Democratic Blue Dog Coalition
Floor Speech
DEMOCRATIC BLUE DOG COALITION
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Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise on behalf of the 43 Member strong fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. We are a group of fiscally conservative Democrats that are committed to restoring common sense and fiscal discipline to our Nation's government.
As you walk the Halls of Congress, Mr. Speaker, it is easy to know when you are walking by the office of a fellow Blue Dog Member because you will see this poster that says ``The Blue Dog Coalition.'' It says, ``Today, the U.S. national debt is, 8,887,793,986,597.86.'' And for every man, woman and child in America, their share of the national debt is $29,465. It is what we refer to as the ``debt tax.'' And that is one tax that cannot be cut, that cannot go away until this Nation gets its fiscal house in order. The Federal deficit continues to climb.
Mr. Speaker, it is hard now to think back and realize, but from 1998 through 2001, this country had a balanced budget; and yet under the Republican leadership for the previous 6 years, we have seen them rubber-stamp the President's budget year after year after year, giving us the largest deficit after the largest deficit after the largest deficit, record deficits. And as a result of that, we have seen the national debt grow to where it is today, approaching $9 trillion.
Why does this matter? It matters because the total national debt from 1789 to 2000 was $5.67 trillion, but by 2010, the total national debt will have increased to $10.88 trillion. This is a doubling of the 211-year debt in just 10 years. Interest payments on this debt are one of the fastest growing parts of the Federal budget. And the debt tax is one that cannot be repealed. Deficits reduce economic growth. They burden our children and grandchildren with liabilities. They increase our reliance on foreign lenders who own some 40 percent of our debt.
This chart here, Mr. Speaker, graphically depicts why the American people should be concerned about the fact that our country is nearly $9 trillion in debt. You see, our Nation spends a half a billion dollars a day, give or take a few dollars, simply paying interest on the debt, and that is money that could be going for education, health care, veterans benefits, to properly equip our men and women in uniform and ensure that they've got the best body armor possible.
And this really graphically depicts it, as you can see. The red bar is the amount of money our Federal Government spends simply paying interest on the national debt. The light blue bar demonstrates how much money we spend educating our children. The green box indicates how much we spend on our veterans. And the purple box indicates how much we spend on homeland security. Again, you can see overwhelmingly our tax money is going to pay interest on the national debt.
It is time to get our fiscal house in order. It is time to restore common sense to our Federal Government. And once we do, we can begin to spend less of your hard earned tax money, Mr. Speaker, on paying interest on the national debt, and we can spend a lot more on educating our children, taking care of America's veterans, keeping our homeland secure, and the list of America's priorities goes on and on.
One of the co-chairs for the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition is Allen Boyd from Florida. He is our administrative co-chair. I am delighted that he has joined me this evening for this lively discussion about restoring common sense and fiscal discipline to our national government. And part of the way we do that, we believe, is through accountability.
Throughout the evening we are going to be talking about the budget, we are going to be talking about the debt and the deficit, we are going to be talking about accountability, not only at home, but also in Iraq, and making sure that the hardworking people of this country are getting the most for their tax dollar. I don't think that is asking too much. And I think it is very appropriate that on tax day we rise on the floor of the House to demand accountability for how the American taxpayer's money is being spent.
With that, I yield to the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Boyd, the co-chair for administration for the Blue Dog Coalition.
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Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman from Florida for his insight and discussing fiscal discipline and the budget and demanding that this Congress reflects the values and the priorities of the American people.
The U.S. is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign lenders. Foreign lenders currently hold a total of $2.199 trillion of our public debt. Compare this to only $623 billion in foreign holdings back in 1993. There is a chart here that pretty much shows us where we have been and where we are going. The amount of foreign-held debt more than doubled under the Bush administration. Starting in 2001, you can see how many billions of dollars we were borrowing from foreign central banks and foreign investors, and you can see how it has gradually increased all of the way through 2006.
Putting it another way, this President has borrowed more money in the past 6 years from foreign central banks and foreign investors than the previous 42 Presidents combined. You want to talk about a national security risk, I believe that alone is a national security risk.
We are already 60 percent dependent on foreign oil. We know that. We see it every time we fill up at the pumps. And, Mr. Speaker, if we are not careful, we are also going to become too dependent on foreign countries to fund our government.
