Allen Boyd

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend and counterpart, Mike Ross from Arkansas, my fellow Member of the 43 Member strong fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition. It is a group that I have been a member of all the years of my service, 10 years of my service here in the United States House of Representatives, and it is a group that I am quite proud of their work on behalf of the American people. Mr. Speaker, like yourself, being raised in Indiana and Mr. Ross in Arkansas, I was raised in a little community in north Florida on a farm by parents who taught me very early that it was important that we, as a family, live within our means. We established our priorities as a family, the things that we had to have, needed. We knew what our sources of income were, and we worked hard as a family to meet those priorities. But Mr. Speaker, you know, we were taught as young people, as children, if you don't have the money, then you don't buy things which you can't afford to pay for. Those were lessons that we learned very well at an early age, taught by our parents, that we carried on to our businesses. And let's face it, if you spend more money every year in a business than you take in, you're out of business pretty soon; your banker pulls the plug on you. We learned that lesson. Our local governments and State governments understand that, as well as our county governments. But something has happened in Washington in the last 6 years. In 8 tough years during the 1990s of making tough decisions relative to our priorities and spending and getting under control the deficit spending, 6 years ago, 6-plus years ago, we went on a rampage here in Washington that sent spending through the roof, far outstripping the revenues raised to pay for that spending. As a result, we had to go into the capital markets and borrow that money to pay for normal operations of our United States Government. We have the most powerful government in the world. We have the most powerful Nation. We have the richest Nation. Our economic model is a wonderful, wonderful economic model. But we have forgotten the lessons that we all learned as children taught to us by our parents that we ought to be fiscally responsible and we ought to be accountable for how we spend our dollars. This is really what my friend, Mr. Ross, who is leading this special order tonight, the point that he wants to make. That is that when we take dollars from the American public in the form of taxes, and today is the day, April 17, which happens to be--since yesterday was a holiday someplace, today is the day that our taxes are due. When we take taxes from the American people, the American people expect us to spend that money wisely and they expect us to account for them and they don't expect us to waste those dollars. That is why some of the things that I have been seeing over the last several years in the way that some of our Federal executive agencies have spent the money and been unable to account for, and I tell you, honestly, Mr. Speaker, the Department of Defense probably is the biggest offender as it relates to accountability. Many of the dollars that we have appropriated over the years for the Iraq war, for instance, the Department of Defense cannot pass an audit or account for in how they were spent. I think you see one of the things that is happening in the last several months since the election is that Congress is beginning to ask the tough questions of the administration as it relates to how the tax dollars that are taken from the American people by the United States Government, how they are spent. Are we spending them wisely and are we accounting for them? Do we have contractors running amuck in Iraq, and are we getting our money's worth? I think this is an important time to be thinking about accountability and good stewardship of our American tax dollars. Today is the day. Midnight tonight is the time when that filing is due. You know, the people at home that I live around, they don't mind paying taxes as long as they know as a government we are setting our priorities and we are doing a good job of stewardship and accounting for the dollars that are being spent. I think that is what this is all about tonight, accountability; and I want to thank my friend, Mr. Ross, for leading this discussion. And, Mr. Speaker, it is great to see you in that chair as a fellow member of the Blue Dog Coalition.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. I thank my friend Mr. Spratt for yielding. I rise today, Mr. Chairman, in strong support for the Democratic budget resolution. Mr. Chairman, the Blue Dogs didn't submit our own budget this year because the Democratic budget under Chairman Spratt's leadership includes many of the priorities that we advocate for and Mr. Spratt put into the bill. First, it adheres strictly to PAYGO rules, and this is the biggest difference between this budget and the failed budgets of the past 6 years. Our budgets put an end to new deficit spending. PAYGO has a proven record of success. It was instrumental in the return of budget surpluses during the 1990s. It has worked in the past, and it will work again. And this Congress let PAYGO expire in 2002. Secondly, the Democratic budget will reach a glide path to balance by 2012, and it does so without using budgeting gimmickry or tricks. You have heard a lot from the other side criticizing our budget and talking about debt, but let me tell you something. The Republicans in the past have refused to adopt PAYGO rules, and spending has skyrocketed under their leadership. They financed their plan by borrowing $3 trillion over the last 6 years from countries like China, and many times in the past the appropriations bills have not been enacted and we have had to do omnibus bills. Eighty percent of those were not enacted last year. In short, Mr. Chairman, we have to return to fiscal sanity. We have created a mess in the last 6 years, and it is going to take this Congress working hard together in a bipartisan way to come up with a plan that will put us back on a glide path to balance. Mr. Spratt's bill, the budget resolution, which we have a chance to vote on today, is the best start for us to return to that path; and I want to applaud him for his resolution and ask for your support for that resolution.