Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the 37-member strong, fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. There are 37 of us that are Democrats. We are fiscal conservatives and we are concerned about the debt and the deficit that plagues this great Nation ours.

In fact, you can see here, the Blue Dog coalition today, the United States national debt is $8,361,683,340,530 and some change. Now, for every man, woman and child, including those born today, their share of this enormous national debt is about $28,000. It is what we call the debt tax, d-e-b-t. That is one tax that cannot go away until we get our Nation's fiscal house in order.

It is hard now to believe that from 1998 to 2001 we had a balanced budget in this country. Things were going pretty well. Now, what do we have? We have gasoline prices that are up 80 percent, health care up 50 percent, higher education, college costs up 40 percent. Things are not going so well. Mr. Speaker, I submit to you, it is directly related to this debt, the largest debt ever in our Nation's history, this deficit, the largest deficit ever in our Nation's history.

You know, the projected deficit for fiscal year 2007 is $348 billion. But the reason it is $348 billion is because they are borrowing, our government is borrowing from the Social Security trust fund. The projected deficit for fiscal year 2007, not counting the Social Security surplus; in other words, if the politicians in Washington kept their hands off the Social Security trust fund, the real deficit for fiscal year 2007 is $548 billion.

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. Now I am beginning to understand why the Republican leadership would not give me a vote, even a hearing, on this bill, because they are now using the Social Security trust fund to run our government to pay for tax cuts to those earning over $400,000 a year in this manner of reckless spending that we are seeing going on, in fact, for the sixth year in a row.

The 2006 deficit, $372 billion. Not counting the Social Security surplus, it was $605 billion. In fiscal year 2005, it was $318 billion; if you don't count the Social Security surplus, Social Security trust fund, it was $494 billion. Fiscal year 2004, $412 billion deficit, and it goes on and on.

My point is this, Mr. Speaker, our Nation is borrowing $1 billion a day. We are spending $279 million every day to Iraq. But don't ask this administration for a plan on how that money is

being spent. Don't ask this administration to be accountable for that $279 million a year tax money going to Iraq every day, because if you do, they will tell you they are unpatriotic. $57 million every day going to Afghanistan, and billions more going to pay for tax cuts for folks earning over $400,000 a year.

Mr. Speaker, I submit to you this reckless spending that we are seeing in this country must end. As members of the Blue Dog Coalition, we have a plan, we have a 12-point plan for meaningful budget reform that will get our Nation's fiscal house in order. We will talk more about that in a little bit. We will talk more about the budget that may come to the floor of this Chamber in a little bit.

The other point that I want to make is in addition to the billion dollars a day that our Nation is borrowing, the debt is already $8.3 trillion. It is going up to the tune of about $1 billion every day. So it is $8.3 trillion and growing.

On that $8.3 trillion in debt, our Nation is spending about half a billion dollars a day simply paying interest on the debt we already got. No principal, just interest.

Some people say, well, none of this really matters. But it does, and it should matter to everybody in America, because that is a half a billion dollars a day that cannot go to fund America's priorities until our government gets its fiscal house in order.

In my congressional district, which spans about half of Arkansas, I have got I-49 on the western side of the State. We need $1.5 billion to complete that interstate that can create all kinds of jobs and economic opportunity. That is a lot of money until you look at it this way and you realize, oh, my goodness, we could finish that interstate with just 3 days' interest on the national debt.

On the eastern and southern part of my district we have I-69 under way. I need $1.6 billion to finish it. Again, just for 3 days, interest on the national debt, I could complete I-69 in Arkansas. I could four- lane U.S. highway 167 from Little Rock to El Dorado on 1 day's interest on the national debt. Give me a few hours interest of the national debt, I can finish that expressway around Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas.

My point is that whether it is education, health care, roads, whatever it might be, America's priorities continue to go unmet until we get our Nation's fiscal house in order.

Now, in a little bit, we will be talking more about our foreign debt and about the Blue Dog 12-point plan to budget reform, which includes a balanced budget amendment. We will be talking more about the budget that may come to the floor of this Chamber this week.

But at this time, I am pleased to turn this microphone over to a real leader within the Blue Dog Coalition, someone that really understands fiscal discipline and someone that I am very pleased and honored to have join me this evening. That is the gentleman from Georgia, my friend, David Scott.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, Mr. Scott from Georgia for joining me this evening. I appreciate his leadership within the 37 Member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. We are here on the floor talking about the budget, the debt, the deficit late into the evening on Tuesday because America, America has a debt that is out of control.

It has a deficit out of control. Mr. Speaker, it is time to restore some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's Government.

Mr. Scott just talked about priorities, about how this Republican Congress is clearly in the majority for the first time in well over 50 years. They control the White House, the House, the Senate, and now the Supreme Court. And they voted against funding border security.

And yet the budget that will be presented on this floor this week calls for $228 billion, that is with a B, in tax cuts that primarily benefit those earning over $400,000 a year.

Mr. Scott, I do not know about in your district, but I do not have a lot of folks in my 150 towns and all the square miles that I represent that earn $400,000 a year. I yield.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman makes an excellent point. And look, I am not against tax cuts. I voted for the biggest tax cut in 20 years back before 9/11. It was back before Iraq, Afghanistan. It was back when we had a surplus. We were really giving people some of their money back.

But this notion that you can give tax cuts in times when you do not have a surplus, in times of deficit spending to provide tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year, and to accomplish that and pay for that by cutting programs like Medicaid and Medicare and student loans, and borrowing the rest from places like China and Japan, that may be a tax cut on these earning over $400,000 dollars a year today, but it is a tax increase on our kids. It is a tax increase on our children and our grandchildren.

Mr. Speaker, it is about priorities. We have $3 dollar gasoline. There is a lot of talk from the Republican leadership. Well, there was one proposal where they want to give us $100 close to election time. They want to give us $100 and tell us to get over it and get used to it.

Let me tell you, as a Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, I can tell you that these are the facts. The Republican leadership talks a lot about alternative and renewable fuels. Biomass refineries, grants to create biomass refineries for all of America for the next 365 days totals $100 million.

We will send nearly three times that much money to Iraq in the next 24 hours. It is about priorities. This President has announced already that if this supplemental appropriations bill includes funding for disaster payments for our farm families here in America who have suffered through one of the worst droughts in this Nation's history that he will veto it, the first veto of this administration after 6 years.

Again, it is about America's priorities, and America's priorities are found all over this Republican budget for fiscal year 2007. A budget that should reflect the priorities and values of our Nation, a budget that may very well be debated and voted on on the floor of this chamber sometime this week.

Well, Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority has had a difficult time bringing a proposal to the floor for a vote. This is because they cannot find consensus within their own party about the choices made to cut programs that are essential to the most vulnerable in our Nation, while increasing record deficits by providing tax cuts to those making over $400,000 a year.

If they fail to pass a budget, it will be the first time in three decades that the House has not adopted a blueprint, a budget blueprint. But if they succeed, the damage to our Nation and those we represent will be devastating.

Since this administration took office, it has requested and this Republican controlled Congress has provided four increases, four increases in the statutory debt ceiling totaling $3 trillion. Under this budget, the statutory debt by 2011 will increase by another $2.3 trillion for a total increase of $5.3 trillion. As you can see, as of tonight our national debt, $8,351,683,340,530 and some change.

While Republicans say their objective is to restore fiscal discipline to our Nation, this budget does not lead us in that direction. While tremendous cuts are made to programs that serve a majority of Americans, the Republican budget includes $228 billion in new tax cuts that will benefit only a small few, mostly those earning over $400,000 a year. As a result, their budget resolution continues to deficit spend over $400 billion for the next 5 years.

These deficits mean that under Republican policies, the five largest deficits in history will have occurred in the five consecutive years that they have controlled this Congress, the White House, this Senate, and the Supreme Court. This is not how the American people want our government to function.

The American people want a good dose of common sense. They want an end to all this partisan bickering. They want to see one America again. Cutting vital programs for those who are most in need to provide a tax cut to the wealthiest among us is morally unconscionable.

The Republican proposal eliminates 42, 42 education programs including those that support vocational education, college-readiness programs for low-income students, and family literacy programs. Overall, both the President's budget and the House Republican resolution cut funding for the Department of Education by $2.2 billion below the comparable 2006 level.

This is the second year in a row that the Republicans will cut Federal education funding despite the need for school districts to meet demanding standards under the federally mandated No Child Left Behind law. This funding level does not meet the educational needs of America's students. It fails to provide assistance to nearly 4 million children eligible for title I services and 2 million children eligible for afterschool services that enhance student achievement.

For the many families that are trying to send their children to college, their proposal cuts aid for students to help pay for college. It freezes the maximum Pell grant award at $4,050 right where it has been since 2003, while the average tuition and fees at 4-year public colleges have risen nearly $1,400. As a parent with a child who will be attending college in the next couple of years, I understand firsthand the increasing costs of tuition and the need to provide assistance to those seeking higher education

Some of the most egregious cuts in the Republican budget adversely impact the most vulnerable Americans. The Republican proposal is largely consistent with the President's budget in its effect on safety net programs such as housing, child care, and nutrition assistance. The President's budget eliminates over $100 million for the commodity supplemental food program which provides nutrient-rich food packaging for low-income women, infants, children, and senior citizens. The program serves 420,000 elderly and 50,000 mothers and their children each month.

The House Republican budget imposes even deeper cuts to these type of programs than the President's budget. Like the President's budget, the Republican proposal freezes child care for 2007 at the 2006 level and cuts funding for the following years. These are just a few examples of the misplaced priorities that this Republican-controlled Congress has for our country and why it is important to oppose these cuts.

I urge my colleagues to reject these cuts and take action to begin an honest dialogue to pass legislation that will provide needed resources for the majority of our Nation. It is time to pass a budget that reflects America's priorities. Not the priorities of a divided America, but the priorities of a united America.

Mr. Speaker, I am convinced we can do that. We can do that, and we can have a balanced budget. It is about priorities. It is about making the difficult decisions that will allow us to pay down this debt, to stop this deficit spending. We can do it. We can do it by beginning with one of the Blue Dog proposals which requires our Nation to have a balanced budget, something 49 States are required to do, something I helped do as a State senator in Arkansas for 10 years.

With that, I yield to my friend, Mr. Scott from Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia for joining me this evening, and he is right. I am concerned, as he is, about America's security.

Some people will say, well, there has not been another attack in America since 9/11, and I submit to you that is true and we have been real lucky. We have been lucky. We have been lucky because it is very clear that our border is not secure with Mexico or Canada. It is clear that while we take our shoes off and we go through the metal detectors at the airport and while our suitcases are X-rayed, the freight which can take up as much as a quarter to half of the belly of a plane continues to go unchecked. All the containers, for the most part, coming into our ports remain unchecked.

I submit to you that instead of having a budget that is going to be debated on this floor this week that calls for $228 billion in tax cuts for folks earning over $400,000 a year, let us invest in America's security. Let us make those ports secure. Let us make our borders secure. Let us check the freight on the belly of those commercial airplanes. Let us invest in America again.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia. Mr. Speaker, if you have any comments or concerns or questions for us, you can e-mail us at [email protected]. That is [email protected].

Next Tuesday night, Mr. Speaker, I will return to this House floor to talk about the plight of our farm families across this country, the disasters they face this year ranging from droughts in parts of the country to the needs in other parts of the country, to the hurricanes, a real concern among the Blue Dog Coalition about the plight of the family farmer. It is every bit as critical to our Nation's security so that our farm families can provide us with a safe and secure source for food and fiber. That is just as critical to us as our energy sources are. We will be talking more about that on the floor next Tuesday night.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at midnight), the House adjourned until today, Wednesday, May 10, 2006, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening as whip of the 37-member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. I rise this evening on behalf of the Blue Dogs, who are very concerned about this, our Nation's debt, which is $8,353,429,193,726 and some change. That means for every man, woman and child alive in America at this moment, it means their share of the national debt is $28,000. Many of America's priorities will continue to go unmet until we get our Nation's fiscal house in order.

I plan to spend a good part of this hour discussing the debt and the deficit, but I just heard some things from a group that calls themselves the Official Truth Squad. They had the nerve to come to the floor of the United States House of Representatives and say it is the Democrats that are responsible for $3-a-gallon gasoline at the gas pump. But the best one of all was when they blamed it on former President Clinton. Mr. Speaker, give me a break.

The American people know for the last 5 years and for the first time in 50 years, the Republicans control the White House, the House and the Senate. It is they who have failed to give us an energy policy that will allow us to become less dependent on foreign oil. They know that Democrats like myself have tried time and time again to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

We have a bill in committee, in the Committee on Energy and Commerce, of which I am a member. We have a bill in the committee that mandates 10 percent ethanol in all gasoline and 5 percent biodiesel in all diesel fuel, and yet

the Republican leadership refuses to give us a hearing let alone a vote on this bill that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It will create new markets for America's farm families. It will mean that we pay 60 to 70 cents less per gallon at the pump; and yes, it will reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

When we talk about alternative and renewable fuels, don't let anyone tell you that is too futuristic. I am here to tell you if we can strap a four-wheeler on a rocket and shoot it to Mars and control it from NASA's headquarters in Houston, it is American people that did that, and in America we have people with the know-how to create alternative and renewable fuels; not only ethanol and biodiesel, but many other forms that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

It was last August, 8 months ago, last August that I went to all 29 counties in my congressional district and called on the President to suspend deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and I did this because I know it is a short-term solution, and it works. President Bush's daddy did it in 1991, and the price of a barrel of oil dropped $11 overnight. President Clinton did it in 2000, and the price of a barrel of oil dropped $6. My question is why did it take this President 8 months to decide to announce today something I called for him to do last August, and that is to suspend deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

It is 8 months too late, and that means we have lost a number of farm families that will not be back in the business of providing America with a safe and reliable source for food and fiber. If we are not careful, we are going to become just as dependent on foreign countries for our food and fiber as we have for our energy supplies.

So I am very concerned that tonight all we heard from the Republican side of the aisle and this so-called Truth Squad is that it is the Democrats and President Clinton that are responsible for the high prices of gasoline.

Let me say that the American people are sick and tired of the partisan bickering going on the floor of the House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker, it should not matter if it is a Democrat or Republican idea; it should only matter if it is a commonsense idea, and does it make sense for the people that send us here to be their voice.

I am going to continue to push for ethanol and biodiesel and other renewable and alternative fuels that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and bring down the price we pay at the pump because, Mr. Speaker, I represent a very large and rural district where it is not uncommon to travel 50 and 100 miles each way each day to a job. Our working farm families can no longer afford the prices we are seeing at the gas pump.

Mr. Speaker, I am also proud that the President finally today suggested something that I put into a bill last September that the Republican leadership refused to give me a hearing or a vote on, and that is calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the big oil companies to determine if what we have been seeing is in any way related to price gouging. I can tell you if it is, the big oil companies responsible for that, they should not be put in the jail, they ought to be put under the jail. Why did it take this President 8 months to heed my call for a Federal Trade Commission investigation and to heed my call to suspend deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? I am sure it has something to do with his approval rating now reaching an all-time low of 32 percent.

Now, I wasn't here this evening to discuss energy, but I got a little fired up when the other side of the aisle decided they were going to say it was the Democrats and President Clinton who are responsible for $3-a-gallon gasoline at the pump.

I am joined this evening by a good friend and colleague within the Blue Dog Coalition to talk about the debt and the deficit. He is a real active member of the Blue Dog Coalition, the group of 37 fiscally conservative Democrats, Mr. David Scott of Georgia.

I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia and his thoughts on this energy crisis. And he is right, these oil company executives, I would invite them to come to my district and look into the eyes of farm families that are no longer in business, working families who are having to make difficult decisions about how to spend their money because of the high price of gasoline just to get to and from work.

And yet this administration, this Republican-led Congress continue to tell us that life is getting better. It is getting better for whom? Gasoline prices are up 80 percent. Health care costs are up 50 percent. College costs are up 40 percent, and incomes are down in this country. That concerns me. And as one of the 37 members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, we understand that all of this is directly related to this, the national debt, which is now $8,053,429,193,726 and some change, which equates to every man, woman and child in America, including the children being born today, their share is $28,000. We call that the debt tax, D-E-B-T. And that is one tax that cannot go away until our Nation gets its fiscal house in order. A lot of people think the deficit doesn't matter, that the debt doesn't matter, that we can simply print more money. That doesn't happen. It doesn't work that way.

