Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman. I wanted to be here tonight because I

think so highly of Doug and Louise Bereuter. I have had the privilege of traveling with Doug and Louise, Betty and I have for the last 8 or 10 years, to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, which is arguably now in this age of worldwide global terrorism, one of the stronger links that we have with Europe, one of the most important relationships we have with respect to international cooperation and international help as it relates to our foreign policy.

I must tell Members, I know Doug has been a terrific representative for the people of Nebraska while he has served here in the House, but he has made an enormous contribution to this country. As my friend, the gentlewoman California (Mrs. Tauscher), said earlier, his diplomacy and his ability to relate with legislators, parliamentarians from other countries around the world, and particularly in the time that I have been with him in Europe, is something that is going to be sorely, sorely missed.

We need the cooperation, respect and the help of other countries as we attempt to lead the world in this war of international terrorism. Doug Bereuter has made a contribution presently serving as President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. And I want to pick up on something the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) said. When we go to Europe to the NATO meetings, Doug does not go as a Republican. I do not go as a Democrat. We go as American parliamentarians, American Members of Congress, to try to further our country's interests abroad.

He was a quintessential and is a quintessential salesman, a man who is respected not so much because they always agree with him or us, but because he always treats people with the kind of kindness, understanding, and commitment to their point of view that we expect them to extend to us. And so I just wanted to come tonight and say thanks in this formal way to Doug and Louise for their many years of service to our country and particularly for their leadership within the European sphere.

He is moving on now to the Asia Foundation, and I would hope and I know that his service there will be as rewarding and as fruitful to the country, to his country, to our country as his time serving in Europe has been.

I thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) for hosting us tonight in this tribute to Doug. We appreciate it very much.

Mr. Speaker, I come over here with a degree of sadness, because the rule prohibits the consideration of the Blue Dog substitute on budget enforcement.

The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) made a speech a while ago that I could not say any better about why the Blue Dog budget enforcement ought to be passed. My other young friend talked about spending. If we want to talk about wasteful spending, let me just talk about it for a second.

In July of 2002, the debt ceiling in this country was raised $450 billion. On Memorial Day weekend last year, it was raised another $980 billion. The other night in the defense bill, we had to raise it again, $650-plus. In the last 3 years, the debt of this country, the debt ceiling has been raised over $2 trillion. At 5 percent interest, what we have done following this economic game plan is raise taxes $100 billion a year every year, and my Republican colleagues want to talk about wasteful spending. I can think of nothing more wasteful than interest, because we get no health care, no military, no education, no nothing.

But it is even worse than that. Years ago, when we heard about the GDP, percentage of GDP and the deficit, they said, do not worry about it. Do my colleagues know who was buying our debt then? Americans. Do my colleagues know who is financing our debt now? Seventy percent of our debt last year was financed by foreign interests.

I am telling all of my colleagues, sooner or later, the hocking of this country to anybody in the world that will buy our paper is going to, if it is not already, become a national security issue. We are going to not only do a generational mugging on our children and grandchildren by what we are doing here now, but we are going to put future policymakers in a position where there will be leverage on them by foreign powers who do not see the world the same way the United States does in such a way that it is going to be a national security problem for them.

I can think of no other better way to control spending than to apply PAYGO to tax cuts. Do my colleagues know why? Because then, when we cut taxes, we have to cut spending. Now, we cut taxes, and I voted for some of them, but we did not cut spending. Spending keeps going up. If we are really serious about cutting spending, apply pay-go to both. Then we will have to cut spending when we cut taxes, and that is what the Blue Dog budget enforcement has in it. Without that, all we are hearing is rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric.

It has not worked. It will not work. And I tell my colleagues, when the American people find out what is going on here, I think they are going to be not only disappointed, but appalled.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that people are paying attention in this country to what is going on here today. Let us review the records of many here. We have collectively in this body borrowed with this bill, or this rule passing, over $2 trillion since July of 2002.

Now, let me say one or two things. When this administration came to town with a Republican House and a Republican Senate, all we heard is less government, lower taxes. And everybody agrees to that. But what have we gotten? We have gotten reduced revenues, more spending, and we are hocking this country to anybody in the world that will buy our debt.

The gentleman a while ago said we have to provide for the troops. You are not providing for the troops. What you are doing is borrowing the money from them and giving them the bill for it with interest when they get home from fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are not providing anything because we do not have the courage to do what every administration and every Congress has done since the War of 1812; and that is when we are in war, we have at least had the courage, we have at least had the honor, we have at least had the decency to ask people that are not risking their lives and dying and having their arms and legs blown off to help pay for it. You will not do that.

You come here, you borrow $450 billion in July of 2002, $980 billion in May of 2003, and today you want to borrow another $690 billion. Two trillion dollars. Interest at 5 percent is a tax increase on the American people of $100 billion a year every year. In the name of cutting taxes, you have increased taxes more than any Congress in the history of this country. One hundred billion dollars a year every year that has to come right off the top, for which we get nothing and for which we are sending checks, interest checks overseas.

Right now, we owe in hard money, not Social Security money, not anything, in hard money, $4-plus trillion. Since you have taken over the economic lifeline of this country, you have increased the debt that we owe foreigners from 31 to 37 percent of that.

You know who is financing the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq? It is the Chinese, the Japanese, OPEC themselves, Caribbean banking centers, $70 billion. Just Beijing alone has increased their holdings of American paper, that our taxpayers pay into the Treasury and then we send an interest check to Beijing, over 100 percent in the last 20 months. And you come down here with no plan to get out of it except to cut revenue, increase spending, borrow it all, and put this country in hock to anybody in the world that will buy our paper.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a remarkable woman, Kathleen Hyneman Elam, who will turn 90 on June 10th.