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mr. Skelton, for giving me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with my fellow veterans to express strong opposition to sending more than 20,000 additional United States troops to Iraq, and I rise in strong support of the underlying resolution that we are debating today. Mr. Speaker, when thinking about our political and military situation in Iraq, I often reflect on my own service in Vietnam and my thoughts there as a person, when I served there as a young man in uniform proudly defending the ideals on which America was built. I often think, how is it different today? How is today's soldier in Iraq different than soldiers 40 years ago in Vietnam? I think there are some differences, but there are obviously many striking similarities. Obviously, our soldiers today have communications technologies and other war-fighting technologies that are far superior to what we had 40 years ago in Vietnam. Soldiers now have access to a 24-hour news cycle that we did not have in the 1960s. But, Mr. Speaker, what is the same, what is exactly the same, is the fact that our soldiers are trained and equipped to accomplish the mission given to them by their political leaders in Washington. They are trained to execute this mission and to the best of their ability, without any thought to whether that mission is right or wrong, or even whether that mission is well thought out. Clearly, this is very similar to what we experienced during Vietnam. When I served in Vietnam, we were trying to execute a mission that was impossible to do because our political leaders had given us a poorly defined mission that we could not win militarily. Our brave men and women serving in Iraq rely on us, their political leaders, to develop a winning strategy, and it is very clear that we are not winning in Iraq by any standard of measurement that you might want to use. I returned from my service in Vietnam at the height of the anti-war sentiment; and let me tell you, there was no worse feeling than coming home after a tour of duty to find that you had come home to an American society that was not grateful and was not behind you. I want to make sure that our sons and daughters serving in Iraq today do not experience what we experienced 35, 40 years ago. The American people and their leaders in Congress all support the men and women executing the outlined mission. These men and women who have fought and defended our country should be proud of the job they have done, and we all are proud of them. However, we should have learned from the mistakes our political leaders made in Vietnam and not make those mistakes again. The problems we are having in Iraq have nothing to do with our troops and their ability and their training and their equipment. Our problem is with our policy. The men and women serving in Iraq are counting on their political leaders to develop a successful strategy in Iraq, and interjecting more young American men and women in uniform into the crossfire of an Iraqi civil war is simply not the right approach. The warring factions in Iraq have been at odds since the death of Muhammad in 632 A.D., and the United States military is not going to solve an Iraqi political problem, a problem that has existed between the Sunnis and the Shias for more than 1,400 years. Past troop surges aimed at stemming the violence in Iraq have failed, and continuing to deploy more American troops will not bring us any closer to a self-governed Iraq. We have been training and equipping Iraqi security forces for almost 3 years. We have 325,000 trained, conducting security operations there. The continuing presence of large numbers of American troops in Iraq only postpones the day when Iraqis will have to assume responsibility for their own government. Ultimately, it is incumbent upon the Iraqis to make peace and promote democracy in their own country. With 140,000 of our troops in Iraq, the war in Iraq is exhausting our resources, resources that we, our people, are demanding that we have at home to solve some of our domestic priorities such as health care and education. And those resources are not only dollars; they are human blood. Again, I stand here today to oppose the Iraqi troop surge because all evidence suggests that it is not a path to victory in Iraq and will only put more Americans in harm's way. Ultimately, the debate today is about one thing, the men and women that proudly wear the uniform and the best way to take them out of the center of an increasing sectarian conflict and civil war in Iraq.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Madam Speaker, I come to the floor today to congratulate a group of students from Blountstown, FL, who have recently won the National Future Farmers of America Forestry Career Development Event at the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis. The forestry team from Blountstown represented the State of Florida, competing against 37 other teams from around the country in the national forestry event. The competition was part of the 79th National FFA Convention. I am pleased to recognize all of the members of the Blountstown forestry team who contributed to the victory. The championship team consisted of Blountstown students Nic Stoltzfus, Will Leonard, Max Herndon, and Jennie Fagen. As the winning team, these exceptional students received scholarships to further their educations at a post- secondary institution of their choice. Leading the team of future agricultural professionals was Blountstown FFA sponsor Ron Mears. These students have demonstrated impressive knowledge in the area of forest management, and I'm so proud of their hard work and their dedication to this important field. On behalf of my fellow Floridians, I applaud the Blountstown Future Farmers of America on their victory and national recognition.