Jason Altmire

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. That is a chart that we are going to be seeing a lot more of, and I did want to make one point about that. Those 81 oversight hearings on what is happening in Iraq, those are not make-work hearings. Those are not hearings just to hold hearings. Those are serious issues that this Congress is looking at.

Mr. ALTMIRE. This is in the context of being told, the American people were told, that the oil proceeds in Iraq would pay for the cost of the war. You have a couple of issues. One is the oil proceeds. We do not have any accounting of where a lot of them are going. They are disappearing into the black market. They are certainly not paying for the cost of the war. The second issue is, we have paid almost $400 billion as a Nation on the Iraq War of our money, the American people's money, and as you have outlined, we have lost billions of dollars in Iraq that is completely unaccounted for. You certainly know about that from the Government Oversight Committee, and I am sure we will talk more about that. In just the few minutes that we have remaining, about 4 minutes remaining, I did want to talk about budget season. Here we are in the spring, and as our loyal constituents and people who follow the 30 Something Working Group will know, we do talk about the budget at some length and rightly so, because the budget has not been managed well over the past 6 years. We have an administration that came into office. We had just had four consecutive years of budget surpluses that were forecast as far as the eye can see, and in the last 6 years, we have had six consecutive budget deficits that are now forecast as far as the eye can see. There has been a $9 trillion swing in the 10-year forecast from a $5.5 trillion surplus over 10 years to a $3.5 trillion dollar because of the fiscal mismanagement that we have seen over the past 6 years. The President just submitted to us his 2007 out-of-balance budget. So I will use this as a teaser for perhaps our next 30 Something Working Group because we will not be able to get into it as much as we would like, but for those watching, I would just say that we are going to talk at great length about some of these issues in the coming weeks. We were going to talk about foreign-held debt today, and I have a chart that I would refer my colleagues to. This President has added more than $1 trillion of foreign-held debt to America's balance in just 6 years. He did more than his 42 predecessors combined in just 6 years. The history of the country up to his administration had put less in foreign-held debt than he did in just 6 years. So let us take a look at who is holding this debt. I get this question all the time because I talk about the deficit and the debt and who is holding it. Japan holds $644 billion in American debt right now. China holds $350 billion of American debt. That is after only 1 year earlier it was $250 billion. So the Chinese have added $100 billion in American-held debt. The U.K., $240 billion, and you can see the other countries down here, Hong Kong is on there. Of course, they are now part of China. This was a historical chart. So we have a lot of work to do to restore fiscal responsibility, but we are going to be talking in the weeks ahead in how we are going to do that with this Congress. We have already taken the steps to move in that direction with the pay-as-you-go budget scoring, and you are going to see some things happening with the budget that have not been done in 6 or 7 years because we do have a responsibility to be fiscally responsible. The American people sent us here to do that. So with that, I would ask Mr. Murphy if he does not have any comments, he has got his e-mail chart there.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I think they are out celebrating.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman and today is my birthday. It is my 39th birthday, and I was happy to spend it here with you tonight talking about the budget.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 95th birthday of the Girl Scouts of the USA. I wish to recognize the incredible contributions Girl Scouts have made to the United States over the past 95 years. Since their inception in 1912, the Girl Scouts have used different skill-building exercises and instruction to inspire over 50 million young women of this country to reach their full potential as members of their communities and as citizens of the United States. With the acceptance of the Girl Scout Promise, young women around the world make a commitment to respect themselves and others, to help people at all times, and to be honest and caring in all that they do. Today, over 3.5 million Girl Scouts are working with each other and their communities to help build a brighter future for all of us. This Saturday, young women from over 200 Girl Scout troops in my district will gather for a Girl Scouts of the USA birthday party. I am honored to have the privilege of joining them for this special celebration and I look forward to proudly thanking them for all of their hard work. These young women are truly an inspiration to me, to the Fourth Congressional District of Pennsylvania, and to all American citizens.