Unfortunately, here's how it works. We are borrowing money from the Social Security trust fund, which I am adamantly against. Now, I understand, 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. Now, I understand why the Republican leadership refused to give me a hearing or a vote on that bill, because the projected deficit for fiscal year 2007 is $348 billion. That is the number you will hear a lot. But the reality is that it is $548 billion. The difference is they are taking the money from the Social Security trust fund with absolutely no provision on how or when that money is going to be paid back.

Now, when I go to the bank to get a loan, my banker asks me how I am going to pay it back, where's the money going to come from to pay it back, and when am I going to pay it back. Our government should be no different. The politicians in Washington should keep their hands off the Social Security trust fund. But, instead, this is what we get.

Forty-five percent of the debt is being borrowed from foreign central banks and foreign investors. Forty-five percent of the deficit is coming from foreigners. In fact, this administration, in the last 6 years, has borrowed more money from foreign central banks and foreign investors in places like China and Japan and South Korea than the previous 42 Presidents combined. And if we are not careful, if we are not careful, those foreigners are going to influence and have an impact and have control of our Nation's monetary policy. And we already see what is happening with interest rates.

I will yield, yes, ma'am.

The gentleman is absolutely correct, and the fact that our Nation is $8.3 trillion in debt has a direct impact on all of America's priorities, many of which are going unmet today because of this enormous debt. I mean, it is $8.2 trillion, but it is growing by nearly $1 billion a day. We are sending $279 million a day to Iraq, $57 million a day to Afghanistan. This President, in this year's budget, proposes cuts to things like education and student loans to the tune of $2 billion. And yet the same budget, the same budget includes over $200 billion in new tax cuts for those that are primarily earning over $400,000 a year. It is about priorities, and priorities should begin with bringing down the high price of gasoline and diesel fuel; and priorities should begin with reducing our dependence not only on foreign oil but on foreign central banks and foreign investors to fund our government.

The U.S. is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign lenders. Foreign lenders currently hold a total of about $2.174 trillion of our public debt. Compare this to only $23 billion in foreign holdings in 1993.

The top 10 current lenders, countries that this President and this Republican Congress continue to pass tax cuts with money that they are borrowing from these countries: Japan, $668.3 billion. China, you can see here in 2000, and these are based on numbers from the United States Treasury and the United States Census Bureau, the public debt held by China quadruples under President Bush by billions of dollars. In 2000, when the President took office, our government had borrowed $62 billion from China, and in less than 6 years this chart shows that we have now borrowed $257 billion from China. This was printed on February 23, 2006. We cannot get them printed and updated quickly enough because the new number is $262.6 billion. United Kingdom, $244.8 billion. Our Nation has borrowed $97.9 billion from the Caribbean Banking Center. I had never heard of such. Taiwan, $71.6 billion. OPEC nations, $77.6 billion that we have borrowed from them. With the excessive price we pay at the pump, they are getting the profits. They are getting so much in profits on our backs that they are then turning around and lending our Nation money so that these Republicans in Congress can keep borrowing money from OPEC to give their rich buddies a tax cut.

And I would submit to you if you earn over $400,000 a year, you ought to be for this. If you earn less than $400,000 a year, this is not a good deal for you, and it is certainly not fair to your children, who have got to pay this back someday.

Korea, $68.3 billion. Germany, $65.2 billion. Canada, $54.9 billion. And to round out the top 10 list of countries that our Nation has borrowed money from to fund tax cuts, Hong Kong, $48.3 billion.

The gentleman is so right. The gentleman is so correct on that.

In a moment we are going to be hearing from the cochair for policy for the 37-member-strong fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, and it is interesting what the gentleman from Tennessee is about to present to us. This is a little known report.

And before we get into this, let me just let you know, Mr. Speaker, that every Tuesday night, as members of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 37 fiscally conservative Democrats, we come to the floor of the United States House of Representatives to talk about the budget, the debt, the deficit, and how this directly impacts America's priorities. And, Mr. Speaker, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns of us, I would encourage you to e-mail us at [email protected]. Again, Mr. Speaker, I would encourage you to e-mail us your thoughts, concerns, or questions to [email protected].

Very few people in our Nation, in fact, very few people in this Congress, know about this little known report. It is called the Financial Report of the United States Government, and this is the 2005 edition. Very few copies of this report are printed. Very few copies are circulated.

Contrast that, Mr. Speaker, to this: This is the budget of the United States Government. It is delivered with a lot of fanfare to every Member of Congress's office. You always read about it and see it in the newspaper, radio, and television. You hear about it and see it, and this is the budget for fiscal year 2007. The budget of the United States Government, you get an idea of how thick it is. It is a big document, and it is delivered each year to all 435 Members with a lot of fanfare.

This document, however, is delivered only to a handful of people, and it is only delivered to them because the law requires it, but it is a financial report of the United States Government. And here is what is interesting about this report: When we tell you that the deficit for 2005 was $319 billion, that is based on cash-basis accounting. Now, the Financial Report of America, and I believe it was Senator John Glenn that introduced the legislation, Congress requires the Secretary of the Treasury to issue this Financial Report of America using accrual-based accounting. It is this Congress through various laws that require every business in America with revenues over $5 million to use accrual-based accounting. They get in a lot of trouble with the IRS if they do not, and yet our government does not use the accrual accounting method, and our government certainly is bigger than $5 million in revenue every year. Our government uses cash-based accounting. And based on cash- based accounting, the deficit for 2005 was $319 billion.

Maybe the reason this is not widely distributed and not very well known is because when the Financial Report of America issued by President Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, as required by law, uses an accrual-based accounting method, this little document reveals that the true deficit for 2005 was not $319 billion. It was $760 billion. Lord knows we are not trying to make it sound any worse than it already is because at $319 billion it is one of the largest deficits ever in our Nation's history. It is hard now to believe that we had a balanced budget in this country from 1998 to 2000, but we did. And yet under this administration and this Republican-led Congress, we have got the largest budget deficit ever in our Nation's history for 6 years in a row, and that is based on the cash-based accounting method. And when you look at the accrual accounting method, it is much worse.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee, the cochair for policy for the 37-member-strong, fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, Mr. Jim Cooper, who discovered this document. And I yield to him to better explain it to all of us.

Please do.

I would say to the gentleman from Georgia, I could not agree

with you more. The point we are making I believe this evening, I hope this evening, is as long as we have got this massive debt, which is costing us half a billion dollars a day in interest payments alone, as long as we continue to borrow $1 billion a day, increasing the $8.3 trillion debt by $1 billion a day, then America's priorities will continue to go unmet.

We talk about investing in alternative and renewable fuels. The Potlatch Corporation with their plant in Cypress Bend, Arkansas, in my congressional district, has been recognized for their efforts in publications including the Wall Street Journal, I believe.

They have a plan. They have the ability to take the wood, if you will, the timber, if you will, that is left in the woods that is not used in a manufacturing process, combine that with what is left on the sawmill floor, and they can power at least five towns the size of my hometown of Preston, Arkansas. To invest in that kind of equipment and technology and to make the thing economically feasible, it is going to have to be mass produced on a large scale, so they are in search of money to go forward.

In the energy bill there is money to invest in these types of alternative and renewable fuels, but because of the massive debt there is only $150 million. Don't get me wrong, $150 million is a lot of money to a country boy from Prescott, Arkansas. But my point is this: To be able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and to make our Nation more energy self-sufficient, to get this project off the ground to where it can be mass produced, they need $100 million. There is $150 million for similar type projects for all of America. They need $100 million of it.

My point is we are not investing nearly enough in alternative and renewable fuels. $150 million is a lot of money, but our Nation is spending three times that, $500 million every day simply paying interest on the national debt, when we could be investing in alternative and renewable fuels to bring down the high energy bills that are having a negative effect, a horrible impact on America's working families, America's seniors and America's farm families.

Just look at what interest payments on the debt are doing. The red on this chart is the net interest that is being paid in billions of dollars. The blue is how much we spend on education. Yes, we will spend more money paying interest on the national debt in about 100 days than we will spend on education in 365. Homeland security is the green bar. Veterans. I might remind you, we have got a whole new generation of veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, including my brother- in-law, who is in the United States Air Force, and my first cousin, who is in the United States Army.

So look where our priorities lay in this country. Until we can get our Nation's fiscal house in order, this Republican Congress is going to continue to spend half a billion dollars a day paying interest on the national debt, while education and homeland security, keeping America safe and our veterans, will continue to get the short end of the stick.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

The gentleman from Georgia is correct in talking about not only do we understand what the problem is, record debt, record deficits, but we also have a solution to the problem.

As members of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, all 37 of us, we have a 12-point plan for meaningful budget reform. These are not rocket science ideas; they are common sense ideas.

One of them is promoting accountability within our government. I have talked about this before, and I am going to continue to talk about it, because I continue to have these manufactured homes located in my congressional district.

FEMA has this so-called FEMA staging area at the Hope Airport in Hope, Arkansas, and the idea was that manufactured homes, 14 and 16 foot wide, 60 foot long, and they are fully furnished, they would come and go. Hope is 450 miles from the eye of Hurricane Katrina.

Well, they all came, and none of them ever went. As a result, at one time we had 10,477 brand new, fully-furnished manufactured homes sitting at the airport in Hope, Arkansas. They were going to use these old World War II era runways, taxiways and tarmacs, and you can see that is what they did with some of them. Then they started to have to use pasture land.

Here is a better shot. When I say pasture land or hay meadow, you get the idea what I am talking about. Here are these mobile homes sitting there on the grass.

So when I started getting on them and raising this issue back in December, I thought FEMA would get these homes to the people who lost their home and everything they owned in places like Mississippi and Louisiana. But instead, FEMA's response to this is they are now spending $4.3 million laying gravel on this pasture to keep the manufactured homes from sinking, instead of getting the homes to the people that need them.

They claim they won't locate them in Louisiana and Mississippi in flood plains. Why didn't FEMA think about that before they went out and spent nearly $1 billion on these mobile homes? FEMA says it is okay to put tents in flood plains, it is okay to put almost 80 million camper trailers in flood plains, but, no, not mobile homes, not even temporarily for 18 months. So people continue to live in hotel rooms, they continue to live in tents, they continue to live in campers across Louisiana and Mississippi.

You would have thought that FEMA would have figured this thing out since

last August when Hurricane Katrina hit. Unfortunately, we had a horrible tornado come through Arkansas and Tennessee, numerous tornadoes, I might add, which literally destroyed the community of Marmaduke, Arkansas. It took a number of Congressmen, a number of Senators, a Governor and I don't know who all else two weeks to get FEMA to move 25 of these 10,477 mobile homes from Hope, Arkansas, to Marmaduke, Arkansas.

We come to find out they have simply moved them to a so-called FEMA staging area at Marmaduke, and are telling those homeless it might take 30 days to process their paperwork to see if they can get one of these homes.

This is a symbol of what is wrong with this administration, this Republican Congress and their Federal Emergency Management Agency. I will continue to raise this issue and continue to give you an update, Mr. Speaker, as long as we have got a single home sitting at the airport at Hope, Arkansas, while people remain homeless from these horrible natural disasters.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, the current update as I understand it is we now as of tonight have 10,112 manufactured homes sitting there at the airport in Hope, Arkansas. This is an example of the lack of accountability within our government, the kind of accountability that we need if we are going to get our Nation's fiscal house in order.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia, the gentleman from Tennessee for joining me this evening as we discuss this huge issue, this debt, and deficit facing our country, as we do every Tuesday night.

We began the hour with a debt, $8,353,429,193,726 and some change. Just in the last hour since we have been discussing the debt and the deficit and what it means to America and how America's priorities are not getting funded because of it, how our veterans are not being taken care of, our school children are not being taken care of, our Nation is not nearly as safe as it should be because of America's priorities cannot be met as long as we do not have our fiscal house in order.

But during this hour that we have stood here talking about this, this administration, this Republican Congress has increased the national debt to the tune of about $41 million. In fact, this is no longer the national debt. The debt now is $8,353,470,859,833. Just in the hour we have been here, our national debt increased by more than $41 million.

It now stands at $8,353,470,859,833 and some change. It is time for this Nation to get its fiscal house in order. Forty-nine States are required to have a balanced budget. As members of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, we believe our Nation should have a balanced budget. Small businesses are required to have a balanced budget. And America's working families and seniors and farm families are required to have a balanced budget.

It is time for America to have a balanced budget. Madam Speaker, as members of the 37 Member strong, fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, we will continue this dialogue and this debate on the House floor every Tuesday night until we have an administration and a Congress that will get our Nation's fiscal house in order.

With that, Madam Speaker, if you have any questions for us, in the time remaining, I would encourage you, Madam Speaker, if you have questions or comments or concerns, I would encourage you, Madam Speaker, to e-mail us at [email protected]. That is [email protected].

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of George Edwin `Jetty' Steel, a dedicated lawyer and longstanding pillar of the Nashville, Arkansas, legal community and Howard County. He passed away on March 3, 2006, at the age of 89. I wish to recognize his life and achievements.

Jetty was born in Ashdown, Arkansas, on August 16, 1916. After graduating from Nashville High School, he attended Hendrix College and received a law degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Jetty then began an impressive 67-year legal career in Nashville, where he served as the City Attorney of Nashville, Prosecuting Attorney of the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Arkansas, and a partner of Steel and Steel Law Firm.

Jetty's commitment went far beyond the legal community; he led a life of public service by offering unwavering support for institutions throughout Nashville. He served on the Arkansas State Police Commission for 19 years, Board of Directors of First National Bank in Nashville for 20 years, Board of Directors of Diamond State Bank, Board of Directors of Nashville Federal Savings and Loan Association for 33 years, Board of Directors of the Bank of Glenwood and Board of Directors of the University of Arkansas Alumni Association. He was also a member of the Arkansas State Racing Commission and a member of First United Methodist Church in Nashville.

Jetty will be remembered for his lifetime of dedication to his community. While he may no longer be with us, his spirit and legacy will live on in the hearts he touched throughout Nashville. My deepest sympathies and heartfelt condolences are with his son, George Steel; his daughter, Donna Kay Steel Yeargan; his grandchildren, George, Linsley, Ashley, and Nate; his great-grandchildren; and to all those who knew and counted him as a friend.

Mr. Speaker, this evening, as every Tuesday evening, the members of the 37-Member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition come to the floor of the United States House of Representatives, here at our Nation's Capitol, to address the debt, the deficit, and tonight also the budget.

And for those of you who have walked the halls of Congress, it is easy to spot when you are walking by a Member's office that is a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition because you will see one of these posters, one of these posters that displays the current national debt. And every American citizen shares the National debt.

As you can see, at the moment, the U.S. national debt is $8,378,143,406,405 and some change. And for every man, woman, and child in America, including those being born this hour, your share of the national debt is $28,000.

We raise these issues for a number of reasons, Mr. Speaker. It is hard now to remember, but from 1998 to 2001, our Nation enjoyed a balanced budget. We had a surplus. We could meet many of America's priorities. But today, for the sixth year in a row, we have the largest budget deficit ever in our Nation's history. Our Nation is borrowing a billion dollars a day. We are sending $279 million a day to Iraq, $57 million a day to Afghanistan, a billion a day we are borrowing, and on top of that we are spending half a billion dollars a day simply paying interest, not principal but just interest on the debt that we already have.

As members of the Blue Dog Coalition, we believe it is time to get our Nation's fiscal house in order. Now, the Republicans in this year's budget they will present this week on the floor of the United States House of Representatives indicates that their priorities do not reflect our priorities or our values. We are going to spend a lot of the time this evening talking about that.

They will say, well, we are trying to balance the budget, which they do not do. They will say that, well, we are cutting this program or that program to try and reduce the deficit. But what they do not tell you is that their budget includes $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years in tax cuts that primarily benefit those earning over $400,000 a year.