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend Mr. Ross from Arkansas for leading this discussion. Mr. Speaker, for 10 years now I have been in the Congress, and for all of those years, and specifically the last 6 years, the Blue Dogs have been taking to this very floor almost on a weekly basis to discuss this issue of deficit spending. For those last 6 years, the Blue Dogs, as Democrats, have been in the minority party and able to do little about the deficit spending in terms of the final legislation that was passed. But things have changed now, Mr. Speaker, and I am not sure that the country realizes how tough this job is going to be. We have created a horrible fiscal mess over the last 6 years, which has been described by my friend from Arkansas, Mr. Ross, with the deficit spending. Many of the decisions that have been made on this House floor and in the Senate in the last 6 years it seems like were without regard to the long-term economic health of the country and deficit spending. So I think the task before us is a task that is going to be very, very difficult, and it is going to affect all aspects of what we do here in the next few months as we begin to try to develop a budget and then a spending plan, an appropriations plan, for how this country will organize itself and perform the functions that should be performed as a government. We know what those are: National security, transportation, education, environmental protection. We have a farm bill coming up that has to be reauthorized this coming year. All of those items are going to run right head on into the red ink that has been displayed here and talked about by Mr. Ross. There are going to have to be some very, very tough decisions made. It is not going to be easy. There is going to be a lot of sacrifice on the part of the American people, just like we did in the nineties when we found ourselves in a similar situation. So, I just want to tell the American people, viewers, our listeners tonight, that it is going to be tough and it is not going to be easy. The first thing we need to do, obviously, as Mr. Ross talked about, is make sure that the dollars that we take from the American people to fund the programs that we need are spent wisely and they are accounted for and they are not wasted. He has talked a lot about that, particularly in terms of the Iraq war situation. We have to put in place accountability standards. But we also have to put in place some tools that we can use to get us into balance in the long run. It is not going to be easy. Many of the things that we want to do, that we are interested in, such as the farm bill, such as education spending, such as environmental protection, that we have neglected over the last 3 to 4 years and that we need to deal with are going to run directly into conflict with these issues. So I think it behooves us to remind the American people that it is going to be a tough, tough task, but it is one that in terms of the long-term health of this country is extremely critical. It is critical that we don't spend more than we take in. I remember when I first came here I attended a press conference with some folks who were advocating a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. A Member of this House showed up who I wouldn't have expected would have been at such a press conference, because he was what we might consider a little bit on the left side of the political spectrum. When I asked him later on why he was there, he said, ``Listen, Allen; unless we get our spending, our deficit spending under control, we don't have money to spend on the priorities that I want to spend them on, education, environmental protection, health care and those issues that make America such a great country.'' So I think that is important to remember and remind our listeners that we are spending a huge percentage, maybe in excess of 15 percent, of every dollar, every tax dollar that we take in, on interest to service the Federal debt that we are carrying, a debt that is approaching, as we have been shown here tonight, $9 trillion. We have to get that number under control. We have to stop the increase in that number. That is the first step, stop digging, stop making that number bigger. Let's figure out how to balance an annual budget. We know we can't do that in one or two years. It may take a 5-year plan, a 3-year plan or maybe even a 7-year plan. If we get our heads together and work across the aisle in a bipartisan way, and we have a divided government now, we can do that. We can work together, just like we did in 1997 when we stopped the bleeding, so-to-speak. So, I am here to support my friend from Arkansas, Mr. Ross, in his leading of this discussion, and thank him for his leadership on this issue, and remind my constituents back home and the American people that this is not going to be easy. This is going to come in conflict with many of the things that we feel like we need to do as a country. But it is critically important for the long-term economic health of this country that we do stop this deficit spending, and I am proud to be a part of the Blue Dog Coalition, which has advocated this for so long.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield?