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, the new Democratic Congress continues to listen to the concerns of middle-class Americans. We know that average American families have actually lost ground over the past several years, even after several years of economic growth and high corporate profits. Wages are stagnant, personal debts are at an all-time high, and individual savings are at an all-time low. Higher education and health care costs are skyrocketing. Last week, the Democratic Congress took a step towards helping middle-class families by passing the Employee Free Choice Act, which helps Americans join together to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Once again, our legislation passed with bipartisan support, and once again, it will benefit working families across this country. This is just one more example of how the new Congress is leading this Nation in a new direction, just as the American people asked us to do last November.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Well, in a word, it has been devastating, and we have seen the results. I talked about Wheatland Tube. I grew up about 100 miles from that plant, in a river town that was across from a big Allegheny Ludlam plant, which is where all the families worked. If you lived in that town, that is where you worked. And, unfortunately, things have not gone so well over the past couple of decades, both at that plant and another Allegheny Ludlam plant that I have in my district, and much of it has to do with these foreign trade issues. And as a result, now, when you travel through these communities, they used to be so vibrant and had a downtown that you could go through and it was hustle and bustle and there was activity. A lot of them now are ghost towns because we have seen the impact and the job loss that has resulted from the downfall of the steel industry 20 and 30 years ago, but more recently, the other heavy manufacturing that has been shipped overseas. So it has been devastating to these communities, and you would only need to take one drive through much of my district to see the impact, because you can see the remnants of some of those plants. In many cases, they have been razed, and it is a brownfield site. But you can see the difference, and you can imagine what it used to be like 30 and 40 years ago and, in many cases, more recently. I was just going to wrap up my portion by talking about what is coming next before us. And, again, none of us oppose the idea of trade. Fair trade is beneficial to both parties by definition. That is what we are talking about. But as the administration puts forward the Peruvian Trade Agreement, Colombia, Panama, and certainly fast track renewal, which the gentleman from Maine was talking about, we need to consider the fact that Congress, Representatives of the people, need to play an active role in these trade agreements. And, unfortunately, that has not been the case, which is why we have ended up with such one-sided agreement. So, as we consider those issues with Peru and Colombia and Panama and Presidential fast-track authority, I for one am going to support the working Americans of this country for fair trade practices.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I would like to thank the gentleman from Maine for his leadership on this issue. This is a critical issue. And you mentioned a lot of us are freshmen, like the gentleman from Iowa, who are just coming off the campaign trail from a few months back. And I come from a district in western Pennsylvania, just north of Pittsburgh, and I have six counties going along, three of them go along the Ohio line, and the other ones go just north of Pittsburgh. And I would think you would be hard pressed to find a district in this country that has seen more damage done by the global marketplace than Pittsburgh over the past 30 or 40 years, and more recently over the past dozen or 15 years since NAFTA was passed in 1993. And just for some historical perspective for what I am going to talk about, and I know you have mentioned it already, the country as a whole lost three million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was agreed to in 1993. And that is one out of every six manufacturing jobs that existed in this country at that time. I don't think we can draw any other conclusion but that that was not beneficial to this country and had the effect of job loss. I mean, it is self-evident. Now, manufacturing jobs are disappearing in Pennsylvania as well. We can trace about 100,000 jobs lost in Pennsylvania as a direct result of NAFTA. And of course when you get into indirect result, that number is much higher. Now, there has been a loss of 210,000 manufacturing jobs total, 24 percent decrease in the State of Pennsylvania over just the past 6 years. That is total. That is not just NAFTA. That is all these trade agreements. So we have lost a quarter of our manufacturing jobs in just the past 6 years. Now, in my district just last week, this has unfortunate significance that just last week we lost 85 workers from Wheatland Tube, a large manufacturing plant in my district; 85 workers were released on February 26. And this is just the latest in a series of downsizing that has taken place there. And I would put in a mention of Congressman Tim Ryan from Youngstown, who is very involved in this issue as well. And he came over to Wheatland Tube with me during the campaign, and we met with some of the workers and the leadership there at that time, and they expressed their concerns about China and their inability to compete in a fair way with what is happening in China. And here we see only a few months later that 85 workers have now lost their jobs as a result of what is happening. And I would mention this quote from the vice president from Wheatland Tube last week. He said, ``We are not seeing relief from Chinese imports, and we are not going to sit around and wait for that relief. We need to right-size the company.'' And this is just one example. Again, I have six counties in western Pennsylvania, and we are seeing this certainly all over the district and all over western Pennsylvania. But right there at Wheatland