our country was founded and bases itself on civilian control of the military. And when I wore the uniform of our country, I, like all other military people in uniform, followed orders. I obeyed my commanders and I tried to do whatever the…

Well, I don't want to catch you off guard, but we need to clear this up before we vote on this resolution. I do not think the American people will support a government that grants amnesty to people who kill American soldiers.

the Army has been talking about adjusting the length of deployment in some manner, and there has been ongoing discussions about that with the Army Chief of Staff and others, and this amendment merely asks the Secretary of the Army to give…

I want to talk about accountability again. Another consequence of what we have done in the last 48 to 60 months with this unprecedented borrowing has not only degraded tax money coming here that could have been used for foster children…

Certainly it is the right thing to do. We take money involuntarily away from people in the form of taxation and appropriate it to the executive branch and then do not even ask them what they did with it. If we ask them, they could not tell…

The other thing that the supporters of this economic plan for our country say, well, do not worry about it; as a percentage of the gross domestic product, it is not historically too high. Well, when it was higher was World War II, and we…

Now you have got a part of another $36 million that we have borrowed since we started talking, and 90 percent of that is coming to us from overseas.

I would say that we see time and again the rule resolution that comes to the floor and is passed basically on the party line; what you see is that in the rule, all points of order are waived, which means that the budget rules that we try…

Thank you, Mr. Ross. The Government Accountability Office in a report this year revealed 16 of 23 major Federal agencies cannot produce a simple audit. In other words, they cannot tell the American people and the Congress what they did…

We all would like to be big business owners someday, but we are still small business owners.

Well, it is a shell game, somebody called it three card monty, when you low ball a bill that you know is going to cost more than that, but you do it to fit it into some preconceived notion of a budget so you can basically fool the American…

I guess that there is enough hot air that comes from this place to float any balloon, and I wish I was making up what I am about to say. But if you go to the www.publicdebt.treas.gov, you will find the things that I am about to say are…

That is correct. This recklessness has got to be stopped. The Blue Dogs will work with anybody. But until the President and the United States Congress level with the American people and say we do not just have a deficit that is cyclical…

I really enjoyed that. But I want to thank you all for being here tonight. I want to talk about this financial picture of our country maybe in a little different way. And the way I want to talk about it is not as a Democrat or as a…

I think that means I am old. I appreciate the gentleman having this special order tonight and inviting us down here. Mr. Scott, many of you may know, but his brother-in-law is the homerun king of baseball, Hank Aaron, and he was nice…

in 1997, Jennifer Dunn, a Republican from Washington, and I started this debate on the estate tax. At that time the country was in much different shape financially than it is today. At that time, we raised the issue for estate tax relief…

Mr. Speaker, why are we here for the third time in 3 years? It is because our country has borrowed over $1.5 trillion in that time from 2001 until now. Mr. Speaker, this is not an accident. This is the first administration and the first…

if this has not depressed us enough, this year, so far, in 2004, the increase in the privately held debt is $380 billion. The increase in foreign-held debt is $370 billion. Ninety-seven percent of the increase in privately held debt is in…

Some of us sometimes feel like a canary in a coal mine. They send a canary in a coal mine to see if it can live because of the gases and so forth. We have been talking about this, the Blue Dogs and others, for at least a year. I think…

The foreign-held debt in January of 2001 was $1.01 trillion. The foreign-held debt in July of this year was $1.81 trillion. That is a difference of $800 billion since 2001, a 79 percent increase in what foreigners hold. If we look at this…

I come here to the floor tonight to talk about something that is not very pleasant to think about, much less talk about, but as President Jimmy Carter once said, the highest office in this land of ours is that of citizen, because the…

I think it is rather unusual that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), and I are all up here today talking about the same issue because I really think it is time to get some real value out of…

Of the last year, we paid gross interest on the $7.3 trillion of $318 billion. If we do the math, that is, 17.8 percent of every dollar that comes into this town is going out in interest. That is a 17.8 percent mortgage on our country. If…

it has been 1,168 days since President Bush and the Republican Party embarked on their economic plan for our country. During that time the national debt has increased by $1,636,400,551,909.99. According to the Web site for the Bureau of…

The Blue Dogs have tried repeatedly to do something about this abuse of our country and what is going on here with regard to the Nation's balance sheet. I do not think that people of this country realize fully how bad it is and how quickly…