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman tell our viewers what that number was 6 years ago when the administration changed, when the new administration came in in 2001.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and that is the point. Over the last 6 years, we have increased that national debt by over $3 trillion. That is the tune of about a half a trillion dollars, $500 billion per year. That is after we include all of the surpluses that we might collect in the Social Security trust fund or any other Federal employee retirement trust fund, such as our military retirees. So we have a very serious problem that we have got to deal with. I mean, most of us who have been in business understand that you cannot continually deficit-spend year after year after year without damaging your businesses. Eventually, your banker pulls the plug on you. The gentleman made reference to the fact that we are borrowing this money in some nontraditional places, if you will. The bulk of this money is coming from foreign countries such as China and Japan. The bulk of that money has been borrowed from those countries over the last several years, and we think that creates a long-term national security issue.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I think the point is not lost on many of us that we are the greatest Nation on the face of the Earth. We have the greatest economy on the face of the Earth. This is a country that, with 5 percent of the world's population, Mr. Speaker, that is one out of every 20 people that exist on the Earth live in the U.S., we control 25 percent of the world's wealth. So when we have to go borrow money, certainly the countries that may have surpluses, they want to lend it to us, but when they see a country that deficit-spends year after year after year, and I suppose we have been spending in the red now for six consecutive years, at some point in time, they as lenders will begin to question the long-term health of our economy. I am not a pessimist, Mr. Speaker. I believe that we have the greatest economic model in the world in this country, and I think the American people will make the adjustments as time goes on. I think the first adjustment was made back on November 7 in which the American people said we want a divided government, we want a more accountable government. We think the way we can have that is to have both parties working side by side in Washington with equal power. So the gentleman with his charts, I hope that the viewers will study those and understand them because they are very important charts. And if you were on the board of directors running a business whose management brought you a chart like this, it would be somewhat scary and you would know that there would have to be corrective action taken, and taken quickly.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. If the gentleman would yield. When you said 49 States require that, many of them constitutionally, I was in the State legislature in Florida and under the constitution you could not deficit spend. And I think that is the point that my friend Mr. Ross from Arkansas is making, is that we don't seem to have the will to get a balanced budget without putting in place a constitutional amendment, and that is why many of us have supported that. As a matter of fact, I know when I first came to the House after the 1996 election, we had many votes on a balanced budget amendment that we took, but those votes stopped after January 2001. We really need to consider a balanced budget amendment, and I think it is something that you obviously have to understand that if you get a national emergency situation you have triggers to override it that can be done. But all that can be worked out constitutionally if you are willing to abide by fiscal responsibility. There are 12 points to this plan that the Blue Dogs have adopted and advanced to the Congress for its consideration. The second item after the balanced budget requirement is don't let Congress buy on credit. Don't let Congress buy on credit. In other words, if we are going to have a new spending program, then you have got to find a place to pay for it. And the good news is that we have made great strides in the last 2 weeks since Congress reconvened after the election and put in place a PAYGO rule in the House rules package, and we have a promise from the leadership of this House of Representatives that they will consider and put up for a vote a PAYGO statute. That would be a critical part to putting us back on the road to fiscal responsibility.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. I think the gentleman has ripped off the first four, and actually number 5 is have Congress tell taxpayers how much they are spending. That seems like a novel idea, that we would let the public know how much of their taxpayer dollars we are spending and when a bill comes to the floor how much it is going to cost, and that is a pretty simple thing to do. Many are the times in the years I have been here that a few bills have come sliding through the process without any debate and without any disclosure about how much they might cost, and Members are forced to vote up or down on that bill. So we think that transparency is a great tool. We think that if the sunshine can shine on something, that is the greatest purifier to have people understand what really is going on. The sixth point of the 12-point plan by the Blue Dogs is one that Mr. Wilson already alluded to, and that is a rainy day fund, a contingency fund. Most businesses and most homes have a rainy day fund set aside so if there is some emergency like we have in this country on a regular basis, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, anything that is maybe unexpected that we might have to respond to as a nation, there should be a rainy day fund there to draw from. So that concludes the first six.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my support for H.R. 4, the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2007. I commend the Leadership's efforts to curb prescription drug costs for the neediest in our country. As a Representative from the state of Florida, I represent a large number of seniors who rely on Medicare to help with medical costs, I am proud to be a supporter of this bill. In 2003, when Congress passed the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Bill Act, I was one of the few Democrats who voted for it. Many of us who supported the bill also supported giving the Secretary of Health and Human Services the power to negotiate drug prices. I believe that by allowing the Secretary to negotiate drug prices with biotech and pharmaceutical companies, we will lower prices for seniors who find themselves in the gap between stages of coverage when they have to pay the full price for the medications they need. Not only do seniors need help coping with rising healthcare costs, but they greatly benefit from the development of treatments, from research and development, and from biologics. It is my intention as the Representative of the people of North Florida to see that people get the medical treatment they need, while also ensuring that this change in the Medicare Part D program is not the first step toward government price controls, stifling innovation, or corrupting the core design of our free market system. We need to ensure that Congress is striking a balance between providing the aid that seniors need, and providing an environment where a healthy market can flourish. Madam Speaker, thank you again for allowing me to speak on this issue, and for making our nation's senior citizens a priority in this first week of the new leadership.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend the exceptional service of Mr. Larry N. Dantzler on behalf of Bay County military installations. Mr. Dantzler is stepping down as the president of the Bay Defense Alliance, which is a group of volunteers committed to enhancing and preserving the missions of Tyndall Air Force Base and the Naval Support Activity Panama City. Larry has served as its leader since the groups formation in 1993, and has spent countless hours in his role to defend these installations as Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) loomed. Under his leadership, the Bay Defense Alliance helped defend our installations in Bay County against two rounds of BRAC. Members of the Bay Defense Alliance have logged more than 15,000 volunteer hours in their efforts supporting the bases. Mr. Dantzler has served as an advocate for the more than 11,000 men and women who serve our nation in support of Tyndall AFB, the Naval Support Activity Panama City and the Coast Guard Station Panama City. His hard work has helped build military and Congressional support for important missions in Bay County. He has served tirelessly as a liaison between Bay County, State, and Federal leadership in defense of our local bases. This has been a job requiring great dedication--which he has done splendidly--despite his additional obligations as a business owner and his many other volunteer efforts. His additional volunteer efforts include work with the Bay County Chamber of Commerce, of which he is a past chairman, Rotary, United Way, Optimist Club, Bay Medical Center Foundation, Gulf Coast Community College Foundation, Panama City-Bay County International Airport Authority, Gulf Coast Community College Board of Trustees, Coastal Operations Institute, Girls Inc., Panama City Music Association, Bay Arts Alliance and others. I invite my distinguished colleagues to join me in paying special tribute to Larry N. Dantzler for his invaluable service to Bay County, Florida. Through his leadership, he has laid the groundwork for preservation of our military installations for years to come and I would like to personally wish Larry, and his wife Nancy, the very best in their future endeavors.

