Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I am transmitting a status report on the current levels of on-budget spending and revenues for fiscal year 2006 and for the five-year period of fiscal years 2006 through 2010. This report is necessary to facilitate the application of sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act and section 401 of the conference report on the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2006 (H. Con. Res. 95). This status report is current through April 21, 2006.

The term ``current level'' refers to the amounts of spending and revenues estimated for each fiscal year based on laws enacted or awaiting the President's signature.

The first table in the report compares the current levels of total budget authority, outlays, and revenues with the aggregate levels set forth by H. Con. Res. 95. This comparison is needed to enforce section 311(a) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the budget resolution's aggregate levels. The table does not show budget authority and outlays for years after fiscal year 2006 because those years are not considered for enforcement of spending aggregates.

The second table compares, by authorizing committee, the current levels of budget authority and outlays for discretionary action with the ``section 302(a)'' allocations made under H. Con. Res. 95 for fiscal year 2006 and fiscal years 2006 through 2010. ``Discretionary action'' refers to legislation enacted after the adoption of the budget resolution. This comparison is needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the section 302(a) discretionary action allocation of new budget authority for the committee that reported the measure. It is also needed to implement section 311(b), which exempts committees that comply with their allocations from the point of order under section 311(a).

The third table compares the current levels of discretionary appropriations for fiscal year 2006 with the ``section 302(b)'' suballocations of discretionary budget authority and outlays among Appropriations subcommittees. The comparison is also needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act because the point of order under that section equally applies to measures that would breach the applicable section 302(b) suballocation as well as the 302(a) allocation.

The fourth table gives the current level for 2007 of accounts identified for advance appropriations under section 401 of H. Con. Res. 95. This list is needed to enforce section 401 of the budget resolution, which creates a point of order against appropriation bills or amendments thereto that contain advance appropriations that are: (i) not identified in the statement of managers or (ii) would cause the aggregate amount of such appropriations to exceed the level specified in the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Sister Catherine Dunn, President of Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa who will retire on June 30th 2006, after serving in this position for 22 years.

Sister Catherine came to Clarke in 1973 and started her service to Clarke and the Dubuque Community as a member of the education department faculty. In 1979 she became vice president of institutional advancement. On January 27th, 1984, she became Clarke's 14th president.

The first few months for the leader of any organization can be challenging, hectic, and perhaps chaotic at times. Sr. Catherine would face all of that and more, as her strength and fortitude were tested 111 days later, when on May 17th, 1984, fire destroyed one-third of the historic buildings on campus. In the spirit of Sister Mary Frances Clarke who founded the school in 1843, and propelled by students who hung banners proclaiming `Clarke Lives,' Sr. Catherine oversaw an aggressive rebuilding project. Rising from the ashes were a new library, a chapel, music performance hall, administrative offices and a glassed atrium, which were dedicated in October of 1986. Most importantly, it showed the resilience of a woman who would not let devastation chart a negative destiny for the school or her presidency. Since then the school has had several other additions and expansions including a new sports and recreation complex, an activity center and increased student housing.

For most new presidents that would have been challenge enough, but Sr. Catherine's spirit reached far beyond 1550 Clarke Drive. She has served on the boards of numerous local, regional, and national education and civic organizations. She has served on the executive committee of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) and chaired the organization's tax policy committee. In 1989, she was appointed to the Iowa Transportation Commission, making history in 1994 when she was named chair of the commission. She was the first woman to hold the position in the 81-year history of the commission.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to pay tribute to Clarke College President Sr. Catherine Dunn. The many lives she has touched will never be known, but that work, through others, will live on. We celebrate, we honor and we will remember Clarke College's 14th president.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Concurrent Resolution 376, which the House is about to consider.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am proud to be here as the chairman of the Budget Committee to propose and debate the budget resolution for this fiscal year 2007, the blueprint that will guide the Congress' spending and revenue decisions for the coming year.

It is not easy to write a budget ever. It is particularly challenging to write a budget when you have to deal with an economic recession, when you have to deal with the worst terrorist attack that has ever hit practically any nation, but particularly ours on our own shores. It is difficult to write one when you are at war, when you have a whole new priority of homeland security that was never even considered just 10 short years ago, or the largest natural disaster ever to affect the United States called Hurricane Katrina. It is never easy to write a budget, and it is particularly challenging to do that when those kinds of things hit you not just one at a time but all at one time.

Today we are going to hear a lot about politics. You know, there is this new movement around the country that I think is pretty important, and that is that we need new science and math education for our kids because we are falling behind, but I think we probably ought to add history to that, too.

I love how the Democrats come to the floor today, and this is modern history for Democrats. In 2001, George W. Bush took office, and look at the deficit we have today. Nothing happened in between. Of course, there have been 6 years that have occurred, and during those 6 years we had those things like an economic recession, like Hurricane Katrina, like 9/11, like a global war on terror, the need to deal with homeland security. And all of those priorities not only were cheerfully voted by both sides, but the national debt not only went up under all of those votes, but in fact the Democrats proposed even more spending to drive that debt even higher.

And probably the most humorous conversation was the one I just heard on welfare reform, how the President is the one who ushered in welfare reform, President Clinton? This is the same President Clinton who vetoed welfare reform twice, and in fact had to be dragged kicking and screaming to support the Republican-passed welfare reform, which was the first opportunity for us to reform entitlement spending and to deal with some huge challenges that gave us the first surpluses in history.

So this budget is always going to be a challenge to write, but it is particularly going to be challenging if all we are going to hear on the other side is complaints and politics, and not any serious proposals to deal with it.

Is this budget going to please everyone? No. You have just heard quite a few complaints about how this budget is not going to please Democrats, and I can certainly understand why. But this budget takes into account the conversations that we have heard from our constituents back home in particular, and I believe this is the budget that is the right budget and the plan to keep our country moving forward with a strong growing economy, with a secure homeland, to provide endless opportunities both today and tomorrow for our kids and our families. It is guided by what we think are our most important priorities and it is based on a clear set of principles: Strength, spending control, and reform. And let me just touch on these briefly.