So when they talk about cutting programs, they will tell you that they are trying to cut programs to reduce these numbers. Not so. Because you don't cut taxes for folks earning over $400,000 a year at a time when you are in a nation that is borrowing a billion dollars a day; at a time when you are in a nation that is spending half a billion a day simply paying interest on the debt you already have.

So it is about priorities. And the Republican priorities in this year's budget include cuts to the Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center in my Congressional District. In fact, there are 25 or 26 agricultural research centers all over America that are being cut. They create good paying jobs in these rural communities that invest in the kind of agricultural research that our farm families so desperately need.

The development of the Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center began back in 1977 with their initial work starting in 1980. It is a partnership among three agencies, Agricultural Research Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.

Their mission, the mission at the Agricultural Research Service unit at the Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center, is to develop scientific principles and technologies to enhance the profitability and sustainability of small-scale farms, because they are threatened by a lack of profitability. Yet in this year's budget, in this year's budget that the President submitted to this Congress and that this Republican Congress may very well pass this week, it includes zeroing out, eliminating 25 or 26 of these agricultural research centers all across America.

Again, this budget is about priorities, and this budget that we are going to vote on this week does not reflect my priorities or my values. It certainly does not represent the kind of conservative small-town values that I was raised on, where I was raised to value our farm families who simply try to do their best to provide us with a safe and reliable source for food and fiber.

We can get into a debate about how we have become too dependent on foreign oil. If we are not too careful, we

are going to become too dependent on other countries for our food and fiber. And I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that that is a dangerous road to go down, and one in which America has no business going down.

This is just one example of many of what is wrong with this budget. There are ways to balance the budget, and we are going to talk tonight about an alternative that I believe makes sense, that reinstates a thing called PAYGO. Pay as you go rules mean if you want to fund a new program, you have to cut something else. If you want to pass a tax cut, you have to cut a program. You just don't go borrow more money from China to fund it. It also balances the budget within, I believe, 10 years.

Yes, in 10 years we would have a balanced budget again, and that is an alternative that will be presented on the floor this week that many of us will be supporting.

We will be talking a lot tonight about the debt, the budget, and the deficit and these things, and I am very honored to be joined tonight by a number of my Blue Dog friends, and Dennis Cardoza is the co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition. He is the co-chair for communications. He is a Member of Congress from California. A lot of people, when they think of fiscally conservative Democrats, they think we are just in the South, but we are spread from California to Long Island. This is a national movement. This is a national movement of 37 fiscally conservatives Democrats that believe it is time to restore some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government.

So, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to turn this thing over to one of the leaders of our group, Dennis Cardoza from California.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the co-chair, Mr. Cardoza, and for communications within the 37-Member strong, fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition for his insightful information and knowledge about the process and what we are trying to accomplish. We have Members here from Georgia and Illinois and Oklahoma and from all over the Nation that have come to speak the truth, to hold this Republican Congress accountable and demand some commonsense and fiscal discipline be restored to our Nation's government.

We are going to hear from people other than California, but it just so happens our first two presenters are both from California. The other is a gentleman who has not been here long, but has been quite effective within our coalition and a real leader within our coalition, and that is the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Costa for joining us this evening to discuss these issues that are so important to not only today's generation but to our children and grandchildren.

This week on the floor of the House there is going to be a very close vote. Most votes on the House floor last somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes. Every once in a while we have a vote that goes for an hour or 2 hours, sometimes even 3 hours, while enough arms are twisted to be able to get enough votes for a vote to pass.

I have always said the Prescott Curly Wolves, they have some pretty good years in football. And when there is no time left on the clock, if we are not ahead, if we could just not sound the buzzer until we are ahead, we would be the State champions every year. That is, unfortunately, how many votes run on this House floor. When they are close votes, votes are no longer 5 or 15 minutes; they last until the Republican leadership prevails; and then the horn, the bell, the gavel is sounded. That will likely happen late Thursday night or early Friday morning during the vote on this budget because this budget does not reflect America's priorities, and they are going to have a very difficult time passing it.

In fact, I predict it will be on a strict party-line vote, and they will lose some votes. It is unbelievable the fiscal turnaround from a budget surplus in fiscal year 2001 to the five largest deficits in history, and they have occurred in the last 5 consecutive years with the 2006 deficit being $372 billion. And the projected deficit for fiscal year 2007 is $348 billion; but not really. That is counting the money that the politicians are borrowing from the Social Security trust fund.

If you do not count the money that is being borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, the deficit last year was really $605 billion and for fiscal year 2007, it is $448 billion. I am beginning to understand why the Republican leadership refused to give me a hearing or a vote on the first vote I filed as a Member of Congress, a bill to tell the politicians in Washington to keep their hands off the Social Security trust fund.

When this administration took office, it inherited a projected 10- year surplus of $5.6 trillion. This surplus has become a $3.3 trillion deficit, an embarrassing reversal of $8.9 trillion.

Since 2001, there have been four increases in the debt ceiling to a staggering total of $3 trillion. This Republican-proposed budget increases the statutory debt ceiling by another $2.3 trillion, almost doubling the debt ceiling in 5 years to $11.3 trillion. And if that is not enough, with regards to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, this budget only includes $50 billion, less than half of what was appropriated for 2006, and goes so far as to actually assume we will be out of Iraq and Afghanistan after 2007. This is not a truthful budget. The budget includes no funding, absolutely no funding for the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond 2007.

This Republican Congress is telling us in this budget that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will be over by the end of fiscal year 2007. We know better. This is not a truthful budget.

The budget resolution calls for $39 billion in 2007 and $228 billion in new tax cuts over the next 5 years; $39 billion in tax cuts in 2007, $228 billion in new tax cuts over the next 5 years, and $1.7 trillion in new tax cuts over the next 10 years that primarily benefit only those earning over $400,000 a year. And in times of deficit, in times when we are borrowing a billion a day, what does that mean? That means we are borrowing money from places like China. This administration has borrowed more money from foreigners in the past 5 years than the previous 42 Presidents combined. Let me repeat that: this administration has borrowed more money from foreign central banks and foreign investors in the past 5 years than the previous 42 Presidents combined; and yet we are now going to borrow more money from China and Hong Kong and, God forbid, OPEC nations, to give a tax cut to those earning over $400,000 a year.

Over 5 years, the Republican-proposed resolution cuts nondefense discretionary spending by $162 billion, below the amount simply needed to maintain services at current levels.

Our next speaker will talk more about these funding cuts, these cuts that not only cut programs that matter to people but undercut our values, that undercut America's priorities.

And to talk more about this is the gentleman from Oklahoma, who has quickly become a real leader and a real voice within the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, my friend, Dan Boren.

I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for being a part of this special order on the budget, the debt and the deficit. And I appreciate the work he is doing with me to try and save all these agricultural research centers from closure that are so important, not only to rural America and to the communities where they are located like Booneville, Arkansas, but also so important to our farm families, all over this great country.

Mr. Speaker, if you have any comments, questions for the Blue Dog Coalition, there are 37 of us. We are a group of fiscally conservative Democrats that come together here on Capitol Hill to try and restore some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government. And Mr. Speaker, if you have any comments or concerns of our group, I would encourage you to e-mail us at [email protected]. That is [email protected].

At this time I am pleased to turn this over to Melissa Bean, Congresswoman from Illinois, a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, who many Tuesday evenings comes down and joins us for this, what I believe is a very healthy debate and healthy discussion about how we need to get our Nation's fiscal house in order and restore some of the conservative values that many of us were raised on and still believe in. And with that I yield.

And we are also joined tonight by, as we are almost every Tuesday night, and I am so proud of that, David Scott, Congressman from Georgia, a real leader, a real voice for common sense and conservative values within the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition. And I welcome both of you. And we can have a colloquy or do whatever y'all want to do. I will yield right now to the gentlewoman from Illinois.

The gentlewoman is so right, and I appreciate her sharing her experiences.

I was at Pine Bluff High School on Monday, speaking to a couple of classes, history classes, and that is one of the things we talked about was the debt, the deficit and what it means to their generation, because, you know, it is what I call the debt tax. It is one tax that, debt as in D-E-B-T, not to be confused with the death tax. It is what in the Blue Dog Coalition we have coined as the debt tax, because as long as we have got a debt, as long as we are spending a half a billion a day paying interest on the debt, then that is a half a billion we don't have to meet America's priorities. And that debt tax has got to be paid back by future generations, our children and grandchildren, because I can assure you all these foreign investors and foreign central banks that are now funding our deficit, they are not going to forgive our debt the way that oftentimes in the past we have forgiven others debts.

And I yield to the gentleman from Georgia. Glad to have you with us this evening, Mr. Scott.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott) for his input and would encourage him to stay for what I hope will be a meaningful discussion with the time remaining this evening as we talk about the budget and the debt and deficit. And I want to thank the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean) for staying with us as well.

Some of this has been mentioned tonight; some has not. But let us just take a look at some of the cuts that will be included in the budget this week. Education, the Republican budget resolution that will be voted on on the floor of this Chamber this week is identical to the administration's proposed budget cuts to education, training, and social services, including $2.2 billion in cuts to the Department of Education.

Let us begin by putting this thing in perspective. We spend more money paying interest on the national debt in 100 days than we spend funding education in 365 days. What does that say about our commitment to our children?

To future generations. And yet they propose to cut $2.2 billion from the Department of Education. The President's budget fully eliminates, fully eliminates, 41 Department of Education programs.

I had folks in my office this week, today, from my district. They are involved in the HIPPI program, programs that are helping young people get ready for kindergarten. They reach those young people at ages 3, 4, and 5. And they also go into the homes and teach the parents how to teach the children. It is a wonderful program.

And I had a meeting yesterday in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, with the chancellor at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, which is an historically black college, Chancellor Lawrence Davis, and he was telling me that we have a crisis in America with African American males because 60 percent of African American males who do not finish high school end up in prison. And his concern and my concern is that America does not seem to be nearly as alarmed about it as they should be. The way we address this is by investing in education. If we will get to these young people at age 3, 4, and 5, we can spend pennies on the dollar compared to what we are spending warehousing them in their adult life in prison. It is about priorities.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

The gentleman is so right. And I was sitting there in a meeting in my office today listening to a group pleading with me to vote against this budget, which I am, pleading with me to vote against this budget because it cuts programs that give 3- and 4-year-olds a fighting chance to be ready when they enter kindergarten that can help us be able to give them a chance at success in life.

We live in a free country. We get to choose what we eat and where we worship and whom we marry. Some people do that several times. And one of the few things in life we do not get to choose is who our parents are. Some children, both black and white, get really lucky. Some do not. And I think as a Nation we have a duty and obligation to be there for all young people. And if we can get to these young people at age 3 and 4 and get them ready for kindergarten, then we can have an impact on their lives and turn them into a productive citizen instead of spending $20,000 a year paying for them to sit idly and wastefully behind bars.

Yet these programs, these preschool programs, are being cut in this budget. And one of the women that was in my office today talking to me about it, she said, I was one of those in one of these programs. They came to my home and they taught me how to teach my child, and I started teaching my child, and my child started making the honor roll. And this woman today, she is from my district, she said, Mike, I want you to know I am now going back to college to become a school teacher. She went and got her high school degree. She is now going to college to become a school teacher because of one of these programs that not only has had an impact on her daughter's life but has now had an impact on her life. Yet these programs are either cut or eliminated in this year's budget.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I know I feel confident that the Republican leadership will send down a group to follow us. They do that every Tuesday evening. I am honored that they feel a need to do that. I think our message is getting through about trying to restore fiscal discipline and common sense to our Nation's government.

They are going to talk about how we didn't vote for this so-called Deficit Reduction Act. What they are not going to tell you was it was $40 billion to cuts in Medicaid, student loans and the orphan program, and also it was followed by $90 billion in tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year.

I wasn't real good in math back in high school or college, but $90 billion in new tax cuts and $40 billion in cuts to the poorest among us equals what, $50 billion of new debt. Only in Washington would they call that the Deficit Reduction Act. That was the name of it.

Then they are going to say this budget we are opposing is making the hard choices and the hard cuts and eliminating important programs in the name of trying to restore some fiscal discipline and balance the budget. What they fail to tell you is it is really about priorities, because their budget includes $1.7 trillion in new tax cuts over 10 years.

Look, I voted for the biggest tax cut in 20 years back in 2001, and a lot of my Democratic colleagues are still mad at me about it. We had a surplus, it was before 9/11, before Iraq and before Afghanistan. We really were giving people some of their money back.

Yet now, every time since then that we have passed a tax cut, because we

no longer have a surplus, we have a deficit, every tax cut we have passed since that time has been funded with money that we are borrowing from places like China.

In 2000, we had borrowed a total of $62 billion from China. From 1976 up until 2000 we owed $62 billion to China, and at the end of 2005 we owed $257 billion to China. Japan, $668.3 billion. Our government, we are borrowing $1 billion a day and spending half a billion a day paying interest on the debt we have already got. That is half a billion that can't go to fund our agricultural research centers or build I-49 or I- 69 or many other opportunities and priorities and needs we have in Arkansas' Fourth Congressional District, because our Nation is in debt and running record deficits and borrowing money from all these foreign investors and foreign central banks.

Put it this way: Foreign lenders currently hold a total $2.174 trillion of our public debt. Compare that to only $23 billion in foreign holdings back in 1993.

Here is the top 10 list. Here is who is funding your tax cuts. Here is who is funding our government. We have borrowed $668.3 billion from Japan; we owe now $262.6 billion, and it goes up every week, to China; the United Kingdom, $244.8 billion, Caribbean banking centers, have you ever heard of that? I never heard of a Caribbean banking center before, but we have borrowed $97.9 billion from them; Taiwan, $71.6 billion; OPEC, you wonder why gas is $2.50 a gallon? We have now borrowed $77.6 billion from OPEC; Korea, $68.3 billion; Germany, $65.2 billion; Canada, $54.9 billion; and Hong Kong, $48.3 billion. Those are the top 10 countries that we are borrowing money from to help fund tax cuts in our country to pay for tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from Georgia and the gentlewoman from Illinois for joining me this evening.

At the beginning of this special order, this was the national debt, $8,378,143,406,405 and some change. Just in the hour that we have spent here on the floor in this special order discussing the Nation's debt and the deficit, the debt has gone up approximately $41,666,000. So the new number is $8,378,185,072,405 and some change. Just in the hour we have been here, we have seen the national debt go up that much, $41,666,000, approximately.

So, until our government gets its fiscal house in order, as Members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, we are going to continue to come this to this floor every Tuesday night and talk about restoring some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government. We will be talking more about the Blue Dog 12 point plan for curing our Nation's addiction to deficit spending and will be talking about our plan, our vision for a better America, a vision that includes a balanced budget and so many other provisions that just make good old-fashioned sense.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Roosevelt Early, a veteran high school educator from Crossett, AR, who died at the age of 72 on February 26, 2006. I wish to recognize his lifetime of dedication to public education and the city of Crossett.

A native of West Helena, AR, Mr. Early earned a bachelor's degree at Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College, now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, UAPB, where he played football and sang in the choir. Mr. Early also attended the University of Central Arkansas where he received a master's degree.

Moving to Crossett in 1958, Mr. Early spent nearly a half century as a public school educator at T.W. Daniel and Crossett School District. He began as a shop teacher at T.W. Daniel High School in 1958 and rose to the post of assistant principal of T.W. Daniel Middle School in 1973, and principal 2 short years later of T.W. Daniel High School. Following his tenure at T.W. Daniel, Mr. Early served as principal at Norman Junior High School beginning in 1980 and Crossett High School in 1985.

Mr. Early was active throughout the Ashley County community. He served as director of the E.C. Crossett Community Center, president of the UAPB Ashley County Alumni Association, and was a member of the Ashley County Medical Center Board of Directors, Ashley County Martin Luther King Planning Commission, Phi Delta Kappa Educational Society, Georgia-Pacific Planning Commission, the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, the Arkansas Association of Secondary Principals, Crossett Classroom Teachers Association, Arkansas Education Association and the National Education Association.

As a man of faith, Mr. Early served as chairman of the Deacon Board at New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church and chairman of the Trustee Board. The Roosevelt Early Memorial Scholarship was started shortly after his death to commemorate and honor the impact he made as an educator at Crossett High School.