Mr. BOYD

Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Arkansas, my fellow Blue Dog, Mr. Ross, and also Mr. Scott, for being here and sharing in this hour to talk a little bit about the priorities of the Blue Dog Coalition. Mr. Speaker, we have a unique opportunity here before us that we don't have a whole lot of time to grasp on to and do something with. It is an opportunity that doesn't come along often, maybe once every generation or so, in which the American people say to the United States Congress and to the administration, We don't like the direction the country is heading in, and we would like to put a new team in place and head in a different direction. And, Mr. Speaker, many of us who serve in the Halls of this Congress have not experienced this before, we have not been here when this has happened. More than half of the Members of this Congress were not here in 1994 when this happened before. So we have a unique opportunity to change the way that this Congress operates and to do some things that will help to keep America the greatest country on the face of the Earth. Mr. Speaker, we all recognize that we live in a very special place. It is not perfect, but it beats the devil out of what is in second place around the world. We have the greatest economy on the face of the Earth; we have the political machine that has been put here over the years that has never been equaled by man before. And with that, we achieve a lot of political clout around the world, and with that comes a lot of responsibility. But we have an underlying economic model, Mr. Speaker, that has allowed us to become really the greatest country on the face of the Earth, and for several years now we have eroded that underlying economic model in a way as we begin and as we try to address, and not very successfully, the issues that face our country. It appears to me that over the last few years that many of the things we did were to maintain power rather than to advance the American cause and make life better for the American people. We have a unique opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to tear down that wall that exists in the middle of that aisle that has been built over the last 8 or 10 or 12 years. The Blue Dogs want to do that. We want to reach across that aisle as Democrats and take hands with some folks on the Republican side who feel like we do, that we have to preserve that economic model, we have to address these issues that are before us in terms of spending problems and revenue problems, we have to address them all in one context. You can't come here to this floor and address the spending issue one day without any regard for the revenue side, and then come the next day and address the revenue side without any regard for the spending priorities of this country. So that is what the Blue Dogs are all about. We believe at the end of the day the revenues have to meet the expenditures. Now, we have some very difficult choices to make before us in the next few months: how do we put this Congress and this country on a path so that we will again come into a fiscal discipline situation where we can see down the road that we are going to have a balanced budget. We have a systemic deficit built in right now into our government activities, and we are going to have to make some tough choices relative to spending and relative to the revenue side, and I am honored that the Blue Dogs are going to be leading the way to bring fiscal sanity back to this government that we are so very proud of. My friend from Georgia (Mr. Scott) has laid out the agenda items of the first 100 hours, and those we agree with. We think they are items that we heard the American people tell us during the campaign that we need to get done. And we are going to do those things, and we are going to do them in the context of balancing the budget in the long run. One of the things that the Blue Dogs are going to really push for in the first 100 legislative hours in the 100-hour agenda is to make sure that we pass a PAYGO rule, a PAYGO rule that says that if you are going to have a new program, you have got to find money to pay for it. And we also want to put in place spending caps. We want these in statute. This is what we did in 1997, Mr. Speaker, shortly after you came here a few years ago that got us on the path to fiscal responsibility and fiscal sanity. So I am very proud to be a part of this group. This group wants to reach across that aisle, tear down that wall that exists, work with the folks on both sides of the aisle, because we all represent about 650,000 or 700,000 people, and those people have a right to be heard. Those people from back in the country have a right to be heard, and we ought to work that way. And I know the new leadership of this Congress has committed that they will work in a bipartisan way, and we will have a Speaker of the House, not the Speaker of a party. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for the time, and I want to especially thank my colleague, Mr. Ross, for putting this together.