After graduation from high school in Corinth, Mississippi, Kathleen Hyneman moved to Washington, D.C. to work at the Treasury Department where she became a supervisor. She also met the love of her life while in Washington, Thomas French Elam. They were married in 1945 in Washington and later moved to Union City, Tennessee.

She and her husband, Colonel Tom, quickly became stalwarts of the community, encouraging businesses to move to the area. They were instrumental in getting the Goodyear Company to locate a plant in the area and it today remains one of the largest employers in Obion County. Kathleen was right by her husband's side in this endeavor, always ready to

entertain prospective business clients at a moment's notice.

Mrs. Elam is an active member of the First Christian Church of Union City. An avid gardener, she served as a member of the City Beautiful Committee for Union City. Her husband, Tom, died in 1998. During his life, Tom was a prominent supporter of the University of Tennessee. He served as a Trustee for the University as well as chairman of the Athletic Committee. After his death, Mrs. Elam continued his legacy of support to the University by serving on the UT Development Council and various other committees. Both she and her husband recognized the importance to West Tennessee of the University's campus at Martin and have made generous donations particularly in the area of capital improvements.

Mrs. Elam also supports St. Jude Children's Hospital, Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, Freed Hardeman University, Lexington Theological Seminary, the Masquerade Theatre of Union City and the Union City High School. As you can see, her philanthropic endeavors know no bounds.

One of her latest endeavors has been, along with Bill and Carol Latimer of Union City, to provide the building funds for a spectacular new library for Obion County.

While beset with health problems and confined to a wheelchair for the last few years, Kathleen Elam is still very much involved in her business endeavors and farming interests and can be seen almost on a daily basis surveying her concerns. A product of her rural roots and the great depression, Kathleen Elam is best known for her quick wit, grace, charm and unpretentious nature. She is definitely a shining example of the Greatest Generation, and a true asset to her community, her state and her country.

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

As I said last week, when we were debating yet another unpaid-for bill here on the floor, I do not believe the people of this country realize just how bad things are financially. My friend from Iowa said things are getting better. The governing majority here in the House took credit for balancing the budget when President Clinton was in the White House, and since the time that President Bush took the oath of office, they have set out on a fiscal plan that has so far borrowed $1.1 billion a day every day that we have had a one-party government in this country. With this debt increase, that figure is going to move to $1.7 billion a day.

So far this fiscal year, the government, the governing majority here, has borrowed and we have paid interest on, or so far this year we have paid interest of $100 billion in the 7 months of this fiscal year. That is $14 billion a month, $475 million a day, and $20 million an hour. We will have paid interest, by the time this debate is over, of $20 million. We, me, them, him, our children, our grandchildren are paying $330,000 a minute in interest just now. Right now, since I started talking, we have been writing checks of almost

$330,000, or $5,500 a second. The United States Treasury each day prints currency with a total face value of about $696 million. At that rate it would take 10,201 days, or 28 years, just to print enough money to pay off the national debt.

The gentleman was talking about the United States' full faith and credit. That is true. And I, to my knowledge, have, although protesting, have voted for this country not to renege on its credit. That would be a worldwide financial catastrophe. But we cannot continue on the path we are going. Most economists now say that we are in a structural deficit. This has nothing to do with recession. That is a cyclical deficit, and one that gets one by when things go bad. We are now in a structural deficit.

The reason we are in a structural deficit is because we have simply done this: we have cut revenue, increased spending, albeit most of it necessary, and borrowed it all. If it were not for the fact that this is a structural deficit, one might make an argument that this is good economic policy. But if one believes, as most reputable economists do, that we are in a situation that we are going to borrow into perpetuity, as a famous economist, Herbert Stein, said, ``What can't go on forever won't.''

There will be a day, and I do not know who the poor souls will be that will have to face it, but there will come a day when we cannot continue to borrow money because people will not buy our paper when they do not have the confidence in our economy and do not have the confidence in this Nation to make good on their borrowings.

Last year, we borrowed $370 billion. That was the deficit. This year, it is expected to be $500 billion. Nobody in this country has been asked to do anything in order to address this issue except the men and women in uniform who we sent overseas to fight for us. And what we are doing here in Congress is borrowing all the money and giving them the bill for it, plus interest. Now, if that is good financial policy, well, I have a different view.

If it was only borrowing money that we owed to each other, one, again, might make an argument that this is a matter of bookkeeping, but that is not the case. I just have the most recent figures about how much of our national deficit, how much of our borrowings are being financed by foreign interests. The Japanese, just last month, increased their holdings of our paper by $32 billion. Said another way, we borrowed $32 billion from the Japanese last month to finance this deficit that these young people are going to have to pay, and they are going to have to pay it with interest. The Japanese now own over $639 billion worth of our paper.

The United Kingdom increased their holding of our debt by some $16 billion just in 1 month. Mainland China increased their holding of our paper by $4 billion. They now own almost $150 billion. And you put that with Hong Kong, another 60, they own over $200 billion.

This list, Mr. Speaker, is mammoth. It goes on and on. We are putting this country in hock to the rest of the world by allowing these deficits to continue to run amuck.

I contend that this is a national security issue, and the reason I say that is because of something my grandfather told me many years ago when he was in the banking business. He said it is easier to foreclose on a man's house than it is to shoot your way in the front door.

We do not have to worry as much as we did because we have spent a lot of money in a bipartisan manner on our national defense. But we have to worry about our financial future, I contend, because with this unbelievable increase in the holdings of our debt by foreign countries, now 37 percent of the full $1 trillion or so that we owe, foreign interests own 37 percent of that. Of the $1.7 trillion that is owned by foreigners, central banks, that is governments and other public entities abroad, hold almost $1 trillion of that.

