Floor Statements

This debate underscores the genuine change, the new direction that we are charting here in Washington. We are beginning to rein in these endless Republican deficits. The old Republican way of budgeting doesn't just crunch numbers, it crunches people. We are concerned not only about the fiscal deficit but the ``opportunity deficit'' that occurs in communities across this country when all the members of the community are unable to contribute their full God-given potential, when young people are unable to pursue higher education, when families are denied health care, when veterans are denied the services that they have earned.

There are two fundamental ways in which the Democratic approach to tax relief differs from our Republican colleagues. First, we believe it is possible to target tax relief to working, middle-class families without letting the super-rich piggyback along and claim most of the benefits.

Second, we say if tax relief is worth having, then pay for it. Instead of going to our grandchildren and borrowing from our grandchildren, we say go to the Grand Caymens. How about going to all those giant corporations that have dodged their fair share of taxes by going offshore and asking them to bear a little of the burden of our national security? So we provide the tax relief that our middle-class families need, but we do it in a fiscally responsible way.

Some people have imaginary friends. These Republicans have imaginary demons about what might eventually happen with taxes. This budget is a welcome return to reality, fiscal reality, and responsibility.

To those who are at home and are trying to determine who is right about these Republican claims of the demon of tax relief, I think we need only turn to a bipartisan group like the Concord Coalition, which looked at the budget, having no axe to grind except an axe used for cutting to achieve fiscal responsibility, and it said no tax increase will result from this budget.

I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this resolution.

You know, listening to these Republican complaints about this budget resolution, it kind of takes you into some sort of strange magic kingdom. They live by the first law of Disney, that wishing will make it so. They thought they could wish away the results of their tax policy changes, but we all suffer in national debt as a result of them. And no matter how long they wish and how hard they wish, they will not find the phantom taxes that they claim are increased in this budget resolution. We write our tax policy right in the black and white.

This year, additional revenues, zero. Next year, zero. The following year, zero. The following year, zero. The following year, zero. 2012, zero, but that year we still achieve a $154 billion surplus, the first time we will have a surplus in our budget since President Clinton left office.

You know, like Mickey Mouse and Tinker Bell, the Republicans are living in a land of fairy tales. But instead of imaginary friends, they've got imaginary demons, tax demons that come out. We cannot follow them on a path that is paved with fools gold deeper and deeper into national debt.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

Indeed, those are the true missed opportunities, 6 years of missed opportunities under this administration.

As the gentleman points out so well, our objective here is to respond to the legitimate tax concerns of middle-class families, but to do it in a fiscally responsible way. No more will we borrow from our children and our grandchildren to finance tax cuts for the wealthy few now.

Mr. Chairman, I know, the gentleman from California, serving on the Ways and Means Committee, is very familiar with what we have gone through in this last 6 years of Republican borrow and spend policies.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

So this balanced budget resolution is a pledge for relief for legitimate middle-class working folks who are out there that have concerns without borrowing to finance more breaks for those over $1 million.

I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

Let me say, I believe this is one of the most impressive, it can't be discounted as a Democratic group, because the gentleman is aware that the Concord Coalition is a bipartisan, nonpartisan group that has a Republican and Democratic co-Chairs. And they have said, again, in black and white, ``Thus, to be clear, the budget resolution does not call for or require a tax increase.'' It just demonstrates this imaginary demon that they have over here, which is about all they can unite around.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

It is really a debt tax.

That debt tax is a tax that gets imposed on all Americans, and that is a tax that we are eliminating by moving back to a budget surplus.

Of course, as the gentleman knows, that also jeopardizes our ability to preserve Social Security when you let that much debt and that much debt tax build up; and that is something else that we address in this resolution. We don't think when you talk about entitlements that just cutting grandma's Social Security check or reducing Medicare is the way to do it. We do need to come together on a bipartisan basis on entitlements. We could well have done that had President Bush not been so intent on privatizing Social Security.

But this resolution is well-rounded. That is why groups like the Concord Coalition have spoken out about it. And it is time now for the Republicans, like every child, to give up their imaginary demons and recognize they have done tremendous damage to our country in recent years. But if we work together on a bipartisan basis, it is possible for us to meet legitimate tax concerns, not increase taxes, and still meet the needs of our veterans and protect Social Security.

Madam Speaker, today, we belatedly honor the Education President by affixing his name to the Education Building.