I always enjoy David Letterman's top 10 list. I have a top 10 list. My top 10 list tonight lists the foreign countries that we have borrowed money from to help fund tax cuts in this country for people earning over $400,000 a year. That's right, year after year, for the past 6 years, we have continued to pass tax cuts, not for working families, but for folks earning over $400,000 a year. We didn't have a surplus, so where did the money come from? It came from our Nation borrowing to the tune of about a billion dollars a day.
And before we borrow a billion a day, we spend half a billion every day paying interest on the debt we have already got, money that could go to our veterans, to homeland security, to education, to health care. Some 10 million children in this country today are without health care. Instead, it is going to pay interest on our national debt. Where did the money come from? A lot comes from the Social Security trust fund.
The first bill I filed as a Member of Congress was a bill to tell the politicians in Washington to keep their hands off the Social Security trust fund. Republican leadership for 6 years refused to give me a hearing or a vote on that bill. Now we know why: Because they were borrowing money from the Social Security trust fund with absolutely no provision made on how the money is going to be paid back or when it is going to be paid back or where the revenues are going to come from to pay it back.
When you go to the bank to get a loan, the banker wants to know how you are going to pay it back, when you are going to pay it back, and how much you are going to pay back on a monthly schedule, and so forth and so on.
But the top 10 list, these are the countries that the United States of America has borrowed money from to fund our government in these days of reckless deficit spending:
Japan, $637.4 billion.
China, $346.5 billion.
The United Kingdom, $223.5 billion.
OPEC, yes, OPEC, our Nation, the United States of America, has borrowed $97.1 billion from OPEC.
Korea, $67.7 billion.
Taiwan, $63.2 billion.
The Caribbean banking centers, $63.6 billion.
Hong Kong, $51 billion.
Germany, $52.1 billion.
And rounding out the top 10 countries that the United States of America has borrowed money from to fund our government, Mexico, $38.2 billion.
It is time to restore fiscal discipline and accountability to our government. And a new member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition who is helping us do that in this new Democratic majority, we are demanding answers to tough questions, we are demanding commonsense be restored in our government. We are demanding that this new leadership governs from the middle, which is where we are as Blue Dogs and where we believe the majority of Americans are, and the new Blue
Dog member who is helping us do that is the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wilson), and I yield to him at this time.
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Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his work within the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition in trying to restore commonsense and fiscal discipline to our national government, trying to give us a budget that will return us to the days of record surpluses instead of record deficits. Hopefully, as a result of the budget passed on this floor just in the last week, we will see this number start back down once again, because it is important; it is important that we put an end to deficit spending.
One of the ways we do that is through accountability. Let me just say that if we are going to ask the American people to get up and go to work and pay taxes, we as a Congress should be held accountable and the various Federal agencies should be held accountable to ensure they are getting the most value for their tax dollars, that we truly are doing things that will honor their work and ensure that we leave this country just a little bit better than we found it for our children and our grandchildren.
One of the leaders in the Blue Dog Coalition, in fact, one of the founders of the Blue Dog Coalition that has done a lot in the area of accountability is the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), and at this time, I will yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner). Thank you for joining me this evening.
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Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for his insight and his leadership on the accountability bill to restore accountability to our national government.
Did the gentleman, I just want to make sure I understood the gentleman correctly, did the gentleman indicate that 18 of 24 major Federal agencies can't produce a clean audit of its books?
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Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman for his work on accountability within our government, Mr. Tanner from Tennessee, one of the founders of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for joining us on the floor this evening to talk about restoring common sense, accountability, and fiscal discipline to our national government.
Madam Speaker, as you walk the Halls of Congress, again, it's easy to know when you are walking by the office of a fellow Blue Dog member, because you will see this poster reminding the American people, reminding the Members of the Congress that today the U.S. national debt is $8,887,793,986,597 and some change. For every man, woman and child in America, their share, your share, of the national debt is $29,465.
Also, if you have any questions, comments on our Special Order this evening, I would encourage you to e-mail us at BlueDog@mail.house.gov. That is BlueDog@mail.house.gov.
This is a Special Order being hosted by the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition talking about issues that we believe are important to the future of this country.
I am delighted to be joined this evening by a new member of the Blue Dog Coalition from the State of Indiana (Mr. Ellsworth).
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Mr. ROSS. I thank the gentleman from Indiana, a new member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition for joining me this evening and being a part of this discussion on how we restore common sense, fiscal discipline, and accountability to our government.