Now, there will come a day, and again I hate to talk about this but this is a national security matter, there will come a day when they do not see things as we do in the world, and there will come a day when they will either threaten to call their note when it comes due and insist on payment of this principal amount or threaten to dump it on the market. In either case, we are faced with severe consequences as a Nation.

I contend that if this keeps going like it is going, that there will be a time in the near future, not the long-term future, that we will be unable to act in the best interest of this country if we are so beholding to a foreign government, be it an Asian government or the OPEC countries. OPEC, for example, owns $45 billion worth of our debt. If they insisted on being paid when their notes come due, we would have to borrow that. And in order to borrow that, we will have to pay more and more interest as we continue to put the financial balance sheet of this country in less and less of a favorable light in the international financial community.

I was reading the London Financial Times the other day about it, and the people in Europe are very concerned about what we are doing in America. They are concerned because they know that we, as the leading economic power in the world, or were, that we cannot continue on this course. And this business of deeming the debt increase by a budget resolution is really a sleight of hand. It is a way for us to avoid facing up to the fact that we are continuing to go in debt, we are continuing to borrow money that we do not have, and that we do not have the intestinal fortitude to either raise money by asking people to pay taxes or cut spending. One has to do one or the other.

What my friend from Texas was talking about with regard to PAYGO is nothing more than saying, look, if you are going to spend money or reduce revenue, find some way to offset it. It is as simple as that. And all of us who have budgets in our family households know that when we get either a pay cut or our expenses are outrunning what our income is, we have to do one or the other. We have to get either more income or we have to cut our expenses, wherever we may find a place to cut them. This Congress is not facing that.

This Congress is not leveling with the American people to the extent that I believe is just not only good public policy but is the moral thing to do, and that is to tell people we cannot continue to borrow money in the name of the American people and borrow it not only from ourselves but now from foreign governments. That is a recipe for disaster. There is going to be a financial Armageddon if we do not figure out a better way to do things around here than to deem the debt ceiling raised by some budget resolution.

Nobody is talking about the economy. I am with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm). I hope our economy booms. But most reputable economists now say that we are borrowing money so fast, with this underlying debt that is so huge, that no matter what we do the economy cannot catch up to the amount of debt that we are piling on it. Said another way, our debt acceleration curve is going up faster than the economy can expand to catch it.

That is not a hard concept to figure. And once one gets that in one's mind, one realizes very quickly that if we were in an airplane, we would be in a death spiral. We have to do something different, or we are going to hit the ground. This is nothing more than common sense, and I just wish that the chairman of the Committee on the Budget would join us and say forthrightly to his colleagues and to anyone who will listen that we cannot continue down this path that is only going to get worse with the baby boomers coming on and with the things we know we have to face with regard to national defense and the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, and the war on terrorism.

We simply cannot continue to borrow like we have been borrowing. This $1.1 billion a day every day is going to go, if this passes, to $1.7 billion a day, in the last 4 years. Look, let me just say that in July of 2002, the debt ceiling in this country was raised some $400-plus billion. We ran through that in less than 1 year. On Memorial Day weekend last year, 2003, we raised the debt ceiling $980 billion. It is estimated that we will hit that ceiling sometime in August or the September time frame.

Now, when one is borrowing $1 trillion in a little over a year, that is an unsustainable financial course for this country. Our economy is not infinite. Our economy can only stand so much debt, just like my household can only stand so much debt for my house or my cars or for whatever I choose to buy.

And once we get past a certain point, we are unable, credit card debt, whatever, we are unable to do anything more than the minimum.

When we reach that point, and any of these foreign interests call on us for payment, then we are going to have to go to the world community and refinance it. And when we do, it is going to be a financial calamity for this country and for all of us who live in it.

That is why we are here tonight, not because of any politics. I was talking about this, as was the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), when the Democrats had the House and Senate, when the Democrats had the White House; it does not matter. There is only one financial balance sheet in this country, and that financial balance sheet is hemorrhaging every day over a billion dollars, and somebody has to face up to it. The fact of the matter is that this is a one-government town, and if they do not face up to it, it will not be addressed. Every day that goes by, it only gets worse, not better.

If we do this, we are going to go from an average borrowing of $1.1 billion a day since 2001 to an average borrowing of $1.7 billion a day. The interest we are paying is going to consume all of the available revenue coming in, so there will not be moneys available for health care in this country, there will not be moneys available for an investment in human capital called education, there will not be moneys available for anything except writing interest checks to people all over the world.

That is really a tragedy for this country, if it comes to that.

I would just plead tonight that using this budget, and I know it has been done before, but using that to raise the debt ceiling without an honest debate on our economic policy with respect to revenue and expenditures of the Federal Government is really a dodge. I do not think that is something we ought to be doing, I do not think, certainly, in the short term and, God forbid, the long-term interests of our country.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

No, Mr. Speaker, I did not say, do not pass a debt limit. I said it would be a financial calamity if we did not.

We had a Blue Dog budget.

It is one of them. It is not ``the'' solution. There is not ``a'' solution tonight that we can do. But I can say this: What we are doing is unsustainable financially.

It does not do any good to question me. I do not have any votes. When the gentleman talks about spending, the Democrats have not spent any money in this place for 10 years because we do not have any votes.

Mr. Speaker, maybe I did not make myself clear. What the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) is talking about is a situational budget deficit. What most economists are saying now is we are in a structural deficit. That is a huge difference.

If the roof falls in, sure you have to borrow money, but that is a temporary thing. We are not in a temporary deficit situation. We are in a perpetual deficit situation, a structural deficit situation.

