Blue Dog Coalition

BLUE DOG COALITION-- (House of Representatives - December 11, 2007)

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Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Ross.

For the sake of our children's future, I'm strongly urging the Senate to ensure that the AMT patch that we're going to be considering this week complies with the PAYGO rules. The House has already passed a responsible AMT bill, which will prevent 23 million taxpayers from being hit by the AMT, while also finding appropriate offsets so that the national debt will not be increased.

I have introduced a resolution, H.J. Res. 45, which is a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution. If my constituents in upstate New York have to balance their checkbook every month, so should the Federal Government.

The AMT affected 4.2 million Americans last year. If Congress does not act, it will affect 23 million Americans this year, most of them middle-class families.

In my district, 66,000 families will be affected if this bill is not passed. Almost half of the 23 million taxpayers that will be affected are married with children. The average AMT taxpayer will owe over $6,000 in additional taxes. Small business owners are going to be one of the hardest hit by the AMT.

The reason why we have to pay for this and ensure we follow pay-as-you-go standards is because America's debt is over $9 trillion. Our Federal debt increases by $1.4 billion a day, at an astonishing rate of $1 million a minute. Our national debt is equal to over $30,000 for every man, woman and child and infant in this country.

The Federal Government spent over $400 billion last year on interest payments on the national debt. After Social Security, Medicare and defense spending, interest payments on the debt are the third largest expenditure by the Federal Government. The amount of money that we spend on interest payments will decrease the amount of money America will have in the future for spending on our national priorities such as health care, education, energy independence, our troops.

Lowering the debt is essential not only for our economic security, but it is essential for our national security. Foreign governments and investors now hold $2.2 trillion, which is 44 percent of all publicly held U.S. debt. That's up nearly 10 percent from last year. China owns the second-most amount of our debt, and oil exporting countries such as Saudi Arabia account for the fourth-most held U.S. debt.

Paying for AMT is possible. The House has already passed in a bipartisan way a PAYGO-compliant bill. For future generations, we must be responsible and not add to the national debt.

Just to give folks at home an understanding of what this money means, let me just give you a couple of translations. This year we paid $239 billion in interest on the national debt. That same amount of money, if we use it for other purposes, would literally pay for every U.S. family's refrigerator to be stocked for 7 months. It would pay for filling every U.S. family's gas tank for 10 months at today's gas prices. It would pay for providing 4 years of in-state public tuition for 10 million students, and it would pay 1 year's salary for 8 million new teachers.

The Federal Government has sent over $709 billion abroad in the form of interest payments since President Bush took office, $155 billion in 2007 alone. The same amount would fund any of the following: 12,000 new elementary schools, 7,000 new veterans clinics, and all road and bridge construction and improvements for the next 10 years.

I beseech the Senate to follow a fiscal, responsible and prudent course of action and pay for the AMT.

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