First on strength. This budget will further build on our Nation's greatest strengths, which include our Nation's national defense and homeland security, and the robust growth of our Nation's economy and job markets as a result of the plans and proposals that we have passed on this floor over the last 5 years.

Spending control. This budget will continue our efforts to control spending across the board by further restraining the nonsecurity discretionary spending, and building on our progress from last year to reform government, achieve savings in mandatory entitlement programs.

In addition to those reforms, we also believe that it is time for us to reform the budget process and continue the work that has already been done. This budget will begin to reform the budget process by actually dealing with emergency spending.

And I will come back to all of these, but let me first touch on our strengths.

The economy. As I just noted, our underlying strength comes from the Nation's economy, and in the past 4 years, 5 years, it really has delivered. I mean, we have seen some wonderful things as a result of the American people being able to spend and invest and use their own resources. After adjusting for inflation, our economy has grown at a robust average of better than 3 percent a year since 2003. Nearly 5 million new jobs have been created in America as a result of this economy, and the unemployment rate has fallen to 4.8 percent, which not only is historically very low, but by many economists that is considered full employment. Even in the face of higher energy prices, which we are working to deal with, and the worst natural disaster on record, our economy has proven remarkably resilient and strong, growing, creating jobs, and increasing personal incomes.

Clearly, the real credit for the growth goes to the people who do the work in this country, who work and save and invest and create jobs and allow our economy to continue to grow. But we in Congress did support their efforts by lowering their tax burdens, and this budget continues that because we believe there should be no tax increases, as opposed to the Democrats who propose tax increases in their alternative budget. And we did this because of our fundamental belief that the people back home really do make better decisions about their daily lives, about their businesses, about their farms, about their families and communities than the Federal Government ever could make for them.

As a result of giving Americans more control over their money, we have seen more investment, more jobs, greater opportunities in our country, and as a further direct result of this growth from what Americans have done, revenue has come pouring into the Federal Treasury. In fact, last year we saw Federal revenues increase by almost 15 percent in one year.

Now, I realize we have got to stop and just highlight this because if you have been listening to the rhetoric on the other side, you will believe that the bane of all of our illnesses is because we have reduced taxes and that somehow tax cuts have caused this government to fall off its pedestal, when in fact reducing taxes has actually brought in 15 percent more revenue growth to our Federal Government, and it is because our economy works. When you are allowing people to keep their money and invest it on their own, it creates opportunities and jobs and business development, and as a result of that more people pay more taxes and that brings more revenue into the government.

In short, our economy has gone from recession just a few short years ago to a strong sustained period of growth, and to ensure that that growth and strength continues to be in an upward momentum our budget does not increase taxes.

Second is national security. This budget will also continue to provide whatever is needed to support our American troops and to ensure our Nation's defense remains the strongest in the world. We do not have a secret plan, as you will find in the Democratic alternative substitute, that basically says we are not going to fund the war after next year. It is kind of a secret plan to basically say one of two options. We are either going to bring all the troops home like the gentleman from Pennsylvania wants to do or we are not going to fund them so they are able to claim balance. They have basically put no more money, no support to our troops in the field over in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The President's budget, not including war funding, has requested an increase of 7 percent to ensure that our men and women have the opportunity to support and defend our Nation and our budget will accommodate that request. We will also, as we have for the past two budgets, place $50 billion in reserve to fund those wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we know that it is going to take a commitment in years to come and we plan to support that commitment, not claim balance and not have some secret plan that is either going to underfund it or bring them home before their job is done.

But even as we provide those resources, we also believe that the administration needs to get the message that we need a full accounting of how this money is being spent and what the implications are for the future. Particularly in the area of defense, we have got to do a better job to ensure that every dollar that we invest and that we put into this critical area is hitting its intended target. It makes our country safer. I cannot think of any activity that deserves more diligent oversight than our national defense.

For homeland security we will provide whatever is needed to ensure our homeland at the border, in our country, in our cities, in our rural areas, whatever is needed. The President has proposed 3.8 percent of an increase and our budget accommodates that request. But just as with defense, we have got to do a better job in this new Department of Homeland Security to make sure these monies are being spent wisely and are actually working to make our Nation more secure.

The second big principle on which we write this budget is controlling spending. Let's start with what we call ``discretionary spending.'' With the necessary shift of our Nation's priorities to provide for these areas of, after 9/11 as an example, we have come to employ kind of a shorthand to effectively divide this discretionary spending into two categories. Let me do that for people who are watching.

We have security spending, which involves our national defense and our homeland security, and what we call ``nonsecurity,'' which is everything else. That is where you will find education, veterans, agriculture, the environment, et cetera. So you have security and nonsecurity. And as most of my colleagues will detail in this debate, we increased our security appropriations funding at a truly incredible rate over the past few years to deal with the challenges that our Nation has needed in regard to security.

But that said, when we decided that our Nation's security was our highest priority, it also meant that everything else needed work and that everything else must come after, although many seem to regularly forget the Federal Government simply does not have an infinite supply of money, nor should it. So when we decide to increase spending in one area, you have got to determine how to pay for it and how to reduce spending in other areas. That is what budgeting is all about.

Last year we held our nonsecurity spending to a freeze tighter than the previous year's 1.3 percent growth and certainly a marked improvement over the previous 5-year average of 6.3 percent. This year the administration has asked for a freeze, according to CBO's estimate, for all the nondefense, nonsecurity spending in our budget. We will assume that freeze is for nonsecurity spending. We believe that our security must come first or none of these other programs will matter much.