Mr. BOYD

Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Texas. I won't take 3 minutes. But I will say this, Mr. Speaker, that any time you have a provision, a legislative proposal that saves in performing our legislative duties and our executive duties, saves the taxpayers money and also enables us to better serve those that we are serving in our communities, that is a plus. That is a win-win, as some have said. That is exactly what this provision we are discussing that is in the Senate bill does. In this case, obviously, it will save Federal taxpayer money. And we all know the issues that exist today in our budgeting process. We have red ink throughout our future budgeting process as far as the eye can see. There is a structural deficit built into the budgeting process, which has been extended by this administration and this Congress. So, in this case, we are helping those that are our military retirees, those who we have asked to put on the uniform and go into battle, and many of them come back wounded, injured, and then the taxpayer has responsibility for seeing that those folks are cared for the balance of their lives. This is not a new debate about military retirees and how we provide them medical services. So if we can do a better job of that back home, and the Senate has a better idea in this case, then we should go to it. I think that is what we are asking the folks to do. We are saving money, and we are providing a better service, better quality services to the folks that we have asked to wear the uniform. I thank the gentleman for bringing the motion to instruct.

Mr. BOYD

Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Arkansas for yielding, and I also want to thank him for his leadership. He has led these special orders for the Blue Dog Coalition now for quite a while on a weekly basis to try to deliver the message to the American people in an honest and straightforward way about the fiscal situation of our Nation's government. Mr. Speaker, I was glad to hear him talk a little bit about Iraq. Iraq is a situation that we are having a great debate in this country about, and I think that he made the point that we all very strongly support the men and women. Once we established the mission and sent them over there to perform and carry out that mission, it is clear that we support them. It doesn't mean that we can't have an honest and open dialogue and debate about the policy. Mr. Speaker, is appalling to me as a person who wore the uniform during the Vietnam era to see those Members of the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, or anybody that might oppose the policy that the United States Government has, to have them called unpatriotic. So I appreciate the gentleman from Arkansas bringing up that point. I also, Mr. Speaker, came here today to talk a little bit about fiscal responsibility and to assist my friend from Arkansas in talking about the national debt. Mr. Speaker, I find it appalling to hear the partisan political rhetoric that goes on in these Chambers, rhetoric which celebrates a Federal budget annual deficit of $300 billion. Now, most of us that have run a business, Mr. Speaker, know that at the end of the day your revenues have to match your expenditures, or else you either have to borrow money with a long-term plan to pay it back, or a short-term plan and show your banker how you can pay it back that year. Mr. Speaker, this administration and this Republican-led Congress over the last 5 years have run our government into a situation where we have a structural deficit built in. There is not an economist anywhere around that will tell you under the current revenue taxing system and the current spending habits of this Congress and this administration that we will have a balanced budget anywhere in the future. We all know that we have to make some structural changes to the way we are doing business. So when I see somebody celebrating a $300 billion annual deficit, it saddens me in a lot of ways. What Mr. Ross and the other members of the Blue Dog Coalition want for the American people is an effort by this Congress and this administration to address our fiscal situation honestly. Honestly, Mr. Speaker. What is wrong with telling the American people what the true fiscal situation is as it relates to our Federal Government? We would like to see the Treasury's financial report that Mr. Ross made mention of earlier in his comments that is published by the Government Accounting Office and accounts for all spending, current and future. Had we seen this report last year, it would have told us that the Federal budget actually was $760 billion, not $350 billion as reported. And do you know what, ladies and gentlemen? It won't change much this year. The Blue Dogs would like to see an earnest effort to institute commonsense principles in our budgeting process, just principles which every businessman and businesswoman in this country understands that you have to live by if you are going to have a successful business. In our Federal budgeting process, those would translate into discretionary spending caps, something that in 1997, when I first came to this Congress working together with Republicans and Democrats. Working together, we had a Democratic President, we had a Republican- controlled House and Senate; they all sat at the table together, and they talked honestly with each other, and they laid the numbers out on the table, ``Here is where we are; here is what it will take to get us back into balance.'' Discretionary spending caps. Put some caps on spending. Use the PAYGO rule. What does PAYGO mean? A PAYGO rule means that if you are going to spend something over here, that you have to find a place either to cut spending on this side or raise the revenue from some source. If you are going to decrease revenue over here through a tax cut, you are going to have to find a place to raise that revenue someplace else. Those are commonsense PAYGO rules. That way we won't be taking spending more than we are taking in. Something, Mr. Speaker, that we voted on the first 4 years I was in this Congress, I think we voted on it no less than seven or eight times, and that is a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, a constitutional balanced budget amendment which requires us, as a Congress and administration, to balance our budget. It seems that we don't have the political will under the current leadership to make these tough decisions from a legislative or an executive branch, so maybe it is time to consider a constitutional requirement that would force the Congress and the administration to balance this budget. If we don't, we will continue to see that number of $8,413,298,480,959 continue to go up. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ross may not know this, but when I came to the Congress in 1997, that number was less than $5.5 trillion. It has gone up over $3 trillion since I came here. It was $5.6 trillion when President Bush was elected and took office in January of 2001. So it has gone up about $2.8 trillion since this President came into office. Again, Mr. Speaker, I find it appalling that the political rhetoric would cause us to celebrate a $300 billion annual deficit. That is over 10 percent of our Federal budget, over $300 billion, over 10 percent of our Federal budget. We have to go out into the capital markets, and Mr. Ross has done a good job of explaining where those capital markets are, in China and Japan and Mexico and other countries. In years past, those deficits were financed locally, mostly by war bonds and other bonds that were sold domestically, but not anymore. And I think that would lead us into a situation which could be very dangerous for us from an economic standpoint and a national security standpoint. In addition to the things that I have talked about that I would like to see, the Blue Dogs would like to see implemented into a budgeting process, and that is discretionary spending caps, PAYGO rules, balanced budget amendment, we would like to see the government act responsibly like most every responsible family in America and save for emergencies. We are always going to have emergencies, we are always going to have a hurricane or a tornado or an earthquake or a flood, or we are always going to be engaged somewhere around the world in a military action. Why not set up a rainy day fund for future emergencies and put money into it so that we won't have to, on an annual basis and sometimes even more than once a year, come back to the appropriations process and pass an off-book emergency spending bill? Why do we do that? Well, again, I think it has to do with partisan politics, and that is, if you pass a budget originally which pretends that you can live within your means, but you know you have left off a lot of things, you might fool some people, but you are not going to fool many people for very long. Mr. Speaker, I spoke earlier about what happened in 1997 shortly after I came to Congress in which we all sat together, Republicans, Democrats, House leaders, Senate leaders, sat together and developed a long-term plan to get us out of our Federal debt or out of annual deficits and put us into a balanced budget. We did that, and guess what. Once we put that plan in place, everybody bought into it, the economy continued to grow. The economy in America has always grown. I mean, if things are even halfway normal, you are going to have more tax revenues the next year than you had the previous year. So that is part of the partisan rhetoric that is appalling to me, that the numbers that the White House has thrown out in the last few days in terms of the growth in tax revenues is way below what they projected in 2001 when they presented their economic package, which included the large book of tax cuts. So I think that it is really important to work together and deal honestly with the American people about what our situation is, and we can't really begin to solve this problem until we recognize in an honest way what the problem is. Now, Mr. Ross earlier talked about the article in the Los Angeles Times today, which really I would commend to our viewers, to those who are listening to us, to read. And it talks a little bit about this budget deficit and the current economic news. But let me quote from that, if I might, Mr. Speaker. In that article, the writer says, ``This will be the third year in a row that the administration put forth relatively gloomy deficit forecasts early, only to announce much later that things had turned out better than expected.'' That is what you have here. You see, back in the early spring when we first put the budget on the table, there were some very gloomy reports about what that number would be and now this is the third year that that has happened. ``To some skeptics,'' and I continue to quote, ``it is beginning to look like an economic version of the old expectations game. Even economists who hesitate to accuse the White House of playing games,'' and I am still quoting from this L.A. Times article, ``Even economists who hesitate to accuse the White House of playing games say the claims of good news on the budget are unfortunate because they make people unjustifiably sanguine about the government's current fiscal health.'' ``Our problem,'' and this is a quote from Comptroller David Walker who is a man that we all know and respect, those of us who serve here representing our constituents back home. He says, and I quote, ``Our problem is our long-term--our large long-term deficit, and the sooner we deal with that, the better.'' Walker also goes on to say that, and he warns of, quote, ``a false sense of security. We are in much worse shape fiscally today than we were a few years ago.'' This is from a man who is the head accountant representing the United States Government Accounting Office. Mr. Speaker, I know we have been joined by some other Blue Dog members, and we want to hear from them, but I want to commend the gentleman from Arkansas for leading this discussion tonight. It is important, Mr. Speaker, that we have an honest debate and dialogue on these issues. A constituent told me one time, he said, ``Mr. Boyd, we used to hear debate and dialogue, but now we hear spin and rhetoric. Can we get back to honesty? Can we get back to everybody at least laying out both sides of the issue so that we can understand better how to fix these problems?'' We can't really fix them until we admit that we have a problem. And for some in this government, they don't seem willing to admit that we have a problem. So I want to commend the gentleman from Arkansas.