Tube, unfortunately, it hit home just last week. Now, the onslaught of foreign subsidized goods that are illegally dumped in the U.S. is just one of the many problems that we are seeing that has not been addressed by this administration. And certainly these trade agreements are doing nothing about this. And the administration that has put forward CAFTA and some of the other more recent trade agreements continues down the same path. And I can tell you that, with the possible exception of health care, there was no issue over the 18 months I spent on the campaign trail that came up more often and was of greater concern than these trade agreements in western Pennsylvania. So the American people have spoken on this issue. I can tell you, for sure, they spoke in my district, and I know they spoke in Mr. Braley's district. And we are going to hear from Congresswoman Sutton later and Mr. Ellison as well. I think this is an issue whose time has come. It cannot be ignored any longer. These trade agreements have been detrimental to America. And none of us are saying we should bury our heads in the sand and ignore the global marketplace. What we are saying, as Mr. Hare eloquently put it earlier, is that we need to have trade agreements that represent fair trade. And fair trade means having the trading partner make some effort, at least an effort, to come into compliance with environmental laws, with workers' rights, certainly child labor laws. These are things that have been completely left out of these trade agreements. So we find ourselves just giving away the store and shipping those jobs overseas, as Dr. Kagen's chart so eloquently illustrated.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I would.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, as we take a very important vote for organized labor today, I rise to honor the life of George Becker, who passed away last month. George served as president of the United Steelworkers of America from 1993 to 2001. He started working in a mill in 1944 at the age of 15. He fought in World War II and Korea. After fighting for his country abroad, he spent over 50 years fighting for working Americans here at home. As president of the Steelworkers, George Becker fought tirelessly for workplace safety, for workers' rights and for fair trade practices. I wish to express my sincere condolences to George Becker's wife, Jane, my constituent and my friend. Jane shared life with George for 57 years. George Becker will be deeply missed, but his selfless devotion to America's workers will always be remembered.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Captain Todd M. Siebert, a Marine who was killed while on active duty in Iraq on February 16, 2007. As a member of the 3rd Battalion of the 6th Marines, he was on patrol in Al Anbar Province when his armored military vehicle was hit with an unidentified explosive device. A veteran of Afghanistan, he had served only six weeks in Iraq and was expecting his 35th birthday next month. Captain Siebert was born and raised in Franklin Park, Pennsylvania and graduated from North Allegheny High School. He joined the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program while in high school and enlisted in the Army soon after he graduated. He later joined the Marines and received his commission from the Marine Corps in 1999 when he graduated from Penn State University with a degree in criminal justice. Captain Seibert was awarded the Purple Heart, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, and numerous other military awards for his service to our country. He will be remembered for his bravery and dedication. On behalf of my family, the Fourth Congressional District of Pennsylvania, and the U.S. House of Representatives, I extend our heartfelt sympathy and eternal gratitude to Captain Siebert's family. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Darcy, two young children, Alicia and Nicholas, as well as two sisters, a brother, and his parents, Thomas and Dorothy Siebert.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I would add to that, the gentleman from Connecticut has eloquently outlined the types of people that we are talking about, that find themselves in this situation in our veterans hospitals. We are talking about people who really are American heroes. These are the best and brightest of our society. These are people who have left their families, as the gentlewoman from Florida has outlined. They have left their children. They are taking three, sometimes more, four tours, and they come back home. They find themselves in a military hospital. They find themselves backlogged on waiting lists. It takes 6 months to 2 years to access your health benefits at the VA. This is shameful treatment for people who are our heroes in this country. We need to have a national commitment to supporting our veterans. These are people who put their lives on the line for us. These are people who have left their family, as we have talked about, and we have had a situation in recent years where we had not given them the help that they need on the VA health side. We have made a commitment in the new Congress that we are going to make up for that as we have talked about. But I do want to make clear that everyone in this House realizes, both Republican and Democrat, that these are the heroes of our society. Nobody is going to argue with that. These are folks that we applaud them for their efforts. We thank them and we cannot show our gratitude in any more forceful way than to give them the funding that they need when they come back home and find themselves in a VA health care facility or receiving treatment at the veterans facility, even on an outpatient basis.