That said, it is important to note that while our budget sets an overall number, it is the Appropriations Committee who determines how that money is allocated. Clearly there are high priority programs that receive and should receive increases. But in order to provide those increases, they have to have offsetting reductions and eliminations of other programs, and we know the Appropriations Committee can do this and will do this. Last year alone they eliminated somewhere near 110 specific programs in order to ensure that we fund those programs that are higher priorities.

Now, let's get to where the real rubber is going to hit the road with this budget and where it needs to hit the road.

This is the funding that is truly out of control.

Our biggest challenge in Federal budgeting is the problem of mandatory, automatic, entitlement spending. That is now two-thirds of the budget, and two-thirds of the budget needs some attention. Well, we provide the attention while the Democrats, you can hear the crickets. They do not even look at it. There is no reform in their budget for the mandatory programs. Just do not worry about two-thirds of the budget. We are only going to talk about one-third, they say.

We need to work on reforming these programs. They are important to the people back home. They are not always doing the job they need to do. We need to constantly reform and weed the garden to make sure that garden can continue to grow and make sure that we can eliminate the waste, fraud, and abuse in those programs.

Currently, our mandatory spending is growing at 5.5 percent a year. That is faster than our economy is growing. It is faster than inflation, and it is certainly faster than any of our means to be able to sustain it.

To put it another way, if our budget were balanced right now today, our entitlements would drive it right back into deficit; and so we have got to deal with these challenges which, of course, are highlighted probably most dramatically because there are 78 million baby boomers who are beginning to turn 60 this year, and medical costs are skyrocketing, and there is a steady decline in the number of workers for each retiree.

The problem only gets worse. So we have got to address this. We have got to acknowledge on both sides of the aisle that ignoring this problem, offering no solution on how to fix it, and fighting against those who are trying to help is not going to benefit any one person, is not going to benefit any group. Certainly it is not going to be able to give us the opportunity to be able to deal with these programs in the future.

Just throwing more money at programs, my goodness, you would think somebody would get real, get a more creative budget than this just to throw more money at things and assume that they are actually going to work. We need to reform these programs.

Last year, for the first time in nearly a decade, we took the first step to reform some of these largest programs. We saved $40 billion in the process. We allowed better delivery of these programs to the people they were intended for.

This year's budget will continue to build on those savings by yet again reforming the mandatory programs and establishing that we should, on an annual basis, reform government, even if it is a small amount.

I know people around here say why are you bothering with $6.8 billion. Well, that may be small to some of you, but it is not small to the taxpayers who have to pay the bills around here. This budget will continue to build on those savings by, again, reforming mandatory programs and establishing this annual process.

Finally, let me talk about reform, which this budget is based on. To some extent, we are still learning lessons from Hurricane Katrina. We should continue to always learn the lessons; but one of them that became, I think, very clear is that if we do not control spending, if we do not get good control of spending, it becomes very difficult to manage unforeseen events that inevitably face us.

One certainly could have foreseen that we were going to have a hurricane. We have them every year. We have them every year that I have been in Congress; but no one, no one, could have foreseen the devastation that has occurred as a result of Hurricane Katrina, and no one would have expected it to be built into anybody's budget. We did not build it into ours. The President did not build it into his. Certainly the Democrats did not build it into theirs. In fact, this year they build no money into their budget for emergencies.

Now, wait a minute. I realize this may surprise you. It was in all the papers. We had a disaster last year. We had an emergency. We had a hurricane. Not just a little one, but a big one. Why do we not at least plan for the little ones? Let us at least plan for the disasters that we know are coming.

Mr. Chairman, I believe I have the time, and I have not yielded.

No, I do not.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that.

So while we are continuing to learn the lessons, Congress needs to plan for it. Congress needs to plan for these emergencies, and our budget does that. This year, not only will we build in a reform of our mandatory programs and further restrain our nonsecurity discretionary spending, but we need to reform the budget process as well to reflect the actual spending that is currently spent outside of that normal budget process, and it is called emergency spending, for many natural disasters where appropriate spending is certainly necessary.

In addition to emergency reforms contained in this budget, we will continue the process of reforming the budget and reforming the budget process and how we make spending decisions throughout this year. We need to tackle earmarks. We need to tackle the sunsetting of programs that have outlasted their usefulness. We need to deal with line-item veto, and we will do this throughout this year.

Let me just end by saying this. I do not think I need to remind anybody about the massive challenges and changes that our Nation has endured these past few years or the myriad of challenges that lie ahead. We have had enormous challenges in writing the budget. I do not shy away from any of them. I know it would be easy for somebody to just punt.

Well, we decided we were going to meet each one of those challenges and deal with them, and every single year we have had a plan. Finally, this year, the Democrats rushed to the floor with a plan and suggest that they finally now have an idea on how they are going to balance the budget. We will take a look at that a little bit later.

But we have had a plan every year, and our plan has worked, and we have been able to manage our deficits and our debt and our taxes and our economy and deal with so many important priorities in an appropriate way. We have kept our country going when many people, after some of these disasters, said our economy was going to collapse, that we were not going to be as powerful as we were in the past; but because of the leadership we have provided, much of which started in these blueprints, we believe we have been able to keep our country growing and growing strong.

We have seen how the Nation's most fundamental priorities have shifted dramatically, some by circumstance, some by choice, but they have shifted; and we have managed through the process as best as we could.

For the past three budgets, after recovering from the initial shock of 9/11, we have set a bold plan to shore up and strengthen our defense and homeland security, to get and keep our economy growing strong and creating jobs and controlling spending and continuing the process of reform and reducing the deficit, and the deficit has reduced.

We followed that plan, and adjusting it to last year, making a down payment on the immense new hurricane spending. We have made real progress.

But last year's hurricane served as a stark reminder that controlling the budget does not just happen one day out of the year. It is a long- term, step-by-step commitment that takes resolve. It takes more than one person to do it. It takes particularly in extraordinary circumstances a plan, and that is what we present today, our plan for fiscal year 2007.