I might tell the gentleman, after September 11, there has not been one single adjustment, as far as I know, in your economic game plan that you put in place in April of 2001. In fact, you made it worse. You started in April 2001, because we had a surplus, with, Let us give the people their money back. That was fine, except it was all based on a projection of surplus, and the money was not yet here. And you have not changed anything.

Circumstances have changed dramatically. We are spending money now

that we had no idea we were going to have to spend on September 10, but we have to spend it now because circumstances are changed. What you are talking about is, you have not changed your economic plan to adjust to a change of circumstances, and God knows, there was one.

We are saying we need to adjust our game plan to circumstances that have changed dramatically since September 10.

Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Democratic substitute recognizes the good public policy behind extending the 10 percent bracket. We believe that. But we also believe, unlike the majority, that it is irresponsible to do so by borrowing another $218 billion.

Let me talk a minute about why we say that. I do not believe that people in this country know exactly how fast the balance sheet of our Nation is deteriorating. I do not believe people in this country have focused on or realize what has happened over the last 36 months or so. I am going to try to lay that out today in this debate.

Mr. Speaker, we now owe collectively, all 290 million of us, over $7 trillion. We have borrowed an additional $280 billion so far this year. The majority approach is to borrow another $218 billion today with the passage of this bill.

The gentleman just said if you do not vote for this bill, you are going to raise taxes on 23 million people. If you do vote for the bill, you are going to raise taxes on 290 million people, because every American in this land is responsible for the mortgages that have been placed on our country over the last 36 months.

Mr. Speaker, it is heartbreaking to see the financial integrity of our country compromised like it has been. I would just like to know how far we are willing to go to sign the names of these young people that are sitting around here on this board today with a green light as a mortgage, a further mortgage on our country. I want the people of this country to realize that right now we owe collectively, in hard money, about $4 trillion. Foreign interests now own 37 percent of that debt. Mainland China alone holds over $200 billion. It is now the second largest buyer of our debt, exceeded only by the Japanese, who hold over $600 billion.

Secretary Snow was before the Committee on Ways and Means some time ago and I asked him the question, how do you characterize interest? He said, it is an obligation of this country. It must be paid. It must be paid off the top.

Mr. Speaker, when we are borrowing this kind of money and it is being financed by foreign interests, right now, we have awakened to suddenly realize that the biggest foreign aid package in this Congress is interest checks that we are sending to foreign countries. Not only are we doing that, but we are leveraging our country to people who may not see eye to eye with us on how the world ought to be.

Anyway, getting back to Mr. Snow, I asked him, what about interest? He said, it has to be paid. It has to be paid off the top. I said, it has to be paid first. He said, let me just say this: As a percentage of GDP, gross domestic product, this is not out of line historically.

The problem that he did not tell us is, when it was this far out of line before, it was Americans that were buying the bills, notes, and bonds. It was not the Saudis, the Japanese, the Chinese. We can go down the line. I have the list here.

How much we owe right now: Japan, $607 billion; China, $145 billion; plus Hong Kong, another 60 billion; so over $200 billion. The U.K., $137 billion; Taiwan, $50 billion; Germany, $45 billion; OPEC, OPEC, $43 billion; Switzerland, $41 billion; Korea, $37 billion; Mexico, $32 billion; Luxembourg, $26 billion; Canada, $25 billion; Singapore, and the list goes on and on.

This Congress and this administration is hocking our country to foreign investors.

Let me say that again, because I do not think people realize and understand what is happening here. Since 2002, the debt ceiling has had to be raised $450 billion. In July of 2002, a $980 billion increase the last Fourth of July, that is $1.4 trillion so far. Do my colleagues know what that means? That means every day since George Bush took office, when we have had a one-party government, White House, Senate and House, the Republicans have borrowed $1.1 billion a day, every day.

Now, we, all of us, have to pay interest on that, and anybody who is within the sound of my voice under 50 years of age ought to be so concerned about this that they would write or call or do something. Because we are literally squandering the wealth of this country by not paying for tax cuts and increasing spending on the war, and mentioning the war, the only people being asked to sacrifice anything right now are the men and women in uniform and their families. None of the rest of us are being asked to sacrifice anything to defeat the war on terrorism. In fact, we are told to take a tax cut if you are my age, and if things get bad enough, go shopping. This is the Alice in Wonderland that is going on here.

This bill is a good idea, but it is just a symptom of a far greater problem, and that is the breathtaking, breathtaking fiscal irresponsibility that is going on here in this town.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

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

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), I would like to say as far as the delegation to OMB, that was done under pay-go, it is a way of scoring, and if we do not have any other, I guess, arguments against the merits of the bill, they bring up procedural matters. I understand that.

I would also like to say, with the rate adjustment that we have in our bill, only 165,000 returns out of 32.8 million small business returns would be affected. That is less than one-half of 1 percent.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the minority whip.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from Texas, I would just like to say it does make it permanent, but there are conditions.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), my friend.

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

What this debate is all about is the financial balance sheet of our country. As I said in my opening statement, this bill is just a symptom of a far greater problem.

I really, honestly do not believe the people of this country realize when bills like this are passed, unpaid for, all of those green lights that go up there are in effect putting a $218 billion, in this case, mortgage, another mortgage on our country in all of their names; because these Members who are going to vote for it are not going to pay it, and I think that is wrong.

But it goes beyond that. It is now a national security matter, as I discussed earlier. When one realizes that 70 percent of the deficit, $370 billion deficit last year, was financed by foreign interests, they are gaining leverage every day on this country.

My grandfather told me one time, he said, John, it is easier to foreclose a man's house than it is to shoot your way in the front door. Now, you think about that. China is not always going to see the world the same as we do. Neither are the Japanese. Neither are any of these other countries around the world, because they have their own interests that they must see to. And when we are depending on foreign interests to finance record deficits, we are acting irresponsibly when it comes to the national security of this country. I firmly believe that. That is number one.