Mr. Tanner said it very well earlier in the evening when he said the American people are sick and tired of all the partisan bickering that goes on at our Nation's Capitol. I can tell you those of us in the Blue Dog Coalition, we don't care if it is our idea or the Republican idea. We are looking for commonsense ideas, ideas that promote accountability, ideas that make sense for the people back home.
Now, there are others that will come to this floor and talk about the Democrats being bad on this or so forth and so on, and there are Democrats that will talk about the Republicans being bad on this or so forth and so on, but the American people are sick of that. The American people get it. They recognize that we are all Americans first and we are in this together.
Talking about accountability, this is a bipartisan issue that I would like to raise in the closing minutes of this Special Order. The United States is spending about $9 billion a month in Iraq, which translates to about $275 million a day or $12 million an hour. However, even with all of this spending, many believe that the U.S. Army is not providing our troops with the most technologically advanced and effective body armor available.
If you ask 100 different people what they think about this post-war Iraq policy, you get about 100 different answers. But I can tell you that there is one thing that all of us, Democrat and Republican, should remain united on, and that is funding and supporting and properly equipping our men and women in uniform. This war has affected all of us. My brother-in-law is in the United States Air Force. He is in the Middle East region this evening.
Let me tell you that 2 weeks ago, one of my constituents, Mr. John Grant of Hot Springs, Arkansas, brought this issue to my attention. Mr. Grant has become an expert on the types of body armor that are currently available in the market due to the fact that his youngest son serves in the Army National Guard's 39th Infantry Brigade. Arkansas' 39th was recently informed that they could be deployed to Iraq by the end of the year. It will be their second deployment. I was there in Baghdad visiting them August 11, 2004, on their previous deployment, soldiers from my hometown, soldiers from throughout my district, people that I used to teach in Sunday school and people that, well, I have duck hunted with.
And they will be returning again, perhaps by the end of the year, and I believe that we owe it to this soldier, his family, and all soldiers and their families, to ensure that our troops are given the finest armor and equipment available.
This issue specifically involves the U.S. Army's recent testing and comparison of Pinnacle Armor's so-called Dragon Skin body armor and the Interceptor Body Armor, often referred to as IBA, currently in use by the Armed Forces. Because of equipment shortages in 2005, some troops purchased equipment at their own expense, including body armor, and Congress enacted legislation to reimburse these soldiers. However, months later, the Army issued a ``safety of use message,'' which instructed all commanders to ensure that only IBA brand is used by soldiers, prohibiting the use of any other body armor.
The Army's ``safety of use message'' also dispelled recent reports that Dragon Skin was superior to the IBA, citing that Dragon Skin has failed various tests and therefore does not meet the Army's requirements for soldier body armor protection.
Military support organizations, such as Soldiers for the Truth, of which Mr. Grant is a member, along with Dragon Skin manufacturer Pinnacle Armor, argue that Dragon Skin did not fail any test. They have stated that the testing was biased, and they continue to stand behind their assertions that Dragon Skin is superior to the IBA.
They point out that Dragon Skin has also been approved and is used by the U.S. Air Force, the CIA, the NSA, the U.S. Department of Energy officials in Iraq, the U.S. Secret Service Presidential Protection detail, some Special Forces units, and various police departments and SWAT teams around the Nation. However, our troops cannot purchase or use this body armor. I have even been informed that, as a result of this message, if a soldier purchases and uses any armor other than the IBA, this action will be construed as though the soldier has disobeyed a direct order and could, could, jeopardize his or her family receiving service group life insurance if killed in combat.
It is not certain whether this is true, but if it is, I completely disagree with this policy and believe that our combat soldiers should not be denied the use of the latest and most effective body armor if it will result in the preservation of their lives.
Therefore, for the protection of our troops, I am calling for a full investigation into whether the U.S. Army is using the most effective body armor for our troops' protection. We need an unbiased external investigation to determine whether the IBA is the most effective armor available. And if additional testing reveals that Dragon Skin body armor or any other brand is the superior product, then it should be provided to our troops.
I am extremely grateful to Mr. Grant for bringing this issue to my attention, as there is no greater obligation we have to our troops, who risk their lives on a daily basis, than to supply them with the most advanced technology and resources available.
I believe that we must demand that the most stringent test possible be conducted to resolve whether our troops are being given access to the absolute best body armor available. What might have been good in 2003 might very well be outdated today. My only goal is to protect our troops in harm's way by ensuring that they receive the most advanced body armor on the market today as they carry out their mission.
May God bless our country, may God bless and keep our soldiers safe.
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