We need to pass it. We need to stick to it. We need to enforce it. Certainly if there are challenges, we need to adjust to it, but we need a plan. We need

to work the plan. We need to enforce the plan, and we need to pass the plan today.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to a distinguished member of our committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

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

I cannot find anything of what the gentleman from Texas just said in the budget. I am still looking. None of those policies exist. All of that is just kind of created out of whole cloth. I have looked through it. There is no tax on veterans. My goodness, what kind of rhetoric is that, taxes on veterans. My goodness. Not in here. You cannot find it. I defy you to find it. I don't see a tax on veterans.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Ryun) and a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, for a unanimous consent.

(Mr. YOUNG of Alaska asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

I have to put on my glasses, these numbers are so small. I have to tell you, on page 63, I have it right here: veterans goes from $71.9 billion to $74.6 billion. $71.9 billion to $74.6 billion. I am trying to think now, mathematically that sounds like an increase. Maybe I am missing something, but 71 to 74. Let's see, that's a bigger number; 74, bigger, not a cut. That is an increase.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bonner), a distinguished member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart), a member of the committee.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished chairman of the Education Committee, my friend from California (Mr. McKeon).

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Does the gentlemen know that the Spratt alternative does the exact same thing?

But is the money in there in this ``reckless'' plan the gentleman was suggesting?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, let me just say to start with, I cannot let that go. In this body we have had bipartisanship with regard to national defense for quite a long time, and I hope that continues. But the irresponsibility of the statement that was just made has got to be called on the carpet.

The Spratt alternative, everyone has a right to come to the floor with an alternative, and I have enormous respect for the gentleman from South Carolina. We are friends. We work together on budgets. He has the full right to come here. But don't come to the floor and tell us that we have an irresponsible plan, when your plan has the same numbers, number one; and, what is more, fills whatever gap you were just talking about with something called the ``tax gap,'' which is a $290 billion pipe dream that somehow you are going to collect money on past taxes from people who didn't pay them.

Good luck. I would like to see you try. But that is how you fill the hole, I would say to the gentleman from New Jersey. And what is more, and I will bet it is in your press release already, you claim balance by supporting the Spratt substitute.

There is only one way you can claim balance, only one way. Do you know what that is? The way you claim balance is if you spend no more money on Afghanistan, no more money on Iraq, no more money supporting troops in the field, no more money for body armor, no more money for any benefits to those troops that are serving us so well over there in the Gulf.

So for you to come to the floor, when we have bipartisanship on national defense 99.9 percent of the time around here, for you to come here and for you to suggest somehow that it is reckless for us to put that in our plan when you not only put it in the plan but then somehow claim balance, there is only one of two ways: You either have some secret plan to bring the troops home immediately, similar to evidently what was proposed by the gentleman from Pennsylvania here not that long ago, or you intend to have no money for those troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now, my guess is that is not true, and my guess is I just went over the line. My guess is that is not what the gentleman intends, and my guess is that when the bill comes to the floor and when the very distinguished gentleman from Missouri, the Democrat ranking member and when the very distinguished gentleman from California, the chairman of the full Committee on National Defense and Armed Services comes to the floor, that that will not be the case whatsoever.

But for you to increase the rhetoric down here about some irresponsible defense plan is irresponsible.

I hope we can put that partisanship back in the bottle, because it ought to end at the shore when our men and women are fighting in harm's way, and I hope that the gentleman will check that rhetoric next time he comes to the floor, because we can have disagreements over a lot of things, but when the numbers are the same for the same reason because we have the same passion and concern about our men and women, please, I would ask the gentleman not to heighten the rhetoric so he can put out a press release.

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Yes, they are. In fact, we put into the budget an emergency reserve fund for the purpose of funding that war, the same way Mr. Spratt does, the exact same amount.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

First and foremost, we added $1.3 billion back into the budget for that very purpose on CDBG. So the gentlewoman is mistaken on that point.

Plus, I am glad the gentlewoman is at least one of the Members who have been willing to come here and be honest about her lack of support for the war and what that means for the budget priorities. If you do not support the war and you do not support the funding, it makes it clear why you would not put it in there and then claim balance.

We are not trying to pretend to anybody that there are not going to be expenses in the outyears. We just do not know what they are. And nobody on either side knows what they are going to be. The Pentagon does not even know what they are going to be. We hope that they are minimal, but we have at least put the funding in the budget to demonstrate that.

The difference is that in this alternative I think we are starting to see the glimmer of what the plan is really about, and that is a secret plan to bring the troops home, do it immediately, not fund in the outyears, claim balance, and as a result not support what we are doing.

That is fine if that is what you want to do. I am glad you are at least being honest about that and that is exactly what is being planned in this budget. By not putting the money in there, by claiming balance, it is clear that there will be no more money for the war in Afghanistan and the war on terror after this budget year.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), a distinguished member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry), a very distinguished member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

I am sure I misunderstood what the gentleman just said. You mean to tell me he supports tax cuts? My goodness. He supports cutting taxes for people? I can't believe my ears. At a time of deficits? At a time of national debt? At a time where we are not meeting our obligations the gentleman is supporting cutting taxes?

My goodness. There is not a scientific scintilla of evidence that cutting taxes is right, he says, but yet he supports cutting taxes? My, my goodness. Why would the gentleman be supporting cutting taxes for people at this desperate time in American history? There must be a reason.

I believe I have the time, Mr. Chairman.

I just am shocked. There is no scientific evidence, Mr. Chairman, but we are understanding that the gentleman, and that there might even be in the Democratic substitute tax cuts? Why would we do such a thing when there is no science, when we have desperate times, when we have deficits? Why would we do that?