As the son of public school educators, I believe there are few jobs more noble than that of educating our Nation's children. Mr. Early spent a lifetime dedicated to this end. I extend my deepest condolences to his wife of 48 years, Lendora; his daughters, Cassandra and Patricia; his brother, David; his sisters, Thelma, lola, and Alma, and his grandchildren, Kenyellshia and Chase. Though Mr. Early may no longer be with us, his spirit and legacy will live on for generations to come.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of George Odom, a long time resident of my hometown of Prescott, Arkansas who passed away at the age of 70 on February 15, 2006. George was born on August 23, 1935 in Heflin, Louisiana and I would like to recognize his life and achievements.

Raised in Minden, Louisiana, George attended Webster High School followed by service in the United States Army. Upon leaving the Army, he attended Grambling State University where he received a degree in Secondary Education.

Shortly after moving to Prescott in August 1964, George married Dorothy Jones. He led an exemplary life and was extremely active in many different capacities. At Prescott High School he assumed many roles including librarian, history teacher, track and football coach. Additionally, George was a member of the Lions Club, Director of Alcoholics Anonymous, Treasurer of the Youth Organization: Boys II Men, Girls II Women, Treasurer for Ila Upchurch Community Education Center, Prescott School Board Member and President and Director of Prescott Parks and Recreation Department. Following his retirement, George worked part-time at the Bank of Prescott.

George was also very active at Macedonia Baptist Church where he served as Chairman of the Deacon Board, Church Trustee, Church Treasurer, Sunday School Teacher and Superintendent.

Leading by example through a lifetime of dedication, community service, and commitment to children, George has left an undeniable mark on countless students who attended Prescott Schools and on the Nevada County community. Prescott is a better place, a more cohesive community because of George Odom and he will be deeply missed. My heart felt condolences are with his sons, Mario and Corwin; his daughters, Charra and Chandra; his sister Annie Mae Odom Knowles; and his six grandchildren. While George may no longer be with us, his spirit will live on forever in the lives he touched.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of Jacob Andrew ``Dooley'' Womack of Camden, AR who died on February 16, 2006, at the age of 81.

Dooley was born in 1924 in Dallas County, AR. Upon graduating from Princeton High School, Dooley joined the Armed Services where he served with the 448th Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force during World War II. Dooley began a long and distinguished political career in 1950 at the age of 23 while he was a student at Henderson State Teachers College. As a Representative in the Arkansas State House of Representatives, he represented Dallas and Ouachita Counties. Following his tenure in the Arkansas State House, he served in the Arkansas State Senate for 12 years.

For more than a half century, Dooley owned and operated Womack Brothers Realty. Dooley was also involved in the First United Methodist Church of Camden, and enjoyed both hunting and fishing.

Camden, Ouachita County, and the State of Arkansas have lost one of its most ardent supporters. Dooley had a deep love for Camden and South Arkansas, and dedicated a lifetime working to make it a better place.

While Dooley may no longer be with us, his spirit and legacy will live on forever in the lives he touched. My deepest sympathies and heartfelt condolences go out to his beloved wife of 55 years, Amy; his three sons, Lance, Tim, and Carey; his daughter, Anna; and his grandchildren, Jacob, Wesley, Taylor, Joshua, Erin, Leah, and Diana.

Mr. Speaker, this evening, as on each Tuesday evening, I rise on behalf of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 37 of us that are fiscally conservative Democrats that are concerned about the state of affairs in America. We are concerned about the debt, the deficit, the budget; and we are committed to trying to restore some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government and our Nation's budgeting process.

Ever since I was a small child growing up in Prescott, Emmet and Hope, Arkansas, I always heard it was the Democrats that spent the money. And yet it was a President named Bill Clinton from Arkansas, from my hometown of Hope, Arkansas, in fact, that gave this Nation its first balanced budget in 40 years. From 1988 through 2001, America enjoyed the prosperity that came with having its fiscal house in order. America enjoyed the prosperity that came with having a balanced budget.

It is hard now to believe that from 1998 through 2001 this country had a balanced budget, because, as we all know, for the sixth year in a row this Nation, under this Republican-led Congress and under this President, this administration, has given us the largest budget deficit ever, ever in our Nation's history for a sixth year in a row.

As a matter of fact, as you walk the Halls of Congress, it is easy to spot a fiscally conservative Democrat because the 37 of us who belong to the Blue Dog Coalition have this poster outside our office in the Halls of Congress. As you can see today, the U.S. national debt is $8,365,525,832,151 and some change. That is a big number.

Let us put it in a way that we all can understand it. For every man, woman and child, including those born this past hour, every citizen of America's share of the national debt is $28,000 and some change.

Mr. Speaker, where I come from, very few of my constituents can afford to write a check for $28,000 and yet it is this kind of debt, this kind of deficit that we are saddling on our children and grandchildren and expecting them someday to pay back, and I believe it is morally wrong.

I raise these issues because, you see, my grandparents left this country better than they found it for my parents, and my parents left this country better than they found it for my generation, and I believe we have a duty and an obligation to try and leave this country just a little bit better than we found it for the next generation. But instead, for the sixth year in a row, we have the largest budget deficit ever in our Nation's history.

This administration, this Republican Congress, continues to pass tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year. Just in the last few months, this Congress passed the so-called Budget Deficit Reduction Act. Here is what it did. It cut Medicaid, the only health insurance plan for the poor, disabled, and elderly. It cut student loans and a program for orphans to the tune of $40 billion. And then they passed another tax cut to the tune of about $90 billion.

I was not real good in math in high school or college, but you can do the math on that. Some $90 billion in tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year, $40 billion in cuts to Medicaid, to orphan programs and to student loans. That amounts to $50 billion in additional debt, and yet the Republican leadership in this body had the nerve to call it the Deficit Reduction Act.

Mr. Speaker, I believe it is time for those of us in the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition to rise up and hold this administration, this Congress responsible for these kinds of reckless spending habits that destroy future generations.

The budget the President has submitted for fiscal year 2007, some $2.8 trillion, you have to give it to him, he has managed to cut all of the programs that matter to people: health care, education, infrastructure, economic development, and yet give us the largest budget deficit ever in our Nation's history all at the same time. How does he do that? Because he continues to propose to borrow money from foreign lenders, foreign central banks, foreign investors to fund tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year. What has it given us? It has given us a debt of $8,365,525,832,151.

By the time we complete this hour, Mr. Speaker, the national debt will have risen more than $41 million.

Every Tuesday night those of us in the Blue Dog Coalition, we are 37 members strong, we come here to talk about the debt and the deficit and what it means, not only to today's generation but to future generations, because you see, Mr. Speaker, these are big numbers. They are big numbers, but let me put it in perspective.

Not only is our Nation borrowing about a billion dollars a day; we are sending $279 million every day to Iraq, but do not dare ask the President how he is spending it or if he has a plan for how it is to be spent because he will tell you that you are unpatriotic. Some

$57 million is going every day to Afghanistan. And on top of that, our Nation is spending the first half a billion we collect in your tax money each and every day simply to pay interest, not principal, just interest on the national debt.

We need I-49 in my congressional district. I need $1.5 billion to complete it. Give me 3 days' interest on the national debt, I can build I-49. On the eastern side, we are waiting on I-69. Give me 3 days' interest on the national debt, and I can complete I-69' and with these two interstates, we can bring economic opportunities and jobs to one of the most depressed and distressed areas of the country.

These are the kinds of priorities that should be America's priorities that continue to go unmet until we get our Nation's fiscal house in order and restore some common sense to our government.

Mr. Speaker, if you have questions for the Blue Dog Coalition, I would invite you to e-mail us at [email protected].

Mr. Speaker, we are very privileged this evening to have a special guest join us, that is, the whip of the Democratic Caucus, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the whip of the Democratic Caucus, for joining the Blue Dog Coalition this evening as we hold this Republican administration and this Republican Congress accountable for this reckless spending, for this record deficit, for the record debt, and for this out-of-control budget that truly does not reflect America's priorities.

The gentleman from Maryland raised an excellent point when he talked about the Social Security trust fund. And I am beginning to understand. The first bill I filed when I got to Congress back in 2001 was a bill to tell the politicians in Washington to keep their hands off the Social Security trust fund. And the Republican leadership refused to give us a hearing or a vote on that bill. And now I understand why, because when we talk about the fiscal year 2006 deficit at $318 billion, that is not right. The real deficit is $494 billion because the $318 billion is counting the Social Security trust fund.

Now, when I go to the bank to get a loan, they want to know how I am going to pay it back, when I am going to pay it back, where the money is coming from to pay it back. And yet our government, this Republican Congress, continues to borrow billions of dollars from the Social Security trust fund with absolutely no idea, no provision on how or when or where the money is coming from to pay it back. And I believe that is morally wrong, as we have a duty and an obligation to protect Social Security for today's seniors as well as future generations.

I am also pleased to be joined this evening by one of the co-Chairs of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, a real leader within the group, Mr. Matheson from Utah.

Welcome.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson), co-Chair of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, for his insight.

And the gentleman is right. As members of the Blue Dog Coalition, we are trying to make some sense out of our Nation's government, out of the budget process, trying to restore some common sense and fiscal discipline. We are not here just to rail at the Republicans. It may be the first time in 50 years that they have controlled the White House, House, and Senate. But we are not here just to criticize or to hold accountable, but also to offer up solutions and ideas on how we can fix this thing for America and future generations, and that is why we have a 12-point plan.

And the gentleman from Utah talked about accountability. And right here you will see an aerial photo of a hay meadow at the Hope Airport in Hope, Arkansas, a so-called FEMA staging area. It is my understanding that it has been about 7 months now since Hurricane Katrina, a terrible storm, devastated the gulf coast. We have folks in Pass Christian, Mississippi, living in military-style tents. We have got some 80,000 people living in camper trailers. We have got over 10,000 families living in hotel and motel rooms spread out over several States. And yet FEMA has purchased and has stored in a hay meadow at the Hope Airport some 10,777 brand-new, fully furnished, fully furnished, manufactured homes, $431 million worth just sitting there in a hay meadow at the Hope Airport, some 450 miles from the eye of the storm, while people continue to live in hotels and military-style tents and in camper trailers.

This is an example of the lack of accountability in our government. This is a symbol of what is wrong with this administration and what is wrong with FEMA. Their response is, they are concerned because, as you can see, they are literally just parked in this hay meadow, literally parked in the hay meadow.

And now winter weather has come and set in and spring is here and the showers are here and it is starting to rain. So FEMA's response, you would think, would be to get these 10,777; and 300 of them have been moved, by the way, good for FEMA, so we are down to 10,477 brand-new, fully furnished manufactured homes. You would think FEMA's response is, let us get them to the people who lost their homes and everything they own, who so desperately need them on the gulf coast. But no, FEMA's response is, we are going to fix that. We are going to spend $6 million to gravel the hay meadow. That is FEMA's response.

It is the lack of accountability that people are fed up with, Mr. Speaker. This is a symbol of what is wrong with this administration, what is wrong with this Republican Congress and what is wrong with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

At this time, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Georgia, a real leader within the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, Mr. Scott.

Three hundred of them.

Ten thousand four hundred and seventy-seven remain in this hay meadow at the Hope Airport while people continue to live in hotels, camper trailers, and military-style tents. It is horrible.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia who raises an excellent point, that is, how the United States is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign lenders, foreign central banks, foreign investors. In fact, foreign lenders currently hold a total of well over $2 trillion of our public debt.

Compare that to only $23 billion in foreign holdings back in 1993. And who are these countries that we are borrowing billions of dollars from? Japan, $682.8 billion. China, $249.8 billion.

As my friend from Tennessee, one of the founders of the Blue Dog Coalition, Mr. Tanner, has said before, if China decides to invade Taiwan, we will have to borrow even more money from China in order to defend Taiwan.

This does directly impact not only our national security, but our monetary policy because they can call these loans.

United Kingdom, $223.2 billion. Caribbean Banking Centers, I had never heard of such, $115.3 billion. Taiwan, $71.3 billion. OPEC, $67.8 billion they have loaned us to fund our government, to fund tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year, and we wonder why we have got $2.50 gasoline.

Korea, $66.5 billion. Germany, $65.7 billion. Canada, $53.8 billion. And Hong-Kong rounds out the top 10 lenders in loaning money to the United States of America at $46.5 billion.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia. I am pleased to have him as an active member of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. We are 37 members strong.

Mr. Speaker, if you have questions, comments or concerns you would like to raise with us, you can e-mail us at [email protected]. That is [email protected].

Another very active member, a leader within the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, is the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff). I yield to him for as much time as he may so desire.

I thank the gentleman from California, a real active member and leader within the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, Mr. Schiff, for joining us in the discussion this evening as we outline the Blue Dog

Coalition's 12-point plan for curing our Nation's addiction to deficit spending.

This is the first time in 50 years the Republicans have controlled the White House, the House and the Senate, and they have given us the largest budget deficit ever in our Nation's history for the sixth year in a row. The debt is $8,365,525,832,151 and some change.

We will be updating that board here in just a few moments to show you, Mr. Speaker, exactly how much the debt has gone up since we started this hour-long discussion about trying to restore some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government.

Each week it seems as we wind down this hour others come to the floor to refute what we have to say. And one of the favorite sayings each week that we hear from the other side is how we voted against the Deficit Reduction Act. And I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, that everyone understand exactly what the Deficit Reduction Act was really all about.

It was about cutting Medicaid. Eight out of ten seniors in Arkansas in a nursing home are on Medicaid. Half the children in Arkansas are on Medicaid. One out of five people in my home State will be on Medicaid some time this year. It is the health insurance program for the poor, the disabled, the elderly. Student loans, programs for orphans, those are the types of programs that were cut $40 billion to help pay for another $90 billion in tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year. Ninety billion minus 40 billion is $50 billion in new debt, and yet they had the nerve to call it the Deficit Reduction Act.

We are running out of time. And I will yield as we begin to update this board, showing exactly how much the debt, let's just do it real quick. In fact, the debt has gone up $41,666,000 in this past hour. So that means it is now $8,365,567,498,151 and some change.

Mr. Speaker, the minute we have left I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Madam Speaker, on behalf of the 37-member strong fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 37 fiscally conservative Democrats that have a common goal, and that is to restore some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government, and on behalf of the Blue Dog Coalition, I rise this evening as I do every Tuesday evening to discuss the debt, the deficit, the budget and accountability within our government because I believe, as Members of Congress, Members of this body, we were sent here by the American people to be good stewards of our tax dollars.

I grew up at Midway United Methodist Church just outside of Prescott, in Hope, Arkansas. Heard a lot of sermons growing up about what it meant to be a good steward. And what I learned growing up at Midway Methodist Church about stewardship I believe also applies to being good stewards of our tax dollars.

And, Madam Speaker, I rise this evening because today the U.S. national debt is $8,270,385,415,129 and some change. Again, that is a lot of numbers, and sometimes I get them a little confused. $8,270,385,415,129. For every man and woman and child in America, including those being born right now, each individual in America's share, every man, woman and child's share of the national deb, comes to some $27,000 and some change.

It is hard to believe now, but from 1998 through 2001, we had a balanced budget in this Nation. And yet for the last 6 years, this administration and this Republican Congress have given us the largest budget deficit ever, ever in

our Nation's history. It is time to restore some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government, and it must start with accountability.

Madam Speaker, we all, our heart goes out to all the people that were impacted as a result of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. Our heart goes out to so many people who lost their home and literally everything that they owned. It has been 7 months since that storm, and yet there are still so many things that are not happening the way they should within this administration and within FEMA, and one of those things is happening in my back yard.

I grew up in Prescott, Emmett and Hope, and went eighth through 12th grade at Hope public schools, graduated from Hope High School in 1979. I will be back there this coming Monday evening to keynote their annual chamber of commerce banquet.

But shortly after Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency showed up at the mayor's office at city hall in Hope, Arkansas, saying this. They showed up and they said, you know, Mr. Mayor, you have got this old World War II Army airport facility at your airport, these inactive runways, inactive taxiways, inactive tarmacs; and we want to use this as a FEMA staging area. And we are going to have manufactured homes, these 60-and 80-foot-long manufactured homes, 14- foot wide, two and three bedroom fully furnished manufactured homes coming and going, coming into the staging area at the airport, these inactive closed military runways from the World War II days; and then they will be coming in, they will be going out.

