Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise on behalf of the 43 Member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. We are a group of fiscally conservative Democrats that are committed to restoring common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government.

As you walk the Halls of Congress, Mr. Speaker, it is easy to know when you are walking by the office of a fellow Blue Dog Member because you will see this poster that says ``The Blue Dog Coalition.'' It says, ``Today, the U.S. national debt is, 8,887,793,986,597.86.'' And for every man, woman and child in America, their share of the national debt is $29,465. It is what we refer to as the ``debt tax.'' And that is one tax that cannot be cut, that cannot go away until this Nation gets its fiscal house in order. The Federal deficit continues to climb.

Mr. Speaker, it is hard now to think back and realize, but from 1998 through 2001, this country had a balanced budget; and yet under the Republican leadership for the previous 6 years, we have seen them rubber-stamp the President's budget year after year after year, giving us the largest deficit after the largest deficit after the largest deficit, record deficits. And as a result of that, we have seen the national debt grow to where it is today, approaching $9 trillion.

Why does this matter? It matters because the total national debt from 1789 to 2000 was $5.67 trillion, but by 2010, the total national debt will have increased to $10.88 trillion. This is a doubling of the 211- year debt in just 10 years. Interest payments on this debt are one of the fastest growing parts of the Federal budget. And the debt tax is one that cannot be repealed. Deficits reduce economic growth. They burden our children and grandchildren with liabilities. They increase our reliance on foreign lenders who own some 40 percent of our debt.

This chart here, Mr. Speaker, graphically depicts why the American people should be concerned about the fact that our country is nearly $9 trillion in debt. You see, our Nation spends a half a billion dollars a day, give or take a

few dollars, simply paying interest on the debt, and that is money that could be going for education, health care, veterans benefits, to properly equip our men and women in uniform and ensure that they've got the best body armor possible.

And this really graphically depicts it, as you can see. The red bar is the amount of money our Federal Government spends simply paying interest on the national debt. The light blue bar demonstrates how much money we spend educating our children. The green box indicates how much we spend on our veterans. And the purple box indicates how much we spend on homeland security. Again, you can see overwhelmingly our tax money is going to pay interest on the national debt.

It is time to get our fiscal house in order. It is time to restore common sense to our Federal Government. And once we do, we can begin to spend less of your hard earned tax money, Mr. Speaker, on paying interest on the national debt, and we can spend a lot more on educating our children, taking care of America's veterans, keeping our homeland secure, and the list of America's priorities goes on and on.

One of the co-chairs for the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition is Allen Boyd from Florida. He is our administrative co- chair. I am delighted that he has joined me this evening for this lively discussion about restoring common sense and fiscal discipline to our national government. And part of the way we do that, we believe, is through accountability.

Throughout the evening we are going to be talking about the budget, we are going to be talking about the debt and the deficit, we are going to be talking about accountability, not only at home, but also in Iraq, and making sure that the hardworking people of this country are getting the most for their tax dollar. I don't think that is asking too much. And I think it is very appropriate that on tax day we rise on the floor of the House to demand accountability for how the American taxpayer's money is being spent.

With that, I yield to the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Boyd, the co- chair for administration for the Blue Dog Coalition.

I thank the gentleman from Florida for his insight and discussing fiscal discipline and the budget and demanding that this Congress reflects the values and the priorities of the American people.

The U.S. is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign lenders. Foreign lenders currently hold a total of $2.199 trillion of our public debt. Compare this to only $623 billion in foreign holdings back in 1993. There is a chart here that pretty much shows us where we have been and where we are going. The amount of foreign-held debt more than doubled under the Bush administration. Starting in 2001, you can see how many billions of dollars we were borrowing from foreign central banks and foreign investors, and you can see how it has gradually increased all of the way through 2006.

Putting it another way, this President has borrowed more money in the past 6 years from foreign central banks and foreign investors than the previous 42 Presidents combined. You want to talk about a national security risk, I believe that alone is a national security risk.

We are already 60 percent dependent on foreign oil. We know that. We see it every time we fill up at the pumps. And, Mr. Speaker, if we are not careful, we are also going to become too dependent on foreign countries to fund our government.

I always enjoy David Letterman's top 10 list. I have a top 10 list. My top 10 list tonight lists the foreign countries that we have borrowed money from to help fund tax cuts in this country for people earning over $400,000 a year. That's right, year after year, for the past 6 years, we have continued to pass tax cuts, not for working families, but for folks earning over $400,000 a year. We didn't have a surplus, so where did the money come from? It came from our Nation borrowing to the tune of about a billion dollars a day.

And before we borrow a billion a day, we spend half a billion every day paying interest on the debt we have already got, money that could go to our veterans, to homeland security, to education, to health care. Some 10 million children in this country today are without health care. Instead, it is going to pay interest on our national debt. Where did the money come from? A lot comes from the Social Security trust fund.

The first bill I filed as a Member of Congress was a bill to tell the politicians in Washington to keep their hands off the Social Security trust fund. Republican leadership for 6 years refused to give me a hearing or a vote on that bill. Now we know why: Because they were borrowing money from the Social Security trust fund with absolutely no provision made on how the money is going to be paid back or when it is going to be paid back or where the revenues are going to come from to pay it back.

When you go to the bank to get a loan, the banker wants to know how you are going to pay it back, when you are going to pay it back, and how much you are going to pay back on a monthly schedule, and so forth and so on.

But the top 10 list, these are the countries that the United States of America has borrowed money from to fund our government in these days of reckless deficit spending:

Japan, $637.4 billion.

China, $346.5 billion.

The United Kingdom, $223.5 billion.

OPEC, yes, OPEC, our Nation, the United States of America, has borrowed $97.1 billion from OPEC.

Korea, $67.7 billion.

Taiwan, $63.2 billion.

The Caribbean banking centers, $63.6 billion.

Hong Kong, $51 billion.

Germany, $52.1 billion.

And rounding out the top 10 countries that the United States of America has borrowed money from to fund our government, Mexico, $38.2 billion.

It is time to restore fiscal discipline and accountability to our government. And a new member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition who is helping us do that in this new Democratic majority, we are demanding answers to tough questions, we are demanding commonsense be restored in our government. We are demanding that this new leadership governs from the middle, which is where we are as Blue Dogs and where we believe the majority of Americans are, and the new Blue Dog member who is helping us do that is the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wilson), and I yield to him at this time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his work within the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition in trying to restore commonsense and fiscal discipline to our national government, trying to give us a budget that will return us to the days of record surpluses instead of record deficits. Hopefully, as a result of the budget passed on this floor just in the last week, we will see this number start back down once again, because it is important; it is important that we put an end to deficit spending.

One of the ways we do that is through accountability. Let me just say that if we are going to ask the American people to get up and go to work and pay taxes, we as a Congress should be held accountable and the various Federal agencies should be held accountable to ensure they are getting the most value for their tax dollars, that we truly are doing things that will honor their work and ensure that we leave this country just a little bit better than we found it for our children and our grandchildren.

One of the leaders in the Blue Dog Coalition, in fact, one of the founders of the Blue Dog Coalition that has done a lot in the area of accountability is the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), and at this time, I will yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner). Thank you for joining me this evening.

I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for his insight and his leadership on the accountability bill to restore accountability to our national government.

Did the gentleman, I just want to make sure I understood the gentleman correctly, did the gentleman indicate that 18 of 24 major Federal agencies can't produce a clean audit of its books?

I thank the gentleman for his work on accountability within our government, Mr. Tanner from Tennessee, one of the founders of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for joining us on the floor this evening to talk about restoring common sense, accountability, and fiscal discipline to our national government.

Madam Speaker, as you walk the Halls of Congress, again, it's easy to know when you are walking by the office of a fellow Blue Dog member, because you will see this poster reminding the American people, reminding the Members of the Congress that today the U.S. national debt is $8,887,793,986,597 and some change. For every man, woman and child in America, their share, your share, of the national debt is $29,465.

Also, if you have any questions, comments on our Special Order this evening, I would encourage you to e-mail us at [email protected]. That is [email protected].

This is a Special Order being hosted by the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition talking about issues that we believe are important to the future of this country.

I am delighted to be joined this evening by a new member of the Blue Dog Coalition from the State of Indiana (Mr. Ellsworth).

I thank the gentleman from Indiana, a new member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition for joining me this evening and being a part of this discussion on how we restore common sense, fiscal discipline, and accountability to our government.

Mr. Tanner said it very well earlier in the evening when he said the American people are sick and tired of all the partisan bickering that goes on at our Nation's Capitol. I can tell you those of us in the Blue Dog Coalition, we don't care if it is our idea or the Republican idea. We are looking for commonsense ideas, ideas that promote accountability, ideas that make sense for the people back home.

Now, there are others that will come to this floor and talk about the Democrats being bad on this or so forth and so on, and there are Democrats that will talk about the Republicans being bad on this or so forth and so on, but the American people are sick of that. The American people get it. They recognize that we are all Americans first and we are in this together.

Talking about accountability, this is a bipartisan issue that I would like to raise in the closing minutes of this Special Order. The United States is spending about $9 billion a month in Iraq, which translates to about $275 million a day or $12 million an hour. However, even with all of this spending, many believe that the U.S. Army is not providing our troops with the most technologically advanced and effective body armor available.

If you ask 100 different people what they think about this post-war Iraq policy, you get about 100 different answers. But I can tell you that there is one thing that all of us, Democrat and Republican, should remain united on, and that is funding and supporting and properly equipping our men and women in uniform. This war has affected all of us. My brother-in-law is in the United States Air Force. He is in the Middle East region this evening.

Let me tell you that 2 weeks ago, one of my constituents, Mr. John Grant of Hot Springs, Arkansas, brought this issue to my attention. Mr. Grant has become an expert on the types of body armor that are currently available in the market due to the fact that his youngest son serves in the Army National Guard's 39th Infantry Brigade. Arkansas' 39th was recently informed that they could be deployed to Iraq by the end of the year. It will be their second deployment. I was there in Baghdad visiting them August 11, 2004, on their previous deployment, soldiers from my hometown, soldiers from throughout my district, people that I used to teach in Sunday school and people that, well, I have duck hunted with.

And they will be returning again, perhaps by the end of the year, and I believe that we owe it to this soldier, his family, and all soldiers and their families, to ensure that our troops are given the finest armor and equipment available.

This issue specifically involves the U.S. Army's recent testing and comparison of Pinnacle Armor's so-called Dragon Skin body armor and the Interceptor Body Armor, often referred to as IBA, currently in use by the Armed Forces. Because of equipment shortages in 2005, some troops purchased equipment at their own expense, including body armor, and Congress enacted legislation to reimburse these soldiers. However, months later, the Army issued a ``safety of use message,'' which instructed all commanders to ensure that only IBA brand is used by soldiers, prohibiting the use of any other body armor.

The Army's ``safety of use message'' also dispelled recent reports that Dragon Skin was superior to the IBA, citing that Dragon Skin has failed various tests and therefore does not meet the Army's requirements for soldier body armor protection.

Military support organizations, such as Soldiers for the Truth, of which Mr. Grant is a member, along with Dragon Skin manufacturer Pinnacle Armor, argue that Dragon Skin did not fail any test. They have stated that the testing was biased, and they continue to stand behind their assertions that Dragon Skin is superior to the IBA.

They point out that Dragon Skin has also been approved and is used by the U.S. Air Force, the CIA, the NSA, the U.S. Department of Energy officials in Iraq, the U.S. Secret Service Presidential Protection detail, some Special Forces units, and various police departments and SWAT teams around the Nation. However, our troops cannot purchase or use this body armor. I have even been informed that, as a result of this message, if a soldier purchases and uses any armor other than the IBA, this action will be construed as though the soldier has disobeyed a direct order and could, could, jeopardize his or her family receiving service group life insurance if killed in combat.

It is not certain whether this is true, but if it is, I completely disagree with this policy and believe that our combat soldiers should not be denied the use of the latest and most effective body armor if it will result in the preservation of their lives.

Therefore, for the protection of our troops, I am calling for a full investigation into whether the U.S. Army is using the most effective body armor for our troops' protection. We need an unbiased external investigation to determine whether the IBA is the most effective armor available. And if additional testing reveals that Dragon Skin body armor or any other brand is the superior product, then it should be provided to our troops.

I am extremely grateful to Mr. Grant for bringing this issue to my attention, as there is no greater obligation we have to our troops, who risk their lives on a daily basis, than to supply them with the most advanced technology and resources available.

I believe that we must demand that the most stringent test possible be conducted to resolve whether our troops are being given access to the absolute best body armor available. What might have been good in 2003 might very well be outdated today. My only goal is to protect our troops in harm's way by ensuring that they receive the most advanced body armor on the market today as they carry out their mission.

May God bless our country, may God bless and keep our soldiers safe.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Reverend Roy P. Smith of Little Rock, Arkansas. I first met Roy in 1992 when he moved to my hometown of Prescott, Arkansas, to lead the church that my family and I belong to, the First United Methodist Church of Prescott. During his 3 years in my hometown, Roy was my pastor, my spiritual adviser, and a leader in our community. By the time Roy, along with his wife Sandy, daughter Martha Helen and son Andrew left Prescott to move on to their next assignment up the road in Malvern, Arkansas, Roy had become one of my closest and most trusted personal friends.

