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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, we do need to fund adequately our offices; the Capitol Police, for whom I have the greatest respect; and the Library of Congress, a real jewel for our country. As my colleague from Nevada said, American families are hurting, and we have been increasing spending by 16 percent in this area over the past 2 years. Here are the problems that we are facing in this country right now, which the American people are beginning to truly understand.
We will have a $2 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2009. The second tranche of the TARP was allowed to be spent, which was $350 billion. The stimulus package, which was H.R. 1, was $787 billion, which was really over $1 trillion with the debt cost. There was the omnibus bill, which was $409 billion. That was the bill that funded appropriations for this year, which the Democrats said they couldn't pass last year in individual appropriations bills even though they were in charge of the Congress. The budget increased total spending to $4 trillion in 2009, or 28 percent of the GDP, the highest Federal spending as a percentage of the GDP since World War II. Now we have this additional increase which they're asking for.
Federal spending is out of control. We have got to put a stop to this somewhere. The day before yesterday, Republicans offered 94 amendments in the Rules Committee, which were designed to cut Federal spending, but we couldn't deal with that. The Democrats cut off debate because they said it was going to take too much time to deal with this. Apparently, Democrats can't spend the American people's money fast enough. Republicans think it's time that Congress started practicing fiscal discipline. This is a good place to start.
I would now like to yield such time as he may consume to my colleague from Iowa, Mr. King.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that I have been told that when he was ranking member, Mr. Obey would never agree to a time agreement before a consideration of a bill.
Now, Mr. Speaker, we are nearing the end of the time of debate on this rule. I think we have had some very important issues brought forward by my distinguished colleagues who have come to share this debate this morning.
This is a bad rule because it does not allow for amendments to be offered on the floor for people to work their will here.
I do want to correct a couple of things that were said earlier this morning by my colleagues in terms of uninsured Americans. I think we have to do this every single time it's brought up.
My distinguished colleague from Florida said this earlier: there are 47 million uninsured Americans. There are not. Despite those claims--and I am quoting from ``Crisis of the Uninsured: 2008'' by the National Center for Policy Analysis--we have 12 million illegal aliens here. We have 14 million uninsured adults and children who are qualified for programs but have not enrolled. We have 18 million people who are uninsured who live in households with annual incomes above $50,000 who could afford it. We have 18 million who are uninsured, but most of them are healthy and don't need it. Eighty-five percent of U.S. residents are privately insured and enrolled in a government health program. Therefore, 95 percent of U.S. residents have health coverage or access to it, and the remaining 5 percent live in households that earn less than $50,000 annually. That is about 7 million people.
I am getting so tired of hearing these misstatements made all the time. It's day after day after day that we keep getting these figures put out that are wrong.
But let's go back to this bill and to what's in this bill that we find really egregious. I am going to urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and ``no'' on the bill because we have in here $9 million for the Open World Leadership Center Trust Fund. That's just one of the items that's in here that we don't need to be funding. It would be great to be able to have better relations with young people in other countries who come here; but, again, the American people are hurting.
The Republicans are on the side of the American people who are hurting here. We want to slow down the spending. There is a statement that came out yesterday about the difficulty we're having in selling bonds and the amount that we're selling. We are going into debt greater and greater in this country, and yet the Democrats seem to see no end to spending. They can't spend the American people's money fast enough.
There is money in here to do studies on demonstration projects to save energy. You know what? I look around this place every night; we can save lots of money on energy by just turning out the lights. The lights are left on all over the Capitol complex. We don't need to spend millions of dollars on studying what we can do to save energy. Just use common sense and cut down on the use of the energy that we have now. We're going to be wasting a huge amount of money.
Yesterday, the Treasury announced a record $104 billion worth of bond auctions for next week, part of its Herculean efforts to finance the rescue of the world's largest economy. This was in the news today. It will exceed the previous record of $101 billion set in auctions that took place in the last week of April.
We are spending our country more and more into debt. And why are we pushing things through? Why are we not allowing amendments? Because the chairman of the Appropriations Committee says we have to stick to his timetable. And yet, since the beginning of May, what have we dealt with here? We've had over 101 suspension bills, things like recognizing the Winston Churchill Memorial Library in Fulton, Missouri, as American's National Churchill Museum. Really important work----
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