I wanted to be here tonight because I think so highly of Doug and Louise Bereuter. I have had the privilege of traveling with Doug and Louise, Betty and I have for the last 8 or 10 years, to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, which is…

I come over here with a degree of sadness, because the rule prohibits the consideration of the Blue Dog substitute on budget enforcement. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) made a speech a while ago that I could not say any better…

No, Mr. Speaker, I did not say, do not pass a debt limit. I said it would be a financial calamity if we did not.

It is one of them. It is not ``the'' solution. There is not ``a'' solution tonight that we can do. But I can say this: What we are doing is unsustainable financially. It does not do any good to question me. I do not have any votes. When…

I do not believe the people of this country realize just how bad things are financially. The governing majority here in the House took credit for balancing the budget when President Clinton was in the White House, and since the time that…

maybe I did not make myself clear. What the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) is talking about is a situational budget deficit. What most economists are saying now is we are in a structural deficit. That is a huge difference. If the roof…

Mr. Speaker, the Democratic substitute recognizes the good public policy behind extending the 10 percent bracket. We believe that. But we also believe, unlike the majority, that it is irresponsible to do so by borrowing another $218…

What this debate is all about is the financial balance sheet of our country. As I said in my opening statement, this bill is just a symptom of a far greater problem. I really, honestly do not believe the people of this country realize when…

A tax cut today with borrowed money is a tax increase tomorrow in the form of interest on the debt. One cannot have it both ways. The worst of it is this: This country ran up a $370-plus billion deficit last year. You know who financed it…

Last year, of the $370 billion that we borrowed, foreigners financed 70 percent of it. The Red China central bank has increased their holdings of our debt by 70 percent in the last 26 months.

Since 2001, when the Republicans have had everything, I want the young people particularly to listen to me, this country has borrowed over $1.2 trillion. With the budget that is presented today, they are going to borrow another $1 trillion…

I am concerned about the rule. I know that most Americans want to see us do everything possible to support our troops in the field and in harm's way, but there is $20 billion in this request that is full of fat and pork and is intended to…

the $12 billion that CBO says the House bill cuts from hospitals, $9 billion of that comes from hospitals serving rural communities. As I said the other day when we were talking about this approach, all the medical technology in the world…

I was not going to speak, but I must say to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery), you know if you are using whatever confrontation took place between the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr…

it has been 797 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 $1,080,045,794,469. According to the Web site for the Bureau of the…

The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) referred awhile ago to mandatory spending. There is no more mandatory spending than interest on the national debt. What we are doing as Americans, not Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans who…

you did not support the Blue Dog budget either that would have resulted in $21 billion less in interest over a period of time.

the Blue Dog budget did not increase taxes. What the Blue Dog budget did was it put some of the tax cuts that were supposed to go into effect into the future off the table. I have heard the Republicans over and over again say we need to go…

I did not vote for the Democratic substitute because I thought it was too light on reform. The Republican bill is too light on substance. Mr. Speaker, we have a middle ground here, if we were only allowed to offer it; and it is what the…

I know I sound like Johnny one-note when I get up here talking about the debt and the deficit on everything that seems to come along. But I want to tell the Members this is serious business, what is happening. If Members want to talk about…

I rise to oppose what I think is a well intentioned but misguided effort here to amend the first amendment, the Bill of Rights. Every nation on Earth that I know of has a flag. There is only one that has a bill of rights and that is us…

It is not easy to oppose a tax cut if one holds public office. It does not take a lot of courage to vote for a tax cut. That is something that everybody who seeks public office likes to do, and it is no fun to oppose a tax cut. But who in…

I think that one other point ought to be made, and that is that on January 1, 1995, our national debt subject to limit was $4.8 trillion. On January 1, 2004, it will be $7.4 trillion. That is an increase of 54 percent in 8 years. That is…

I used to talk about the debt of the Nation and the deficit in terms of what we were doing to our children and grandchildren. I called it a generational mugging on this floor last year. That is still the case. We are still mugging our…

I adopt everything that has been said about the debt of this country. We are going broke, if anybody looks at it, but I want to say one thing here this morning. This is a sad day. My colleagues can hide a lot of things around theories of…