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

I hope my colleagues understood what I was trying to point out, and that is it seems very convenient for Members to come to the floor and decry the irresponsibility of tax cuts and yet propose them themselves. Isn't that interesting? Oh, but they are targeted, the gentleman will say. They are targeted. They are targeted for the exact right one person they want to target it for.

Our tax cuts reduce taxes for every taxpayer in America. We didn't pick and choose the winners. We didn't decide who was appropriate and who wasn't appropriate. Every taxpayer in America, every taxpayer in America got tax relief under this plan, and it is working because, as the gentleman fails to understand, last year alone there was a 15 percent increase in revenue.

Because there is scientific data to show that when you allow people to spend their own money, as opposed to having to come crawling to you to have a little bit of it back for the dignity that they seek from a big government; when they make those decisions for themselves, they make better decisions, and the economy grows and it expands.

We have had 18 quarters of economic growth and expansion with 5 million new jobs created. There is your proof, and that is the reason why the gentleman comes down now and says, yeah, I am kind of for those tax cuts; kind of like them now. I don't want them for everybody, I will pick and choose who I want. I have decided who the winners and losers in America are going to be because I can make that decision. I am smart enough to do that.

Well, on this side of the aisle, we believe everybody in America is a winner. Every taxpayer deserves that kind of respect, and that is the reason why we reduce taxes for every American. Every American is a winner in our vision of America.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller).

Mr. Chairman, at this time I yield 3 minutes to a distinguished member of the committee, the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bradley).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes just to compliment the gentleman on his turn of phrase. There isn't anybody in the body who does it better, and I have enormous respect for him as well.

But let me suggest that it is an attitude about who are winners. I certainly understand as the gentleman knows very profoundly that there are people who struggle in America. No question.

But if you have an attitude about them being successful, about them being able to be successful and being able to be winners without crawling to you, without crawling to me, without having to crawl to anyone or be dependent on any government or any government check, that is a different attitude than the one I hear so often from colleagues who come here saying that the only way they will ever survive is if government is there, and that is not how our country was founded, as the gentleman knows better than anyone. That is exactly why we believe everyone in this country is a winner.

Let me also suggest to the gentlemen that when the President spoke from that well saying he would not pass off to a new generation the challenges of this generation, that speech was given approximately 8 months before September 11, 2001. In those 8 months before and in the 5 years since, we have learned a lot, haven't we.

I would suggest that we are working hard together, often in a bipartisan way, to ensure that we do not leave terrorism to the next generation, to ensure that we do not leave Katrinas to the next generation, and to ensure that we leave prosperity in our economy to future generations.

Certainly there are short-term challenges and there are short-term deficits that we need to deal with. But to suggest that the President somehow woke up today with the same challenges he woke up with the day he made that speech is either trying to not be honest about history or forgetting it, or trying to suggest that it did not happen, and I don't believe the gentleman would suggest that one way or another.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), who is not a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bonner), a member of the committee.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have no further speakers, and we are prepared to close. I believe I have the right to close the general debate, and we are prepared to close debate at this point.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Chairman and colleagues, this is always a challenging debate because what, unfortunately, is not part of the discussion, in the debate back home in particular, is that numbers very rarely demonstrate results; that when you talk about a budget, when you hold up a document which, it is interesting, I have heard so much debate today about we are cutting this, we are cutting that, we are slashing, we are eliminating, all sorts of things.

The budget of the United States basically is 43 legislative pages long, and you can't find those in here because what the budget does is it sets a framework, is all the budget does. It sets a framework, no different than what families do around their kitchen tables every day. They set a framework, a budget. And then as the bills come in, they apply those bills to that framework and determine whether they are over, whether they are under, what

they can afford, what they can't afford, if there is an emergency what they are able to borrow, how much they are going to be able to invest in their kids' college or whatever it might be. Those are budgets, and we have no different course of budget right here.

It is a framework. Within that framework many decisions will be made this year, decisions about education, decisions about homeland security, decisions about national defense, decisions about what we are going to do in order to meet many needs, many challenges, some choices, some circumstances that we know will rise this year and years to come.

We have decided that in order to write this budget we had to anchor it to some pretty important principles, and that is what we tried to do.

First, what are our strengths? As a nation, the most important strength we have is our people. I mean, that is what this is about. Those are the three first words of our Constitution, ``We, the people,'' not government, not bureaucracy, not government programs, not entitlements, not any of that, but ``We, the people.'' That is what is the strength.

And our people, I will tell you what, when you allow, when you unleash them, when you empower them, when you give them the incentive of American ingenuity to go out and do things, I have got to tell you, it is unbelievable to watch.

In my own home State, you see farmers produce the food for the world. You see that in so many places around our country. You see small businesses, I am sure in the gentleman from South Carolina's district, my friend, create jobs and opportunities and services and manufactured goods that not only supply the United States but supply the world. And when you unlock the economy, when you allow people to make those investments for themselves, I will tell you what, it is a wonderful thing to watch. And that is something beautiful about our country that has really been the reason why we are the economic wonder of the world, why we are the economic leader of the world.

There is no question that there are other places around the world that would love to be like the United States when it came to our ability to invent, our ability to create, our ability to serve so many people, not only here in the United States but around the world. But if we don't continue to build on that strength, it could very well be lost, and that is the reason why as part of this budget plan we continue the work to grow the economy, because that is number one.

The second item that this is built on is our military strength, our strength of power, our strength of being able to defend freedom here in this country and around the world. And there is no question that there will be differences of opinion on every side about this conflict or that conflict, but there is bipartisan agreement always on the fact that our United States military is number one. It needs to stay number one. When we put a man or a woman in uniform and ask them to go away from their family or their community, we make sure and we ensure and we do everything we can within budgets like this and like the budget that Mr. Spratt is presenting and like all budgets, we ensure that they have the best, that they can be the fastest, they can be the strongest. And certainly there are going to be differences of opinion of exactly how that can be accomplished; but the goal is the same, and our budget accomplishes that.