President Johnson began as student Johnson, a Blanco County farm boy going to college in Hays County, Texas, at Southwest Texas State Teachers College. It was a time when he remarked that ``poverty was so common we didn't even have a name for it.''

He borrowed $75 to get his college education, which is one of the reasons he appreciated the need for strong student financial assistance programs. And he even took leave there at Southwest Texas, as it later became known, in order to teach school and earn a little money to stay in school.

Recently, we dedicated an LBJ museum in San Marcos to commemorate his years as a student there, recognizing that now Texas State University continues to provide quality higher education to students across the State, Nation and globe.

President Johnson continued his involvement as President with students. One of my own most memorable experiences as a university student was going with a small delegation of university student leaders to meet with President Johnson in the residence at the White House and having an opportunity to ask him questions about the important work that he was doing in Washington.

In 1994, I had the good fortune to be elected to represent the congressional district that Lyndon Johnson once served in this House, having served in the State Senate before that time.

With his own premature passing, we lost the opportunity to have his continued involvement in Texas, but we have been blessed, as other speakers have noted, with the active involvement of the woman we know only as ``Lady Bird,'' who continues now, even at this point in her life, to make public appearances and support causes for education and other good deeds in the Central Texas area.

Similarly, we are blessed that his commitment to education is reflected in the work of his daughter, Luci Baines Johnson Turpin, and his granddaughter, Catherine Robb, who are active participants in our Central Texas community. This family recognized that, as President Johnson said of the NATO alliance many years ago, ``There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few we can solve by ourselves.''

The importance of working together is true, whether our objective is to provide more children an education, guarantee seniors' retirement security or protect our veterans with the coverage that they earned and deserve.

As we name this building to honor President Johnson, I think that we share his commitment to the least, the last, and the most in need. All of us welcome this measure as a fitting tribute to a man who did so much for this country, so much for education, and so much to improve the quality of life for all Americans.

I thank the gentleman and my colleagues for this resolution honoring our friend, Ann Richards.

Despite the great sense of loss that so many of us continue to feel, I must say that the wonderful gathering that we had last year in Austin for Ann Richards was about the most joyous memorial service that I have ever participated in. There was so much to celebrate about this person, about this life.

Ann came to Austin in the 1970s. She was a true life force. She became our County Commissioner and our State Treasurer before becoming Governor. And during most of my tenure in Congress, I had the good fortune to have her as a next-door neighbor.

She had a quick wit, but she also had a very warm smile. And it was her smile, her warmth, and her sense of humor that could win over even the most ardent foe.

She believed in straight talk. Her candor about her personal life enabled her to tell hard truths in her political life. And in her waning months, she faced her battle with cancer with the same fighting spirit and the same sense of humor that defined her life.

I think that there are two places not often the focus of reflecting on Ann Richards' life where her effect is particularly notable. One is in our schools. Until January, I represented Ann Richards Middle School in La Joya, Texas. I could see how those young people from a poor economic area were enriched by their contact with Ann Richards and the inspiration that she provided them with her continued participation long after she completed her tenure as Governor. And, now in Austin, we are starting the Ann Richards School For Young Women. Its purpose is one that Ann devoted much of her personal life to--inspiring and serving as a mentor for young women. And now, in this school, many middle school girls will find that they too can fulfill their dreams and fully participate in all sectors of our society.

A former teacher, Ann knew what a difference quality public education could make in the lives of young women and young men, and these institutions serve to remind us of what she accomplished.

But the second place is with her family. She has two daughters, two sons, who are active participants in the life of our community and of our country. I think that they speak volumes about the kind of mother and the kind of family person that Ann Richards is, and they continue to live the legacy that she established.

She set high standards and inspired countless Americans to do the same. Her loss means that all of us who share her values must redouble our efforts.

Mr. Speaker, surely the smaller and less complex your business structure, the less complex your tax filings should be. But the tax code is so full of complexity that there is barely any room left for simplicity for even the truly Mom- and Pop-owned business or the couple who is trying to hold on to the family farm or ranch.

I am particularly pleased that this bill includes a provision to help husband and wife co-owned businesses that was taken from a bill that I co-introduced with the now Small Business Committee Chairwoman in the last Congress and reintroduced this Congress. My simplification provision has repeatedly been included in the Taxpayer Advocate's annual recommendations to Congress. Now it will hopefully become a reality. An additional benefit of this provision is to ensure equity for wives in these situations by giving both the husband and the wife credit for paying Medicare and Social Security taxes.