Number two, again, I do not think people understand that since President Bush took office, and we have had virtually a one-party government in this country, they have borrowed $1.1 billion every day. Now, if one were running a private enterprise like that, the stockholders would fire them, or they would be in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The only difference is, with government, we can continue to borrow on the good faith and credit of the American economy.

But let me get back to this foreign thing, because I think that really is something that people can understand. Did you realize that a former official of the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank in Beijing, and now an economist in Hong Kong was recently quoted in the Washington Post as saying the U.S. dollar is now at the mercy of Asian governments? In the London Financial Times I read where Europe is incredibly worried about the fiscal irresponsibility of our country.

I just did some figuring. Just so far this year we have already written interest checks of over $100 billion, just in the first 7 months. That is $14 billion in interest a month this year. Said another way, we are spending $475 million a day on interest, every day. Since we started this debate a while ago, we have since spent $20 million in the last hour on interest. That is $330,000 a minute or $5,550 a second that we are spending on interest for which this country gets no health care, no education, no military, no anything that will enable private enterprise to grow, flourish and create jobs.

They say, well, you know, if we can just keep cutting taxes, the economy is going to grow. Under that theory, if you abolished all taxes, the country would be filthy rich. Somebody has to pay at some point a minimum level of taxes to buy aircraft carriers, to buy tanks, to buy body armor. I think the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) said the free lunch is still being invented, and one cannot continue to reduce revenue, increase spending, borrow it all, and not expect to see a financial Armageddon down the line. How far down the line, I do not know. I know this: It is much closer today than it was when I got here 16 years ago.

And I know this: that the Chinese particularly will not continue to buy our paper at a relatively low rate of return to hold their yen, their currency, artificially low so they can kill us on the trade deficit. I know that that will not continue forever. And I know that sometime in the future, whether it is OPEC, Asia, or whomever, they are not going to view the world the same way we do. And by our actions here today, and again this is just a symptom of a far greater problem, by our utter refusal to ask Americans to either cut back or to pay for what we are getting, we are putting this country in real, clear and present danger with this foreign holding business.

I do not know how else to put it. I must tell you, this is not going to go away, and it is going to get worse with every passing day because we are now paying interest on interest. There is not a reputable economist that I know that does not say that our country is now in a structural deficit. This is not cyclical, where we have a recession. We are now in a structural deficit. The budget they presented, is $500 billion in the red this year, and they say, well, we are going to cut that in half in 5 years. But they borrow another trillion dollars under their game plan, which is the best they can do. At 5 percent, another trillion dollars is a tax increase on 290 million people of $50 billion a year every year.

Now, that is just on 1 trillion. They have already run through that, and now almost at $1.5 trillion at $1.1 billion a day. This is financial madness. And so when my friends complain about spending, the Republicans have controlled the House for the last 9\1/2\ years. The Democrats have not spent one thin dime. We do not have the votes to spend any money. We cannot spend any money, we do not control anything, the Committee on Appropriations, nothing. So when my colleagues talk about spending, I suggest they look in the mirror. You guys are the ones spending all the money. We do not have the votes.

So I just tell you, Mr. Speaker, our country is engaged in a death spiral financially. If we were in an airplane, unless we did something different, we are going to hit the ground. We cannot continue to do this. This bill may be good intentioned, but this substitute says, look, we have to pay for it. We have asked the top .02 percent of the people in this country to help us do that. I do not think that is too much to ask.

I had a friend who had an eighth-grade education. He was an old World War II guy who went out on his own and he made it big. I asked him one time, I said, John, what do you want to do in your life? He said I have two goals, two financial goals. I said, what are they? He said, the first one is I want to owe the bank $5 million. I said, that is crazy, man. He said, no, it is not, because if they will let me have $5 million, that means they think I have got 10. And he said, the other thing I want to do is I want to pay $1 million a year in income tax, because that means I made 3. And if this country allowed me, with an eighth-grade education to make $3 million a year, you bet I will be glad to pay a million for that privilege of living in this great land that I have known and I want to leave to my children.

What we are doing now is doing violence to what that man was willing to do coming out of World War II with an eighth-grade education. I just beg and implore people to think about this and let us see if we cannot work somehow together. I know you are going to mortgage the country for another $218 billion in a minute, but surely we can do better than this. This is an outrage to the future of this country and it is an outrage to those who came before us.

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

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay homage to a legend in my hometown of Union City, Tennessee, Mr. Edward Leon ``Shine'' Jessup.

Shine is being honored for his 40 years of service as an employee of the W. R. Case Company. But he has done so much more in his life. He was born on November 30, 1918, graduated from high school in 1936 and enlisted in the Army Air Corps in January of 1942. He entered the Aviation Cadet Program and went to Cadet Pilot Training in Arkansas and onto the Advanced Program. He got his wings in 1943 and was sent to the Overseas Training Unit.

Stationed at Rackheath, England, First Lieutenant Jessup flew a B-24, named ``Mis-B-Havin'' on 30 missions as an 8th Air Force Lead Crew Pilot. In February of 1945 he was stationed at Randolph Field in Texas where he taught cadets until June.

He received the Distinguished Flying Cross three times, the Air Medal five times, the ETO Ribbon, the Good Conduct Ribbon several times as well as various other ribbons.

He married Aurelia McGuire on May 1, 1943, in Jonesboro, Arkansas. They had two children--Linda Jo Jessup Jennings and Edward Leon Jessup, Jr.