Well, Madam Speaker, they came and they came and they came and they came and they came, but they never left.

Well, now some 300 have left. 10,777 brand new, fully furnished manufactured homes arrived at the airport in Hope, Arkansas, with the theory being that they would all be stored on these inactive runways.

Today about 25 percent of them are stored on these inactive runways. 75 percent of them are stored in a pasture. In the past I have referred to it as a cow pasture. And the mayor down there in Hope reminded me there have not been cows in that field in a long, long time.

But the point I am trying to get across is 75 percent of these manufactured homes are just sitting there on grass. Someone told me the other day to start calling it a hay meadow. 75 percent of them are just sitting there on the grass.

In fact, Madam Speaker, if you have ever wondered what 10,777 manufactured homes look like, that is just a sampling of them with an aerial view. This is the active runway at Hope. These are the inactive runways. As you can see, they tried their best to store them on them, but then they ran out of room.

If you wonder why I call it a cow pasture, this gives you a pretty good close up view of it. There is your barbwire fence. There is the pasture. And there is the manufactured homes just sitting there. These were actually parked in my home town of Prescott waiting to get into the FEMA staging area in Hope.

Now in all fairness, when I raised this issue there were 10,777 manufactured homes sitting in Hope, Arkansas. They have since moved 300 of those to Louisiana. 300 out of 10,777, which obviously if you do the math means we have still got 10,477 manufactured homes sitting in Hope, Arkansas at the airport and in this pasture, this hay meadow.

And what is appalling about that is that 7 months after this storm in the middle of winter, in places like Pass Christian, Mississippi, there are still people living in tents, living in tents at a time that we have 10,477 brand new fully furnished manufactured homes sitting in Hope, Arkansas, 450 miles from the eye of the storm

To put it another way, if you stack them end to end, they will stretch from Texas to Mississippi. There are $431 million worth of manufactured homes sitting at the airport. I was down there with the Democratic Leader of the Senate, Senator Reid, and Senator Pryor just this past Saturday urging FEMA once again to get moving, urging FEMA once again to get these manufactured homes to the people that need them.

What does FEMA say? Well, we will not put them in a flood zone, we will not put them in a floodplain. And under a normal situation, I would say that makes sense. But the reality is, that everybody that lost their home that needs a home, their land is in a flood plain.

And surely to goodness FEMA knew that before they purchased 10,000 of these brand new fully furnished manufactured homes. So what is FEMA's response? FEMA's response is that this week they have awarded a bid, just in the last few days at least, they have awarded a bid, and they are beginning to gravel, they are beginning to gravel 170 acres of this pasture land, costing the taxpayers $4.2 million, so that they can continue to store these manufactured homes out of fear that sitting on the pasture they are eventually going to begin to sink.

Madam Speaker, that is an example of the lack of accountability within our Government. That is how our Government, this Republican Congress, this President, is spending our tax money. And all I can tell you, Madam Speaker, is all it takes is an executive order of the President to require FEMA to locate these 10,477 manufactured homes to the people who need them who lost their home and everything they own in Louisiana. The President can do it with one signature on one piece of paper.

But since he has refused to do that, I am proud to share with you that I have written a bill, introduced a bill into this session of Congress, that would basically require FEMA to get moving, to require FEMA to temporarily locate these to the people who need them in Louisiana.

Finally, the most important part of this is that these manufactured homes are not permanent housing, they are temporary housing for 18 months. What is worse? To have these 10,477 manufactured homes spread over multiple flood plains in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, or have them all sitting there in this pasture at the airport in Hope, where there will be a tornado watch or a tornado warning every 10 days for the next 3 months.

This area is commonly referred to as Tornado Alley. My home county is one county over. We had tornado watches just this weekend. This is an example of how taxpayers are fed up with our Government. This is an example of the lack of accountability in our Government

And as a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 37 fiscally conservative Democrats, we rise this evening to ask the President, to ask this Republican Congress, to exercise some common sense and good judgment and join us in trying to get FEMA to get these manufactured homes out of Hope and to the people who so desperately need them.

Now for the rest of this hour, we are going to be talking about accountability. We are going to be talking about the debt, we are going to be talking about the deficit, we are going to be talking about the budget.

Madam Speaker, I am extremely pleased this evening to be joined by a real leader within the Blue Dog Coalition, someone who has been elected the co-chair for administration within the Blue Dog Coalition, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson).

I thank the gentleman from Utah, and the gentleman from Utah raises a couple of good points. First and foremost is that as members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog coalition, 37 members strong, we are sick and tired of all the partisan bickering that goes on at our Nation's Capitol. It should not matter if it is a Democratic idea or a Republican idea. It ought to matter that it is a commonsense idea and does it make sense for the people that send us here to be their voice in our Nation's Capitol?

I see these Democrats that vote 98 percent of the time with the Democratic Party, and I see these Republicans that vote 98 percent of the time with the Republican Party. And I submit to you, you do not need a brain to do that. And I do not think that is why people sent us here. I think they sent us here to look at the issue and to judge it on its merits and whether it makes sense for the people back home.

There is a lot of criticism that goes on in this Chamber, a lot of people that criticize each other and each party. We are here tonight to point out that there is a problem: the largest budget deficit ever in our Nation's history. The largest debt ever in our Nation's history. More importantly, as the gentleman from Utah pointed out, we are here this evening to offer up our plan, our plan for a budget reform, our plan, a 12-point reform plan, for curing our Nation's addiction to deficit spending.

The gentleman from Utah raised two of 12 points very eloquently. One of those is require agencies to put their fiscal house in order. Again, that is just a commonsense idea. But as the gentleman said 16, 16 of 23 major Federal agencies cannot issue a simple audit of their books. Worse, the Federal Government cannot account for $24.5 billion it spent in 2003. Government auditors should be doing a better job of tracking taxpayer dollars, and the Blue Dog Coalition proposes a budget freeze on any Federal agency that cannot properly balance its books.

Another point the gentleman from Utah raised was requiring a balanced budget. As he pointed out, 49 States in America require a balance budget. I served for 10 years in the Senate in Arkansas. We were required to provide for a balanced budget. My wife makes sure that we have a balanced budget at the Ross household in Prescott, Arkansas. And our banker requires us to have a balanced budget at our family pharmacy that we own back home in Prescott, Arkansas.

As members of the Blue Dog Coalition, we support a constitutional

amendment to require a balanced budget every year except in times of war or a national emergency. The Blue Dogs believe a balanced budget amendment is the only way, the only way to ensure fiscal discipline in Congress. The Blue Dog balanced budget amendment would require a three- fifths vote of both the House and Senate to increase the debt limit or to waive the balanced budget requirement. In addition, the Blue Dog balanced budget amendment protects Social Security from benefit cuts and forbids increases in Social Security payroll taxes in order to balance the budget.

Let me repeat: our amendment protects Social Security from benefit cuts and forbids increases in Social Security, payroll taxes in order to balance the budget.

Madam Speaker, again, the Blue Dog Coalition, who are we? We are 37 members strong. We are a group of fiscally conservative Democrats who are trying to offer up some common sense, some new direction, and some leadership on fiscal issues in this Congress.

Madam Speaker, if you have any comments or questions for us, I would invite you, Madam Speaker, to e-mail us at [email protected]. That is [email protected].

At this time in this Special Order on the budget, the debt, the deficit, and the manufactured homes in Hope, Arkansas, a good example of a lack of accountability in this administration and this Republican- led Congress, I am pleased to call on the co-chair for communications within the Blue Dog Coalition. Someone that has been elected to a leadership position in the Blue Dog Coalition. Someone that I have a great deal of respect for, and that is the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardoza).

Oh, yeah.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California, and to clarify, it is about half a billion dollars. I believe it is about $431 million worth of manufactured homes sitting there in that pasture at the airport.

Some of those are in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, several staging areas, but by far, 10,477. When you were there, there were 10,777, and the good news is 300 have left. There is still 10,477 manufactured homes, brand new, fully furnished sitting there in a pasture at the airport in Hope.

The Inspector General had indicated they were sinking in the mud. Not true. Our farm families can just tell you, we have just faced the worst drought ever. Our farmers are used to 50 inches of rain. We did not get 25. We are not sinking in the mud yet. Instead of getting them off the pasture before winter weather sets in and spring weather sets in and they do begin to sink, instead of getting these homes to the people who need them, FEMA's response is we are going to spend $4.2 million graveling, graveling, 170 acres out here so they will not just sit here on the pasture like they are doing right there.

Again, people like this in places like Pass Christian, Mississippi, continue 7 months later to live in a tent while our Federal Government, this administration, has 10,477 brand new, fully furnished manufactured homes sitting at the Hope airport in Hope, Arkansas.

I am convinced there is a lot more wrong with FEMA than Michael Brown, its former director, and I can tell you that if I was President of the United States I would be finding me a new FEMA director.

The gentleman from California pointed out the real United States 2005 deficit is $760 billion and explained how we

come up with that. Again, the deficit for 2005, based on a cash-basis accounting is $319 billion. We do not need to make it any worse than that. I mean, that is one of the worst budget deficits ever in our Nation's history. Again, it is hard to believe we had a balanced budget for the first time in 40 years from 1998-2001, but we did.

In 2005, on cash-basis accounting, which is what our government, our Congress, this administration, uses when it comes to the budget, the deficit was $319 billion. When we say the real United States deficit for 2005 was $760 billion, that is based on accrual accounting.

Again, it was former Senator John Glenn when he was a Member here in the United States Congress that passed the law that said the Secretary of Treasury must issue a financial report of the United States Government every year. Again, when they issued the budget, the budget is delivered with a lot of fanfare to Capitol Hill. You see it on the news and read about it in the paper and hear about it on the radio. Thousands of copies are delivered. There is at least one copy delivered, usually several, to every congressional Member's office.

But when it comes to the financial report of the United States government, only about 20 copies are delivered to Capitol Hill, and that is because this administration, this Republican Congress, does not want you to know the truth about the debt, the deficit and the budget.

Now, do not take our word for it. This is David Walker, who is the Comptroller General of the United States General Accountability Office. What did he say: The current financial reporting model does not clearly and transparently show the wide range of responsibilities, programs and activities. It provides a potentially unrealistic and misleading picture of the Federal Government's overall performance, financial condition and future fiscal outlook. That is David Walker, and obviously, as I indicated earlier, he is the Comptroller General of the United States General Accountability Office.

Now, when we talk about instead of using cash base accounting and accrual base accounting, what is all that about, well, I can tell you our government, our Congress, demands every business is required to use the accrual method of accounting if the business has inventory, if the business is a C corporation, or if there are annual sales of $5 million dollars.

This accrual accounting is the method that this Congress demands businesses in America to use, including our family business back home in Preston, and if I do not use accrual accounting, I am trouble in with the IRS and our government, and yet, our own government that sets these rules in place does not use this method of accounting. They use the cash-base accounting method which is a way for them to play games with the numbers and indicate that the deficit for 2005 was $319 billion instead of $760 billion.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

I would like to invite the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson), co-chair for administration within the 37-Member strong fiscally conservative Democratic coalition to join us. And one of the things we talked about is we want to point out the problem, and there is a problem.

Madam Speaker, if you have comments for the Blue Dogs, I would encourage you to e-mail us at [email protected]. That is [email protected]. We welcome, Madam Speaker, your comments, concerns, or questions.

One of the things that we have talked about is this debt, and let me just say that the reason the debt should matter to you is because our Nation is spending a half billion dollars a day. A half billion, with a ``b,'' dollars a day simply paying interest on the national debt.

You know, I have got a lot of folks in my district that have been waiting for longer than I have been alive for I-69 to be completed through Arkansas. It is going to take about $1.5 billion to do that. I could build I-69 across Arkansas, across my district, and create jobs and economic opportunities with just 3 days' interest on the national debt. On the western side of my district, everybody has been waiting since I was a small child for I-49 to come through that part of my district, which my district is about half of Arkansas. Again, it is about $1.5 billion. Just with 3 days' interest on the national debt, I could build I-49 through Arkansas. We could build 100 brand-new elementary schools every single day in America just on the interest we are paying on the national debt.

So it is what we refer to in the Blue Dog Coalition as the debt tax, D-E-B-T. The debt tax. And that is one tax that cannot go away until we restore some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government. As long as we have these massive interest payments hanging over our head as a Nation, then America's real priorities and America's future will hang in the balance waiting for an opportunity for us to meet America's real priorities.

Now, the gentleman from Utah indicated to us about the fact of what we are all about. We are not just here to criticize. We do have a problem. We have to acknowledge the problem, and we have to point out the problem; but we are here to offer up a solution. We have a plan, a plan for meaningful budget reform, a plan for curing our Nation's addiction to deficit spending.

I would welcome the gentleman from Utah to go through the other 10 points with us. And I would welcome the gentleman from California to jump in at any point, and I would love for us to just have a discussion here about the Blue Dog Coalition's 12-point plan.

I yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson).

I have to give it to this President, who has managed to give us the largest budget deficit in our Nation's history, while at the same time cutting programs that are important to people, programs for education, programs for farm families, and the list goes on and on. How does he continue to do that? He proposes tax cuts for those earning more than $400,000 a year. I do not have many folks in my district who earn $400,000 a year. I have voted for tax cuts in the past. Back in times of surplus, before 9/11 and before Iraq and Afghanistan when we really had a surplus, I thought it made sense to give people some of their money back.

But for us to continue to borrow money from foreign governments to give tax breaks may make for good politics, but it makes for bad fiscal policy. But what the gentleman is talking about in terms of the foreign debt, again the debt $8,270,385,415,129 and some change. Who owns that debt? Who do we owe that money to?

Well, we owe $2.174 trillion to foreign lenders. Compare that to only $23 billion we owed to foreign holdings back in 1993. As the gentleman from California pointed out earlier, this administration, this President, this Republican Congress, has borrowed more money from foreign central banks and foreign investors in the past 5 years than the previous 42 Presidents combined.

Who are they? Japan is the top 10. Japan, we owe them $682.8 billion. China has loaned our government $249.8 billion. The United Kingdom, $223.2 billion. The Caribbean Banking Center, they have loaned us $115.3 billion. Taiwan, $71.3 billion. OPEC, and we wonder why gasoline is $2.25 a gallon, OPEC has loaned our government, $67.8 billion. Korea, $66.5 billion. Germany $65.7 billion; Canada $53.8 billion; and Hong Kong $46.5 billion.

I am very concerned about what that means to our national security as these foreign countries will be able to have such a tremendous and dramatic influence on our monetary policy. I find that appalling. I find it reprehensible, and I find it something that we need to correct and we need to correct it now by getting our fiscal house back in order.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California as we go through our 12-point plan.

As we wind down this hour that we do every Tuesday night, as members of the 37-member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog coalition, I would like to remind you, Madam Speaker, the reason why deficits matter, deficits reduce economic growth. They burden our children and grandchildren's liabilities. They increase our reliance on foreign lenders who now own some 46 percent of our publicly held debt.

It matters because as a Nation, at a time when we are spending half a billion dollars a day simply paying interest, not principal, just interest on the national debt, we are also increasing that debt. We are increasing it to the tune of about a billion dollars a day, $260 million every day going to Iraq, $33 million every day going to Afghanistan, but do not dare ask how a single dime of your tax money, $260 million a day going to Iraq, $33 million a day going to Afghanistan, do not dare ask this administration how it is being spent. Do not dare ask them because they will say you are unpatriotic.

As taxpayers, I think this administration has a duty and an obligation to let the taxpayers understand that he has, that this President has a plan on how this $260 million a day is being spent of your tax money.

We all want to make sure that our soldiers get the equipment they need and get taken care of and can get back home to their families as soon as possible. And the President, if he is going to spend $260 million in a day to Iraq, he ought to give us a plan. He ought to give us a plan. He owes it to the American taxpayers. He certainly owes it to our troops.

Yes, I would.

I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardoza), the co-chair of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, for joining me this evening. I want to thank the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson) for joining me this evening, the co-chair for administration within the Blue Dog Coalition.