Mr. ALTMIRE. Could the gentleman yield for a moment? And then I will yield to the gentlewoman from Florida. On that point, I wanted to tell another story that happened when I was back in the district. I was at a fire hall meeting some folks, volunteer firemen and firewomen, and we were discussing the budget and one of them talked about how there needed to be support for our first responders. And I said, well, I completely agree, and I was disappointed to see that in the budget that the President submitted he cut funding for first responders, and in fact he cut fire grants by 55 percent. And the people around just couldn't believe that. They said, well, that can't possibly be true. That is not what they had heard; that is not what they had been led to believe. So, thankfully, the miracle of modern technology, I had my BlackBerry in my pocket and I pulled up the House Budget Committee, and Chairman Spratt has put together a wonderful Web site. If you go to house.gov, any of your constituents can pull up the Budget Committee's Web site and look at the President's budget, and there is a specific page on there on what the President's cuts proposed are for first responders. And sure enough, there is a 54.7 percent reduction in grants for firefighters. He almost completely zeroes out the COPS program. So when the gentleman from Florida talks about how important it is that we have homeland security funding back home and we fund our first responders, well, somewhere along the line there is a disconnect when it comes to what they are proposing down on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, because they don't seem to be getting that message. So I did want to tell that anecdote, that our men and women who are courageous in the communities and serving as volunteer firefighters depend on these grants and they depend on the help that they need, and we in the Democratic majority are going to make sure that they get it. But there does seem to be a disconnect on some sides as to what has been the case. I would yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentlewoman from Florida and the 30- something Working Group. I was in my office doing some work after the district work period, and I heard the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) speaking on veterans and the problems at Walter Reed. I had to come down here and join in the conversation, and I appreciate your offer to do so. I want to tell you about a few things that happened in my district back home. I had several meetings with organizers and folks in the veterans community in my district. I toured a VA hospital that is undergoing a major expansion. As we were doing this throughout the week last week, the articles from The Washington Post about what was happening at Walter Reed appeared. I have to tell you that the veterans community in my district, and I am sure in other districts around the country, my veterans were outraged at what was happening there because there has been a lot of talk during the debate on Iraq and other forums that certain individuals are not supporting the troops and not displaying the right commitment to the troops, and there is a partisan affiliation with that. But I want to tell you, we have a situation taking place at Walter Reed where we have veterans returning from Iraq and from Afghanistan, as has been pointed out, with severe injuries. These are 19 and 20 year olds, with severe, long-term, lifelong injuries. These are the people that we are talking about when we are having the debate on Iraq and Afghanistan and who is supporting the troops and who is not. I would leave it to others to determine who is at fault here. That is not what this is all about. What this is about is protecting our veterans and finding a way to improve the system. I have to say I shared the outrage of the veterans in my communities when I heard about these articles because these are the people that are fighting for us overseas that are in harm's way, and the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan is going to be the subject of another debate coming up on funding and we are going to hear some rhetoric thrown around I am sure on this floor and other places about support of our troops and who has been supportive of our troops. As the gentlewoman from Florida knows, during the debate on the budget, the continuation resolution, I was one who pushed very hard for increased funding for our Nation's veterans. I want to say that our leadership was able to put in $3.6 billion in funding increases for the VA health system. I have said many times, and I will say it here again tonight, Mr. Speaker, that I will never support a budget bill that does not fund the VA health system to maintain the current level of services every year that that budget funds. They have been neglected for far too long, and we have seen what has happened at Walter Reed. We have seen the situation as outlined in great detail, and I do want to commend The Washington Post for the job that they did in putting forward these facts because these are things that needed to be known. We have a backlog in the VA of 400,000 cases. A 400,000-case backlog in the VA health care system. Mr. Speaker, that is just unacceptable in this time. So I will yield back, but I did want to say that I was in my office, and I just could not resist the opportunity to come down one more time and say that I share the frustration of the Members here, the 30- something Working Group, on this issue because I personally am a little bit tired of the rhetoric that certain people are not supporting the troops. I agree that there are people who are not supporting the troops, and I will leave it to others to determine who that is, but I do not think that that has a place in the debate when we have a situation at Walter Reed that has been outlined. We have a budget situation where we have not funded our veterans as we should have in past years, but we are going to make up for it with this year's budget and continuing budgets.