After leaving the Army in 1945, ``Shine'' began his career as a salesman for Shapleigh Hardware Company in Waycross, Georgia. After a year in Georgia, he transferred back to Union City. He worked for Shapleigh until 1960 when he took a job with Witte Hardware until 1964. It was in that year that he began his career with the W. R. Case Company with whom he has been associated for the last 40 years.

Shine Jessup has contributed much to his community, his state and his country. As we dedicate the World War II Memorial this month here in Washington, D.C., I rise to pay honor to a very special veteran, and a long time friend of mine and my entire family, Shine Jessup.

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

I too am concerned about the total lack of process around here and what we are supposed to be doing. My concerns really do not go to the substance of the bill or the policies, but the total lack of process and the fact that we do not even have a budget by which we can gauge what our priorities ought to be.

I am going to talk about something here as a business person, that I am looking forward to this tax cut a week over the next several weeks, because I think it is going to give us a wonderful opportunity to explain to the American people what is going on in this town.

Generally speaking, when you are in business, you have a budget. You try to decide what you are going to spend money for and what you are going to do. We do not have that, so we come with these ad hoc tax bills, and the mantra seems to be that a tax cut generates money; it does not cost money. In fact, the majority party tries to apply PAYGO rules only on the spending side and not to the tax side. It is called a balance sheet. It is not a liability sheet; it is a balance sheet. You have to have both.

What I think they fail to understand is that a tax cut today with borrowed money is a tax increase tomorrow, and it is called interest. We are now paying over $300 billion a year in interest on the national debt. If that was all that we had to worry about, maybe we could figure out a way to pay that back with inflated dollars or in some way do something to get us out of this hole, if that is all we had to worry about.

I remember when Secretary Snow came before the committee and I asked him about interest. He said, oh, yes, it is an obligation that must be paid. I said, yes, it must be paid off the top. Everyone who has borrowed money knows about interest, and this bill today on the floor adds another $100 billion of unpaid-for tax consequences that we will have to begin paying interest on as we borrow it. Again, if that was as far as it went, maybe we could somehow justify that, if we had a budget, which we do not.

But Secretary Snow, getting back to him, when I asked him about interest, he said, yes, it is, but this is nothing to worry about, because the United States economy is so large and this is such a small percentage of GDP that the borrowings we are incurring today, we can handle them.

What he did not say was that back when we did have a percentage of GDP of borrowings this big, it was the American people who were funding the deficit, who were buying the IOUs of the Treasury. That is not true today. I want to tell the American people that this is a national security issue, and I hope I can explain why to them.

Last year we had a budget deficit here in this town of over $370 billion. Over 70 percent of that debt was purchased by foreign interests. Let me say that again: foreign interests are financing the deficit borrowing that this Congress is doing.

I just want to know, how far are we willing to go to mortgage our financial future to foreign interests? According to the Treasury Department, major foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities now total over $1.6 trillion. Over 34 percent of the money, hard currency, that we owe, is held by foreign interests. China alone holds over $200 billion. The Japanese hold over $600 billion. Furthermore, the Central Bank in Beijing has increased their holdings of United States debt by over 100 percent since 2001.

You would be amazed at what is going on here. We are borrowing money to cut taxes, indicating that in tomorrow's day, our citizens will have a tax increase because they must pay interest on what we are unwilling to either cut or unwilling to raise money for our needs, particularly those soldiers, sailors and Marines in Iraq.

We cannot even extend to them $100,000 worth of life insurance because they say they do not have the money, and here they are going to spend $100 billion, borrowing 70 percent of it from people around the world. As I say, I do not have any problem with the substance, but this is the wrong way to do it.

Let me just give an example. The Caribbean Banking Centers, we owe them $74 billion; Taiwan, over $50 billion; OPEC, who is raising prices, cutting production of oil, while gasoline in this country is $2 a gallon, OPEC owns over $43 billion worth of our debt. Korea, $37 billion; Singapore, $22 billion; Italy, $15 billion; Brazil, $15 billion; Thailand, $14 billion. We are putting our country in hock all over the world with this deficit spending that is going on, and sooner or later, let me tell my colleagues this: sooner or later those countries are going to say to the American Treasury we do not want any more debt, we are not going to buy at a relatively low rate of interest your paper any longer.

Do my colleagues know what is going to happen then? Interest rates are going to go up, because we are going to have to hike the interest rates that we are willing to pay for borrowed money so somebody somewhere will buy it. Again, that will directly result in a tax increase on the American people and particularly these young people.

We all are witnessing a generational mugging, because my generation is sending young men and young women to Iraq to fight a war, we are borrowing the money, taking a tax cut, my generation is taking a tax cut to borrow the money from foreign interests and giving them the bill when they get home, some without an arm, some without a leg. What is there to be proud of about what we are doing here? That is exactly what is happening.

Thankfully, the Wall Street Journal finally picked up on this national security argument I have been making for 7 or 8 months, about how crazy it is, foolhardy it is, and how dangerous it is to continue to borrow money from foreign interests. They said, ``Some would argue,'' in this Wall Street Journal article, ``that foreign countries would never sell off U.S. debt. However, economic history shows a number of times when countries have subordinated their economic interests to political goals and clout.''

Some day, I do not know when, in the future, China, Japan, any of these other countries that I read, the Caribbean Banking Centers, OPEC, you name it, some day they are going to say we do not see the world as the United States does, and we are going to either threaten to dump this debt or we are going to sell off, in which case it will have a direct effect on the markets of this country.

Thankfully, Wall Street is beginning to wake up to this national security issue of being held hostage and in hock financially to foreign interests who may or may not see the world as we do in the future.