And, Madam Speaker, if you have got comments, concerns, or questions regarding our discussion this evening about the budget, the debt and the deficit, the manufactured homes sitting in a pasture in Hope, Arkansas, I would encourage you to e-mail me. [email protected]. That is [email protected].

As we finish this Special Order each week, it is a very sobering thing that we do. As you can see, when we started this hour, the national debt was $8,270,385,415,129-and-some-change. Just in the hour that we have been on the floor this evening discussing the budget, the debt, the deficit and, yes, a solution, a 12-point plan for budget reform, the deficit has increased by approximately $41,666,000. It is a very sobering thing that we do at the end of this hour each Tuesday night. But the national debt, 60 minutes later, is no longer this number here. It is $8,270,430,081,129. So, again, the deficit now, at the beginning of this evening it was $8,270,385,415,129-and-some- change. One hour later it has increased approximately $41,666,000. The national debt now stands at $8,270,430,081,129-and-some-change.

Madam Speaker, we will be back next Tuesday evening. Well, Congress is on recess next week. But the following week we will be back on Tuesday evening to continue this discussion about the budget, the debt, and the deficit. We raise these issues because, you see, my grandparents left this country better than they found it for my parents. And my parents left this country better than they found it for our generation. And, Madam Speaker, I believe we have a duty and an obligation to try and leave this country better than we found it for our children and our grandchildren. That is why we are here.

Madam Speaker, as the sponsor of this legislation, I rise in support of H.R. 4192, a bill to designate the William Jefferson Clinton birthplace home located in my hometown of Hope, Arkansas, as a national historic site and unit of the National Park System.

First, I would like to thank Chairman Pombo, Chairman Saxton and Ranking Member Rahall and Ranking Member Christensen for their support and their assistance in moving this bill from the Resources Committee in a bipartisan manner to the floor of the United States House of Representatives.

Madam Speaker, what we have just witnessed from the gentlewoman from Florida is an example of the kind of partisan bickering that the people back home are sick and tired of. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. This is about America, and it is about our Nation's history.

Madam Speaker, what the gentlewoman from Florida obviously does not get is the fact that this is about history. We have only had 42 Presidents in the history of this Nation; and I believe all of them, Democrat and Republican alike, if their birthplace home is still standing, it should be an historic site because it is a part of history.

I am pleased to have the entire Arkansas congressional delegation supporting this bill in a bipartisan manner including Congressman Boozman from Arkansas, Congressman Berry from Arkansas, Congressman Snyder from Arkansas; and I am proud that this bill was passed out of the Resources Committee and placed on the suspension

calendar by our leaders in both parties that recognized it for what it is, about history, not about politics. So I am deeply, deeply saddened that one Member out of 435 has chosen to try to divide us once again by taking a history lesson and turning it into a partisan ball game.

In my mind and in the minds of my colleagues from Arkansas there is no doubt this important property in Hope, Arkansas deserves Federal recognition. I believe the preservation of properties of historical significance is a necessary and important function of our government. The designation as a national historic site and unit of the National Park System will open the doors for further economic opportunities and prosperity for the city of Hope and all of southwest Arkansas. This site will celebrate, it will celebrate the history and educate thousands of visitors on the early life of our 42nd President of the United States of America, President William Jefferson Clinton, who came into this world on August 19, 1946, as William Jefferson Blythe, III, in Hope, Arkansas, just 3 months after his father tragically died in a car accident.

I mentioned that this has bipartisan support, Madam Speaker. This is about economic development. It is about tourism. It is about history. It is about maintaining and protecting and preserving an historic site, the birthplace home of the 42nd President of the United States of America.

Our Republican Governor in Arkansas gets it. And I want to thank him for that, and I want to share with my colleagues and make a part of the Record a letter I received dated yesterday from our Republican Governor, Mike Huckabee who, too, grew up in Hope, Arkansas.

It says: ``Dear Congressman Ross: Thank you for your efforts to honor and recognize the birthplace of our 42nd President, William Jefferson Clinton, by naming his birthplace in Hope, Arkansas a national historic site. As is customary in this country to honor our former Presidents with libraries and other accolades, I cannot think of a better tribute to President Clinton than this recognition. The lasting impact this will have for the State and country is immeasurable. Not only would it provide future generations an educational look into our 42nd President and the times he lived in, but it will provide the region of our State, and specifically my native home of Hope, Arkansas, added economic opportunity and prosperity.

``H.R. 4192 is an important piece of legislation for not only the reasons mentioned above, but also for the preservation and protection of this historical site which is currently reliant upon private donations. President Clinton will forever be a true Arkansan, and this piece of legislation will allow not only Arkansas but the country the ability to properly honor him and his service.

``Again, thank you for your work on this legislation. I look forward to working with you to see its passage out of Congress this year.

``Sincerely yours, Mike Huckabee, Governor of the State of Arkansas.''

Might I add, a Republican Governor, who like myself, grew up in Hope, Arkansas.

Finally, Madam Speaker, I would like to at least read a part of a letter from Mack McLarty who was President Clinton's first White House Chief of Staff and someone who commanded respect from both sides of the aisle during those early Clinton years.

``Dear Mike: I'm writing today in support of H.R. 4192, your bill authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to designate President William Jefferson Clinton's birthplace home in Hope, Arkansas as a national historic site and unit of the National Park System. This step would be a fitting recognition of President Clinton's birthplace home in our Nation's Presidential history and ensure the preservation of the site for future generations. This site will celebrate history and educate thousands of visitors and perhaps, most importantly, it will bring jobs and economic development opportunities to southwest Arkansas.

``As you know, I was born and raised in Hope myself. My lifelong friendship with President Clinton dates back to Miss Mary's kindergarten. Not surprisingly, then, my attachment to 117 South Hervey Street is personal and heartfelt, but, more than that, I believe the Clinton birthplace stands for something larger than itself.''

Mack McLarty goes on to write that, ``As I wrote some years ago in an essay for the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, I believe that white frame house is worthy of more than a nod of nostalgia because the values President Clinton learned there and in Hope formed the core of his political philosophy.

``In 1946 when President Clinton and I were born, Hope was the essence of small-town America. Family and faith were at the center of people's lives. Commitment to work was expected. From the schools to the churches, local businesses and charities, knowing and caring for one another was part of daily life. And as our friend, Joe Purvis, later wrote, `It bred a sense of responsibility, because if you misbehaved, your mama knew about it before you got home.' ''

Mack McLarty continues in his letter, ``For a small boy growing up in that era, Hope lived up to its name. We had won the war. The economy was booming. The American Dream was alive. People had confidence in a future they believed was theirs to shape. It was a time of infectious optimism and seemingly limitless potential.

``I do not mean to suggest that our hometown was perfect. We never thought it was even then. Hope was segregated like the rest of the South. It had its share of human frailty and vice, but kids were taught, growing up, to respect the dignity of each individual. There was a genuine sense of community in Hope that crossed income lines and, in many ways, race as well.''

Mack McLarty continues in his letter in support of this bill, ``The young Bill Clinton, who was then Billy Blythe, understood this perhaps better than most. His father had died before he was born. His mother, determined to provide for her son, was in nurse anesthetist school in New Orleans, a brave step in an era when single mothers and working women were uncommon. Young Billy was raised those first few years primarily by his grandparents who owned a grocery on North Hazel Street across from Rose Hill Cemetery.''

I could continue, Madam Speaker, but there are others who want to speak in support of this bill on both sides of the aisle, and I applaud them and thank them for helping me restore and maintain and preserve this piece of history, as we should do for all 42 former Presidents, Democrat and Republican alike.

State of Arkansas,

State Capitol Building,

Little Rock, AR, March 7, 2006.

Hon. Mike Ross,

House of Representatives, Cannon House Office Building,

Washington, DC.

Dear Congressman Ross: Thank you for your efforts to honor

and recognize the birthplace of our 42nd President, William

Jefferson Clinton, by naming his birthplace home in Hope,

Arkansas a National Historic Site. As is customary in this

country to honor our former Presidents with libraries and

other accolades, I can not think of a better tribute to

President Clinton than this recognition. The lasting impact

this will have for the state and country is immeasurable. Not

only will it provide future generations an educational look

into our 42nd President and the times he lived in, but it

will provide this region of our state and specifically my

native home of Hope added economic opportunity and

prosperity.

H.R. 4192 is an important piece of legislation for not only

the reasons mentioned above, but also for the preservation

and protection of this historical site, which is currently

reliant upon private donations. President Clinton will

forever be a true Arkansan and this piece of legislation will

allow not only Arkansas but the country the ability to

properly honor him and his service.

Again thank you for your work on this legislation and I

look forward to working with you to see its passage out of

Congress this year.

Sincerely yours,

Mike Huckabee,

Governor.

Madam Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Madam Speaker, I do not see a sufficient number standing.

Madam Speaker, I only see one Member standing on this motion.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor of the United States House of Representatives this evening as a member of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 37 fiscally conservative Democrats who are outraged, absolutely appalled by these record deficits, record debt and the lack of common sense and fiscal discipline that we are seeing in our Nation's government these days.

I come to the floor and raise these issues not out of partisan politics because, Mr. Speaker, I do not know about you, but I am sick and tired of all the partisan bickering that goes on at our Nation's Capitol. It does not matter to me if it is a Republican idea or Democrat idea. My people back home want a commonsense idea, the kind of ideas that make sense for them in their everyday lives.

So I raise these issues, Mr. Speaker, quite frankly because I am concerned about the future of our country.

As you walk the halls of Congress, it is easy to spot one of the Blue Dog Coalition Members' offices, because we all have this poster beside our front door. Today, the U.S. national debt, just as I got ready to come up here this evening, the U.S. national debt is $8,270,909,436,190. For every man, woman and child in America, including those being born as we speak, the amount of money that each person in America shares in the national debt is $27,000 and some change.

It is hard now, Mr. Speaker, to believe that from 1998 through 2001, our Nation for the first time in 40 years had a balanced budget; and yet, this administration, this Republican Congress, has given us the largest budget deficit ever in our Nation's history for what amounts to 6 years in a row.

This is the budget that the President of the United States has presented to Congress. It is always presented under a lot of fanfare; a lot of publicity surrounds this budget. This budget for fiscal year 2007 totals $2.8 trillion, but what is alarming about it is that the deficit totals $423 billion.

If that is not disturbing enough, Mr. Speaker, as a Nation, we spend about a half a billion a day simply paying interest on the debt we already have, and on top of that, our national debt is increasing to the tune of about $1 billion a day. Our Nation is spending about $1 billion more a day than it is taking in; $260 million a day going to Iraq, $33 million a day going to Afghanistan, and a whole lot more going not to fund programs that matter to people because there are record cuts in this budget.

Just yesterday in Booneville, Arkansas, I was at the Dale Bumpers Research Center, one of 26 agriculture research centers that are not being cut, but being eliminated, under the President's budget for fiscal year 2007. Only in America can the President give us a budget that cuts the programs that matter to people, Medicaid, Medicare, veterans benefits, agricultural programs, and also give us the largest deficit ever in our Nation's history at the same time.

So as an American, I rise this evening out of concern. As a small business owner, I rise this evening out of concern about these record debts and these record deficits. And at the end of this hour, Mr. Speaker, we will change this number to show how much the national debt has risen just in the hour we have been on the floor this evening trying to talk about accountability and fiscal responsibility.

The numbers I have presented to you are bad enough. Lord knows we don't need to make them any worse. They are already the largest budget deficits in our Nation's history that this Republican leadership has given us, but

what we have recently learned is, actually, when you look at America, the way that America requires corporations to look at accounting, the deficit is even worse than what we thought.

At this time I would call on the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper), the co-chair for policy in the Blue Dog Coalition, who has helped discover this little-known publication, which is very, very disturbing.

I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for bringing this to the attention of America, the ``Financial Report of the United States Government for 2005,'' printed by our government, signed by our President's appointed Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow.

And as the gentleman from Tennessee has explained quite well, when our government says we have a $319 billion deficit for 2005, that is based on a form of accounting known as a cash-basis form of accounting. Now, I am a small business owner; and as a small business owner, our government does not allow me to base my business on a cash-basis form of accounting. I am required by our government to use an accrual-based form of accounting. And if I do not, I am in a lot of trouble with the IRS and will probably end up in jail.

However, our government, when we talk about the budget and the debt and the deficit and we talk about it in terms of this $319 billion, we find in this publication, the ``Financial Report of the United States of America for 2005,'' that it does not use a cash-basis form of accounting. It uses an accrual-basis form of accounting, and we know this only because the government, by law, requires the Secretary of the Treasury to print this document. He does not print tens of thousands of copies the way he does the budget. Only a handful are printed because they do not want the taxpayers of this country to know what is really going on here.

The truth is this: when we look at our government, the way our government requires businesses to report their dealings with the IRS, our deficit was not $319 billion in 2005. Again, there is no reason for us to try to make these numbers any worse than they already are. They are already as bad as they have ever been in the history of our country. And these are not our numbers. These are numbers from the Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow. The deficit for 2005 was not $319 billion when using the accrual-basis form of accounting; it was $760 billion. That is a difference of $441 billion.

Now, John Snow, Secretary of the Treasury, in this report said: ``Including these future financial responsibilities in this report gives a more complete and long-range look at the government's finances.'' That is the Secretary of the Treasury, appointed by President Bush. That is John Snow, in his words, which can be found on page 1 of this report.

Mr. Speaker, I yield once again to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Well, every business in this country is required to use the accrual method if the business has inventory, if the business is a C corporation,

or if gross annual sales exceed $5 million. So for any corporation, any business that meets one of these criteria, our government says you must use the accrual method of accounting.

Our own government, however, though requiring businesses to use the accrual method of accounting or you go to jail and get in a lot of trouble with the IRS, that is what the government says to businesses, but the government says, well, that makes us look like we are being even more fiscally irresponsible than we want, so we will not use this accrual business. We will go back and trick the taxpayers by using the cash basis of accounting.

At this time, I want to recognize a real leader within the Blue Dog Coalition, my friend and colleague from Georgia (Mr. David Scott).

I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott) for his knowledgeable input about this debt and deficit and budget process. I might add, in defense of the President, the President, during his tenure in office, it is true that he has borrowed more money from foreign central banks and foreign investors than the previous 42 Presidents combined. But in fairness to the President, he could not do that alone. It took this Republican majority in this Congress to give him a budget to allow him to continue to raise the debt limit to allow him to borrow more money in the last 5 years than the previous 42 Presidents combined.

I think the American people are starting to get it at the youngest of ages. My teenage daughter was reading the paper today and she sent me an e-mail, and I will just read to you what my teenage daughter said after reading the paper this morning. She wrote, ``I read that they are wanting to increase the limit of the debt. Please do not let them do this. Make them start paying it back.'' That is a message from a 17- year-old junior in high school who is concerned about the reckless spending, the fiscal irresponsibility going on in our government because it is her generation, it is our children and grandchildren's generation that gets saddled with these bills.

I encourage folks every Tuesday night, as members of the Blue Dog Coalition, we are here on the floor talking about fiscal responsibility and about our ideas to balance the budget. We have a 12-point plan for meaningful budget reform that will allow us to have a balanced budget and allow us to get our fiscal house in order.

For folks that are interested in e-mailing us their thoughts, opinions or questions, I encourage them to do so at [email protected]. We are the Blue Dog Coalition, 37 members strong, fiscally conservative Democrats that are here to hold this Republican Congress responsible for a record deficit and a record debt.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).

I appreciate the co-chair for policy of the Blue Dog Coalition and a very important member of the Budget Committee bringing to the taxpayers' attention this little-known document, the financial report of the United States Government. Again, our debt is $8,270,909,436,190.

Now, as members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, we do not come here on Tuesday nights to simply complain about how this Congress is out of control with its spending without also offering a solution. As the gentlemen from Tennessee and Georgia mentioned, we have a 12-point reform plan to cure our Nation's addiction to deficit spending. And I can tell you, one of the problems that taxpayers in this country have with this debt and with these deficits is the lack of accountability. I want to talk about that for a moment.

Some of you have heard this before and I am going to continue to talk about it until every one of these 11,000 fully furnished, brand new manufactured homes sitting in a pasture in Hope, Arkansas, get to the victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.