Mr. BOYD. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. BOYD. I just wanted to comment on the presentation, the remarks by Mr. Tanner, who has been a champion on this accountability effort. And you remarked or just talked about the audits, that 19 of the 24 agencies couldn't produce clean audits. Actually, the leaders, the worst offender is probably the Department of Defense. FEMA is a bad offender. We have hurricanes in Florida all the time, so we are always dealing with FEMA. I can tell you that I can take you to some folks, many, many folks who are millionaires that were getting generators, that were getting their roofs fixed, and things like that from FEMA. And this goes back to the accountability issue. What are we doing with the taxpayers, the folks we are taking money from involuntarily, as Mr. Tanner says? We have some responsibility to make sure, and that responsibility belongs to the United States Congress, to make sure the executive agencies are spending it wisely, and we are not doing that. And that is the point we are making here. And I thank you for yielding.

Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important for our people back home to understand that Congress appropriates the money for the executive agencies to spend. Of course the President has to sign those appropriations bills and put them into law and then the executive agency spends that money. But it is inherent upon us, and the framers of the Constitution presumed, that Congress would then provide oversight to make sure that the executive agencies were spending the money like it was designed to be spent by Congress or desired to be spent and not wasting it and that is where we have gone wrong with this. It could have happened maybe with the other side, but you have one party controlling the White House, the House and the Senate; and the House and the Senate seem to have just abdicated their oversight responsibility. Why couldn't we have hearings to find out about those six Mercedes and over $6 million? Why couldn't we have hearings to find out about the FEMA mismanagement? The Department of Defense is the worst. There is an article that was published in Vanity Fair this month that I could commend that talks about some of the corruption going on in this government. And the reason for that it basically says is because Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility, and in many cases the Department of Defense has been complicit in just allowing these things to go on without asking the tough questions.

Mr. BOYD

Mr. BOYD. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. There are some provisions in the underlying Pombo bill that are very onerous, and one of them in particular is the opt-in/opt-out language, particularly opt-out, which most of us that have served in the State legislature understand that there are a thousand ways to kill legislation which you would have to opt out. The opt-in language is much better. So if you are opposed to the legislation, I would strongly request that you support the Bilirakis amendment which will fix the onerous language that is in the Pombo bill which requires an opt-out by the State legislature.

Mr. BOYD

Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor and pay tribute to Mr. Albert Hill Odom, a good friend and a loving husband and father, who passed away on June 6, 2006, at the age of 87. Mr. Odom was a great man who positively impacted many young lives, including my own. Mr. Odom was a 4-H extension agent for 30 years in Jefferson County, Florida. He taught me and many others so much, not only about the principles of 4-H, but also how to conduct ourselves in a respectful and professional way. We were all young farm boys whom he carried to places we had never been before. I am often asked who the most influential people in my life have been, and my answer is always, first, my father, then Albert Odom, my 4-H agent. A lifelong mentor and role model, Albert Odom was a wonderful man who left the world a better place than he found it. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Albert Odom for his many achievements in life and the legacy that he leaves. I extend my deepest sympathy to the Odom family, including his wife, Dot, and his children, Carol and Martha. He will be greatly missed by his family and all who knew him.

Mr. BOYD

Mr. BOYD. Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Gutknecht and Mr. Stupak for their work on behalf of this amendment. I want to tell you that the Universal Service Fund is designed to ensure telecommunications services to all Americans, no matter where they live, what kind of rural area. This amendment preserves the authority for the FCC to require the VoIP providers to pay into the USF. I strongly support and encourage the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. BOYD

Mr. BOYD. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer).

Mr. BOYD. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my friend, Mr. Everett, and also Chairman Hobson and Ranking Member Visclosky for including this language in there. Just to try to give the Members a brief history: In the 1990s, this Congress set up a compact that existed between Alabama, Georgia and Florida to try to resolve this water usage issue, and those negotiations were guided by the Army Corps of Engineers. Those States were unable to come together with their leadership to resolve this issue, and so matters reverted back into the courts. It would be completely inappropriate, Mr. Chairman, for the Army Corps of Engineers to take this step, and it would disadvantage Florida and Alabama significantly in this litigation. Now, the bottom of that system, that ACF system, is Apalachicola Bay, and our interests are purely the life and health of that bay and the life and health of the environmental system up in that Apalachicola Basin. If these rulings come out wrong and are disadvantaged by the Army Corps of Engineers' intervention, then you would have a situation where there would be some extremely harmful environmental damage done. So I would respectfully submit to the Members of this body that we reject the Deal amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BOYD. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis).