out the credit system, laid out the debtor system. He said, woe it will be to us in the future if we become dependent on foreign sources to finance our government. He was adamant about that.

Here we are in the 21st century, rocking and reeling from this unfortunate situation we find ourselves in of borrowing this exorbitant amount of money from foreign governments.

Absolutely, and just responding to your very eloquent description of the status quo, of the situation and the landscape that the American people are faced with today with a budget that is squarely not responsive nor responsible to the needs of the American people, with an administration that, quite frankly, on so many important issues, has demonstrated that they are completely out to lunch and out of touch.

What a great challenge and what a great opportunity we have at this time in history in this country to move us forward to the next phase, to a higher calling, to a more significant meaning of the greatness of this country, to build on that foundation that we have. But before we can do that, I agree with my colleague, we have got to balance our books.

We cannot go on this way, running our government and running our Nation on borrowed money from these foreign governments. That has to stop, especially at a point when we are in the shape that we are in in the rest of the world. Double that with our trade deficit. Double that with our war on terror. Double that with our fight for petroleum and energy costs, which we are so dependent on foreign countries for as well.

Now, you mentioned a couple of points that I think the American people need to perhaps home in on. One you mentioned was the veterans. It is so important for us to point out that these budget cuts that the President is offering to offset tax cuts, which he is going to have to borrow most of the money for, are not offset by these budget cuts. But the one that hurts me so much is the veterans. You pointed it out.

Another issue that the administration is standing and blocking the door of is this: I was over in Iraq and Afghanistan, hugging the soldiers, looking at them facing death every day, sent in harm's way. If those soldiers get hurt, if they get a wound, shrapnel, a bullet and they get disability and then they have to resign from the Army and retire, do you know that they have to go and make a choice between whether they get their retirement pay or their disability? That is wrong. That is shameful.

Our veterans should not have to choose. We should pass this concurrent receipts bill. And I might add that we have both Democrats and Republicans, over 300 signatures. Why hasn't that bill passed?

That is what it is right now, yes.

Yes, both Democrats and Republicans.

Yes, sir.

Absolutely. And the President of this country has not lifted a finger to move it. If they did, it would move. At a time when we are depending so strongly on these veterans, on our military.

And let me just add, these are men and women who have braved this opportunity by volunteering. And these are men and women that we have to set a standard for in the future to get other young men and women to volunteer. Not only in terms of benefits such as this and putting their lives in harm's way, but our military is becoming so sophisticated, so technologically savvy. Our instruments, our equipment, our weapons systems require trained computer savvy, technically trained and equipped, skilled personnel that are in high commands elsewhere. So the least we have got to begin to pay close attention to is how we are treating our resources right here at home.

The other point that you mentioned that I want to bring attention to is the children. And my colleague just mentioned it about our children, those children that you talked with in school. And I know when you looked in the eyes of those children, I know you had to say, what a shame it is that this deficit, that this budget, that this bill is going to have to be paid for by them. Somebody has to pay this, and it is our children that have to pay it.

I will tell you one thing. I have just come back from my district and I have talked and had town hall meetings, and I have had opportunities to meet people at our churches, and people are in tune. They are tuned in to what is happening in this capital.

I am here to tell you they are very concerned about the port security situation. They are very concerned about this deficit. They are very concerned about the failure and inaction in Katrina. This is a whole region of this great country that has been devastated, and the response has been extremely wanting. And the American people are expecting us to respond to that.

Now, President Bush does not have to run again. He does not have to face the voters. But you do, Mr. Ross, and I do, and you, Ms. Bean. We have to do that. The Framers of the Constitution made it clear. That is one of the reasons why we in this House are, in my estimation, the most powerful body, because we have to go out every other year and re-get our contract. That gives us an awesome power. That is why this Chamber is more directly in touch with the American people, because we have to go out there every other year.

Every year, but we are on the ballot every other year where they have to give their verdict.

And, finally, Mr. Ross, you made the point concerning the deficit, the debt, the money we are borrowing from foreign countries. But I think it is important for the American people to understand that just the interest, just the interest that we are paying Japan and China and Germany and other countries in the Middle East, just the interest we are paying them is more than

what we are paying for our own homeland security. And that is a very unfortunate situation, but it drives home the point of the very dangerous position that we are in. Should any of these countries feel that they could get us, they can get us because of our lack of financial responsibility and fiscal security.