My family and the Smith family will be forever linked together by a strong and lasting bond of friendship, and it is a distinct pleasure to have Reverend Roy Smith here today to open this legislative day in the United States House of Representatives with his thoughtful and meaningful words of prayer. As we go about doing the work of the people, may we remember the prayer Reverend Roy Smith delivered on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives this day.

Mr. Speaker, this evening, I rise on behalf of the 43- member-strong, fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know about you, but I believe the American people like me are sick and tired of all the partisan bickering that goes on at our Nation's capital. I can tell you that I don't care if it is the Democratic or Republican idea. I ask myself is it a commonsense idea and does it make sense for the people in Arkansas' Fourth Congressional District? Then I vote accordingly.

What we have witnessed on this floor this evening is a lot of talk, and I think it is time that we speak to the facts, the facts about the state of our Nation and how we get out of this mess that we have seen be created during the past 6 years when the Republicans controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate.

Let's begin by looking here at the Blue Dog Coalition poster. The Blue Dog Coalition is nothing more than a name for fiscally conservative Democrats. And as you walk the halls of Congress, the Cannon House office building, the Longworth House office building, and the Rayburn House office building, you will occasionally happen upon one of these Blue Dog Coalition posters reminding Members of Congress, reminding those who walk the halls of Congress that today, today, the United States national debt is $8,841,089,074,666.40.

If you divide that by every man, woman, and child living in America today, every one of us, our share is $29,326.47. It is what those of us in the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition call the debt tax, d-e-b-t, and that is one tax that cannot be cut, that will not go away until we get our Nation's fiscal house in order.

This evening, they have been talking about the budget for fiscal year 2008 that will begin October 1. Let's begin by talking about the budget passed by the Republicans for fiscal year 2007.

Mr. Speaker, I have got to tell you that when I came to Washington back in 2001, the first bill I filed as a Member of Congress was a bill to tell the politicians in Washington to keep their hands off the Social Security Trust Fund. That was back when the Republicans controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate. And the Republican national leadership would not give me a hearing or a vote on that bill. Now we know why. Because this year, under the budget that was approved last year by the Republicans for fiscal year 2007, the deficit, the deficit is $427 billion. That is counting the portion that they are borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund with absolutely no provision made on how it is going to be paid back, when it is going to be paid back, or where the money is coming from to pay it back.

We hear a lot of talk about the national debt. It doesn't show up much in most public opinion polls. A lot of folks think we can simply print more money. Oh, how I wished it were that simple. The total national debt from 1789 until 2000 was $5.67 trillion. But, by 2010, the total national debt will have increased to $10.88 trillion.

I know those are big numbers. They are big numbers to me. But I can tell you this: It is a doubling, it is a doubling of the 211 year debt in just one decade, in just 10 years.

Interest payments on this debt are one of the fastest-growing parts of the Federal budget, and the debt tax, d-e-b-t, is the one tax that cannot be repealed. And every man, woman, and child in America, our share is $29,326.47. It would take all of us in America writing a check that large to pay off this debt that has been accumulated as a result of the reckless spending we have seen from this administration and this Republican-led Congress for the past 6 years.

Well, as you can see, the current national debt, $8,841,089,074,666.40, again,

every man woman and child in America, our share of the national debt, $29,326.47.

Why do I raise this issue and why is this issue so important to the 43 members of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition? Here is why: Deficits do matter. Deficits reduce economic growth. They burden our children, our grandchildren with liabilities. They increase our reliance on foreign lenders.

In fact, I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, that we look here at the amount of foreign-held debt and the fact that it has more than doubled under the Bush administration. These numbers are in the billions. You can see how much was borrowed from foreigners in 2001, and you can see how much is borrowed from foreigners today. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the U.S. is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign lenders to fund our government. Foreign central banks and foreign investors currently hold a total of about $2.224 trillion. That is, $2,224,000,000,000 of our public debt. Compare this to only $623 billion in foreign holdings in 1993.

Kind of like David Letterman and his Top Ten List, we have a Top Ten List of whom the United States of America has borrowed money from, we are talking foreign central banks and foreign investors, to fund our government. Since 2001, this administration and this Republican-led Congress has continued to pass tax cuts that primarily benefit only those earning over $400,000 a year. They have done so while America is at war. Never before have we cut taxes when America was at war. In the past wars, we have had a shared sacrifice; and this war the only sacrifice being made is by our men and women, our brave men and women in uniform and their families.

I know this. My brother-in-law is currently stationed in the Middle East in the United States Air Force. This war has affected all of us in one way or another, and I know the kind of toil that takes, not only on him but his family back home at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington. Yet we have seen this administration, this Republican-led Congress, up until January pass tax cut after tax cut that primarily only benefits those earning over $400,000 a year.

Where is the money coming from? We haven't had a surplus. It has come, first, from raiding the Social Security trust fund. After they have gotten all the money they can suck out of it, they have gone to foreign investors and foreign central banks. Here is the top 10 list.

Japan: Our Nation has borrowed $637.4 billion from Japan to fund tax cuts for people in this country earning over $400,000 a year.

China: $346.5 billion.

The United Kingdom: $223.5 billion.

OPEC: Now we understand why gasoline was approaching $3 a gallon last summer. We have borrowed $97.1 billion from OPEC to fund tax cuts in America for folks earning over $400,000 a year.

Korea: $67.7 billion.

Taiwan: $63.2 billion. My friend John Tanner, one of the founders of the Blue Dogs, said it best when he said our country is in such a mess that if China does decide to invade Taiwan, we will have to borrow even more money from China to defend Taiwan.

The Caribbean Banking Center: $63.6 billion.

Hong Kong: $51 billion.

The United States of America has borrowed $52.1 billion from Germany to fund our government.

And get a load of this: The United States of America, our country, has borrowed $38.2 billion from Mexico to help fund tax cuts in this country for folks earning over $400,000 a year.

Those are the facts, not rhetoric, as we have heard.

Well, the Democrats are now in the majority, and it is now our responsibility to offer up a commonsense budget that puts America's children and families first again. Yes, we are doing it without raising taxes. In fact, we are proposing tax cuts. We are proposing a fix to the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is now eating away at middle-income families all across this country.

I think it is important to note that for the first time in 40 years, and this is not a partisan thing, President Clinton was born and grew up in Hope and Hot Springs Arkansas, two towns I am proud to represent in the United States House of Representatives. I am a 1979 graduate of Hope High School and live some 16 miles up the road from there now in Prescott, Arkansas, which is where Holly and I are raising our children.

But if you think back with me, it was President Clinton who gave us the first balanced budget in this country by a Democrat or a Republican, either one, in about 40 years. You can see that the debt added under President Clinton was $1.6 trillion. We actually had a balanced budget from 1998 through 2001. Then the debt added under President Bush so far, $3.9 trillion. This is an accumulation of gross national debt in trillions of dollars, the difference that we have seen.

How did that happen? Well, in the Clinton years, when we had the first balanced budget in about 40 years, one of the ways it happened was by the House of Representatives implementing what is known as the PAYGO rules, which means pay-as-you-go, something that we do at the Ross home in Prescott, Arkansas, something that we do at our small-town family pharmacy that my wife, who is a pharmacist, and I own, and something most families in America and most businesses in America adhere to. Pay-as-you-go.

Yet for the past 6 years, those rules were abolished on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. The PAYGO rules were not in effect, and we saw the largest deficit after the largest deficit after the largest deficit in the history of this country, which has totaled into the largest debt ever in our Nation's history.

I am real proud of the new Democratic leadership, because the 43 members of the fiscally conservative, Democratic Blue Dog Coalition went to the Democratic leadership and said we are in the middle, and we believe we are where America is and it is important to us that you govern from the middle, and they have.

There was a lot of talk about the first 100 hours, and we did a lot of good things for the American people in the first 100 hours. We did a lot of good things for children, we did a lot of good things for working families, and, yes, a lot of good things for seniors. We cleaned up the mess in Washington by passing ethics reform. We raised the Federal minimum wage for working families. We passed legislation to allow our government to negotiate with the big drug manufacturers to bring down the high cost of medicine for America's seniors. We did a lot of good things in the first 100 hours.

But the most significant thing we did early on, one of the first things we did in the first few hours of the 110th session of Congress, is we adopted PAYGO rules on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, meaning pay-as-you-go.

It means if you have got an idea for a program you want to fund over here, you have to show us how you are going to pay for it. You have to show us what you are going to cut over here.

Now, some Republicans seem to think that means that the way you pay for new programs is raising taxes. We saw the largest deficit ever in our Nation's history, year after year. We saw the largest debt in our Nation's history ever. And we saw all this money that the Republican leadership and this administration was borrowing from foreign central banks and foreign investors to fund tax cuts and to fund programs.

They were so out of touch that they forgot the idea that you could actually cut programs to fund programs, cut programs that don't work to fund programs that do.

You don't have to raise taxes to fund programs. You do away with the programs that do not work. You want to talk about waste? There is all kinds of waste in our Federal Government. I have about $400 million worth of waste sitting in a cow pasture at the airport in Hope Arkansas.

In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit, one the first things FEMA did was order tens of thousands of brand new, fully-furnished mobile homes. They brought many of them, 10,777 at one time, to the airport in Hope, which had these inactive tarmacs and runways that were World War II era, and they thought it was a wonderful place to have a so-called FEMA staging area.

The idea was they were going to come through there on the way to the

Gulf Coast. They all came, but they never went. This was 2005, and these mobile homes never got to the storm victims of Hurricane Katrina. At last count, FEMA has 8,420, 8,420 of these brand new, fully- furnished, not camper trailers, we are talking about mobile homes, 16 foot wide and 60 foot long, just sitting there. Just sitting there.

To try to get them to the homeless on the Gulf Coast, I raised the issue with the Inspector General at FEMA back in late 2050, saying, Mr. Inspector General, Mr. Director of FEMA, Mr. President, if you don't move these mobile homes off this cow pasture, they are going to start sinking and it is going to destroy them. I did that to try to get them off high center and get them to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

You know what they did? Mr. Speaker, do you know what they did? They showed up. They didn't move them. They showed up with $7 million. FEMA showed up with $7 million worth of gravel to put under them. This stuff is so crazy you can't make it up. And they continue to sit there today.

So the Republican leadership needs to understand when we talk about paying for something, when we talk about cutting programs that don't work and use that money to pay for programs that do, we are not talking about raising taxes, we are talking about identifying waste, like the $400 million, the more than 8,000 brand new, fully furnished mobile homes sitting there in the cow pasture at the airport in Hope, Arkansas.

That was one of the first things that happened on the floor of the House at the Blue Dog's insistence, as this 110th began under the new Democratic majority. And I am proud of this majority for listening to the 43 of us. It was one of our 12 points that I spent the last 2 years on the floor of the House talking about for meaningful budget reform. It was one of the first things implemented on this floor which will help us get back to the days of a balanced budget and a surplus, which is very, very important for a lot of reasons that we will discuss.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we look at the facts. The debt when President Bush took office, $5.7 trillion, the debt today $8.8 trillion. The debt added so far under the Bush Administration, $3.1 trillion, the debt projected at the end of the Bush Presidency is $9.6 trillion, the total Bush increases to the debt, $3.9 trillion. Deficits without the Social Security surplus. The OM budget deficit for 2007, $427 billion. The OM budget deficit for 2008 under the President's budget, $451 billion, one of the largest deficits ever in our Nation's history.

The cost of debt service. This is why it matters to every man, woman and child in America. The net interest for 2002 was $170 billion. You can see what's happening here. The net interest for 2008 is projected to be $261 billion. What does that mean? That means our Nation is spending three-quarters of a billion dollars a day simply paying interest on the national debt before we borrow another billion dollars today. Every day, our Nation starts off owing three-quarters of a billion dollars in interest payments.

Let me tell you why that matters. Because the interest payments on the debt are dwarfing other priorities. The red is the amount of money we are spending of your tax money, Mr. Speaker, paying interest on the national debt.

We talk about our children and how we love them and how we value their education. Look at how much we are investing in education in this country. Again, the red demonstrates the amount of money we are spending in a year paying interest to the national debt, which continues to go up to the tune of about $1 billion a day. The light blue reflects how much we do, as a Nation, value education. It reflects how much we are spending in a year educating our children.

The green. Oh, we talk about how we support our men and women in uniform on the floor of this House. And I hope every Member that gets up and says that does. You know, money speaks louder than words. Look at our priorities. The green represents the amount of money our Federal Government is spending on veterans, including a new generation of veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Look how that compares to the red, the amount of money we are spending simply paying interest on the national debt.

And this new buzz word ``homeland security.'' Oh, we all take our belt off and take our shoes off and go through all that at the airport, and we feel safer. Are we? Look at the purple. Look at how much we are investing in homeland security. Look at how much we are investing as a Nation under the President's budget, all of this is under the President's budget in keeping America safe, and look how all those, education, veterans, homeland security compare to the amount of money our Nation is spending paying interest on the national debt.

I represent a district about half of Arkansas, and about half of that is in the Delta region, one of the poorest regions in the country. We have a lot of hope in that region that someday I-69 will be completed. I-69 is an interstate that was announced in Indianapolis 5 years before I was born. I am 45. With the exception of about 40 miles in Kentucky and a few miles in Tennessee, none of that has been completed south of Indianapolis. Just to complete the Arkansas section that can create economic opportunities and help the Delta region realize an economic revival with will take some $1.6 billion. That's a lot of money we don't have as a Nation. Why? Because we are spending it paying interest on the national debt, a debt that continues to go up under these Republican policies and under this administration's budget.