Those are the FEMA trailers. FEMA has spent an estimated $431 million of our tax money purchasing some 11,000 brand new, fully furnished, manufactured homes.

Nobody. Here is the story. FEMA shows up in Hope, Arkansas, my hometown. I now live 16 miles down the road in Prescott, Arkansas. They show up at city hall and say, we understand you have these inactive runways as a result of World War II. We want to use them as a so-called FEMA staging area.

The idea was these manufactured homes were going to come into Hope and then go to the people who lost their homes and everything they owned as a result of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. They started coming. They started coming in October, and they came and they came, but they never went.

So as a result of that, 25 percent of them now sit on these inactive, closed military runways, and 75 percent of them are sitting in a cow pasture. That is 11,000 brand new, fully furnished, manufactured homes sitting in a pasture in Hope, Arkansas, and FEMA owns them, they have already bought them. And FEMA at the same time is spending our tax money to provide housing in hotels and motels for some 12,000 storm victims.

If that is not enough, we all know about the tent city that is set up near Pass Christian, Mississippi, where families in the winter are living in a tent while FEMA has 11,000 brand new, fully furnished manufactured homes sitting in a cow pasture in Hope, Arkansas. That is an aerial photo of some of the 11,000. There is the barbed-wire fence, and there are the manufactured homes. Most of them are 14 feet wide, 60 feet long. Some are 80 feet wide. And now that the drought is about to end and the rains are starting to set in, I do not have to tell you that they are going to be sinking. They are going to be sinking. They are going to be damaged.

What is FEMA's response? Oh, no, not to get them to the people that need them, the people living in hotels and motels and tents 6 months after the storm. Their response is we are going to spend $6-8 million graveling this 290-acre cow pasture so we can store these manufactured homes for a future disaster. FEMA refuses to move these manufactured homes into a flood zone.

Normally I would say that makes sense, but the reality is in this instance, everybody that lost their home as a result of Hurricane Katrina lost their home because they lived in a flood zone. FEMA says if you have land, we will give you a manufactured home. Everybody that lost their home as a result of Hurricane Katrina, they had land but it is in a flood zone. That is why they lost their home.

Mr. Speaker, I appeal to the President and to the director of FEMA, what is worse, to have 11,000 brand new, fully furnished manufactured homes spread out over Mississippi and Louisiana and Alabama with the storm victims who lost their homes and everything they owned in a bunch of different flood zones, or have them all grouped together in a cow pasture at the Hope airport, an area prone to tornadoes, an area that is going to have a tornado warning probably about every 10 days for the next 3 months?

Mr. Speaker, I am going to come to the floor of this Chamber and talk about this until FEMA gets moving, until FEMA comes to Hope, Arkansas, picks up these 11,000 manufactured homes they have purchased, and gets them to the people who desperately need them, people who for the sixth and seventh month in a row are living in hotel and motel rooms, people who are living literally in tents in Pass Christian, Mississippi.

This ran on the front page of the Arkansas Democratic Gazette back in December. I do not know if this gentleman is still living in this tent or not. He was in December. I can tell you about 100 families are living in tents in Pass Christian right now. It is appalling to know as a country we are allowing people to live in tents. He has found a job. He is back at work, doing the best he can for himself and his family. He is waiting on housing, and yet we have 11,000 brand new, fully furnished, manufactured homes purchased by FEMA, sitting in a cow pasture in Hope.

Mr. Speaker, I submit that as a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, this is the kind of government waste that turns people off. I grew up in a little country church outside of Prescott, Midway United Methodist Church, and I heard a lot of sermons about being a good steward, and I can tell you FEMA is not being a good steward of our tax money with what they are doing. It is a total disgrace. It is an outrage.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Scott.

It is about accountability.

Again, it takes a lot of skill for this administration, this Republican-led Congress, to give us the largest budget deficit ever in our Nation's history while also managing to cut all the programs that matter to people at the same time. How do they do that? By tacking on tax cut after tax cut.

Following us this evening, I am pretty confident that the other side will show up, which I think probably is an indication that we are making progress here in getting our message out about trying to restore some fiscal discipline and common sense to our Nation's government, and they will probably talk about how we had an opportunity to cut, to cut, $40 billion in spending and how we voted against it.

But what they will not tell you is that it was $40 billion in cuts to the most vulnerable people in our society. Medicaid, eight out of 10 seniors in Arkansas are on Medicaid. One out of five people in Arkansas are on Medicaid. Cuts to Medicaid, cuts to student loans to the tune of $40 billion, followed by what are we doing this week and next week? About $90 billion in additional tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year.

I wasn't real good at math back in high school or college, Mr. Speaker, but the last time I checked, $90 billion in tax cuts from borrowed money because we don't have a surplus and $40 billion in cuts from the poor, the disabled, elderly and college students equals $50 billion in new spending. Only in Washington would you entitle a bill that increases the national debt by $50 billion the Deficit Reduction Act. Yet that is exactly what we will probably hear more about tonight, just as we did last week.

I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).

If the gentleman would yield, the point is we are not trying to make this any worse than it is. We wish it wasn't bad. We wish we had a balanced budget. We wish the debt was being paid down. We wish we were not deficit spending. We don't have to try to make the numbers any worse than they already are. They already are setting records.

Just to clarify, the difference between these numbers and your numbers, the difference between the numbers in the budget and the numbers in the financial report of the United States Government is basically this simple: our government, our budget uses a cash-basis form of accounting, which gets you to these numbers.

Based on the accrual-basis form of accounting, the real United States deficit in 2005 was $760 billion.

A highlight from the financial report of the United States Government, this official government publication, you can find this on page 23, of the 26 agencies scored under the President's management agenda, 17 of them were deemed to have ``any of a number of serious flaws when it comes to financial performance.''

Then you go on to page 28, and this is a quote from David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States of America: ``The current financial reporting model cash-basis accounting provides a potentially unrealistic and misleading picture of the Federal Government's overall performance, financial condition and future fiscal outlook,'' which is exactly why our government requires businesses to not use the cash- based form of accounting, rather accrual-based form of accounting.

Yet when you hear from our government, they never want to quote this report. They want to report the budget which uses what the Comptroller General of the United States refers to as an unrealistic and misleading picture, through the cash-based form of accounting.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Scott.

The gentleman is so right in his assessments. We do need to be borrowing money from foreign central banks and foreign investors. And, in fact, I believe it should be an American company that manages our ports. And with the cuts, we know what has happened in terms of our country becoming way too dependent on foreign oil.

And yet, if we are not careful with the proposed cuts to agriculture, we are going to become dependent on foreign countries like Brazil for our food and fiber. Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, I submit to you that having a safe and reliable source for food and fiber here at home from America's farm families is every bit as much critical to our national security as oil is.

Now, the gentleman from Georgia made some good points. And, you know, this is not partisan debate. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. It may be the first time in 50 years the Republicans have controlled the White House, House and Senate. It may be the Republican leadership that has given us the largest budget deficit ever in our Nation's history for the sixth year in a row.

But it is not a Democrat or Republican issue, it is an American issue, because this debt, this reckless spending, affects all of us as citizens of this country and as taxpayers. And, Mr. Speaker, we are all citizens of this country, first and foremost.

But to validate what the gentleman from Georgia is saying, again I quote from David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States of America, found on page 28 of the Financial Report of the United States Government for 2005, ``Continuing on this unsustainable path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately our national security.''

He goes on to say, ``More troubling still, the Federal Government's financial condition and long-term fiscal outlook is continuing to deteriorate.''

And I cannot thank the gentleman from Tennessee enough for making the people of this country aware of this little-known document. I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Now we have about 6 or 7 minutes left this evening to talk about being good stewards of our tax money, about being good stewards of the public trust.

But as I promised at the beginning of this hour, our national debt, about an hour ago, was $8,270,909,436,190. In the last 60 minutes, our national debt has gone up approximately $41,666.000.

In 60 minutes, in 1 hour, our national debt has increased to the tune of approximately $41,666,000 and some change. And so you can see an hour ago what the debt was: $8,270,909,436,190. That is no longer true. It is now $8,270,951,102,190.

In the last hour.

Again, we have got to be good stewards of our tax money. We have got to be good stewards of this country. We have got to get our Nation's fiscal house back in order. We must restore fiscal responsibility to our government. It affects every one of us in a lot of different ways.

For example, our Nation is spending a half a billion dollars a day with a ``B,'' 500 million, a half a billion every day, simply paying interest on the national debt.

We could finish I-69 in Arkansas, creating all kinds of jobs and economic opportunities, just with 3 days' interest on the national debt, or I-49, again with 3 days' interest on the national debt.

Many of America's priorities are going to continue to go unmet. Many of America's needs are going to go unmet, from health care to education to veterans to infrastructure, until we get our Nation's fiscal house back in order.

The Blue Dog Coalition has a way to do that. It is a 12-point plan, and the first and foremost of all of those 12 points is require a balanced budget. Forty-nine States do. My wife requires one in our household in Prescott, Arkansas.

The family business my wife and I own, our banker requires us to have a balanced budget. And it is time for this Nation, it is time for the politicians in Washington to have a balanced budget for our Nation.

I yield to the gentlemen from Georgia.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for joining me this evening as we try to hold this Congress accountable and urge a good dose of common sense and fiscal responsibility.

For folks with questions or comments or concerns, I encourage them to e-mail us at bluedogs, we are members of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, [email protected]. That is [email protected].

And, Mr. Speaker, we are here this evening for a simple reason and a simple cause; that is, to try and be good stewards for this Nation of the tax money and the trust that has been placed in us for the people.

We think this Congress is letting the American people down. I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to talk about our budget, to talk about our debt, to talk about our deficit.

As a member of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 37 fiscally conservative Democrats, we are here as a group to hold our government accountable for the reckless spending, the record deficits, and the lack of fiscal discipline that we see in our Nation's government these days.

A good example of that, Mr. Speaker, can be found in my district, in fact, in my hometown where I grew up and finished high school, Hope, Arkansas. As you may know, we had the most costly natural disaster ever in our Nation's history hit us about 6 months ago, that of course being Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you that my heart goes out for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, many who remain homeless today. I am real proud of the people of my congressional district, the 4th District of Arkansas, who opened up their arms and their homes and their communities. Some people referred to them as evacuees. We called them our neighbors, our neighbors from Louisiana and Mississippi who came to Arkansas to seek refuge.

A few weeks, perhaps a couple of months, after Hurricane Katrina, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, showed up at city hall in Hope, Arkansas, and explained that they were aware that Hope owned an old World War II airport, airfield and accompanying pasture, and they understood that many of those runways were now inactive. And they proceeded to explain how they were buying some 20,000 manufactured homes, and they wanted to use the old World War II airport, the inactive runways at the airport there in Hope, Arkansas, as what they called a FEMA staging area, and that manufactured homes and they would be coming and they would be going, going to the people who lost their homes and everything they owned in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Well, Mr. Speaker, they did come. Here is an aerial photo of what has come to Hope, Arkansas. According to FEMA's most recent count, 10,777 manufactured homes have come to this so-called FEMA staging area in my hometown where I grew up, Hope, Arkansas. I now live some 16 miles from there in Prescott.

I have been there, Mr. Speaker. I have seen these 10,777 manufactured homes. They came. But not a single one left, not one. Not one home left for the people they were intended for. To put it another way, it is $431 million worth of manufactured homes sitting in a cow pasture in Hope, Arkansas.

Now, originally what FEMA had intended to do was use this as a staging area and homes would be coming and homes would be going. They would have room for them on these inactive runways. But today only 25 percent of them sit on these inactive runways. As you can see, many of them, in fact 75 percent of them, are sitting in cow pastures around the airport.

If you were to stack these manufactured homes, a few of them are 80 feet long, most of them are 60 feet, if you were to stack them end to end, they would stretch 172 miles. They would stretch from the Texas- Arkansas border at the Red River all of the way to the Arkansas- Mississippi border at the Mississippi River.

These manufactured homes, every single one of them, are fully furnished, beds, mattresses, box springs, dining room, sofa, end tables, coffee tables, fully furnished. Yet at the same time, FEMA has announced that they are planning on March 1 to evict, or in early March, they plan to evict some 12,000 people from hotel rooms, and yet FEMA is sitting, sitting on 10,777 brand-new, fully furnished manufactured homes. They are just sitting on them at the Hope airport in Hope, Arkansas, some 450 miles from the eye of the storm.

Stanley McKenzie is from the New Orleans area. I have been talking with Stanley. Stanley is one of the victims of Hurricane Katrina who, some 6 months after the storm, remains in a hotel room in Monticello, Arkansas. Stanley and I talked this evening. Stanley explained to me that he did not want to be in a hotel room. He wanted to be in a manufactured home and has a location in Monticello to put one of these manufactured homes which are being stored about 2 hours west of Monticello.

And yet FEMA says he cannot have one. FEMA says he cannot borrow one for the next 18 months, as the program calls for.

They do not give these things away. They let people use them for up to 18 months, which is a whole other issue; that being, FEMA says the 18 months start from the date of the Federal declaration, not the date that the people actually receive the home. So every one of those 10,777 homes have an expiration date on them. The date does not begin, the 18- month window for people to live in them while they try to sort through their life and find a place to live after losing everything they own in Hurricane Katrina, does not start from the time they receive a home, it starts from the time of the Federal declaration.

So each day those homes sit at the airport and at the pasture in Hope is a day that no one can ever live in them. So I am calling on FEMA to revise their policy for the 18 months to begin at the time in which people are able to actually obtain one of these homes.

Now, what they tell Stanley is, he cannot have one, even though he has

got a place to put it, because he has got a place to put it in Arkansas, that he would have to move back to Louisiana in order to be able to use one of these manufactured homes for 18 months. And they say that they will not put them in Louisiana because FEMA refuses to put these manufactured homes in a flood zone.

Well, you know, I have got news for FEMA. Everybody that lost their home and everything they own, there is a reason for it. They lived in a flood zone. And so they are saying, if you want to get a manufactured home, FEMA says we will let you use one for up to 18 months, but you have got to provide land. And people who own land own land in what? A flood zone.

And FEMA refuses to place these temporarily in a flood zone for 18 months, and yet they have amassed 10,777 of them just sitting in a pasture in Hope, an area that is prone and will probably be under a tornado warning about once every 10 days for the next 3 months.

It is time for FEMA to get their act together. And they are now saying that they are going to move some of these, some 300 to 400 as I understand will be moved from Hope, some 450 miles from the eye of the storm, to Louisiana. That is good. But they also announced they are getting ready to move another 2,200 homes into Hope on top of the 10,777 we already have.

I am asking FEMA to move all 10,777 of those homes out of Hope and to the people who need them, people who lost everything they owned in Louisiana and Mississippi as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

The last response I got from FEMA was, the travel trailers work great. They put out 72,000 travel trailers and are getting ready to put out 10,000 more. They have purchased another 10,000 travel trailers.

If that is not enough, they are now accepting bids. They are getting ready to spend between $6 and $8 million laying gravel, on up to 290 acres at the airport in this cow pasture at Hope, Arkansas. There have been reports that these manufactured homes are damaged, that they are sinking. Not yet, but it is true that they are literally sitting in a pasture, or at least 75 percent of them are sitting in a pasture.

And that is what they look like. You can see the fence, the cow pasture. They are just sitting there in a pasture, some 10,777 manufactured homes sitting in a pasture, when we have got 12,000 families about to be evicted from hotel rooms all across this country by FEMA.

It is time for FEMA to get its act together. And my response and my plea to FEMA is, you know, do not spend $6 or $8 million laying gravel in a cow pasture. Let us get these manufactured homes to the people who need them, to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Now, I raise this issue because as a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, we have a 12-point plan for budget reform. One of those plans is to require agencies to put their fiscal house in order.

Mr. Speaker, I believe it is time for FEMA to put their fiscal house in order. There is a lot of talk about the President's budget. As you may know, Mr. Speaker, the President has submitted to Congress a $2.8 trillion budget. This budget provides us with the largest budget deficit ever in our Nation's history for the 6th year in a row. $423 billion in red ink; $423 billion in deficit spending. Compare that to fiscal year 2006 when the budget deficit was $318 billion.

The current national debt today, just a few moments ago, was $8,251,355,000,000. For every man, woman, and child in America, including those who have been born since I got up here this evening, each person's share of the national debt is $27,674.