I think again that there is no way to overemphasize how dangerous this course of action is. This bill is just one little symptom of a far greater problem that we have in this country and in this Congress, and that is the absolute unwillingness to ask the American people to sacrifice anything in the event of war. We are at war in Afghanistan, at war against terrorists, at war in Iraq, and nobody in this country is asked to do anything except the men and women in uniform, the Reservists and the Guardsmen who are fighting. Nobody else has been asked to do anything except take a tax cut, and when they see the terrorists flare up we are advised by the administration to go shopping.

This is really a sad day. This bill is a symptom of a far greater problem, and

I look forward to laying out how much we owe to foreign interests and what it means to this country if they ever decide to change their mind about whether or not they will buy our paper.

Mr. Speaker, as bad as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) talked about the gigantic size of the debt, that is not the worst part of it. A tax cut today with borrowed money is a tax increase tomorrow in the form of interest on the debt. One cannot have it both ways.

If that is not bad enough, that is still not the worst of it. The worst of it is this: This country ran up a $370-plus billion deficit last year. You know who financed it? Seventy percent of it was financed by foreign interests. Beijing, the Central Bank of China, has increased their holdings of American paper 105 percent since 2001. Now the Asians own almost $1 trillion worth of our paper. Every dime you borrow, 70 percent of it is being bought by Saudi Arabia, OPEC, Caribbean nations. I have got the list of people we are in hock to all around the world.

Sooner or later, I am telling you, sooner or later, you keep on doing this and this bill, nobody disagrees with the substance of it, you just will not pay for it. Sooner or later when they do not see the world as we see it, we are going to be in deep trouble. They will have control of the financial markets. They will have control of Wall Street because all they will have to do is call the amount of paper that they hold and we are in trouble.

I would say this bill is just a symptom of a far greater, more serious problem that is every bit as important to this country as any national security matter that I know of.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Madam Speaker, I spent 26 years in the National Guard. I know what some of these people in the Guard and Reserve are going through. It is of little use, I think, for us to claim that we are giving a benefit to people when all we are saying to them is you can spend your own retirement money without penalty.

That is a really pathetic gesture to people who are the only people in the country, active duty, Guard and Reservists and their families, the only people in this country who have been asked to sacrifice anything, anything whatsoever. The rest of us, people my age, I am now retired from the National Guard, are told, you take a tax cut.

We send thousands of young people to Iraq and all over the world. ``We will make any sacrifice.'' No, we are not making any sacrifice. They are. We are told to go shop and take a tax cut to help the economy. They are the ones that are making the sacrifice, and it is a shame that this is all we can do.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Chairman, I want to talk about something that is very unpleasant here, and that is what is going on in this town. Since 2001, when the Republicans have had everything, I want the young people particularly to listen to me, this country has borrowed over $1.2 trillion. With the budget that is presented today, they are going to borrow another $1 trillion in the next 5 years.

Two trillion dollars at 5 percent interest is $100 billion a year every year in increased taxes just to pay the interest on what they have done in the last 3 years. This administration and this Congress are raising taxes on the American people more than has ever been done in history under the guise of cutting taxes, because they are not telling you part two, and that is the interest that you and I are going to have to pay beginning tomorrow for all of this borrowing that they are doing.

I wish that was as bad as it was, but it is worse. Since 2001, foreigners, people who do not share the view of the world, of the United States, have increased their holdings of our debt from about 33 percent to 37 percent.

Let me say that again. Over 4 percent of $4 trillion hard debt has been financed by foreigners. What does this mean? It means that we are not only writing checks to interest, the most wasteful spending imaginable because we get nothing for it, but 37 percent of the interest checks we are writing are going to foreigners who may not have our view of the world.

My grandfather told me one time that it is easier to foreclose one's house than it is to shoot your way into the front door. This is nothing short of a national security matter.

I was speaking yesterday at lunch about some things that are going on in Asia. The Asians hold so much of our paper, over $800 billion worth of debt, and they are buying it at a rapid rate now, that I am not sure we can enforce what we may need to do in the interest of our own citizens because of the leverage that foreigners are gaining over this country.

We are going to be talking about that more and more, and this budget, if you pass it, is going to borrow another $1 trillion.

They are proud of the fact they have got a $500 billion deficit this year and they say the best we can do is to cut it in half in 5 years. The best you can do is cut that in half and that is borrowing another $1 trillion with interest at 5 percent, it is another $50 billion a year.

I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Last year, of the $370 billion that we borrowed, foreigners financed 70 percent of it. The Red China central bank has increased their holdings of our debt by 70 percent in the last 26 months.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2264, the Congo Basin Forest Partnership Act of 2003, that the House passed on October 7, 2003. As I said in my statement on that day, I have personally visited some of the areas that this bill will help to protect, and I highly recommend it to the House and hope that we adopt it again today with the other body's changes.

The International Conservation Caucus, of which I am a founding member and cochair, was formed in order to build support for the Congo Basin Forest Partnership initiative and to help with other international conservation efforts around the world. As members, we share a conviction that the United States has the opportunity and the obligation to advance the protection of the worldwide environment for current and future generations. The mission of the caucus is to act on this conviction by providing the strong U.S. leadership necessary to conserve the world's most biologically rich and diverse places. The Congo Basin Forest Partnership Act is one of the first steps in achieving our mission.

Our contribution under the act will focus on providing field-based conservation activities within 25 million acres in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Sao Tome/Principe. It is estimated that forest areas in the Congo basin are being depleted at a rate twice the size of Rhode Island every year.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 2264, the Congo Basin Forest Partnership Act.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in honor of Robert Sidney and Gail Phelan, fine public servants who have dedicated themselves throughout their lives as loyal citizens to our community.

The couple married in 1958, months after Gail had been crowned Miss Trenton. They are members of the 1st United Methodist Church of Trenton and the proud parents of Robert Sidney Phelan, Jr., Paul Edmund Phelan, and Mary LeAnn Phelan. Robert and Gail also have three grandchildren and two step-grandchildren.