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, in the lead-up to the war in Iraq, the President offered the American people many reasons why we should enter into this conflict. We were told unequivocally that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed an imminent threat to the United States. We have since learned that pre-war intelligence was completely inaccurate. We were told that proceeds from Iraq's oil reserves would pay for the cost of the war. Instead, the American people have paid for the cost of the war. So far, $400 billion, with an additional supplemental request of $100 billion pending. We were told that we would be greeted as liberators. Nothing could be further from the truth. More than 3,000 American troops have been killed, more than 23,000 injured, and violence in Iraq continues to escalate. There are over 900 weekly attacks on U.S. troops. These predictions were in the past, but they are instructive as we consider the President's current predictions on how to achieve success in Iraq. The American people have expressed their clear frustration with the conduct of the war. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group offered a comprehensive strategy to successfully move combat forces out of Iraq. High-level military leaders, including General John Abizaid, have expressed opposition to an escalation of troops. But the President continues to ignore public opinion, rejects sound advice, and stubbornly adhere to his failed go-it-alone policies. He says he wants a bipartisanship study; but when his results are not to his liking, he dismisses it. He says he wants to hear from his advisers; but when they disagree with them, he dismisses them. He says he wants to hear from his generals on the ground; but when they tell him what he doesn't want to hear, they are reassigned. The fact is, Madam Speaker, the President's plan to escalate the war in Iraq is not a new policy, just more of the same failed policy. The solution in Iraq requires the Iraqis themselves to reach a political solution and take responsibility for their own government. The continued open-ended commitment of U.S. forces only deters the Iraqis from making the appropriate political decisions, training security forces, and enacting the reforms necessary to achieve stability. The Iraq war resolution before us today is simple and straight forward. Let me explain what it does and what it doesn't do. First and foremost, this resolution expresses our continued support for our military men and women who are serving bravely and honorably. It also expresses the sense of Congress that we disapprove of the decision made by the President to send additional troops to Iraq. So make no mistake, this resolution is in support of our troops. Anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong. No Member of this House, Republican or Democrat, wants anything less than victory in Iraq and to support our troops. This resolution does not affect the funding levels to carry out the war. And on that point, let me be clear. As long as we have troops in the field of battle and brave Americans in harm's way, I will never vote to withhold their funding. I support this resolution because we have the duty as representatives of the American people to continue to voice their opinion that, with his policy of escalation, the President is heading down the wrong path. The best way forward is for the President to work with Congress, to change course, and adopt a responsible strategy that protects American interests in Iraq, around the region, and at home. I urge every Member of this House on both sides of the aisle to heed the call for change and vote for this resolution.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, the 2002 budget the President submitted this week is more of the same, the same fiscal irresponsibility and misplaced priorities that we have come to expect from this administration's budgets over the past 6 years. This budget fails to put our fiscal house in order and instead adds $3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years. And while the President claims his budget achieves balance, he simply leaves out significant long-term costs. Well, American families can't leave out simple bills within their household budgets, and neither should the President be able to do so within his budget. Mr. Speaker, Democrats will move us towards a balanced budget through fiscal responsibility and accountability, not accounting gimmicks.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, I would like to wish the membership of the Organization of Chinese Americans a healthy and happy New Year for the year 4705, the year of the pig. The New Year is a time for reflection and thanksgiving for the joys of life and loved ones and I am thankful for the richness that this organization brings to my region. Chinese Americans have made great contributions to western Pennsylvania and to our Nation as a whole and I am honored for this opportunity to wish them a wonderful year in 4705. I ask my colleagues in the United States House of Representatives to join me in wishing the members of the Organization of Chinese Americans a very happy and prosperous New year.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, at this time we yield back our time.