We also believe that we need to defend our Nation differently than we ever have before. I understand that there are some people who come to the floor who think it is pretty easy to write a budget. Just do this, just do that. Try to do it after 9/11. Try to do it after wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the global war on terror. Try to do it after Katrina. Try to do it when 13 million people are crossing our borders unchecked.

We have enormous challenges with regard to homeland security. We meet those challenges as part of this budget. Will there be differences of opinion in priority of how to meet those challenges within the rest of the process that we will engage in this year? Yes, of course, and there should. But we ought to also limit that spending and say this is how much we are going to dedicate to that, and, again, our proposals are similar.

But in addition to that, we also know that the government can overstep its bounds. It can spend too much. And just like every year, we hear about pork barrel spending. We hear about earmarks. We hear about those special projects. Part of the reason that we have those is when we have unlimited funds to spend, people get pretty creative on how to spend it. Either as a constituent coming from Iowa or as constituents from around the country, I have never had a constituent come into my office and say, Jim, this project I am about to show you is not worthy of funding. In fact, they never tell me that we are spending just enough. They almost always say we would like a little bit more.

So what a budget does is it says there is the top line; that is the most we can spend. And while there are certainly worthy projects that we need to fund this year, there are also projects that need oversight, scrutiny, need to be reformed, need to be changed, need to be put off until next year, or here is a word that we rarely say particularly in an election year: How about ``no,'' we are not going to fund that; it is a crazy idea. And to look them in the eye and be able to tell them that is certainly a difficult job, but it is one that we have to do. By setting that top line on spending, we accomplish that. Again, this is what this budget does.

Finally, let me say that we do one more thing that we believe is very important, and it is a lesson that I learned one of my first years here in Congress during the great Mississippi flood of 1993. But, unfortunately, I and every one of my colleagues have relearned it almost year after year after year, and that is, regardless of what we have put in these budgets, there are unforeseen circumstances that will occur whether we like it or not. It could be an earthquake. It could be a flood. It could be the biggest hurricane in our history hitting almost a direct hit on one of our most cherished cities.

No matter what we put in this budget, we may have a war. We may have a terrorist attack. We may have things happen that are outside of our control. But we know that they are probably out there and that they are lurking, and so what we have put into this budget is not only a fund in an emergency way to deal with that war, but, also, for the first time we have set money aside recognizing that we may have that earthquake, we may have that flood, we may have the tornadoes like we had this last weekend, and we had darn well better set some money aside for that rainy day, just like that family sitting around that kitchen table saves just a little bit to deal with what might be a leaky roof or a refrigerator that goes on the fritz.

We have got to deal with those problems, and I believe this budget accomplishes that. And it does so in a way that recognizes what I tried to say in this debate. We believe in those people that we represent. We want them to be winners. We know there are challenges. We know there are people who need our help regardless of their ability to help themselves. And even though that is certainly the compassion of this country, we ought to respect the fact that dignity does not start with a government check. Dignity does not start by somebody crawling to a Federal agency and saying please help me. That is not dignity in America. Dignity does not start with a government check or with a big government bureaucracy.

Dignity starts by recognizing our personal freedom granted to us by our Creator, not granted to us by a government bureaucracy or granted to us by the United States Congress. We fought a revolution over the fact that we are free and that our dignity starts in our heart because it is given to us by God, not by government, not by anybody else. And for us to continue to perpetuate the myth that the only way to distribute compassion in this country is by handing out freedom or handing out government or handing out a check to people, that that is the only way they will get it, I believe that is an unfortunate juncture that we find ourselves in in this country.

Our budget does not continue to perpetuate the belief that in order for you to have dignity, it is found in these pages or it is found on this floor or it is found somewhere in Washington,

D.C. The most dignified things that happen in this country are the decisions that are made by people and families in freedom in the United States of America, and the only way that can continue is if we continue to perpetuate that freedom.

So while there is certainly going to be a lot of rhetoric about how for some reason we are cutting programs, we are slashing this, we are gouging that, when it comes right down to it, it is because we do not believe that these programs measure our compassion as a Nation. The only way that is measured is by getting people to be able to help themselves and creating the opportunities to pass on to the next generation. That was done for me by my parents. That is something that I hope to do for my kids, and it is something that we all hope for. And it is not something we look for from government.

So I hope that we, over the course of the next days or time, pass this budget, which sets a blueprint down that not only measures our ability to deal with certain challenges. It sets resources aside to deal with challenges that may be unforeseen, and it recognizes that freedom starts with the individual. It does not start in this Chamber or in this document.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am transmitting a revised table for the current level status report published in the Congressional Record on February 1, 2006. As published, the table that compares the current levels of discretionary appropriations for fiscal year 2006 with the ``section 302(b)'' suballocations of discretionary budget authority and outlays among Appropriations subcommittees distributes the supplemental appropriations contained in the Defense appropriations act to the subcommittees that have jurisdiction over those matters. As revised, the table applies all supplemental appropriations to the subcommittee on Defense because they were contained in the regular Defense appropriations act rather than in a freestanding measure.

DISCRETIONARY APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006--COMPARISON OF CURRENT LEVEL WITH APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE 302(a) ALLOCATION AND APPROPRIATIONS

SUBCOMMITTEE 302(b) SUBALLOCATIONS

[In millions of dollars] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

302(b) suballocations as of Current level reflecting action Current level minus

November 2, 2005 (H. Rpt. 109- completed as of January 27, 2006 suballocations

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to recognize an Iowan who serves as a great community leader and role model for youth, Wilfred ``Mickye'' Johnson of Cedar Falls.

A native of eastern Iowa, Mickye has worked with the Classic Upward Bound Program at the University of Northern Iowa since 1988, and has been its director since 1994. Through his work, Mickye has helped countless students attend college and receive high-level academic instruction during their high school years.