I also support the extension and increase of small business expensing, which allows small businesses to make significant capital investments--such as acquiring computer software or farm equipment--and deduct the total cost from income immediately, rather than depreciating them over extended periods of time. By reflecting the increasing costs of doing business, this provision will allow small business owners to build upon their all-American dreams.

As a result of this bill, many of the small Mom- and Pop-owned farms, ranches, and businesses that I represent in Texas will find tax season a little less taxing and a lot fairer. The Committee has shown restraint in drafting this bill. With the purchasing power of the minimum wage at its lowest level in 50 years, neither it nor these modest reforms to help small businesses should be held hostage to the endless appetite of some for another $8 billion plus in additional tax breaks.

I thank the gentleman.

This debate is late, very late, thousands of deaths too late. This escalation scheme is an unmitigated disaster.

President Bush seems determined to continue to make the same old mistakes, just make them a little bit bigger; defying sound military judgement; defying the Iraq Study Group; defying the wishes of our allies and the Iraqis themselves; and, most particularly, defying the will of the American people.

This President continues to pursue a go-it-alone strategy in Iraq. Like most every problem that he has created, and there are many, he seeks only to pass it along to his successor, who we will elect next year--pass along in this case what is no doubt the most colossal foreign policy failure in American history.

The administration's top budget official told me in a hearing just last week that ``the best minds in the Pentagon'' see no need to fund this escalation, which has not yet really begun, for more than another seven months. In truth, our military has been so overstretched that it cannot sustain a prolonged escalation, even when it unfairly recalls inadequately supplied troops for a second, third, and fourth tour of duty. Little wonder that the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Gates, admitted last week that he is already looking for another plan after this escalation falls short.

This week, this House, we say ``stop the increase.'' And next, we must begin the decrease with a phased withdrawal from Iraq. We should not act precipitously, but we must move very expeditiously to extract our troops from the crossfire of the warring factions in this civil war quagmire.

To our troops, whose courage we honor today in this very resolution, we say to you, those of who you who are out there on the front lines today, we will do everything we can to protect you; but we will also be working as hard as we can to bring you home safely to your families sooner rather than later.

There is a better way to show support for our troops than just sending more of them to be killed. There is a better way than continuing to give this President a blank check for war funding. Unless we move forward to place firm limitations on the appropriations, we will leave this war-making President constrained only by Dick Cheney's imagination.

The words of our adversaries in this debate have often been very short, but their true conflict is not really with us; it is with reality. They are in a losing war with the truth. Iraq has never been the central front in the war on terrorism. Like the alleged connection between 9/11 and Iraq, like the claim that Saddam's nuclear mushroom cloud was looming just over the horizon, this charge is but another falsehood foisted off on the gullible.

The central front on the war on terrorism was largely abandoned by President Bush in his ideological rush to invade Iraq. Vital resources and expertise that were needed to capture Osama bin Laden and the terrorists who caused 9/11 were cut in Afghanistan when President Bush ran into Iraq. The real war on terrorism suffered a major setback from which today it has still never recovered. That is the only ``cut and run'' that now endangers our families. Nor does this debate in the people's House embolden the enemies of democracy when we exercise democracy here in America.

To me, the terrorists seem mighty emboldened with their daily death and destruction that they wreaked across the Middle East long before anyone ever conceived this resolution. Frankly, it is the administration that is the terrorists' top recruiter.

As we predicted at the outset, this war is creating new generations of terrorists who view it as a war against all Islam. We cannot kill our enemies fast enough with the current policies creating more of them every day.

And now this President is stoking the flames of war with Iran. Ironically, that is the only country in the world to have directly benefited from his attacking Iraq. Widening the war to Iran with the macho slogan that ``boys go to Baghdad, but real men go to Tehran'' risks an even wider, even more destabling debacle that can eventually involve our families in a third world war.

Having failed entirely to learn any lessons from Vietnam, this administration seems to already have forgotten our experience in Iraq. Some here who profess to be conservative have been very liberal with billions of misspent taxpayers' dollars and very liberal with the blood of others in the sand of Iraq.

President Bush was absolutely correct when he personally declared his war in Iraq to be a ``catastrophic success.'' He has certainly been successful at creating one catastrophe after another in Iraq.