With each passing year this President and this administration and this Republican Congress have given us the largest budget deficit ever in our Nation's history.

It is hard to believe now, but in 1998 through 2001, President Clinton gave this Nation its first balanced budget in about 40 years. In 2001, we had a surplus and every year since we have had a deficit, not only a deficit but the largest deficit ever in our Nation's history.

Mr. Speaker, the total national debt from 1789 to 2000 was $5.63 trillion. But by 2010 the total national debt will have increased to $10.98 trillion. This is a doubling of the 2011 year debt in just 10 years.

Interest payments, this administration, this Congress is borrowing nearly $1 billion every single day; $260 million every day going into Iraq; $33 million every day is going to Afghanistan. Other money that we are borrowing is going to pay for tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year. But if that is not enough that we are borrowing some $1 billion a day, we are also spending about a half a billion dollars a day simply paying interest on the national debt. That is what we call the debt tax, D-E-B-T; and it is one tax that cannot go away until we get our Nation's fiscal house in order.

A half a billion dollars a day going to pay interest on the national debt. Give me 3 days' interest on the national debt and I can build I- 49 through Arkansas. Give me another 3 days' interest and I can build I-69 through Arkansas. I could build 200 brand-new elementary schools every day in America just with the interest that we are paying on the national debt.

Mr. Speaker, if that is not enough, if that is not enough, this President, this administration, this Republican Congress in 5 short year has borrowed more money from foreign central banks and foreign investors than the previous 42 Presidents combined.

At this time I would like to recognize the co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition, Congressman Dennis Cardoza of California, who just happened to have been on the trip with me to Hope, Arkansas, to see those 10,707 manufactured homes just sitting in that cow pasture and 450 miles from the people that really need them in Louisiana and Mississippi.

I appreciate the gentleman from California for his leadership as co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition for joining us this evening for this

discussion of the budget, the debt, and the deficit. I appreciate your traveling to my district and witnessing something that is absolutely reprehensible. To have 10,777 brand-new manufactured homes, fully furnished, sitting in a cow pasture in Hope, Arkansas, when FEMA is getting ready to evict 12,000 people from hotel rooms in this country and their only response is, well, we are not going to put them in flood zones and everybody that needs them lives in a flood zone so we will spend 6 to $8 million putting gravel on the cow pasture so we can store them for a future natural disaster.

That is the craziest thing I have ever heard of, and that is the kind of example of how we must require agencies to put their fiscal house in order and to get their act together. That is part of the 12-point plan for meaningful budget reform that is being offered up by the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition.

I recognize the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott), a fellow Blue Dog, my friend.

If the gentleman would yield, you make a very valid point. I have a chart here to demonstrate the fact that I mentioned earlier, this administration, this Republican Congress has borrowed more money from foreign central banks, from foreign investors in the past 5 years than the previous 42 Presidents combined.

You want to talk about something that is critical to our national security, you let these foreign countries like China and Japan and OPEC, you wonder why gas prices are so high. If we let these countries continue to buy our debt, they are going to have a huge influence on our monetary policy. There you can see Japan, this is as of November 2005, it has gone up since then. Japan, $682.8 billion of our loans that they own. China, $249.8 billion; United Kingdom, $223.2 billion; Caribbean, $115.3 billion; Taiwan, $71.3 billion; OPEC, $67.8 billion; Korea, $66.5 billion; Germany, $65.7 billion; Canada $53.8 billion.

To put it another way, if China decides, as my friend and founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition says so eloquently, we are in such a mess right now that if China which is loaning us money, if China decides to invade Taiwan, we will have to borrow even more money from China to defend Taiwan. That is the situation our Nation is in today as we continue to borrow about half the debt, which is running about a billion a day which means we are borrowing about a half a billion dollars a day from foreign central banks and from foreign investors to fund tax cuts in this country for those who earn over $400,000 a year.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia and welcome him to stay and join us in a conversation about the budget and the debt and the deficit as the evening goes on.

As I mentioned earlier, the Blue Dog Coalition is a group of 37 fiscally conservative Democrats. What we are all about is trying to restore some common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government.

For those who have questions or comments for the Blue Dog Coalition, we are here every Tuesday night. It is not always the same time, but every Tuesday night, we are here. I am here with different members of the Blue Dog Coalition. If you have got a question or a comment for us relating to the budget, the debt, the deficit or my manufactured homes stacked up in a cow pasture in Hope, Arkansas, you can e-mail us at [email protected].

At this time, it is with great pleasure that I recognize a new Member of Congress, a real leader in Congress, a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, someone who came to Congress and said our budget, our debt, our deficit is out of control; I want to help restore some common sense and fiscal discipline. She is someone that has recently become an outspoken advocate for restoring common sense to our government, a new member of our fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, Congresswoman Melissa Bean from Illinois.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Illinois for joining our discussion and debate this evening.

As we look toward the fiscal year 2007 budget that the President recently submitted to Congress, and this is what we are referring to here, the ``Fiscal Year 2007 Budget of the United States Government,'' I cannot help but think about the fact that over the last 4 years this administration has produced the four largest deficits ever in our Nation's history.

The 2006 deficit of $423 billion is projected to be the largest of all, $105 billion larger than the 2005 deficit. The 2006 deficit, without the Social Security surplus, is over $600 billion. They always like to count the Social Security trust fund to make it look like the deficit is really less than it really is. No wonder that I could not get a vote or a hearing on the first bill I filed as a Member of Congress, a bill to tell the politicians in Washington to keep their hands off the Social Security trust fund.

When this administration took office, it inherited a projected 10- year surplus of $5.6 trillion. This surplus has become a $3.3 trillion deficit, which now brings this to a total of $8.2 trillion in deficit, an embarrassing reversal of some $8.9 trillion. If that is not enough, the fiscal year 2007 proposed budget includes cuts to education, Medicare, Medicaid, transportation, justice, law enforcement, housing, urban development, health and human services, while increasing fees paid by veterans and Medicare premiums paid by seniors.

The President said in his State of the Union that he was committed to providing affordable health care for Americans. However, this budget includes increases in Medicare premiums, cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, and a misguided plan for health savings accounts that will shift more of the cost of health care onto beneficiaries.

The fiscal year 2007 budget includes tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year, but it fails to include a repair to the alternative minimum tax, which affects way too many middle-income people year after year after year after year, and should be addressed by this Congress.

In fact, the only good news I can find in the budget is, according to the President's budget, we will have won the peace and brought the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan by October 1. What I mean by that is, the President, according to his budget, has not provided for a single dime in funding for our operations in Afghanistan or Iraq beginning October 1, which obviously means one of two things: that he has provided us with a phony budget, one that is not meaningful; or that he really believes that we are going to actually have brought all the men and women in uniform home and completed our mission and won the battle and created peace and democracies in those regions in Afghanistan and Iraq between now and October 1.

The Blue Dog Coalition used to offer up a budget every year. It is difficult for us to do that now because we refuse to provide a budget that is not meaningful; and it also does not make sense for us to provide a budget that compares apples with oranges. If this administration and this President would give us a meaningful budget, one that accounts for the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan, one that addresses Medicare and all the other pressing issues in this Nation, then we could do the same.

But what we believe must happen as fiscally conservative Democrats, we are tired of all the partisan bickering that goes on in this place. It does not matter if it is a Democratic idea or a Republican idea. I want it to be a common-sense idea, and I ask myself does it make sense for the people that send me here to be their voice and to represent them.

What we believe must happen, before either party can offer up a meaningful budget, is, we have got to have budget reform, and that is what the Blue Dogs are offering up, 12 points to budget reform. We have discussed them in the past. If time permits, I will discuss them even more here this evening, but I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia.

I might mention part of our 12-point plan for meaningful budget reform, and we are still waiting for the first Republican Member of Congress to sign on to our bills that address these issues, but point number one is real simple: Require a balanced budget.

I spent 10 years in the State Senate. Forty-nine States in this Nation require a balanced budget.

I know in our home in Prescott, Arkansas, my family and I, we sit around the kitchen table and work out our family budget. My wife and I own a family pharmacy and home medical equipment business in our hometown, and our banker requires us to have a balanced budget. I don't believe it is asking too much for our Nation and its leaders here in Congress to do what 49 States do, what most companies and businesses, large and small, in America do, and what most families sitting around the kitchen table struggle to do but must do and do, and that is have a balanced budget. That would address a lot of our problems.

Another is don't let Congress buy on credit. The gentleman from Georgia mentioned earlier PAYGO. That is Pay As You Go. If you want to create a new program that is going to cost money, you have to show us at the same time where you are going to cut spending somewhere else. If you are going to cut taxes, you have to show us in times when we don't have a surplus where you are going to cut programs to pay for those tax cuts. It is called Pay As You Go.

And you can see here we did not have PAYGO rules in place in this body, in this United States House of Representatives Chamber; those rules were not in place during the Reagan years. You see the red. We had deficits ranging from $128 billion in 1992. They hit $221 billion in fiscal year 1986. It was $290 billion under former President Bush in fiscal year 1992. And then under President Clinton we started seeing the debt, the deficit, come down. Finally, in fiscal year 1998, we had the first balanced budget in about 40 years, $69 billion in the black. In 1999, $125 billion in the black. The year 2000, $236 billion in the black. Fiscal year 2001, $128.2 billion in the black.

Then, under this Republican-led Congress, this administration, $157.8 billion in the red, $377.6 billion in the red, $412.1 billion in the red, $319 billion in the red, $323 billion in the red; and, of course, for fiscal year 2007, we all know that unfortunately the deficit is projected to be $423 billion. And that is not counting what it would be if they counted the Social Security trust fund. If they were to count the Social Security trust fund, it would be well in excess, well in excess of $600 billion.

It is time to restore some fiscal discipline to our Nation's government. We have a 12-point plan that will accomplish that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.

Very good points, and I thank the gentlewoman for sharing that with us.

In this new budget the President has given us, domestic non-homeland discretionary spending is cut by $5.3 billion below the 2006 level and $16.8 billion below the level needed to maintain the purchasing power at the 2006 level.

Over 5 years this budget includes reductions or eliminations in 141 Federal programs, 91 of which are eliminated in their entirety, and 42 programs in the Department of Education alone. That is 42 programs within the Department of Education that are eliminated under the President's budget for fiscal year 2007.

The budget includes $77 billion in gross mandatory spending cuts over 5 years through a combination of service reductions and fee increases, as we talked about, increasing deductibles and copayments and premiums for our Medicare beneficiaries, and increasing prescription drug copayments and enrollment fees for America's veterans. For America's veterans.

I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that it is time for this Nation to keep its promises to our veterans, especially at a time when we are creating a new generation of veterans that are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, veterans that we should embrace and support and provide them the health care that they deserve and that they were promised when they signed up to serve and protect and defend our Nation.

I mentioned Medicare. The President's budget calls for cuts to Medicare to the tune of $36 billion over 5 years and $105 billion over 10 years. Meanwhile, Medicare part D, as we all know, is failing our seniors and has serious flaws in the system that must be ironed out. And Medicaid, in addition to last year's budget reconciliation package that just passed this body, budget cuts to Medicaid include $17 billion more over 5 years and $42 billion over 10 years. That is in the President's budget for fiscal year 2007.

In my home State of Arkansas, half of the children are on Medicaid. Eight out of 10 seniors in a nursing home are on Medicaid. One in five people in my home State of Arkansas, at some point during the past 12 months, have been on Medicaid. Medicare and Medicaid are the very programs we should be funding, not cutting.

And I submit to folks that if you think Medicaid is something that provides health insurance for folks on welfare and that it will never apply to you, think again. If you have a quarter million dollars in the bank the day you retire, and most people where I come

from don't, and if you go in the nursing home the day you retire, not 10, 20, or 30 years later, in less than 8 years you are on Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, the disabled, and the elderly. That is wrong.

It is wrong to cut taxes for those earning over $400,000 a year when you have to cut Medicaid, whereas eight out of 10 seniors in my State are on Medicaid if they are in a nursing home. It is wrong to cut health care for the poor, the disabled, and the elderly to pay for tax cuts for those earning over $400,000 a year.

And, look, back in times of surplus, when we had a surplus before 9/ 11, before Iraq, and before Afghanistan, I voted for the largest tax cut in over 20 years. We had a surplus. We really were giving people some of their money back. But we no longer have a surplus. We have had 9/11, we have had Iraq, and we have had Afghanistan. It may make for good politics, but it makes for horrible fiscal policy to borrow money from China to give those earning over $400,000 a year a tax cut and leave our children with the bill.

No Child Left Behind is funded at $15.4 billion below the authorized level. And you know how things work in this town. If it were a Democratic idea, I would understand the President cutting it; but this is his plan. He came to Washington on this idea of No Child Left Behind and reforming education. It is his plan. He told us what it would cost, and now he has even cut his own program by $15.4 billion below the authorized level.

Schoolteachers, parents, students, every weekend when I'm home, talk to me about how No Child Left Behind has failed them and failed their school. It is time for this Congress to properly and adequately fund education. Because I can tell you, as we continue to lose these muscle jobs to places like Mexico and China, it is the brain jobs, the jobs that are going to require our children to be competitive, that are the jobs of the future in this Nation, and we've got to better prepare our children for them.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

If the gentleman will yield. Let me make sure I understand this correctly. If you serve your country and earn a pension, but you also are injured while you are serving your country, then you have to choose one or the other? You cannot receive both?

So the gentleman is telling me that over 300 Members of this body have signed onto legislation to fix that?

And it only takes 218 to pass a bill?

And yet the Republican leadership fails to bring the bill to the floor for a vote?

Every weekend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for joining us this evening, and I thank the gentlewoman from Illinois for joining us.

As members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, we are 37 strong. There are 37 of us in this town that are committed to trying to get our fiscal house in order, to once again have a nation that knows how to live within its means.

If you have questions or comments that you want us to answer next Tuesday night, you can e-mail them to us at [email protected].

At the beginning of our hour, I pointed out that the debt as of today is $8,251,355,000,000. That is $8,251,355,000,000. Every man, woman, and child in America, their share of the national debt is $27,674. And it continues to grow. It continues to grow. In fact, just in this last hour our Nation's debt has increased by $41.666 million. So, obviously, you see when we started an hour ago it was $8,251,355,000,000, and, unfortunately, it has increased to $8.293 trillion. Just another example of how our Nation must get its fiscal house in order.

I think it is very appropriate that we spend a little bit of time changing these numbers and letting people see that in the hour that we have stood here talking about our Nation's debt and deficit and getting our fiscal house in order, we have seen the Nation's debt go up by $41.666 million. The debt now in our Nation $8,251,293,000,000.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the contributions of American citizens who are members of the Amateur Radio Relay League, known as HAM radio operators. Citizens throughout America dedicated to this hobby--a hobby that some people consider old fashioned or obsolete--were true heroes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as they were often the only line of communication available into the storm ravaged areas.

Amateur radio operators are often overlooked in favor of flashier means of communication. As communities across the gulf coast and America learned this year, technology can be highly vulnerable. HAM radios, entirely self-contained transmitters, require no cell towers or satellites, simply a battery and a strip of wire as an antenna.

Just as after major earthquakes, tornadoes, and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, HAM operators around the country received an alert to stand by their radios to listen for calls for assistance. Following Hurricane Katrina, when cell phones and e-mail were useless, a HAM operator located in Connecticut alerted authorities about a woman trapped for 4 days without food or water and a Coast Guard Auxiliary in Cleveland arranged for a medevac for a woman in labor in New Orleans. These are just a few examples of the many lives that were saved with the critical intervention of HAM operators throughout the country.

Now more than ever, I am proud to be a licensed amateur radio operator. It is important to realize that every HAM radio operator in the Amateur Radio Emergency Service is a volunteer. This year, when disaster struck, hundreds of HAMs moved to the gulf coast to help in every way they could. Every one of which did so on a volunteer basis and their only goal was to assist in what became one of the worst natural disasters in America.

The dedication displayed by HAM radio operators in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina sets a tremendous example for us all. The people whose lives were rescued as a result of the tireless dedication of HAM radio operators will forever be grateful to these selfless public servants.