John Campbell: “shh, there's a secret. I have a secret. It's a secret that the leadership in this House doesn't want the people to know…”

“shh, there's a secret. I have a secret. It's a secret that the leadership in this House doesn't want the people to know; but I'm going to tell you anyway. This Nation, this Federal Government, is in a historic fiscal crisis right now. It was announced earlier this week that the deficit for this fiscal year which we are in is projected now to reach $470 billion. Now, Mr. Speaker, for most people when you talk like this, these numbers are so huge they sound arcane. What does that mean. Well, it is half a trillion dollars which I think most people know is a lot of money. Let me put it in perspective. If we reach that level by the end of September, this will be by far the largest single year deficit in American history. Let me repeat that. We are currently in a year in which we will likely reach the largest deficit in 1 year in U.S. history. But it doesn't seem to stop there because also this week the Appropriations Committee released their spending request for the next fiscal year, for fiscal year 2009. And they requested to spend 7.7 percent more than this year; 7.7 percent more. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the appropriations request is made up of 12 separate bills, 12 separate areas of the government. They propose an increase in spending in all 12. They are not proposing to keep the same or reduce spending anywhere in spite of the largest deficit in American history. And because of the economic doldrums that we are currently in, revenue right now is basically flat.”