Our Nation is great enough with sufficient resources and creativity to change course, but each day we delay we sink further into a quagmire from which fewer and fewer choices remain. We must step back from the abyss

Mr. Speaker, as an active member of the Congressional Caucus to Fight and Control Methamphetamines, and a sponsor of this bill, I am pleased that early in this Congress we are addressing a killer that strikes fear in the hearts of parents and exacts great cost from our communities.

Over 10 million Americans age 12 and older are reported to have tried methamphetamine. In 2005, in Texas alone, some 250-plus meth labs were seized. Their dangers are not limited to the criminal manufacturers of this wretched drug or the consumers of this poison. Rather, these highly toxic labs represent a much wider threat. Even the remains of the illicit production of a meth lab can, by themselves, produce life- threatening injuries, death, and destruction of property.

Our votes today supporting the Methamphetamine Remediation Research Act are votes to protect our families, our neighborhoods, and support our law enforcement organizations as they attack the destructive impact of meth labs. We must continue to work with local, State and Federal law enforcement to ensure that we are combating this scourge at every level--that our local officials have the technology, the funding, and the support they need to detect these labs, close them down and clean them up.

I applaud the leadership of Chairman Gordon and all those who have worked on this piece of legislation. We took some action last year and there is much more action which is necessary, but this is a very important next step in our efforts against meth.

I thank my colleagues for bringing this bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, today we honor a son of Texas, Sergeant Henry Ybarra III, born and raised in south Austin, and a member of the parish at San Jose Catholic Church. On September 11, 2003, he was killed in Iraq, the first of a number from our State capital in Texas to lose their life there.

I attended his rosary personally, joined by Marine Thomas Cruz, a member of my Congressional staff at that time. Today we honor Henry's sacrifice to our Nation by officially affixing his name to the post office on South Congress in Austin, the road that leads up to our State Capitol.

Henry long knew that he wanted to devote his life to service. His mother, Mary Jane, remembers it as early as age five. His father, a veteran of Vietnam, would find young Henry marching around in his dad's boots and cap. Henry wasted no time making that dream a reality, enlisting in the Army only months after graduating from Johnston High School. That father, Hank, is at this very moment still convalescing from both his own service in Vietnam and the impact of the loss of his son. We wish him continued progress in his recovery, and express our deep gratitude for what he has given personally to our country.

Henry's military career spanned a dozen years, earning numerous honors and awards. He met his wife, Lilian, while stationed at Fort Hood in Killeen, and his career took his family with daughters, Alyssa and Gabrielle, and his son, Henry IV, as far away as Germany. His commanding officer described Henry's easy manner and said, I wish I had a troop full of soldiers with his attitude and outlook on life.

As Pericles once spoke of ancient Athens, so it is with our democracy today: ``If it should appear great to you, consider then that her glories were purchased by valiant men, and by men who learned their duty.''

With this bill, our Nation pays tribute to a valiant man, Staff Sergeant Henry Ybarra, and to all those valiant men and women who serve and have served under our flag. The veterans groups Tejanos in Action, the Catholic War Veterans Post 1805, the Knights of Columbus Council 10148, the American GI Forum, along with LULAC and other community organizations, have been strong supporters of the effort to memorialize Sergeant Ybarra by naming the South Congress station in his honor.

Tejanos in Action is a unique organization that addresses the needs of our Hispanic veterans, and by providing its services to our community, provides a meaningful tribute to Henry and others who have served our country. I salute Dan Arellano, the Commander of Tejanos in Action; Moses Saldana, who works closely with the Knights of Columbus at San Jose Church, and the Catholic War Veterans and all those who continue to serve and inspire our youth with their service.

Last year, I participated in the dedication of the Nicholas Perez Elementary School, as the Austin Independent School District recognized another brave son of south Austin lost in Iraq. Such memorials rightly honor men and women who have given their lives in service. They are daily reminders of both the valor of these young people and of our need to prevent war or its unnecessary escalation. With the death toll now rising towards 4,000 unique human beings tragically lost in Iraq, there may not be enough physical memorials to honor individually the sacrifice of all those who continue to fall.

For Sergeant Henry Ybarra and his friends and family, he will always be in their hearts. With this memorial naming, new generations will learn of Sergeant Ybarra's selfless sacrifice and be inspired by that service.

Mr. Speaker, let me assure the gentleman that after 12 years of Republican misrule here in the House, it will take much more than 100 hours to undo the damage. Today is a first step toward energy independence. It is certainly not the conclusion of what will be a long process that will involve all Members of this House.