In addition to his duties with the Upward Bound program, Mickye has had a number of volunteer roles with various groups, including the Iowa Commission on the Status of African Americans, the Iowa Community Health Leadership Institute, the Waterloo Community Development Board, the Iowa Child Support Advisory Committee, and the Methodist Church Administrative Council. Additionally, he has worked to promote business opportunities and community involvement for African-American professionals and leaders in the Cedar Valley community in Iowa.

Mickye's work on behalf of young people extends beyond the classroom. For seven years now he has been a featured speaker for my Youth Summit, which brings together students from all over eastern Iowa to learn about leadership, education, and teamwork. Mickye has served as a motivational speaker at this event, and he always gives a challenging and productive message to the students in attendance. He has often used the humor of a simple lemon as a prop to impress upon his students the importance of life skills and character education to improve their lives.

Mickye received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Northern Iowa, and also holds a Masters of Education Degree. A believer in lifelong learning, he is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from the University of Northern Iowa.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to recognize Mickye Johnson for his good work. His service and leadership in Iowa make him a role model for any believer in education and community service.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Representative Cooper Evans, who passed away on December 22.

Representative Evans served in the Iowa General Assembly from 1975 to 1979 and continued his service to Iowans in this Chamber representing from 1980 until 1986. He was a friend and colleague to many Members who still serve in the U.S. House of Representatives today.

One of the reasons I made the decision to enter public service was because of Cooper Evans. As a young student at Luther College volunteering for Congressman Evans, I was able to see firsthand his dedication to improving the lives of Iowans.

Following his service in Congress, he served as a policy advisor to President George H.W. Bush beginning in 1991. In that capacity, Representative Evans continued his service to Iowa by bringing his agriculture experience and offering his voice as a Midwesterner within the administration.

Representative Evans led an impressive life. He served our country during World War II in the Army Corps of Engineers, using skills he learned at Iowa State University. When the United States began to strive for its goal to land an astronaut on the Moon, Cooper Evans continued his work as an engineer, as NASA's Director of Lunar Missions.

In more recent years, Representative Evans worked to promote agriculture throughout the world and bring food to those in need through his work with Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance. This effort helped bring better nutrition and stability to those living in the former Soviet republics.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to pay my respects to Cooper Evans. He led a life of service to the people of Iowa. My thoughts are with Jean Evans and her family and friends, as they grieve for their loss, but also celebrate the life of Cooper Evans.

Mr. Speaker, I am transmitting a status report on the current levels of on-budget spending and revenues for fiscal year 2006 and for the five-year period of fiscal years 2006 through 2010. This report is necessary to facilitate the application of sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act and section 401 of the conference report on the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2006 (H. Con. Res. 95). This status report is current through January 27, 2006.

The term ``current level'' refers to the amounts of spending and revenues estimated for each fiscal year based on laws enacted or awaiting the President's signature.

The first table in the report compares the current levels of total budget authority, outlays, and revenues with the aggregate levels set forth by H. Con. Res. 95. This comparison is needed to enforce section 311(a) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the budget resolution's aggregate levels. The table does not show budget authority and outlays for years after fiscal year 2006 because those years are not considered for enforcement of spending aggregates.

The second table compares, by authorizing committee, the current levels of budget authority and outlays for discretionary action with the ``section 302(a)'' allocations made under H. Con. Res. 95 for fiscal year 2006 and fiscal years 2006 through 2010. ``Discretionary action'' refers to legislation enacted after the adoption of the budget resolution. This comparison is needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the section 302(a) discretionary action allocation of new budget authority for the committee that reported the measure. It is also needed to implement section 311(b), which exempts committees that comply with their allocation from the point of order under section 311(a).

The third table compares the current levels of the discretionary appropriations for fiscal year 2006 with the ``section 302(b)'' suballocations of discretionary budget authority and outlays among Appropriations subcommittees. The comparison is also needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act because the point of order under that section equally applies to measures that would breach the applicable section 302(b) suballocations as well as the 302(a) allocation.

The fourth table gives the current level for 2007 of accounts identified for advance appropriations under section 401 of H. Con. Res. 95. This list is needed to enforce section 401 of the budget resolution, which creates a point of order against appropriation bills or amendments thereto that contain advance appropriations that are: (i) identified in the statement of managers or (ii) would cause the aggregate amount of such appropriations to exceed the level specified in the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

It is interesting to listen to my colleagues who talk about the President's suggesting we invest in America and somehow they heard government only invest in America. Isn't that interesting?

I can tell you that my folks that I represent in Iowa, when they hear invest in America or invest in Iowa or invest in your community, they think that means them. They think that means Americans investing in America.

Unfortunately, we actually have people, ladies and gentlemen, who believe that when somebody says invest in America, what that means is take money from Americans, take it to Washington, invent fancy programs, fill fancy white buildings full of bureaucrats, create all sorts of bureaucracy and red tape and paperwork, and have those bureaucrats, with our blessing, invest in America.

Now, I do not know about you, but I heard it a little differently last night. The President and I, and those of us who agree with the plan that we have adopted this year, believe in and trust that people make better decisions about their daily lives and the investment in their businesses and their families and their communities much better than the government can for them.

We have a plan. That plan calls for growing the economy by letting people make those decisions with their money. We talk about money out here all the time as if it is our money. It is not our money. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the taxpayers' money. They are the ones who earn it. They are the ones who sweat for it. They are the ones who are concerning themselves every day about ensuring that they can support themselves, let alone being able to send a little bit of it out here.

And the reason why we believe, and it has worked, that we believe that reducing taxes actually helps us grow the pie is because the facts are in. In the last 17 quarters, as a result of us reducing taxes, our economy has grown.