Robert operated the family business, a Ford automobile dealership, for 50 years, before selling it. He has since started a smaller independent dealership. In 1963, Robert became the acting Postmaster while continuing to run his auto dealership. He also served in the Tennessee National Guard, from which he retired as a First Lieutenant. With the help of U.S. Senator Jim Sasser, Robert was instrumental in establishing a new National Guard Armory in 1991.

He has served as Exalted Ruler of the Trenton Elks Lodge and President of the Trenton Chamber of Commerce. Robert also served on the Trenton Rotary Club, the Gibson County Election Commission, the Trenton Housing Authority Board and the Trenton Industrial Board. He served on the board of Citizen State Bank, spending some of that tenure as Chairman. Robert worked diligently to form Citizen City and County Bank, where he now serves as Chairman of the Board.

The Phelans have always been devoted to the Democratic Party on local, state and national levels, including involvement with generations of Tennessee governors, Members of Congress and Vice President Al Gore. Their son Paul served for 10 years as a State Representative.

The family was instrumental in the formation of the Trenton Special School District and years later helped replace the aging school building with a new high school. Believing that Gibson County could support a satellite community college, Robert and Gail also helped raise money to fund Dyersburg State Community College in Trenton.

Gail has dedicated much of her life to the education of her children and others in our community. She has always been very involved in school parent organizations and takes an active role in making our schools better, including beautiful murals in school hallways.

Gail has not limited her helpful involvement to working with children, however. A cancer survivor, she has been an active participant in Relay for Life efforts of the American Cancer Society and has helped counsel others who are also battling cancer, using her own experiences to help comfort those around her.

Mr. Speaker, please join Robert and Gail's friends and family as we recognize their dedication and service to our community.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the accomplishments of a tireless public servant, Mr. Bob Sinclair. The service he has provided over the years through the Henry County Ambulance Service has touched--and saved--many lives in our community.

Mr. Sinclair is a decorated veteran of World War II and a former employee of the Tennessee Valley Authority, but it is his dedicated work for the Henry County Ambulance Service that makes him stand out among the rest.

He started his service on January 1, 1969, the first day of operation for the ambulance service, which was one of the first countywide ambulance services in Tennessee to also offer an emergency medical technician training program. Sinclair volunteered for rotating shifts so his workers could get the training they needed to become paramedics. The service was originally based in the Paris Fire Department, and hearses purchased from the Ridgeway Morticians were used as ambulances.

Mr. Sinclair remained diligent, however, and helped the ambulance service grow, becoming director in 1970 and remaining there until 1985, when the service was assigned to the Henry County Medical Center. Mr. Sinclair is now a member the HCMC Board of Trustees and has also been a longtime member of the Henry County Commission.

Mr. Sinclair continued to give his time and devotion to the Henry County Ambulance Service and overcame many obstacles, such as funding and vehicle replacement issues. He helped make the ambulance service what it is today.

Time and time again, Mr. Sinclair has given his time and dedication to his community, and this will continue to be appreciated. Mr. Speaker, please join me in honoring the accomplishments and dedication of a fine leader, Mr. Bob Sinclair.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of an American veteran, a tireless public servant, an outstanding citizen and a dear friend, Mr. Robert Bell Sims. Bob will be laid to rest next month at Arlington National Cemetery.

During Bob's long and distinguished career in the United States Navy, he served as a communications officer under two Secretaries of the Navy, then as the Deputy Chief of Information for the Department of the Navy. He also served on the National Security Council and the National Defense University.

Bob retired from the Navy in 1984 at the rank of Captain but did not end his service to our nation's defense. He served in the White House as Deputy Press Secretary for Foreign Affairs and was later nominated and confirmed to the post of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.

In 1987, Bob turned to his background in magazine and newspaper publishing, when he began fourteen years of service at the National Geographic Society. For thirty years, he was the owner and publisher of The Crockett Times. The work of his family and staff at the newspaper has long been important to Bob's hometown of Alamo, Tennessee, and indeed to all of us in Crockett County.

Bob is survived by his wife, Patricia, four children and seven grandchildren. My wife, Betty Ann, and I have long cherished our friendship with Bob and Pat Sims and are greatly saddened by Bob's passing. He will be missed. We know, however, that the legacy he leaves behind will never be forgotten.

Mr. Speaker, please join with me in honoring the long service, dedication and friendship of Bob Sims.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am concerned about the rule. I know that most Americans want to see us do everything possible to support our troops in the field and in harm's way, but there is $20 billion in this request that is full of fat and pork and is intended to construct, not reconstruct, infrastructure in Iraq.

I asked for an amendment yesterday that was not made in order to make this in the form of a loan. We have this notion in Tennessee that people who receive the proceeds of the loan ought to be the ones borrowing the money. I take the position, Mr. Chairman, that Americans have paid with the blood of young American soldiers. And the people who are going to benefit from this $20 billion largess are going to be the Iraqis, not Americans.

Let me say one further thing about this matter. Somebody has to borrow this money. Do my colleagues not think it ought to be the people who benefit from the proceeds of the loan? We are borrowing $20 billion, some of which comes from China. We had a $400 billion deficit this year. That is $16 billion in additional mandatory spending next year and every year thereafter on interest.

This leadership in Washington, D.C. is spending more money than has ever been spent before in the history of the country. They are not spending it today, they are spending it tomorrow, and it is called interest and it is going to wreck our economy and wreck this country's future.

So, Mr. Chairman, I think at least for now, with the blood of American soldiers being spilled, the least we can expect is that the people who get the proceeds of the borrowing ought to borrow it, not the American taxpayer.