We began this 100-hour legislative agenda with ethics laws to clean up this Congress--and it sure needed cleaning up--and we conclude it today with this effort to clean up our environment and clean up our tax code. Although modest, the CLEAN bill is truly a breath of fresh air.

Our oil and gas giants are experts at drilling holes. They drill holes into our earth to get the resources that we need, but they have also been pretty fortunate in drilling holes into our tax code and comingup with tax break after billion dollar tax break.

Allowing Big Oil to convert valuable public assets to private gain also exploits public resources, but we should not also exploit the American taxpayer. Leases should be set at a fair market rate.

Under the former Republican Leadership, Big Oil's best prospecting was not in Texas, not in the Gulf of Mexico, it was right here on the floor of the House and in secret meetings with Vice President Cheney. They prospected in Washington and they never came up with a dry well. It was one gusher of tax benefits and special privileges after another.

Now, we finally have an opportunity to rewrite a genuine energy policy. We don't just end unreasonable tax breaks in this bill--tax breaks that I think even most of my Republican colleagues, will admit were unjustified--but we use the proceeds of those tax breaks to focus on renewable energy, on energy independence.

We now begin moving toward using our all-American ingenuity for what could be a job creation program of new leadership in energy technology, in clean energy. That is our objective. This CLEAN bill is an important start to restoring fiscal discipline and embarking on genuine energy independence.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Across America, our Nation's young people are burdened with this President's misplaced priorities. With the debacle in Iraq, many of our young people actually give their life or their limb, and with the soaring national debt combined with the personal debt for the cost of going to college, many of our young people find that their future is already mortgaged.

Escalating costs for tuition, the textbooks, for the cost of gasoline to get to and from school and work, they all impact who can afford the opportunity of higher education.

It was Thomas Jefferson who urged public support of higher education, wanting the youth of all of our States to, ``drink from the cup of knowledge.'' But today, those students, thirsty for knowledge, confront too often a parched, unwelcoming desert of financial need and debt; and the last Republican Congress just made matters worse.

This bill represents a constructive step forward in making the dream of attending quality institutions a reality. It is a reality that will be there, now available, for 47,000 students each year in Texas who choose not to get a higher education because of financial barriers.

It lends a hand to working parents who want to earn a degree and provide a better life for their children.

It lends a helping hand to a young person who is the first in her family to see the inside of a college classroom.

And it lends a hand to middle-class Americans who struggle to save for college while their cost of living continues to increase.

A skilled, productive workforce is an investment in our future. We cannot afford to leave higher education unaffordable to so many of our neighbors.

Pass this bill because our youth are worth the investment

Mr. Speaker, today's bill is a genuine prescription for lower prices for our seniors that should have been adopted a long time ago. Too often, our seniors hit the donut hole paying higher premiums with no drug coverage while the big drug companies run off with all the dough.

During my service on the Ways and Means Committee, at every opportunity, I have offered an amendment for the same purpose as the bill we have today, to negotiate to protect our seniors and our taxpayers. But due to the power of the mighty pharmaceutical lobby and some late night shenanigans that happened right here on this floor and kept the Congress up all night to serve the interests of the pharmaceutical interests under the old Republican Congress, for the first time in this unique situation, we tell seniors and individuals with disabilities the government won't help.

Indeed, I asked the Congressional Research Service to look at every statute on the federal books, and, boy, that is a lot of them. And they looked, and they were unable to find any language anywhere in any federal law like this that says to the government, you can't negotiate better prices for taxpayers and for seniors.

So, today we should repeal that unreasonable one-of-a-kind limitation. For these Republicans to come out here who passed legislation to deny the choice of the government to negotiate to help seniors and today declare themselves to be ``pro-choice'' takes great audacity. To harm our community pharmacists the way their bill has harmed community pharmacists and now come and claim they are on the side of the neighborhoods takes real audacity. But audacity is something that is never in short supply from these folks.

They ought not to be afraid to do something to help our seniors and disabled just because Big Pharma says ``no.'' Put seniors and taxpayers first. Break the stranglehold of the pharmaceutical lobby and enact this legislation.

President Bush has been wrong at every step along the descent into chaos in Iraq, and he is wrong once again. The terrible price for his repeated miscalculations is paid for by the blood of the brave, by hundreds of billions of dollars squandered and by greater insecurity for our families. He has no new plan, just an old delusion. This isn't a surge. It is a costly, long-term escalation that only endangers more young Americans.