We have heard people come out here today to say when you cut taxes it means the government is going to have less money. It is exactly the opposite. I think we need some of the President's science and math education for maybe even some of us. Because every time in our history that we have reduced taxes, the math shows us that the economy grows and actually more revenue comes into the Treasury. Last year was the largest increase in revenue to our Treasury, in a year when we reduced taxes. Now, you cannot explain that unless you understand basic economics.

Our plan calls for growing the economy and reducing spending, and that is exactly what we did this last year. We held the line on nondefense, nonhomeland security spending because we wanted to protect our country, but we knew we had to reform spending in the discretionary accounts.

Mr. Speaker, today marks the opportunity to close the books on this process, reform government spending.

Let me remind you what kind of government we have got. In so many instances, we have what I believe is an ineffective Katrina bureaucracy. We saw a little bit of that down in the gulf coast, but what we all know is that same Katrina mentality and bureaucracy permeates so much of our bureaucracy here in Washington. Unless we constantly are vigilant about ensuring that we reform government at all levels, we are never going to get our arms around fiscal discipline and fiscal responsibility.

Finally, this achieves savings, not cuts, not gouging people. My goodness, the kind of rhetoric you hear out here. We are trying to make a modest reduction, giving people at the local level, our Govenors and our authorities at the State level some flexibility so they can deliver a much better product for the people that we care about and are

concerned about. These programs need our reform. You cannot assume because you have always done it one way, just continuing it without this kind of oversight and reform will continue to get good results.

These programs have gotten good results in many instances, but too many of them are not achieving the results we need. We need those results. We can achieve savings. We have a plan to accomplish it. It allows us to do so by growing the economy, and I believe it is a fiscal plan that will continue to get us the success that we have seen.

In the last 2 years, we have experienced $200 billion of deficit reduction as a result of this plan. I have no doubt we will hear from one more speaker that will second guess everything that we have done, and I will remind that speaker that the President last night, while they love to quote him about everything else, also said second guessing is not a plan, is not a strategy. If you have got a plan, if you have a strategy, we would love to see it. But thus far we have not seen it. We have a plan. It is working. We need to adopt it today, and we need to get about the business of reforming this government, achieving savings and ensuring that the taxpayers are supported in this body.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a man who many in this body have had the distinct pleasure of working with during the past several years, and someone who has left a tremendous mark on the Congressional Budget Office. The distinguished Director of the CBO, Dr. Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, will be leaving his position at the end of this month to take on the challenges and opportunities of his new job with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Back in 2003, I had the honor of interviewing candidates and making my recommendation on who should be the next director to lead the CBO. And while I'd interviewed several superbly qualified candidates for the position, after meeting with Dr. Holtz-Eakin, the choice was clear.

First, Doug possessed a wealth of economic and public sector experience, having served as the Chief Economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers, a position to which he was appointed by President Bush in June 2001.

Second, based on his reputation as a man of unquestioned integrity, combined with his history of providing consistent, strong leadership, I felt confident he would effectively serve the whole of Congress in an independent, non-partisan fashion.

Last, but certainly not least, Doug is well known for his gregarious personality, and great sense of humor. And for anyone familiar with the always challenging and often thankless tasks regularly asked of CBO, these attributes are a tremendous asset to its leader.

And Doug's work these past few years has shown that my confidence in his abilities was more than justified.

During his tenure as CBO's director, he has effectively utilized the tremendous energy and talent of his staff. He has led CBO to make great strides in analyzing the impact of revenue measures on the economy. And because of his clear vision of how Congress and CBO could better work together, CBO's responsiveness and performance have improved significantly under his leadership.

I have been extremely impressed and very proud of Doug's leadership and accomplishments, and would today like to publicly thank him on behalf of this Congress.

Doug, we wish you continued success in the next chapter of your distinguished career.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the ordering of the yeas and nays on House Resolution 633 be vacated to the end that the Chair put the question de novo.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 640, I call up the conference report on the Senate bill (S. 1932) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 202(a) of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2006.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have a plan to reform the government and achieve savings. We present that plan to the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would just note for the record that it is now the break of dawn. It is no longer the dead of night.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume just to tell the gentleman from Maryland that our tax policies have created 4.5 million new jobs in the past 30 months. Our Nation's unemployment rate has dropped to 5 percent lower than the average rate of the last three decades. Revenue coming into Washington has increased this year by 15 percent, and we have reduced the deficit over the last 2 years by over $200 billion.

We have a plan. It is reforming government. It is reducing the deficit, and we need to pass that plan, and we need to stop just talking about fairy tales and Dickens and all sorts of things that are very interesting but are certainly not getting us to the results that we need. We have a plan to provide those results, and we need to pass that plan this morning.

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

Would the gentleman yield on that point?

Well, the gentleman referenced me.

Mr. Speaker, on the heels of reducing the deficit over the last 2 years by $200 billion, this year we Republicans passed a good budget plan, and it is continuing to work. This year, and we just completed the work, but the House of Representatives, under the leadership of chairman Jerry Lewis, passed its bills for appropriations on time and under budget. We just completed that work, and it is the first nondiscretionary freeze in over a generation.

We also committed that we were not going to allow an automatic tax increase on the American people, and Chairman Bill Thomas delivered.

We want to continue the strong economic growth and job creation, and it is working. And tonight we pledge to reform the automatic spending programs to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse, and eight committees stepped forward to do the hard work to bring us here tonight.

Mr. Speaker, we have a plan. They do not. It reforms important government programs and saves money for the hardworking American taxpayers.

Let us pass our plan, finish our work, and let us go home.

Mr. Speaker, I want to first thank all of the staff that worked so hard to bring us to this point in time and the leadership on the Budget Committee, and I would like to pay a special thanks to the floor staff and the official reporters and the clerk staff and everyone who stuck around with us on this very late day and night and into the morning. The sacrifices that everyone makes for us we really do deeply appreciate, and we give you our heartiest thanks and best wishes these holidays.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on S. 1932, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 just passed.