Mr. ALTMIRE. Now, I wanted to talk about education funding. The President is going to talk about how he proposes an increase in Pell Grant funding for the first time in many years. But what he doesn't tell you is in this budget, it again cuts or freezes funds for key college programs like work study programs, which many of us benefited from, and there are millions of students around the country that benefit from that today, and it zeroes out, completely eliminates, supplemental education opportunity grants. Now, that doesn't add up. If you are going to claim you are helping education by increasing Pell Grants on one side, and you are going to cut, and in many cases, completely eliminate other programs for higher education, those two things don't balance. As tuition and fees at schools like Penn State University and my home State increase year after year, the administration's cuts in student aid will put college further out of reach for many Pennsylvania students and students all around this country. I wanted to close my Pennsylvania portion by talking about something I mentioned earlier, which is perhaps the most egregious part of this whole budget, and that is the fact that funding for Pennsylvania's terrorism prevention and disaster response is slashed under this budget. The President's budget guts programs that help Pennsylvania's local governments, prevent and respond to acts of terrorism and other major disasters. The State Homeland Security Grant Program is cut. The Bush administration also cuts law enforcement, terrorist prevention programs which have helped prevent terrorist attacks. They cut the intelligence gathering, and they cut interoperability. Now, if everyone remembers back to 9/11, the biggest issue that was exposed, the biggest flaw in our response, our disaster response, was interoperability. The police and the fire units could not coordinate and communicate with each other, and that was what we wanted to fix. What we saw in 2005 with Katrina, 4 years later, the problem had not been addressed at all. Now, a year and a half, going on 2 years later, not only has the problem not been addressed, but the President, with this budget, does not even take it seriously, because they are cutting interoperability to find solutions to those problems. Lastly, with regard to Pennsylvania, this budget again proposes elimination for two local crime-fighting tools that are used extensively in Pennsylvania, the Community Oriented Policing Service programs, the COPS program, COPS, and the justice assistance grants. Now, the COPS program helps Pennsylvania's law enforcement agencies hire police officers, enhance crime fighting technology, and supports crime prevention initiatives, while the justice assistance grants support State and local task forces, community crime prevention, and prosecution initiatives. What sense does it make to reduce funding for these programs, especially at a time when we are trying to remain safe in our homeland security while we have actions taking place overseas. So I just don't see the point of what the President has tried to accomplish with this budget. We will hold it up again one more time before I yield, just so everybody can take a look at what we are talking about. This is what was dropped on all of our desks today. It does not represent the values of the American people. It slashes key funding priorities. I would yield at this point to Mr. Murphy.

Mr. ALTMIRE. It is covering children that are uninsured. In Pennsylvania alone, there is 281,000 uninsured children. We are talking about children in this country that lack health insurance, and this program in States all across this country has gone above and beyond and covered these children. But again, the President's budget gives $10 billion less than is needed just to maintain the current level of service, not even moving in the direction of extending the program.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank Mr. Ryan from Ohio. I did want to take a moment or two and just point out the impact specifically that these cuts are going to have on my home State of Pennsylvania because we have talked a lot about what the budget does for the Nation and the impact those cuts are going to have. I wanted to bring it closer to home for some of my constituents, and this is what they can expect out of this budget in Pennsylvania. We talked about Social Security and the fact that the President inexplicably once again moves toward his privatization scheme. Well, in Pennsylvania we have 1.7 million Social Security beneficiaries, many of whom could see retirement savings cut if we moved in that privatization direction. More egregiously, the Medicare program, as we have talked about sees dramatic cuts, $300 billion of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. In the State of Pennsylvania, I want to talk about what this does. Pennsylvania's Medicare beneficiaries would have to pay higher premiums for coverage of prescription drugs and doctors' services. Reimbursement cuts are going to take effect to home health agencies, to hospitals and to nursing homes. That is what the President's budget does not only around the Nation but in Pennsylvania. This administration's budget, which we talked about assumes, an eight percentage point cut in reimbursement for Medicare physicians. I do not think anybody thinks the cost of health care is going to go down over the next several years. It is certainly not going to go down 8 percent. It usually rises in double digits each year. The number of Medicare beneficiaries, as we have talked about, is going to go up exponentially over the next several years. Yet, this budget cuts physician reimbursement for Medicare by 8 percent. There is no excuse for that. The State Children's Health Insurance Program, which is a program that was enacted during a period of bipartisan government, one of the ways that this Congress and the White House worked together back in the 1990s when the situation was reversed, they put together the children's health insurance program. Well, this budget submitted by the President gives $10 billion less than is needed just to maintain the current level of coverage in services.

Mr. ALTMIRE. If the gentleman would yield on that point. That is a tax on everyday Americans. When you increase the national debt to that extent, and we are talking trillions of dollars, not even billions of dollars, that adds to the cost of every American's mortgage, for example. Interest rates go up. If you have a house that is $200,000, you are going to be paying between $1,500 and $3,000 more every single year as a result of the interest rates going up because we have to pay for that debt. When we have $400 billion of this budget that is dedicated to reducing the national debt or paying the interest on the national debt, that reduces all of our ability to meet our needs at home, because that increases interest rates and we all have to pay for that.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I would. And I would say that that concludes my overview, so the gentleman has as much time as he needs to continue the discussion.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I appreciate Mr. Murphy's comments. When the President gave his State of the Union Address, he talked about energy independence and he always talks about energy independence and our addiction to foreign oil, which he likes to talk about. But here again, the rhetoric did not match the reality. President Bush promised in his State of the Union speech that he was committed to reducing our dependence on foreign oil, but this budget fails to fulfill this promise. For example, and this is just a few examples, total energy efficiency and renewable energy funding is essentially at the level from when President Bush first took office. That doesn't make any sense for someone who claims to want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. In addition, the President's budget severely cuts weatherization assistance and low income home energy assistance. Now, this budget also cuts most egregiously renewable energy grants programs. How can we expect to reduce our dependence on foreign oil if we are actually cutting the amount of money that we are putting into research and development for alternative fuels? It just doesn't add up. Most alarming, under homeland security: Now, if there is any issue where we should be able to achieve bipartisan support on funding levels, it should be homeland security and keeping us safe at home. But particularly disappointing is this President's request for programs that support first responders. Under the President's budget, State preparedness grants and training are reduced 33 percent. They are cut by a full third. Fire fighter grants amazingly are reduced by 55 percent. State and local law enforcement grants through the Department of Justice also have deep cuts, thereby depriving our communities of the critical support they need to operate in this post 9/11 world. It just doesn't make any sense. On jobs and the economy, the folks who came before us on the other side bragged about the economy and the job situation, but 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost over the past 6 years. Families continue to struggle to pay the bills. I know that is the case in my district in western Pennsylvania. But this budget slashes funding for the manufacturing extension partnership which helps small U.S. manufacturers, everything from plant modernization to employee training, it cuts them by 60 percent. Funding for the advanced technology program which sponsors research to solve manufacturing programs is also slashed.