Apparently the only troops he will bring home are the many generals who disagree with him. He has rejected the advice of the Iraq Study Group. He has rejected military counsel. He has rejected the voices of the people and their elected representatives. And we must firmly reject his escalation of what can only be called a spend-and-bleed policy.

This bill is about hope. Scientists call them stem cells; but they are really cells of hope, the hope of a life with dignity, the hope of increased mobility, the hope of a time without pain, and the hope of a parent to spare a newborn a life of illness and impairment. With this bill, scientists' hands are freed to find cures for Alzheimer's and ALS, for cancer and MS and Parkinson's and much more.

Blocking this bill will not prevent the destruction of embryos, but it will ensure the destruction of hopes like that of the young 19-year- old Daniel from Austin, who wrote, ``Every day that embryonic stem cell research is delayed will be another day of my life confined to a wheelchair.''

How cruel to block hope for those suffering from lingering diseases that slowly drain away life and happiness and energy.

Publicly-funded, responsible stem cell research is coming. It is just a question of how many lives are lost first, of how many families will still be suffering before we here in Congress are able to secure the votes to pry open the politically inspired restraints that this administration has imposed on expediting the cures and the treatments long awaited by so many who are afflicted and those who care for them.

Affirm life today by affirming life-saving science. Vote hope over obstruction.

Mr. Speaker, the last time the real value of the minimum wage was this low, Elvis was singing ``Heartbreak Hotel.'' But these days it is poor working folks, who have the heartbreak when the minimum wage is not even close to being a living wage.

We need to take the minimum for wages and raise it, because there is no maximum for prescription drugs, for tuition, for a visit to the doctor, for filling up a tank of gas. Meanwhile, if the gap between the rich and the poor in this country continues to widen the way it has under the Bush Administration, we will soon have the economic features of a third world country. A CEO earns in two hours what hardworking people earn on the minimum wage in an entire year.

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., told workers in 1968, ``It is a crime to live in this rich Nation and receive starvation wages.'' And it is a great wrong to deny the nearly one in five workers in Texas who will get a raise as a result of this bill.

A rising tide does not raise all boats if some of them are anchored to the floor by Republican ideology. The kind of objections we have heard today is why it has taken so long to do so little.

After ten years of doing nothing for the hardest workers, let's approve at least this modest increase.

Mr. Speaker, on this historic day, the sun is shining brightly in Washington outside and today, finally it is shining inside this great Capitol building.

Normally, a New Year's resolution is a list you write for yourself. But the ethics package that we Democrats are now adopting was written by the American people at the ballot box in November. This January resolution is possible only because of the November revolution by voters who were, quite frankly, revolted by what they saw going on here in Washington.

Under Democratic leadership, ``Spring Cleaning'' is getting an early start here in January. We ban lobbyists-sponsored junkets and gifts and the use of corporate jets from jet-setting lobbyists like the tobacco company that even took one Member of Congress on a special flight to his criminal arraignment.

In Congress, an earmark too often is a secret means for a Member to funnel Federal dollars to special projects. Some are worthwhile, some are dubious.

When I talk about earmarks to my rancher friends down in Texas, they have a different earmark in mind. It is the mark you put on an ear of your cattle to identify them. By their very nature, earmarks are public, designed to identify ownership. I think we need some of that Texas thinking here in Washington. If earmarks can identify a steer, we are now able, through this new package, to know who is ``steering'' earmarks of federal tax dollars to some unworthy cause.

Ethics reform, of course, is not an end in and of itself. The goal of reform is to improve the substance of the work that we do here. It is to ensure that the priorities in Washington are genuinely the priorities of hard working families in San Marcos, Bastrop, Kyle, and many other communities across our country.

Because fiscal security is national security, we are also working to cut the ballooning federal deficit with pay-as-you-go budgeting; barring new spending provisions or tax changes that would increase our soaring national debt.

Our reforms seek to curb the cost of corruption. It is a cost that has been borne in the pocketbooks of our seniors who pay too much for drugs because of a drug bill that was designed by the pharmaceutical manufacturers, instead of designed to help those who needed help most.

It is the cost of corruption that is reflected in no-bid contracts in Iraq and in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina debacle. And it is reflected in the price that the jobless, the homeless, and the hopeless are paying for the corruption within this administration.

Mr. Speaker, accountability, so long lacking from this administration and the House leadership begins today.