As I said earlier, we are spending three-quarters of a billion dollars a day simply paying interest on the national debt. Give me about 2 days interest on the national debt, Mr. Speaker, and I can build I-69 through Arkansas and create all kinds of jobs and economic opportunities and help this poor Delta region recognize an economic revival.

On the western side of my State, folks have been waiting since I was a small child for the completion of Interstate 49. It, too, can create jobs and economic opportunities and open up the western side of Arkansas and complete the first north-south corridor through the middle of our country. I need $2 billion to complete I-49 in Arkansas. It's a lot of money, but it's about 3 or 4 days interest on the national debt.

We need new public schools built in this country for our children to be able to receive the very best education possible. We could build about 200 brand new elementary schools every single day in America just for the interest we are spending on the national debt.

My point, Mr. Speaker, is that America's priorities, education, veterans, homeland security, roads, infrastructure, are going to continue to go unmet until this Nation gets its fiscal house in order. That is what the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition is all about. We are about restoring fiscal discipline and common sense to our government.

This week, the Democrats are going to offer a budget that is fiscally responsible. Our budget adheres to the PAYGO budgeting rules that I talked about earlier and provides a commitment to the compensation of statutory PAYGO requirements. Our legislation, I should say legislation that was passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Bush, has increased mandatory spending by $262 billion over the last 5 years. The PAYGO rule, as applied to mandatory spending increases as well as tax cuts, will enforce much greater spending restraint than the Republicans passed over the last 5 years. And I have gone through the details of why in my presentation earlier.

The Democratic budget meets the President's levels of spending for national defense, very important to me and members of the Blue Dog Coalition. We've got to have a strong national defense. Our brave men and women in uniform are doing whatever we ask of them; and as long as they are willing and able to do that, it is our duty and our obligation to provide them the resources that they need to do their job as safely as possible. And it is also our duty and obligation to them to ensure they receive the health care and veterans benefits that they have earned as this new generation of veterans return from Afghanistan and Iraq. And the Democratic budget increases homeland security funding levels.

The Democratic budget reaches balance, a balanced budget by 2012, and provides for greater deficit reduction than the President's budget over 5 years. Total spending in 2012 will be 18.9 percent of GDP, exactly 1 percent lower than it will be this year and lower than it has been in any year since 2001. And, yes, that's Democrats offering that budget, a commonsense budget to restore fiscal discipline to our Nation's government. This is a lot different than how the other side tried to explain it.

Our budget provides accountability. If there is one thing our Nation needs as a government, it is to restore accountability to our government. Defense auditors estimate that more than one of six dollars they have audited for Iraq is suspect, including $2.7 billion in Halliburton contracts. The Democrat budget assumes substantial savings from more efforts by the Defense Department, with increased congressional oversight, to root out wasteful spending, building on just-passed reform legislation to reduce waste in Federal contracting.

You know, the Constitution of the United States of America gives Congress the duty, the authority to provide oversight; and for the past 6 years this Republican-led Congress has been nothing more than a rubber stamp for whatever this administration wants. That is not what the framers of our Constitution envisioned. I am not suggesting, Mr. Speaker, that we go on a witch hunt or start issuing a lot of subpoenas. But what I am suggesting is that it is time for this Congress to fulfill its constitutional duty and responsibility of providing oversight. And we have started doing that. No more flying into Washington on Tuesday and out on Thursday. You are seeing a new Congress that is cleaning up the mess, that is coming in on Monday and staying to Friday, rolling up their sleeves. And, yes, not just voting on the floor of the House, but meeting in committees and providing the oversight as required by the Constitution of the United States of America.

Also under the Democratic budget, the House committees will conduct performance reviews to make sure that government programs are working, and work to eliminate, yes, the Democratic budget will work to eliminate unnecessary and wasteful spending. Similar efforts saved billions of dollars under the Clinton administration which gave us the first balanced budget by a Democrat or a Republican in some 40 years.

The Congress will save millions of dollars by investing in efforts to identify and eliminate wasteful spending and improve government efficiency. Our budget addresses the permanent AMT reform. You heard the Republicans tonight talking about the Democratic budget is going to raise our taxes. We are not raising anyone's taxes. In fact, our budget calls for a permanent fix for the alternative minimum tax, commonly known as AMT, to provide tax relief, yes, tax relief, for middle-class families, without increasing the deficit, and reaffirms support for extending middle-income tax cuts consistent with the PAYGO rules, pay- as-you-go.

The Democratic budgets includes a deficit neutral reserve fund that provides the framework necessary for permanent AMT relief for America's middle-income working families. While our plan to permanently reform AMT is a revenue and deficit neutral approach, the President's budget calls for a temporary 1-year fix and contributes to the already out-of- control deficits. Well, providing a permanent fix to the AMT will prevent millions, yes, millions, of hardworking Americans from facing a devastating tax increase this year.

The Democratic budget, our budget, will cut taxes for America's working families. President Bush's failed tax policies have left us with a debt of nearly $9 trillion. In fact, Mr. Speaker, as you can see here, again I will remind you, today the U.S. national debt: $8,841,089,074,666.40.

Well, in taking a revenue and deficit neutral approach to reforming the AMT, our budget is taking a measured and responsible approach to cleaning up the fiscal mess in which our Republican predecessors have left us. Over the past 6 years they have done these things, and now we have asked for a chance the clean them up, and we are in the process of doing that.

The Democratic budget meets the needs of veterans. Very important. Our budget meets previously unmet needs for veterans by increasing discretionary funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs from $36.5 billion to $43.1 billion. That is a $6.6 billion increase over fiscal year 2007. That is an 18.1 percent increase over last year, and a $3.5 billion increase, or 8.9 percent over the administration request for fiscal year 2008. Over the 5-year budget, the Democratic budget resolution includes $32 billion more to protect the health and well- being of our men and women in uniform than does the administration's request. And, yes, we owe it to our brave men and women in uniform, a new generation of veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. And, as a Nation, we had better be there for them and provide them the health care and the resources that they need, because they are there for us doing what our Nation is asking of them.

The additional funds will allow the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide excellent health care, keeping up with the high rate of health care inflation, and the continuing increases in new veterans entering the VA system. In fiscal year 2008, Mr. Speaker, the VA will treat 5.8 million patients. Yes, America is at war, and we need to recognize it and we need to properly fund the Veterans Administration to provide the health care and the needs of our new veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our budget addresses the Veterans Administration's repair and maintenance backlog in the wake of a VA report that outlines 1,000 specific problems at VA facilities around the country. That is no way to honor our veterans. We have got to fix these 1,000 specific problems that have been outlined by the Veterans Administration, not only at Walter Reed, but all across this country.

Our budget increases efforts to address mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injuries. The Democratic budget also rejects the Bush administration's proposed enrollment fees and near doubling of prescription copayments for America's veterans.

Mr. Speaker, in the last half of this hour I want to visit more about this budget that may very well be on the floor of this House on Thursday. Our budget provides for a strong national defense. Our budget provides for robust defense funding levels while targeting resources on the most pressing security concerns. It increase funding for veterans health care and services by $5.4 billion above current services. The Democratic budget provides more homeland security funding than the administration and provides funding for the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Yes, we are going to fund the bipartisan 9/11 Commission recommendations that should have been done several years ago.

In the area of health care, our budget accommodates an increase of $50 billion to expand children's health insurance to cover millions of additional uninsured children. Mr. Speaker, we have 48 million people in this country without health insurance. This is America. We are the leader of the free world, and we have got 48 million people in this country that don't have access to health care. And who are these? Not the people who don't want to work. If you don't want to work or can't work, you qualify for Medicaid, which is a health insurance program for the poor, the disabled, and the elderly.

These 48 million folks, who are they? Ten million of them are children. Children. And the rest of them are people that are trying to do the right thing and stay off welfare and they are working the jobs with no benefits. We want to expand children's health insurance to cover the millions of additional uninsured children in this country.

Education. The Democratic budget provides a 2008 program level that is $3 billion over current services for education, training, and social services, which includes funding for No Child Left Behind programs, special education, and aid to help students afford college. Now, this idea of No Child Left Behind was a great concept, but it has become nothing more than an unfunded mandate for our local school districts, and it has forced our schools and teachers to spend all their time teaching to

a test instead of teaching our children how to learn.

This No Child Left Behind business is so messed up, Mr. Speaker, that we are spending the whole school year teaching a test, and then giving the children the test in March on everything that they were supposed to learn through May. It is my understanding the reason they give the test in March on everything they are supposed to learn through May is they have got to do it early, as in March, so that the people that grade the tests can get the results back by October so the school district will have it to write a report that is due in September on how they are going to make the school better.

And they call it No Child Left Behind. It needs some serious fine tuning, and we need to put an end to this unfunded mandate and fund this program and fund our children's education.

Well, the budget, as I mentioned, also will provide aid to help students afford college. The Democratic budget increases funds for Head Start and child care.

Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that we live in a country where we get to choose where we work, where we worship, whom we marry. One of the few things in life we don't get to choose is who our parents are. Some children get really lucky. I did. Some don't. But as a Nation, I believe we have a duty and an obligation to be there for all children. And, Mr. Speaker, if we will invest in their education, in Head Start funding, if we will invest in the early years of a child's life, we can turn them into a productive, lifelong citizen of this country. Compare that to turning our backs on them and spending $25,000 a year warehousing them behind bars. The choice is easy for me, and that choice is reflected in our Democratic budget.

Well, the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition in the past has had to write our own budget. Why? Because the Republican leadership wouldn't give us a seat at the table. They wouldn't listen to our ideas. They would not include our ideas in their budget. This year the new Democratic majority leadership invited the Blue Dog Coalition, the 43 of us that are fiscally conservative Democrats, to sit at the table and to help draft a commonsense budget that reflects our values, our priorities, and restores fiscal discipline to our Nation's government. We asked for several principles to be included in this budget, and I am pleased to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the budget that will be on the floor of this House on Thursday includes all six of the provisions that we asked for. Again, we are in the middle, America is in the middle, and as you can see, we are ensuring that this new Democratic majority governs from the middle.

Here are the six points that we asked to be included in the budget, and they have been: Number one, as we mentioned earlier, the Democratic budget adheres to the House pay-as-you-go, PAYGO, rule, a principle long advocated by the Blue Dogs as a solution for putting an end to deficit spending and reducing the nearly $9 trillion national debt. Republican budgets over the past several years included a net total of hundreds of billions of dollars in new mandatory spending. By contrast, this budget includes a net total of zero dollars in new mandatory spending. Due to its adherence to PAYGO rules, any increases in mandatory spending must be offset elsewhere in the government. That means cut programs that don't work. Don't borrow more money from China and Mexico. That key provision is included in the budget that will be on the floor of this House, the Democratic budget, on Thursday.

The second thing we asked for and got in this budget: The Democratic budget provides a commitment to the extension of statutory PAYGO requirements, a tool that was instrumental, as I mentioned earlier, in the return of the budget surpluses during the 1990s. Our budget resolution puts the House on record as endorsing an extension of the statutory version of PAYGO, pay-as-you-go, rules, which proved instrumental in bringing the budgets from large deficits of the early 1990s to the budget surpluses achieved by the end of that decade. We have now passed PAYGO as a rule in the House, and now in this budget we are endorsing it as law.

Number three, we asked for and received in this budget a provision for a strong national defense. The budget provides for a strong national defense and ensures that the protection of all Americans is the number one priority of our Federal Government. The preamble of the Blue Dog Coalition talks about fiscal discipline and talks about a strong national defense. It was important to us that we matched the funding request in the President's budget and provide increases in homeland security funding levels, and we have done that. The Democratic budget does that. It targets these resources to our most pressing security needs, and the budget includes an increase over the President's request for veterans health care and homeland security. That is the third point.

The fourth point that we asked for and got included in the budget: Unlike the President's budget, the Democratic budget is fiscally responsible and realistically reaches balance in 2012. Our budget puts an end to irresponsible deficit spending and has a better bottom line than the President's budget over 5 years by $234 billion and therefore accrues less debt and waste, fewer resources on interest payments on the national debt. Our budget holds the line on mandatory spending levels, putting our country back on the path toward fiscal responsibility.

The fifth thing we asked for and got in the budget, Mr. Speaker, provides for fiscally responsible tax relief. The budget calls for a permanent fix, not temporary, but a permanent fix, for the alternative minimum tax, AMT, to provide tax relief for middle-class families without increasing the deficit and reaffirms support for extending middle-income tax cuts consistent with PAYGO, pay-as-you-go, rules.

And, finally, number six, the last thing we asked for and got included in the budget: The Democratic budget contains tough program integrity measures to crack down on wasteful spending while ensuring that legitimate recipients of Federal funds and law-biding taxpayers are not penalized. That is what our new Democratic budget does. It will be on the floor of this House on Thursday.

Here is the alternative. This is what has been proposed by the President in his budget: The Bush administration has turned a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion into a projected 10-year deficit of $2.8 trillion. Under the last 6 years of fiscal irresponsibility, America's national debt has increased 50 percent to nearly $9 trillion, or $29,000 for every American. About 75 percent of America's new debt has been borrowed from foreign creditors, making our fiscal integrity a matter of national security. The national debt is up $3 trillion since 2001, and it will soar to more than $12 trillion by the end of 2012. President Bush has now borrowed more money from foreign nations than the previous 42 U.S. Presidents combined. Let me repeat that. This administration has borrowed more money from foreign central banks and foreign investors in the past 6 years than the previous 42 Presidents combined. You want to talk about a threat to our national security, there is one.

Well, the President's budget continues on the same fiscally irresponsible course. Under the President's budget, America's national debt will grow by $3 trillion over the next 5 years to $11.5 trillion, more than twice the size of the debt that the Bush administration inherited. Under the President's plan, deficits continue for the next 5 years. The deficit would increase by $24 billion in fiscal year 2008 if not for a growing Social Security surplus that is used to mask the true nature of the President's deficits. With honest and realistic accounting, under the President's budget, we have a deficit projected to rise to $464 billion by 2016. To hide this fact, the budget omits enormous costs, including the full cost of fixing the alternative minimum tax and the full cost for the Iraqi war, which is now costing us as taxpayers some $12 million an hour.

$2.5 billion a week it costs us, $9 billion a month.

The President's budget cuts domestic purchasing power by $114 billion over 5 years. Well, the President's budget omits the full cost of the administration's policy in Iraq and Afghanistan,

which means the President will come back, as he did last week, asking for more emergency spending, asking for more supplemental measures, another way of trying to hide the true cost of the war in Iraq.

The President's budget only provides $50 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after fiscal year 2008, yet last week he asked for $95 billion just to get through the rest of this year. Despite the numerous underestimations provided in years past and the nearly half a trillion dollars spent already, again he has come in and underestimated the amount of money that will be needed for fiscal year 2008 in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The administration's budget discontinues the funding after just a down payment for 2009, even though the administration is increasing troop strengths and has no current plans to scale back operations in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Mr. Speaker, a recent CBO, Congressional Budget Office, scenario estimated war costs for Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terrorism, could be as much as $603 billion higher over 10 years than what is included in the administration's budget. The President's budget uses rosy assumptions that boost the bottom line. The President's 2008 budget relies on unrealistically rosy assumptions that the economy will grow its way back to a budget surplus.

For example, in 2012 it assumes revenues that are $155 billion higher than comparable projections made by CBO, the Congressional Budget Office. Without these optimistic assumptions, a claimed 2012 surplus of $61 billion becomes a $94 billion deficit.

The President's budget fails to address permanent AMT reform. The President's budget includes only a 1 year fix for the Alternative Minimum Tax. This will allow the number of taxpayers affected by the AMT to skyrocket from 3.5 million in 2006 to 26.5 million in 2008, and represents a $247 billion tax increase on middle class families over the next 5 years. That is in the budget President's budget, a $247 billion tax increase on middle-class families over the next 5 years.

Forty-three members of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog coalition do not support tax increases like the one found here in the President's budget. The AMT has been deliberately used by the Bush administration to mask, to hide, the cost of its tax cuts, which have been paid for by the middle-class.

The AMT has also taken back a large portion of the Bush tax cuts promised for middle-class families. In 2001, an act provided marriage penalty relief by increasing the standard deduction and the size of the 15 percent tax bracket, but it did not reduce the marriage penalty contained in the AMT. In essence the 2001 act did not provide marriage penalty relief for many married taxpayers.

Democrats are going to fix that in the budget voted on on the floor of this House on Thursday. It remains unfixed, however, in the President's budget.

Congress has recently enacted a series of temporary fixes that limited the expansion of the AMT, Alternative Minimum Tax, to about 4 million taxpayers. But if left unchanged, next year the AMT will become a burden on the pocketbooks of millions of middle-class Americans.

Well, the President's budget also includes additional hidden taxes and fee increases. For example, the President's budget raises taxes on about 30 million families with employer-provided health insurance by over $300 billion over 10 years. The President's plan will result in a growing proportion of seniors paying higher Medicare premiums every year by eliminating indexing of the income related premium and extending it to the Medicare prescription drug benefit. These proposals will increase premiums paid by seniors to the tune of $5.5 billion over the next 5 years.

Veterans, I told you what the Democratic budget is going to do for veterans. Let's look at the President's. The President's budget proposes new enrollment fees and increases copayments for veterans healthcare. These fee collections will cost veterans $2.3 billion from 2008 to 2012.

The President's budget also imposes medical fees on TRICARE, the health insurance plan for military retirees under the age of 65. The increased fees imposed on military retirees will amount to $1.9 billion in 2008 and $14.5 billion over 5 years.

The President's budget eliminates, doesn't cut, it eliminates, a $9 million traumatic brain injury program at a time when hundreds of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are returning home needing help as a result of these traumatic brain injuries.

Education. We talked about what the Democratic budget will do for education. Let's look at the President's. The President's budget cuts funding for elementary and secondary education, denying 3.2 million children the extra reading and math help they were promised by the so- called No Child Left Behind Act.

The Bush budget eliminates higher education programs designed to help lower income students afford college, including the Perkins loans, the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant Program and the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership Program. Approximately 1.5 million students would lose financial aid awards as a result of these Bush higher education cuts.

Mr. Speaker, the Bush budget eliminates, not cuts, it does not cut, it eliminates 44 education programs, including Supplemental Opportunity Education Grants, Education Technology, Even Start, Ready to Teach, school counseling, mentoring and school drop out prevention.

The President's budget cuts, I am sorry, it doesn't cut, it eliminates, 44 education programs that can help to lift up our young people. The President's budget cuts discretionary education funding by $1.5 billion, or 2.6 percent below fiscal year 2007.

Well, the President's budget also reduces the availability of low cost loans for financially needy students by proposing to recall $419 million from Perkins loan revolving funds held by 1,315 colleges and universities. This will be the first step toward recalling $3.2 billion over 5 years from these revolving funds, which are used to provide low income loans averaging $2,000 to financially needy students.

The President's budget eliminates the $771 million Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant Program and the $65 million Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership Program, both of which help lower income students afford a higher education.

Overall, Mr. Speaker, approximately 1.5 million students would lose financial aid awards as a result of these Bush higher education cuts.

The Bush budget cuts funding for Head Start by $100 million. If enacted, this cut in the President's budget means that up to 13,500 children will be cut from the program next year.

There are cuts to healthcare. There are so many cuts. There are cuts to agriculture. There are cuts to homeland security.

Mr. Speaker, I know as our time winds down that it is important that we look at the President's budget, it is important that we look at the Democratic budget and that we ask ourself, which one reflects our values, our priorities? Which one reflects America's values and priorities?

I am proud that this new Democratic majority on the Budget Committee, under the leadership of Chairman Spratt, that they sat with us, 43 member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition and gave us input in helping write a common sense budget that meets America's values and priorities, while restoring common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government.

And I hope on Thursday, Mr. Speaker, we will see this budget, this commonsense budget pass that does reflect our values. It relates to our children and education, to our working families, to our seniors and their security, their Social Security and their retirement security and their health care security, and to children, some 10 million without health insurance tonight.

It is a commonsense budget that can help us return to the days of a balanced budget, that can help us put an end to this deficit spending, that can help us put an end to this reckless spending that we have seen for the past 6 years occur day after day on the floor of this House Chamber.

Mr. Speaker, as I close this evening, I remind you that as you walk the halls of Congress, as you walk the

House Office Buildings, you will note this Blue Dog Coalition poster reminding every Member of Congress and those who walk the halls that today the U.S. national debt is $8,841,089,074,666.40. And every one of us, every man, woman and child in America, our share is $29,326.47.

Mr. Speaker, I submit to you that it is our duty and obligation to restore fiscal discipline to our national government; and that when we leave here someday we will be able to say to our children and grandchildren that we helped make this country a better place for all of us to call home.

With that, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the 43 member strong, fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 41 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, March 28, 2007, at 10 a.m.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Staff Sergeant Justin M. Estes of Sims, Arkansas; who died on March 5, 2007, fighting for our country in Iraq while supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Staff Sergeant Justin Estes was 25 years old when he selflessly gave his life for his country during combat operations.

After graduating from Oden High School where he played basketball and baseball, Staff Sergeant Estes joined the Army where he would serve in South Korea, Germany, Iraq and Macedonia. Staff Sergeant Estes was a member of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., where he was assigned to C Company, 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He was serving his second tour of duty in Iraq.

Staff Sergeant Justin Estes gave his life to serve our country and will forever be remembered as a hero, a son and a friend. My deepest condolences go out to his mother and stepfather, Diane and John Salyers of Sims; his father and stepmother, Don and Cathy Estes of Harrodsburg, Kentucky; his two sisters, Norma and Kelli Estes; his grandparents, John and Clazina Visser and Joe Barry; and to his aunts, uncles and cousins. He will be missed by his family, his community and all those who knew him and called him a friend. I will continue to keep Staff Sergeant Justin Estes and his family in my deepest thoughts and prayers.

Thank you, Chairman Grijalva.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 138, a resolution honoring and recognizing the importance of Hot Springs National Park on its 175th anniversary. I am pleased that the entire Arkansas congressional delegation is supporting and cosponsoring this bipartisan bill.

April 20, 2007, will mark the 175th anniversary of Hot Springs National Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas. This resolution will write into history the important role that Hot Springs National Park has played in the formation of the Department of the Interior and the National Park System.

The very idea of setting aside special places in the United States for the future enjoyment of its citizens originated in Hot Springs, Arkansas, when on April 20, 1832, President Andrew Jackson and the United States Congress established Hot Springs Reservation to protect the 47 hot springs in Garland County, Arkansas. That year, Hot Springs Reservation became the first protected area in the Nation and was the only Federal area mentioned by name in the act that established the National Park System.

The Hot Springs Reservation was then officially renamed Hot Springs National Park on March 4, 1921, becoming America's 18th national park, joining many other national landmarks.

For more than 200 years, Hot Springs National Park has remained an area of exceptional beauty and magnificence. People have used the hot spring water and therapeutic baths to treat a variety of ailments, and the reservation eventually developed into a well-known resort nicknamed ``the American Spa.'' Well, today Hot Springs National Park protects eight historic bathhouses, and the Bathhouse Row area in Hot Springs National Park is a national historic landmark district that contains the largest collection of bathhouses of its kind in North America. It provides visitors from around the country and the world with leisure activities such as hiking, picnicking, and scenic drives and remains a national treasure to be enjoyed by generations of Americans.

Hot Springs National Park has played a crucial role in the formation of the United States National Park System. I am proud to sponsor a resolution commemorating its 175th anniversary, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of House Resolution 138 today.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of my dear friend Bobby Hildebrand of Camden, Arkansas, who passed away February 24, 2007.

Bobby Hildebrand and his family grocery store, Harvey's Grocery Store, were South Arkansas institutions. Bobby was a businessman, a landowner and the proud owner of Harvey's Grocery in Camden, one of Arkansas's legendary political landmarks. Bobby made Harvey's Grocery a famous gathering spot for Arkansas politicians, business leaders and residents of South Arkansas who had a love of good food, heated debate and friendship.

Bobby became known for his locally famous barbecue as much as his generous heart. Each time I drove through Camden, my car always wanted to veer to Harvey's Grocery where I knew I would find good food and great conversation with a man I truly looked up to and admired. I was privileged to have witnessed first hand the effect Bobby's big smile had on visitors of his store and friends who needed someone to listen. Above all else, I am blessed to have been able to call Bobby a dear friend.

Bobby talked endlessly about how politics could be a good and noble profession and how a career in public service could positively affect the lives of thousands. His love of politics helped inspire me and many others to seek elected office and for that, I am forever grateful.

I send my deepest condolences to his wife, Pat of Camden; his brother Harvey Hildebrand of Louisiana; and his sister Dorothy Herrington of Camden. Bobby Hildebrand will be greatly missed in Camden, Ouachita County and throughout the state of Arkansas, and I am truly saddened by this loss.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia for leading this hour- long Special Order, this discussion on the debt, the deficit, but more importantly on accountability, in restoring common sense, accountability, fiscal discipline to our Nation's government.

Madam Speaker, I don't have to tell you that we have got the largest debt ever in our Nation's history; $8,835,629,777,913 and increasing some $40 million every hour. Our Nation is spending a half a billion dollars a day simply paying interest on a debt we've already got, and that is before we increase it by $1 billion a day. Half a billion dollars a day going to pay interest on the national debt. That is a half a billion dollars a day we do not have to properly equip our troops, to support our troops, to support our veterans, those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, to educate our children, to build roads. The list of what should be America's priorities is endless, and yet our Nation is spending half a billion dollars a day simply paying interest on a debt we've already got.

It is time to restore fiscal discipline and common sense to our government, and one of the ways we do that is by requiring accountability in Iraq. That is why the Blue Dogs have written what has become known as H.R. 47, providing for Operation Iraqi Freedom Cost Accountability.

Let me just say this, that 9/11, September 11, 2001, is a day that I will never forget. From my office window in the Cannon House Office Building I could see the smoke rise from the Pentagon. A few hours later, after being evacuated, I would learn that a young Navy petty officer, Nehamon Lyons, IV, from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, was among those killed at the Pentagon on that dreadful day.

In the months that followed, I voted to give the President the authority to go to Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden. Remember him? To bring him to justice and to put an end to the Taliban, to put an end to terrorism. And then on September 26, 2002, I was called to the White House. I sat in the Cabinet Room, took notes, I still have

them, where the President and Andy Card and Condoleezza Rice and about 20 Members of Congress present proceeded to tell us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that Saddam Hussein trains terrorists on weapons of mass destruction, and that if military force is used, in the President's word, it will be, quoting now, ``swift.'' September 26, 2002.

Fast forward to March 13, 2007. More than 3,000 brave men and women in uniform have died, have sacrificed with their lives in Iraq. Thousands more injured in ways that will forever change their lives. As long as we have men and women in uniform in harm's way, I am going to support them; members of the Blue Dog Coalition are going to support them.

This war has affected all of us. My brother-in-law is presently stationed in the United States Air Force in the Middle East. My first cousin was in Iraq when his wife gave birth to their first child. People that I grew up with and taught in Sunday school and duck hunt with have already served one tour through the Arkansas National Guard duty in Iraq and will likely be returning next year if the President gets his way with this so-called surge.

Madam Speaker, I believe that the American people spoke on November 7, and they told us they do not want more of the same. And simply adding 20,000 more troops to Iraq is, in my opinion, more of the same. The American people want a new direction in Iraq, not more of the same. In line with that, the American people want accountability for how their tax money is spent, not only in Iraq, but also here at home. And that is what we are trying to do with House Resolution 97.

Government investigations and media reports have detailed waste, fraud, and possible war profiteering by some of the very contractors that are being paid billions of dollars by the United States for their services in Iraq. Most recently, a report issued January 30 by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction counts unsanitary conditions, potential health hazards, poor construction methods, and significant cost overruns among the examples of waste, fraud and abuse rampant in the government's funding of the Iraq war.

House Resolution 97, which has been written and endorsed by the 43- member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, puts forth tangible commonsense proposals that ensure future transparency and accountability in the funding of Operation Iraqi Freedom. House Resolution 97 is an important first step toward making sure that more resources get to our troops in the field.

House Resolution 97 focuses on four crucial points for demanding fiscal responsibility in Iraq: a call for transparency on how Iraq war funds are spent; the creation of a Truman Commission to investigate the awarding of contracts; a need to fund the Iraq war through the normal appropriations process and not through these so-called emergency supplementals; and, finally, using America's resources to approve Iraqi assumption of internal policing operations.

Funding requests for the Iraq war should come through the normal appropriations process so that Congress and the people have a clear understanding about what is being spent on the war in Iraq. With House Resolution 97, the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition is calling for the Iraqi Government and its people to progress toward full responsibility for internally policing their country. Without such progress, it is wasteful to continue our investment in the lives, limbs, and taxpayer dollars in Iraq.

We must honor those who have sacrificed in Iraq, our brave men and women in uniform, and the thousands more that have come home injured in ways that will forever change their lives. It is very important that we honor them, we support them and their sacrifices through demanding accountability from the Iraqi people. It is time to tell the Iraqi people it is time to step up and accept more responsibility for your own country. If you are going to continue to shoot at one another and to shoot at us, if public opinion poll after public opinion poll coming out of Iraq says that 70 percent of them don't want us there and 60 percent of them think it is okay to kill a U.S. soldier there, then we should send a clear message to the Iraqi people that it is time for them to step up and assume responsibility. If they want us to continue to sacrifice our brave men and women in uniform and return many more thousands home injured, if they want us to continue to spend $12 million an hour of our tax money in Iraq, some $2.5 billion a week, then it is time for the Iraqi people to accept more responsibility and more accountability for their actions.

At the same time, Madam Speaker, it is very important that this administration understand that if we are going to support $12 million an hour, $2.5 billion a week of hard-earned taxpayer money going to Iraq, we want to know how it is being spent, we want it accounted for, and we want to know without a shadow of a doubt that it is going to support our brave men and women in uniform.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Let me just say there are those in this Congress that do not support sending $12 million an hour to

Iraq, then you are unpatriotic. I differ with that. I strongly differ with it. No one needs to question my patriotism, no one needs to question my support for our men and women in uniform.

If you ask me, giving them more of the same is not showing support for our men and women in uniform. They need a new direction. They need a new direction in Iraq, one that will allow them to do their job and come back home to their families. The President proposing a surge of some 21,000 troops is not a new direction, it is more of the same.

At the same time, Madam Speaker, let me tell you that the other thing that the American people want is they want responsibility. They want responsibility by the Iraqi government. They want them to buy into this.

The other thing the American people want is accountability within our own government, which is clearly why we are advocating the passage of the Iraqi War Accountability Act, H.R. 97. Why is it needed? Because auditors in one region found that contract managers could not account for $97 million disbursed from the development fund for Iraq. Under its no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure contract, Halliburton overcharged by over 600 percent for the delivery of fuel from Kuwait.

An audit of programs designed to train guards designed to protect Iraq's oil and electrical infrastructure concluded that U.S. agencies could not provide reasonable assurance that $147 million expended under these programs was used for its intended purpose.

In one case, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that a company which was awarded a security management contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars could provide no assurance that it was providing the best possible safety for government and reconstruction personnel as required by the contract, and could not even show that its employees authorized to carry weapons were trained to use those weapons.

Finally, Halliburton tripled the cost of hand towels at taxpayer expense by insisting on having its own embroidered logo on each towel. You can't make this stuff up. Halliburton employees dumped 50,000 pounds of nails in the desert because they ordered the wrong size all at taxpayers' expense. This is not supporting our troops.

We want to fund our troops. We want to support our troops, and the way to do that is by requiring more accountability by this administration and the Pentagon. Quite frankly, for the last 6 years, Congress has not fulfilled its constitutionally given duty of providing oversight. It has been a rubber stamp for whatever this administration wants.

Those days are over, the new Congress has arrived, and we are going to begin to provide that oversight and accountability and demand responsibility, not only from this administration, but from the Iraqis through the passage of H.R. 97.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Staff Sergeant Alan Shaw of Little Rock, Arkansas, who died on February 9, 2007, fighting for our country in Iraq while supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Alan Shaw was 31 years old when he selflessly gave his life for his country during combat operations.

After graduating from Wilbur D. Mills High School, Shaw attended Arkansas Tech University before enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1998. Shaw was assigned to the 1st Battalion 5th Marines in Camp Pendleton, California, where he served two overseas tours and one sea service tour before being honorably discharged in 2002. In October of 2004, Shaw chose once again to nobly serve his country by joining the U.S. Army where he served two tours of duty in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and it was in his second tour where he gave his life for our country.

Alan Shaw was proud to serve in the military and is remembered as an outstanding leader and friend to his fellow soldiers. Shaw had a passion for life and a vision for the future, and his personality sparked happiness in all those around him. His dedication to making the lives of those around him and the communities he lived in better could not have been greater.

Alan Shaw gave his life to serve our country and will forever be remembered as a hero, a father, a husband and a friend. My deepest condolences go out to his wife Sharrell; his three children Austin, Jourdan and Davyn; his parents Jarrell Bentley and Noramae Shaw of Little Rock; his siblings Larry and Lisa Shaw, Bud and Terri Bradley, Darren and Mindy Shaw, Randy and Angie Shaw, Amber Shaw and Jeffrey Shaw all of Little Rock; and to his nine nieces and nephews. He will be missed by his family, his community and all those who knew him and called him a friend. I will continue to keep Alan Shaw and his family in my deepest thoughts and prayers.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Sergeant First Class John ``Gary'' Brown of Nashville, Arkansas, who died on January 20, 2007, while fighting for our country in Iraq, supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Gary Brown was 43 years old when the military convoy he was riding in was attacked.

After graduating from Nashville High School, Brown attended Ouachita Baptist University before enlisting in the Army where he served his country for over 20 years. SFC Brown's first tour of duty was in Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm and at the time of his death he was serving in Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Gary Brown was a member of Agape Church in Little Rock where he was an active participant in the men's Bible study and the children's bus ministry. Brown was also a member of the VFW and the Otter Creek Home Owners Association. His dedication to making the communities he lived in a better place could not have been greater.

Gary Brown gave his life to serve our country and will forever be remembered as a hero, a father, and a husband. My deepest condolences go out to his wife Donna; his two stepdaughters Brandy Edmondson and Crystal Lunnie both of Little Rock; his brothers Larry Brown of Seguin, Texas, and Phil Brown of Nashville; his sister Wendy Wesson; two grandsons Christian Edmondson and Joshua Edmondson; and to his many nieces and nephews. He will be missed by his family, his church, his community and all those who knew him and called him a friend. I will continue to keep John ``Gary'' Brown and his family in my thoughts and prayers.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to try to bring about some common sense to a Federal agency known to many as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and known to others as FEMA.

Many of you will recall, Mr. Speaker, that after that horrible hurricane that devastated the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina, back in August of 2005, FEMA went out and purchased tens of thousands of brand new mobile homes that were destined for storm victims after Hurricane Katrina.

They came to Hope, Arkansas. We have got the old World War II proving grounds there, an old airport there with a lot of inactive runways and tarmacs, and they thought it was a good place to have as a so-called FEMA staging area, a place for them to bring mobile homes in transit on their way to storm victims on the gulf coast.

Starting about October of 2005, they started arriving, and they continued to arrive, but none ever left. And this quickly became not a FEMA staging area but, rather, a FEMA storage area.

This is an aerial photo that was taken this past Saturday, and these white dots, I mean, it is hard to understand and comprehend, but as you look at this aerial photo, what you are looking at is 8,420 brand new, fully furnished, never used, mobile homes that were destined for Hurricane Katrina victims that found themselves homeless.

FEMA purchased them, and then they said, we won't put a mobile home in a flood plain. And of course, everybody who lost their home as a result of Hurricane Katrina lived in a flood plain. So they have remained stored at the airport in Hope, Arkansas, on this cow pasture, if you will, since about October of 2005; 8,420 brand new, fully furnished mobile homes.

There is also approximately 16,000 camper trailers at the Hope airport. The camper trailers did work. They were used by storm victims, and they are now bringing them back to Hope. And if they need more than $1,500 worth of repair, they are auctioning them off. If they can repair them for less than $1,500, they are going to repair them there at the Hope airport and store them for future disasters. That is being a good steward of your tax money. That mission, that program makes a lot of sense.

My problem with FEMA is this: There are 8,420 brand new, fully furnished, never used mobile homes sitting there, as you can see from this aerial photo, at the Hope airport in Hope, Arkansas. Now, let's fast forward.

Well, one other point I would like to make, Mr. Speaker, is, about 8 months ago, to try to get FEMA off high center and to move these homes to the people, I said they are going to start sinking into the cow pasture, thinking that would get FEMA off high center and they would move them to the storm victims.

Instead, FEMA showed up at Hope with $7 million worth of gravel to put under them. I mean, this is so crazy, you can't make this stuff up.

And then, fast forward, tragically to February 24, 12 days ago, where a tornado ripped through another part of my district, not Hope, Arkansas, but Dumas, Arkansas in DeSha County.

This is one of 150 homes that have been either totally destroyed or heavily damaged. If there is any doubt about the amount of damage done, this is the Fred's Dollar Store and the grocery store in town and an 18-wheeler.

The bottom line is this: I immediately went to Dumas to be with the people there. I told them help was on the way. The Governor declared it a State disaster. The Governor called out 150 members of the National Guard; 150 homes heavily damaged or destroyed, 650 people out of work because their workplace has been heavily damaged or destroyed. No power for 6 days.

And I asked FEMA to help; 12 days later, the President still has not declared Dumas and DeSha County a Federal disaster area.

And what does the FEMA spokesman, John Philbin, say? March 7, 2007, Stephens Washington Bureau, in a story by Aaron Sadler, FEMA spokesman, John Philbin, says, ``The damages or need for Federal assistance are not readily apparent.'' If that is not damage that is readily apparent, I don't know what it is.

I implore the President to declare Dumas and DeSha County a Federal disaster area. And I beg FEMA to begin to move some of these mobile homes to the people of Dumas who are without housing this evening.

Mr. Speaker, on February 24, a tornado hit Dumas in Desha County, Arkansas. The Governor called out the National Guard for nearly a week. For 6 days, there was no electricity to this delta county. 650 people remain out of work because their workplace has been severely damaged or destroyed, and 150 homes were either heavily damaged or destroyed. And here we are more than a week later still waiting for the President and the Director of FEMA to declare this forgotten delta county a Federal Disaster Area. In fact, the FEMA spokesman, John Philbin, in the Arkansas News Bureau, Stevens Media, is quoted today in an Aaron Sadler story as saying ``The damages or need for Federal assistance are not readily apparent.''

Mr. Speaker, the people at FEMA certainly did not visit the same Dumas and Desha County that I did. The people of Dumas and Desha County need the help of the Federal Government, and I implore the President and the Director of FEMA to assist this forgotten delta county.

Mr. Speaker, this evening, as every Tuesday evening, I rise on behalf of the 43 member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. We are a group of fiscally conservative Democrats that are doing our best to restore common sense and fiscal discipline to our Federal Government. Part of that is accountability.

This evening I am pleased to be joined by another gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Berry, from Arkansas's First Congressional District, as we talk about restoring not only common sense and fiscal discipline to our national government, but accountability to our Federal agencies.

Mr. Speaker, a week ago, Saturday, February 24, 2007, at about three in the afternoon, not one but two tornadoes devastated the rural delta county of Desha County. The county seat is Arkansas City. It was spared. McGehee was spared for the most part. But Dumas, a town of about 5,000 people, was hit, and hit hard, as you can see from this photo provided to me by Agnes Ross at the Dumas Clarion. This is what was left of the Fred's Dollar Store. My district director's dad was in the meat locker of the grocery store, Matt Butcher, next door, which was also destroyed. In fact, Mr. Speaker, 150 homes were either destroyed or

heavily damaged. Depending on whose numbers you want to rely on, somewhere between 600 and 800 workers were displaced from work, because wherever they worked was destroyed or heavily damaged. That community of Dumas and much of Desha County went without power for five days.

It was bad enough that the Governor cut short his trip to the National Governor's Association meeting here in Washington and flew home, and I was privileged to join him in going to Dumas and spending the afternoon visiting folks and reassuring folks that help was on the way. It was bad enough that the Governor called out 150 members of the Arkansas National Guard.

That was February 24, 2007. More than a week later, the President still has not declared Desha County a Federal disaster area and FEMA has not responded to my request to move 150 mobile homes that were purchased for Hurricane Katrina to Dumas and Desha County to be used for temporary housing while these good folks in this forgotten delta county get their lives put back together and rebuild their homes.

Mr. Speaker, this is one example of the damage. Again 150 National Guard soldiers called out; 150 people's homes either destroyed or severely damaged; 600 to 800 workers temporarily displaced from their job because wherever they worked was destroyed or heavily damaged; no power for 5 days. And yet the Federal Emergency Management Agency says that this forgotten delta county, Desha County, is not worthy of a Federal disaster declaration. They want to talk about all these rules and regulations and all this bureaucratic this and bureaucratic that.

You would expect that from the IRS, Mr. Speaker, you would expect that from most Federal agencies. But when I think of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, when I think of FEMA, I think of first responder. I think of one Federal agency that should be able to cut through the bureaucratic red tape and get something done. If FEMA can't do it, no Federal agency can do it, and FEMA is not.

I guess what infuriates me more is a week after these two tornadoes struck Dumas and Desha County, and here is another good photo of one of the houses that was destroyed, we can't convince FEMA that that home is destroyed, but we believe it was destroyed, it is certainly uninhabitable, but what gets me is, a week ago Saturday, the tornadoes hit Dumas. The President has yet to declare it a Federal disaster area, FEMA has yet to help with temporary housing, or anything else, for that matter, and yet the following Saturday, and my heart goes out to the people in Alabama and Georgia, we were fortunate in Dumas and Desha County, we did not have a loss of life. We did have a couple of dozen injuries, some of them very serious, but the good Lord was working overtime in Dumas, Arkansas, a week ago Saturday. There is no doubt about that. People go through and tour this town and they scratch their head. How in the world did no one die? And for those who did die in those tornados that came about a week later in Georgia and Alabama, our heart goes out for those people.

But it really galled me to see the director of FEMA with the President in Alabama and Georgia holding hands singing ``Kumbaya'' and talking about the new and improved FEMA. The new and improved FEMA has forgotten this delta county.

And this story gets better, and is hard to believe. But you can see here, this is one of the 150 homes that is either destroyed or badly damaged. Dumas is a rural community. It is not like there are a lot of rental houses available there. People, even those with insurance, need a place to live while they get their life put back together and their homes rebuilt, which could take up to a year. And this story gets better, or a better word, this story gets more tragic. Some of you are aware of this, Mr. Speaker.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast in August 2005, one of the first things FEMA did was they ordered thousands of brand new, fully furnished mobile homes; not the camper trailers. We are talking brand new, fully-furnished mobile homes, 14 to 16 foot wide, 60 foot long, built-in microwaves, coffee tables, end tables, sofas, dining room sets, built-in central heat and air with the unit ready to drop out of the back. Most of them are equipped, or filled, I should say, with Ashley furniture.

Hope, Arkansas, because it is the old proving grounds from World War II, and it is an old military airport and they had some inactive runways and tarmacs, well, FEMA approached the City of Hope, which is also in my district. Hope used to be known as the birthplace of President Clinton. Now we are known as the largest trailer park in the world.

So FEMA entered into an agreement with the City of Hope to store these mobile homes in Hope. Not store. Actually, it was to be a FEMA staging area where they would transition through there on their way from wherever they purchased them to the gulf coast region. That was shortly after August 2005, Hurricane Katrina.

They kept delivering these mobile homes to Hope. They kept bringing more and more mobile homes to Hope. This an aerial photo that I took Saturday. This is current. I took this Saturday at the Hope Airport from a small plane. This is a current aerial photo.

All these white things, those are mobile homes that were purchased for Hurricane Katrina victims August 2005. And the staging area quickly became a storage area where more and more mobile homes arrived, but none of them ever left. Why? Because, at the time, FEMA said, oh, we don't place mobile homes in flood plains.

Well, they knew that they don't place mobile homes in flood plains before they bought them. And guess what? Everybody that lost their home in Hurricane Katrina and needed a home lived in a floodplain. So these homes were never placed.

Then President Bush was at the Democratic Caucus last month at Williamsburg, and he and I talked about this after the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson, questioned him specifically about these mobile homes, and the President told me, we are saving them for future disasters.

In Dumas, Arkansas, a week ago Saturday, the people were struck not by one but by two tornadoes; 150 homes destroyed or badly damaged; 600 to 800 workers out of work because wherever they worked has been destroyed or heavily damaged; 150 members of the Arkansas National Guard called out; and yet, that was a week ago Saturday, on Monday, the Governor and I toured Dumas and on Tuesday at 9 a.m. in a conference call I asked David Paulison, the Director of FEMA, to release 150 of these 8,420 mobile homes. That is how many are currently at the Hope Airport from the photo taken Saturday. There is 8,420 of these parked at the airport in Hope today.

I respectfully requested 150 of these be moved to Dumas, which is only 3 hours away, to provide temporary housing for the people of Dumas and Desha County while they rebuild their homes.

I am still waiting on an answer. So I called him back again Thursday. He still couldn't give me an answer. They still have not declared this forgotten delta county a Federal disaster, and they have yet to move a single one of these mobile homes. If what I saw in Dumas is not a Federal disaster, Mr. Speaker, I doubt we will ever see another Federal disaster again.

And, Mr. Speaker, if they refuse to move 150 of these 8,420 mobile homes from Hope to Dumas to help folks, isn't that what FEMA is supposed to be in the business of doing? Then do you really believe any of these will ever be moved for the public good to help people? It is reprehensible; I am appalled by it. I am ashamed of our government, Mr. Speaker. This is a symbol of what is wrong with FEMA. This is a symbol of why so many people in this country have given up on their Federal Government.

And the story gets better. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina and all these mobile homes showed up in Hope and they weren't moving them to the people that needed them on the gulf coast, Mr. Speaker, I spoke up and brought a photo similar to this to the House floor and I said, FEMA, if you do not move these homes to the people who need them on the gulf coast, they are going to start sinking into the cow pasture, the hay meadow, thinking that would get FEMA off high center and they would start moving them to the people

that needed them. What did FEMA do? They showed up with $7 million worth of gravel to put under them. Folks, you cannot make this up; it is too unbelievable.

And so if I appear frustrated this evening, I am because a week ago Monday, Governor Beebe and I toured Dumas and the Back Gate community. And in Back Gate, at least a week ago, and perhaps tonight, there were 30 people crowded in a metal building, calling it home because they have no place to live. I talked to Agnes Ross at the Dumas Clarion earlier today and she said she ran into somebody on the streets of Dumas earlier today, an elderly woman that had no place to go, no place to live, and yet 8,420 brand new, fully furnished mobile homes are sitting there at the airport in Hope, Arkansas, 3 hours from Dumas.

When the Blue Dog Coalition talks about restoring accountability to our government and making Federal agencies answer for their action, or a lack of action, this is a good example. This is about as good as it gets. And, Mr. Speaker, I am not here to beat up the President or beat up the director of FEMA. I tried for a week to go through the proper channels and get this done, but for the life of me I am imploring the President and the director of FEMA, Mr. Speaker, to move just a few of those mobile homes from Hope to Dumas to help these folks, provide them temporary housing while they try to get their lives put back together and their homes rebuilt.

Marion Berry, a Congressman from the First District of Arkansas, is from Gillette. He doesn't live but a few miles from Dumas. He knows these people, too. This storm affected his area, and he is very aware of what is going on and the lack of attention from FEMA. At this time I would yield to him. I want to thank him for joining me this evening to talk about trying to help the folks of Dumas and Desha County, this forgotten delta county.

I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for joining me this evening and talking about the lack of accountability within the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

To recount, February 24, 2007, a week ago Saturday, not one, but two tornadoes devastated the town of Dumas and the Back Gate community in Desha County. The Governor declared it a State disaster, called out 150 members of the Arkansas National Guard who were there for nearly a week. It took crews of more than a hundred working for 5 days to restore electricity to that delta county. Some 600 to 800 people remain out of work because of the damage done to their workplace. And yet here we are, a week ago Saturday in Dumas, horrible tornados. And the ironic thing is that FEMA has a staging area with 8,420 brand new fully furnished mobile homes 3 hours away, filled with Ashley furniture and built-in microwaves ready to be set up, and the mayor and the county judge, Marion Gill, the mayor of Dumas, Mark McElroy, the county judge in Desha County, they have got sites available. The zoning is cleared with city water, with water and electrical and sewer hook-ups, and yet FEMA, which is supposed to be in the business of helping people, refused to move a single one of these to the more than 150 people who lost their home, like this family right here.

This is one of the 150 homes that were either totally destroyed or heavily damaged. Yes, some of these folks had insurance, but yes, we have 8,420 mobile homes 3 hours away that are not doing anybody any good sitting at the airport in a hay meadow. They were purchased to help people.

There is no place to rent in Dumas. These folks in Dumas and Desha County need a place to live temporarily. We are not asking that they give these mobile homes to them. We are asking for temporary assistance. That is what FEMA is in the business of or supposed to be. Allow these folks to temporarily live in 150 of these 8,420 brand new mobile homes, filled with Ashley furniture.

They are not doing anybody good in Hope. Let us get them moving, Mr. Speaker, to Dumas, Arkansas, and let these folks in Dumas who lost their homes or had their homes heavily damaged live in them temporarily while they get their life put back together and rebuild their homes.

Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time we have raised this issue. Here is the timeline, talk about accountability and restoring accountability to our government: Saturday, February 24, two tornadoes devastated the communities of Dumas and Back Gate in Desha County. Monday, February 26, I surveyed the damage on the ground and in the air along with Governor Beebe and other elected officials. Governor Beebe named Desha County a State disaster area and announced his plans to request a Federal disaster declaration.

Tuesday, February 27, I held a conference call with FEMA Director David Paulison, along with Senator Lincoln from Arkansas and staff for Senator Pryor. In the call, I conveyed my support of Governor Beebe and requested FEMA expedite their decision and action as well as encouraged FEMA to use 150 manufactured homes from this supply of 8,420 of them from Hope, Arkansas, just 3 hours away, for the families without shelter in Desha County.

Later Tuesday, my staff talked with FEMA again regarding the status of the disaster declaration, and they expressed that they did not read the laws as we did and that they are still working with Arkansas to gather information. In other words, the bureaucracy began.

Wednesday, February 28, I joined with both senators, Senator Lincoln and Senator Pryor from Arkansas in sending a letter to President Bush and FEMA Director Paulison supporting Governor Beebe's request for a Federal disaster declaration.

Thursday, March 1, 2007, I again talked with FEMA Director Paulison regarding the lack of a response and movement of these mobile homes from Hope and expressed my displeasure with his office. It had been 6 days since the tornadoes and the communities were just beginning to regain electricity in parts of the town. At that point, FEMA says the reason for not declaring a disaster area is the high rate of insured homes and the fact that the State is capable of taking care of the damage.

Supposedly, they told CNN, FEMA did, that the State has a surplus this year, and they do not need their help. Well, Mr. Speaker, that is the craziest thing I have ever heard of. The city and county is a very rural area. It is in the delta region. They lost half their sales tax base when a big retail store left about a year ago. They had a Fred's Dollar Store and a grocery store left, and they have been destroyed. They have, at least for a short period of time, perhaps up to a year, lost much of their tax base. At the same time, they are struggling to pay for a new county hospital and new city hospital there in Dumas, and they are not getting any help from the one agency that we thought was supposed to be there to help us in the time of need, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Friday, March 2, 2007, I again joined with Senators Lincoln and Pryor to send another letter to FEMA in support of Governor Beebe and the immediate need for mobile homes in Desha County.

Saturday, March 3, during an address in Memphis, Tennessee, at the 55th Annual Mid-South Farm and Cotton Gin show, I commented on the lack of response from FEMA one week after the tornadoes.

I went to Hope, and I stood in front of these 8,420 mobile homes to highlight the waste of taxpayers' money, the fact that these brand new, fully furnished manufactured homes are just 3 hours away from Dumas, yet they are not being put to good use. They are not helping the people some 3 hours away in Dumas.

Then, Tuesday, March 5, 2007, that is today, I joined Senators Lincoln and Pryor in sending a letter in support of Governor Beebe's request to the U.S. Small Business Administration to request small business disaster loans be administered in Desha County to help the 25 businesses which were destroyed and the more than 800 employees who are now without a job or a place to work nearby, some 600 to 800 depending on which day it is and which businesses are able to get back up.

My office hand delivered letters from me and photos I took, this photo right here. We delivered an 8x10 copy of this photo along with a letter today to President Bush, to FEMA Director Paulison, and to the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff, making one final plea to assist these folks in this forgotten delta county.

Well, we have gone on long enough on this, Mr. Speaker, but I think it is important. As members of the Blue Dogs, we talk about accountability, and you cannot talk about accountability and the lack of it without talking about FEMA. Again 8,420 brand new mobile homes sitting there at the Hope airport, not doing anybody any good, and I have got 150 homes either totally destroyed or damaged like one 3 hours away.

It has been more than a week. FEMA refuses to send a single mobile home to assist these folks. If they are not going to move them 3 hours away to a disaster area, Mr. Speaker, I can assure you these mobile homes will never be put to the public good. They will never go to help people if they are not going to help people 3 hours away in their time of need.

I am, once again, Mr. Speaker, imploring the President and the director of FEMA and the Secretary of Homeland Security to do the right thing and to get some of these mobile homes moving to Dumas, where tonight 30 people are living in a metal building. They need our help, Mr. Speaker.

That is what the Blue Dog Coalition is all about. We are about trying to restore common sense and fiscal discipline to our national government, and we are about accountability.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, we have what is called the Iraq War Accountability Act, and we are going to be talking about that more this evening.

Mr. Speaker, as you walk the halls of Congress, it is easy to know when you are walking by an office that belongs to a member of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. Why? Because you will see this poster. A poster reminding Members of Congress and reminding the people who

walk the halls of Congress that our Nation is in debt.

Today, the U.S. national debt is $8,811,969,377,773 and some change, and if you divide that by every man, woman and child in America, your share, Mr. Speaker, of the national debt is $29,245. It is time that this Nation get its fiscal house in order, and one of the ways we do that is by restoring accountability to our Federal agencies, which is what this business with FEMA is all about, trying to restore accountability and common sense and cutting through the bureaucracy and red tape to help people in their time of need.

At this time, it is a pleasure for me to yield to my friend from the State of Ohio (Mr. Wilson). We are pleased to have Mr. Wilson as a new Member of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, and at this time, I recognize Mr. Wilson.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wilson), an important member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, for sharing your thoughts with us this evening as we try to, Mr. Speaker, talk about the need to restore fiscal discipline and accountability to our government. You gave a good example of putting an end to the debt and the deficit spending, and we have had examples this evening about restoring accountability to government, and the accountability and lack of it within FEMA.

We are going to hear about other areas where we need to restore accountability within our Federal Government this evening, and we will talk some about the Blue Dog Coalition's Iraq War Accountability Act.

We support our troops. In fact, we support them so much we want to make sure this $12 million an hour that is being sent to Iraq of your hardearned tax money, Mr. Speaker, is going to support our men and women in uniform. Unfortunately, as we have learned, much of it is not, and that is why we have this legislation, H.R. 97, the Iraq War Accountability Act.

Mr. Speaker, if you have got any comments, questions or concerns for us, you can e-mail us at [email protected]. That is [email protected].

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield to another member of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

An important member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of fiscally conservative Democrats who spends many a Tuesday night here on the floor with me talking about the need to restore common sense and fiscal discipline to our Federal Government.

Why? Because today the U.S. national debt is $8,811,969,377,773 and some change. For every man, woman and child in America, their share, our share of the national debt is $29,245. It is what those of us in the Blue Dog Coalition have coined as the debt tax, d-e-b-t, and that is one tax that cannot go awayand cannot be cut until our Nation gets its fiscal House in order.

Why is this important? Our Nation is borrowing nearly $1 billion a day. In addition to billing $1 billion a day, we are spending about half a billion every day paying interest on the debt we already got before it goes up another $1 billion today, a half a billion dollars a day. What could we do with that?

Just in my district alone, give me three days' interest on the national debt, and I could complete I-49 across the western side of Arkansas. Give me another three days' interest on the national debt, and I could complete I-69 through the delta region of south Arkansas, two important interstate road projects that could help create economic opportunities and lift up one of the poorest regions in our country.

Yet these priorities continue to go unmet. Why? Because of a lack of fiscal discipline, because too much of your hard-earned tax money is going to pay interest, not principal, but just interest on the national debt. Year after year, it is hard now to believe, but from 1998 to 2001, we had a balanced budget in this country and a surplus, the first time either a Democrat or a Republican had given us that, in about 40 years.

Yet, we have squandered that, this administration and this Republican Congress, for the past 6 years, year after year, have given us the largest deficit ever in our Nation's history and the largest debt ever in our Nation's history.

In fact, to put it in perspective, the total national debt from 1789 to 2000 was $5.67 trillion. But for 2010, the total national debt will have increased to nearly $11 trillion. That is a doubling of the 211- year debt in just 10 years. Interest payments on this debt are one of the fastest-growing parts of the Federal budget, the debt tax we call it, d-e-b-t; and it is one tax that cannot be repealed.

Our Nation is spending more money paying interest on national debt than we are educating our children. If that is not wrong, I don't know what is. It is morally wrong.

Well, you could see the current national debt is at an all-time high. Why do deficits matter? Because they do reduce economic growth. They burden our children and grandchildren with liabilities. They increase our reliance on foreign lenders who now own 40 percent of our debt. Mr. Speaker, this administration in the past 6 years has borrowed more money from foreign central banks and foreign investors than the previous 42 Presidents combined.

Mr. Speaker, you might be surprised at who they are. It is kind of like David Letterman and his Top 10 list. Here is the Top 10 list of people that we have gone out and borrowed money from in the last 6 years. The United States of America goes out to other countries and borrows money to fund tax cuts in this country for folks earning over $400,000 a year.

Here is the Top 10, we have borrowed, the United States of America has borrowed, $637.4 billion from Japan; China, $346.5 billion; the United Kingdom, $223.5 billion. You will love this one, OPEC, the United States of America has borrowed $97.1 billion from OPEC; Korea, $67.7 billion; Taiwan, $63.2 billion; the Caribbean Banking Centers, $63.6 billion; Hong Kong, $51 billion; Germany, $52.1 billion.

Rounding out the Top 10 countries, where the United States of America has gone and borrowed money from foreign central banks and foreign lenders, you will not believe this one, Mexico. The United States of America has borrowed $38.2 billion from Mexico to fund tax cuts in this country for people who earn over $400,000 a year.

We are trying to fix this, and in this new Democratic majority, I am proud to tell you that not in the first 100 hours, but the first 24 hours, the new Democratic leadership listened to the 43-member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition and reinstituted what is known as the PAYGO rules, which means pay-as-you-go. Those were the rules that were in place on this House floor from 1998 through 2001 when President Clinton gave this Nation its last balanced budget.

Some Republicans will have you believe, oh, that means they want to raise taxes to fund a program. Not so. That means that we think you should review programs and find programs that don't work and cut them to pay for new programs. Pay-as-you-go does not mean raise taxes to fund a new program. It means restore accountability to our government, no more rubber-stamp Congress.

It means we are going to demand accountability from our Federal agencies; and when programs don't work, and when agencies don't know how to administer them, we are going to cut them and use that money to fund other programs that can work.

Well, we have talked a lot this evening about accountability, and I am real proud to be joined by one of the authors of our Iraq War Accountability Act. We support our troops. In fact, the gentleman here with me tonight, from Pennsylvania, Mr. Murphy, is an Iraqi war veteran. My brother-in-law is serving tonight in the Middle East.

We support our troops, but we also want to make sure that this $12 million an hour of your tax money that is being sent to Iraq is accounted for, and that it is being spent on our troops to protect them so they can return home safely.

For the remaining 5 or 10 minutes we have got this evening, I recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, a new member but an important member of the Blue Dog Coalition, Mr. Murphy.

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his work in helping write the Iraq War Accountability Act, which calls for transparency on how Iraq war funds are spent. It creates a Truman-like commission to investigate the awarding of contracts, the need to fund the Iraq war through the normal appropriations process and not the so- called emergency supplementals that hide the funding, and using American resources to improve Iraqi assumption of internal policing operations. Another example of how the Blue Dogs are leading the way, Mr. Speaker, in trying to restore accountability to our government here at home as well as in Iraq.

And in closing, Mr. Speaker, as I began this Special Order this evening, I talked about the terrible tornados that devastated Dumas and Desha Counties in my district, and I enter into the Record two letters addressed to the President, one February 28 and one March 5, 2007.

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, February 28, 2007.

Hon. George W. Bush,

The White House,

Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. President: We are writing to support Governor Mike

Beebe's request for a Presidential declaration of major

disaster for Desha County in Arkansas. Currently, the State

of Arkansas and local communities are beginning the process

of recovering from the heavy rains, high winds, and tornadoes

that touched down in Arkansas on Saturday, February 23rd.

Pursuant to the provisions of Section 501(a) of the Robert T.

Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, we ask

that the State of Arkansas receive a federal disaster

designation for the damage assessed in Desha County.

As you are probably aware, we represent a predominantly

rural state where municipal governments are often ill-

equipped to respond to disasters of this magnitude. We have

no doubt that all available resources at the state and local

level are being used, but federal assistance will be needed

to help the affected communities recover.

We would also like to specifically request that Desha

County be approved for the FEMA Individuals & Households

Program (IHP) to include Temporary Housing and assistance

with Mobile Homes and Travel Trailers, Small Business

Administration disaster loans, and Direct Federal Assistance.

The availability of rental property is restricted with the

closest jurisdiction being approximately 45 miles.

As you know, many of the manufactured homes and travel

trailers purchased by FEMA for use in the Hurricane Katrina

disaster are currently sitting unused in Hope, Arkansas. It

is our belief that these manufactured homes and travel

trailers should be made available to those Arkansans left

homeless by Saturday's storms. The inability of FEMA to find

a permanent home for these manufactured homes and travel

trailers in areas affected by Katrina has been a source of

frustration for the Arkansas delegation and our constituents.

However, their close proximity to the disaster in our state

provides a perfect opportunity to put some of them to a good

use.

Mr. President, we respectfully request your swift

consideration and approval of this request. If you have any

questions or need additional information, please do not

hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

Blanche L. Lincoln.

Mark Pryor.

Mike Ross.

Mr. Speaker, September 11, 2001, was a day I will never forget. From my office window I saw the smoke rise from the Pentagon shortly before my staff, several constituents and I were evacuated. A few hours later, I would learn that a young naval petty officer from my district named Nahamon Lyons was among the casualties in that attack on the Pentagon. Picking up the phone and calling his mom, Mrs. Jewel Lyons, back in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, was one of the most difficult calls I have ever had to make.

There was no one who wants to put an end to terrorism more than I do. That is why I supported our President when he chose to send U.S. military forces to Afghanistan to go after those who attacked our Nation on 9/11.

I met with the President at his invitation in the White House on September 26, 2002, to hear his case for a preemptive strike in Iraq. I kept my notes from that important meeting, and this is what the President told us. He said that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; he said that Saddam Hussein trains terrorists on weapons of mass destruction; and he said that if military force is used it will be fierce, swift and tough. We now know that none of that information was accurate.

I do not know whether the President intentionally misled our Nation or received bad intelligence. Perhaps we will never know, but regardless, both possibilities trouble me.

Had I known that the information the President shared with me on September 26, 2002, was not accurate, I would have never given him the authority to use force in Iraq. At worst, the President misled us, and at best, our intelligence failed us.

There is not a more difficult decision Members of Congress must make than whether to send our brave men and women in uniform into harm's way. And when we are asked to make those decisions, we must know that our intelligence is correct.

We have all been personally touched by this war. I have a brother-in- law in the United States Air Force who is currently serving in the Middle East. My first cousin was in Iraq when his wife gave birth to their first child.

I have also traveled to Walter Reed Medical Center and met with countless soldiers who have suffered life-altering injuries in combat, many from my home State of Arkansas. The most recent was a U.S. Marine, Staff Sergeant Marcus Wilson of Dermott, Arkansas, who recently lost his leg in Iraq.

And I have visited with too many families of soldiers who are not coming home.

On August 11, 2004, I visited Iraq when the 39th Infantry Brigade of Arkansas had over 3,000 soldiers stationed there, and if the President gets his way with this escalation of the war, they will be back in Iraq by early next year.

Let me be clear on one very important point. I strongly believe that as long as we have troops in harm's way we must support them. I also want to see to it that our government keeps its promises to our military veterans.

When we invaded Iraq, the President said we were doing so with the intent of removing the evil regime of Saddam Hussein from power and to find and eliminate his weapons of mass destruction. We have since learned that there were no weapons of mass destruction, and not only has Saddam's evil regime come to an end, but he has now been put to death.

So I ask, why are we still there? We now find ourselves spending nearly $9 billion a month to try and force our way of life on a people who live a long way from Arkansas.

Had I known then what I know now, I would never have voted to give the President authority to use force in Iraq and, instead, would have directed the full strength of our military to Afghanistan to go after Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, those who actually attacked our Nation on 9/11.

It is my duty as a U.S. Congressman to demand accountability from this administration, accountability for the decisions that are being made in Iraq, accountability for how these decisions are carried out, and accountability for how our hardworking taxpayers money is being spent.

Sending 21,000 new troops into Iraq is not a new direction. It is simply an escalation of the war.

I am not advocating that we leave Iraq tonight, but we must begin to accelerate the training of the Iraqi Army and police force and replace American soldiers on the front lines of this war with Iraqis.

I rise this evening in support of this resolution to stop the escalation of this war. We can no longer tolerate more of the same, and we must demand from this President, our Commander in Chief, a new strategy and a new direction in Iraq.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, I rise on behalf of the 44- member-strong, fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, as we demand from this Government fiscal accountability as well as fiscal responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, as you walk the halls of Congress, it is easy to know when you are walking by the door of a fellow fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition member, because you will see this poster as a welcome mat to his or her office to remind Members of Congress, to remind you, Mr. Speaker, to remind me, and to remind the American people and all of those who walk the halls of Congress, that the U.S. national debt today is $8,696,414,214,377.65.

For every man, woman and child in America, their share, our share, my share of the national debt is $28,900.92. That is a big number.

A lot of people think, well, it really does not matter what the debt is, our Government can simply print more money. I wish it was that simple.

Our Nation today is spending the first half a billion dollars it collects in taxes not to improve veterans' health care, to protect our troops, to build roads, to fund health care, to protect Social Security and Medicare, to ensure the 47 million folks without health insurance have access to it. No. The first half a billion dollars that we collect every day in taxes from the hard-working people in this country go to simply pay interest, not principal but interest, on this number, the national debt.

And those which should be America's priorities will continue to go unmet until we get our Nation's fiscal house in order. This is something that affects every man, woman and child in America. We have a plan, a 12-point plan for budget reform to ensure that we can live within our means, that we can pay down this debt and restore fiscal discipline and common sense to our Government.

One of those 12 points, by the way, Mr. Speaker, is what we referred to as PAYGO rules, which means pay as you go. And I am real proud that the leadership under this Democratic Caucus in the first 24 hours, not 100 hours, but the first 24 hours, the Democratic leadership reinstituted PAYGO rules on the floor of the House. Which means, quite simply, if you want to fund a new program, you got to show us where the money is coming from.

Now the Republicans tend to think that that means that to fund new programs you raise taxes. I find it quite interesting that the Republicans think that PAYGO, pay as you go, means raise taxes to pay for new spending. It does not mean that. It means cut programs. It means make the tough choices to put an end to the waste in Government.

I got some 8,000 brand new, fully furnished mobile homes sitting at the airport in Hope, Arkansas, that were destined for Hurricane Katrina storm victims but never reached them. That is $400 million right there.

We are not talking about raising taxes to pay for a new program. But I can tell you what we are talking about, Mr. Speaker. We are talking about putting an end to the days of the Republican leadership borrowing money from China to fund a new program creating this large number, making it go up daily. It is still going up nearly a billion dollars a day under the Republican budget that was approved last year.

No more of that, Mr. Speaker. No more borrowing money from China to build a rain forest in Iowa. We are demanding that you show us how you pay for your projects and your programs. We are going to restore fiscal discipline and accountability to our Government.

This week, the President came out with his budget; and we will be visiting more about the President's budget during this hour.

But another thing that the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition is doing is we have gotten together and we have written and endorsed what is referred to as House Resolution 97. And House Resolution 97, we have 39 cosponsors. It is providing for Operation Iraq Freedom cost accountability.

Put quite simply, we are demanding accountability on how your tax money, Mr. Speaker, and the tax money of the hard-working people of this country is being spent in Iraq. You ask 100 different people what they think about this Iraq policy, you will get about 100 different answers. You will find some Members of the Blue Dog Coalition that are for the surge, some are against. I am against the surge. I think the American people want us to go in a different direction in Iraq.

But one of the things that unites us as a coalition and the things that we have endorsed and that we have written and we are trying to put in place is House Resolution 97, which has four crucial points that demand fiscal responsibility in Iraq.

Point number one, a call for transparency on how Iraq war funds are spent. The American people are sending some $9 billion a month to Iraq. That is about $12 million an hour. And the American people in this country that work hard and pay taxes deserve to know how their money is being spent in Iraq.

Number two is the creation of a Truman Commission to investigate the awarding of contracts. It is time, Mr. Speaker, to put an end to war profiteering in Iraq.

Number three, a need to fund the Iraq war through the normal appropriations process. Play by the rules. No more of this so-called emergency supplemental appropriations to hide from the American people the true cost of the war.

Finally, number four, use American resources. This is America. We are the leader of the free world, and we should

be using our resources to improve Iraqi assumption of internal policing operations. In other words, it is time for the Iraqi people to step up to the plate and buy into this and take more responsibility and accountability.

I am joined this hour by a number of my Blue Dog colleagues, Mr. Speaker. At this time, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Chandler).

I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for his valued insight into H.R. 97, which is the Blue Dog-endorsed House resolution to demand accountability and fiscal responsibility in how tax money is being spent in Iraq, some $9 billion a month; put another way, some $12 million an hour.

Let me be clear that as members of the Blue Dog Coalition, we support our troops 110, 120, 130 percent. We can't do enough for our troops. And as long as we have troops in harm's way, we are going to be there to ensure they have what they need to get the job done and to get it done as safely as possible, and hopefully get on back home to their families.

This has impacted every family in America in one way or another. My brother-in-law is in Kyrgyzstan now, which is the entry point for Afghanistan, just as Kuwait is oftentimes the entry point for Iraq. My first cousin was in Iraq when his wife gave birth to their first child.

Before coming down here today, I visited with a Ms. Watson in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, whose son, and she is so very proud of him and I am too, Lt. Colonel Watson, continues to serve us today in Baghdad. We thank him. We thank all soldiers for their dedicated service to our country.

This is about accountability. This is about having responsibility and oversight on how our tax money is being spent in Iraq.

Not only that, but this hour is dedicated to talking about this new Bush budget that was delivered to Capitol Hill yesterday. Thank goodness that, as Members of Congress, we get a vote on this budget, that we can ensure that funding is there for education and for our veterans. And, yes, we are creating a new generation of veterans in Afghanistan and Iraq today. And we have got to be there for them.

I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee, a former cochair of the Blue Dogs for policy, Mr. Cooper.

I thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) for his valued input and insight into this budget process. The President has done the annual ceremoniously bringing of the budget, if you will, to Capitol Hill. And, in fact, Mr. Speaker, here is a copy of it. This is the budget of the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2008 from the Office of Management and Budget. And it is quite a lengthy document.

But if you read over it, you will learn that the budget submitted this week continues the same policies that helped create the fiscal mess now facing our government.

While the administration's budget claims to reach balance in 2012, unfortunately, this budget is in deficit every year under realistic Bush policy assumptions. The budget continues to make the wrong choices for the American people. It proposes substantial cuts to programs that benefits seniors, working families and children, all to help pay for an extensive tax cut for folks earning over $400,000 a year. It is about priorities, Mr. Speaker; and the priorities found in this budget, this budget as delivered this week by President Bush, are misplaced.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

I thank the gentleman from Georgia, a very active member of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, Mr. Scott. I hope he will stay for the remainder of this hour as we discuss the President's budget for fiscal year 2008, as well as the Blue Dog Coalition-endorsed House Resolution 97 to demand accountability on how the hardworking people of this country's tax money is being spent in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, in the 6 years of the Bush Administration, the government has posted the highest deficits in the Nation's history. The administration has squandered the budget surplus it inherited, transforming a $5.6 trillion projected 10-year surplus into a deficit of some $2.9 trillion over the same period, a swing of $8.4 trillion, based on realistic estimates of the cost of the President's policies. The President's new budget calls for a deficit of $244 billion for 2007, and $239 billion for 2008, marking 6 years in a row of deficits of more than $200 billion.

This budget that the President delivered to Capitol Hill this week includes $244 billion worth of hot checks for fiscal year 2008 and $239 billion worth of hot checks for fiscal year 2009. Unbelievable, Mr. Speaker. That means that this Nation will continue to borrow about a half a billion dollars a day every day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Every day, under the Bush budget, we will borrow over a half a billion dollars, and that is before we spend a half a billion dollars each day paying interest on the debt we have already got.

America's priorities will continue to go unmet until we get our Nation's fiscal house in order. Meanwhile, this budget continues to climb the climb of decline of our Nation's debt, which has already grown by $3 trillion during this administration.

Put another way, this President, this administration has borrowed more money from foreign lenders, foreign central banks than the previous 42 Presidents combined. In fact, we had only borrowed $623.3 billion in foreign holdings in 1993. Today, foreign lenders currently hold a total of about $2.199 trillion of our public debt.

I was with the President at a meeting Saturday morning. The gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) asked him about whether he believed borrowing so much money from foreign central banks and foreign investors was a security threat to our country. His response was that he didn't know how much money we had borrowed from foreigners.

So, Mr. Speaker, I hope the President is listening to us today, because, Mr. Speaker, I want to share with you, Mr. Speaker, what I refer to as the top 10 list. This is the top 10 list of the 10 countries that we have borrowed the most money from: Japan, $637.4 billion; China, $346.5 billion; the United Kingdom, $223.5 billion.

Can I go back to China for a moment? You know, we don't do business with Cuba because they are Communist, and yet we do business with Communist China out of a spirit of international relations. And while we are all focused on the Middle East and what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, Cuba has hired China to drill for oil on their behalf 55 miles from Key West, Florida, when the United States does not allow drilling within 100 miles of Key West. Can you imagine that? And yet we have borrowed $346.5 billion from China to give folks who live in this country who earn over $400,000 a year a tax cut and to leave our children and our grandchildren with the bill.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia. Point well taken. Thanks for sharing that with us.

Let me just round out the top 10 current lenders. These are the countries the United States of America is borrowing money from in order to provide

tax cuts for folks in this country earning over $400,000 a year. That is in the President's budget. That is what he is proposing to do. Here is what he has done already.

In the past 6 years, our Nation has borrowed more money from foreigners than the previous 42 Presidents combined. Again, Japan $637.4 billion; China, $346.5 billion; the United Kingdom, $223.5 billion. OPEC. And we wonder why gas was approaching 3 bucks a gallon in August. Our Nation has borrowed $97.1 billion from OPEC to give folks who live in this country a $400,000 tax cut.

That is exactly what the President is proposing to continue. Mr. Speaker, I dare say that in this new Democratic majority, we will stop that.

Korea, $67.7 billion. Taiwan, $63.2 billion. If China decides to invade Taiwan, the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Tanner, has made this point before, our country and our fiscal house is in such a mess that if China decides to invade Taiwan, we will have to borrow more money from China to be able to afford to go assist and defend Taiwan.

The Caribbean banking center, $63.6 billion. Hong Kong, $51 billion. Germany, $52.1 billion. A lot of discussion about our border, and I believe we must secure our border, but are you ready for this: the United States of America has borrowed $38.2 billion from Mexico in the past 6 years to fund tax cuts for people who live here earning over $400,000 a year, leaving our children and grandchildren with the bill, which is the very reason why our Nation today is in debt $8,696,414,214,377.

That is a big number. How do you explain it? If you divide it by everybody that lives in America, some 300 million of us, every one of us owes $28,900. I don't know about you, Mr. Speaker, but I can't afford to write a check for $28,900 to the government. It is what we call the debt tax, D-E-B-T, and it is one tax that can't go away until we get our fiscal house in order and begin to meet America's priorities again.

Today, the money is going to pay interest on the debt, and it is going to borrow more money to fund the war that is costing us $9 billion a month, again, a big number, break it down, $12 million an hour. $12 million an hour.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wilson).

I thank the gentleman from Ohio for joining us during this Special Order to discuss the President's budget, which has been delivered to Congress this week, as well as to talk about the War Accountability Act, House Resolution 97, to demand transparency, accountability and just good government, Mr. Speaker, in how we are spending the hardworking people of this country's tax money in Iraq.

There are a lot of misplaced priorities in this enormous budget. Here is the top ten list:

Number one, it includes tax increases for middle-class families.

Number two, it has cuts in it to health care and to seniors.

Number three, while it is very cold outside right now, while much of the country is frozen, if you will, Mr. Speaker, it cuts home energy assistance for those who need help the most with finding the money to afford to heat their home in the winter months.

After 5 years following 9/11, it has devastating cuts to police and firefighters.

In direct opposition to the wishes of the people of this country, here it comes again, it has a plan to privatize Social Security.

The President's budget includes cuts to veterans health care. At a time when we are creating a new generation of veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, the President's budget includes cuts to our veterans. We need to ensure that our veterans receive the health care they so desperately need.

I don't know about you, Mr. Speaker, but I get letter after letter and call after call from veterans who have to wait in line weeks and months at a time to be able to see a doctor. That is not the kind of health care we promised America's veterans. We should honor them by properly caring for them.

It includes cuts to education and cuts to housing assistance. And with Iraq veterans returning with devastating injuries, it includes cuts to the brain trauma research that is so desperately needed by many of these returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Bush's budget says a lot, but it does very little. It is filled with misplaced priorities. I will challenge you, Mr. Speaker, to read it for yourself, make your own decision.

As members of the Blue Dog Coalition, we are not here to beat up the President. He can't even run again. We are here to reach out across that aisle and work with him and work with the Republican Members of Congress, because the American people have sent a message very loud and clear, they want us to work together. That is what the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue

Dog Coalition is all about. We want to work in a bipartisan manner to put this Nation on a track toward a balanced budget, to pay down the debt, and to restore some fiscal discipline and common sense to our Nation's government.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Lincoln Davis.

(Mr. LINCOLN DAVIS of Tennessee asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I thank the gentleman from Tennessee, an active member of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition.

And the gentleman is exactly right. As members of the Blue Dog Coalition, we are sick and tired of all the partisan bickering that goes on in Washington. As members of the Blue Dog Coalition, we don't care if it is a Democratic idea or a Republican idea. All we care about is, is it a commonsense idea, and does it make sense for the people who sent us here to be their voice? That is really what the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition is all about: restoring fiscal discipline, accountability and common sense to our government.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

I thank the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, if you have any comments or questions or concerns, you can e-mail us at [email protected].

I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.