Ed Case: “good evening and aloha. Tonight, I rise to address again the single most important issue facing our country, now, next…”

“good evening and aloha. Tonight, I rise to address again the single most important issue facing our country, now, next year, and well into the next generation, and that is our crushing budget deficit and the fiscal corruption of our Nation's finances; and yes, I do not use that word ``corruption'' lightly because that is what is happening. I do so in solidarity with my fellow Blue Dog Members, people of sincerity who I respect and who have stood here for years and decades and argued for fiscal responsibility and with whom I today cointroduced the Assuring Fiscal Honesty and Accountability Act of 2004. That is the subject that I want to address briefly here tonight because I can assure my fellow citizens, beyond any semblance of doubt, that fiscal honesty and accountability have no place at today's seat of power here in Washington. Perhaps I am overly simplistic, but on any issue I like to ask: First, is there a problem? Second, what exactly is it? Third, what is the solution? Fourth, how do we accomplish it? The act that we introduced today addresses the fourth question: How do we accomplish it? And it starts with the fourth question because I do not know how anybody can doubt that we have a problem. We know we have one, and we know exactly what it is, the systematic pillaging of our Nation's fiscal and budgetary integrity and resources for short-term political gain.”