Allen Boyd

Mr. BOYD

Mr. BOYD. Madam Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, thank you. I thank my friends, my friend from Indiana, Baron Hill, and from Louisiana, Charlie Melancon, both who are current leaders of the 51-strong fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, a group which has spent the last 12 or 14 years in this Congress touting fiscal responsibility and trying to continuously take the message to the American people that the United States Government, the United States Congress, should act just like our families and our small businesses and our local governments do, and that is we should act responsibly when it comes to spending our money and how we collect and spend our money. I think most Americans, most people watching these proceedings here tonight, understand that 8 years ago in early 2001 at the end of President Clinton's administration that this country's government stood in great shape with a balanced budget and surpluses--as Congressman Hill and Congressman Melancon have talked about--as far as the eye could see with an opportunity to do many things in terms of reducing taxes and paying down debt and fixing some long-term entitlement program challenges that we have. The Congress and the administration in the coming years after 2001 passed on that opportunity and instead led us down a path of fiscal irresponsibility where we have continually spent, borrowed, and spent and told the American people they could have anything they wanted and they didn't have to pay for it. Now, the chickens, so to speak, have come home to roost; and you are beginning to see the results of this horrible fiscal policy, economic policy, of the last 8 years. Some would say that because we're in a recession now is not the time to worry about the consequences of government spending. Madam Speaker, I and my Blue Dog colleagues would argue the exact opposite--that now is exactly the time to address the fiscal situation that we as a country are facing. We have an opportunity under new leadership, under the leadership of President Obama, to tackle the problem in a multi-faceted manner and recommit not only to stimulating and jump starting and getting our economy going again, but also to put in place the tools that we need as a Nation to have fiscal discipline in the future and lead us back toward fiscal responsibility, a balanced budget, and establish ourselves again as the economic, military, and political leader of the world. My friends, Mr. Melancon and Mr. Hill, have talked about PAYGO and the history of PAYGO; and, yes, it was, it was a tool that was used in the 1990s to get us into that position where we had surpluses and we were balancing the budgets and we were acting responsibly. Those tools were allowed to expire in 2002. And that's when everything kind of ran amok and we began to spend, spend, spend, we reduced revenue base; and as a result, we went overseas to borrow the money. And now, instead of a $5 trillion national debt, we've got over a $10 trillion national debt. In this fiscal year, Madam Speaker, this Nation, this government, will sustain a $1 trillion-plus deficit in its budget, $1 trillion-plus deficit. And that's unheard of. That's like 6 or 7 percent of the gross domestic product of this country that we're going overseas to borrow, mortgaging the future of our children to run the operations of this government. And some of us believe that's irresponsible, it's unethical, immoral. Now, what do we do? We have spent years and years of passing the buck on these issues, but now is the time to stop passing the buck and address these issues and confront them head on. There are a couple of specific pieces of legislation that I would like our viewers to know about. One is a bill that's sponsored--the two primary sponsors are Congressman Jim Cooper, who is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition from Tennessee, Democrat, and Congressman Frank Wolf from Virginia, a Republican. It's called the SAFE Commission Act. This particular piece of legislation offers solutions to place the U.S. Government on a course to ensure the solvency of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for the coming century. The SAFE Commission creates a nonpartisan, 16-member commission to examine all areas of Federal spending and revenue, including entitlement spending. The two primary entitlement programs, as you know, are Social Security and Medicare. This bill has real teeth. Once it passes, it will require that Congress vote on the legislation that comes out of the recommendations of the commission within 90 days. This country needs something like this because Congress has shown an inability--certainly shows it doesn't have the will--to address these challenges head-on otherwise. Our sustainability challenges are not new. Now, I think most Americans understand kind of the lay of the land here, what happened, where we were in 2000 and 2001 in terms of our government and its financial situation versus now, and there's been a lot of angst and polarization around party lines, and it just hasn't worked very well for the last 6 or 8 years. But Madam Speaker, the new President, President Obama, and I think many of us in the majority here in the House are offering our hand of bipartisanship across that aisle, to work together with members of the minority party in tackling these issues because they're not Democratic and Republican issues. These are not problems that one party or the other can take sole ownership of, but in solving them, we have to reach across the aisle and develop bipartisan solutions. President Obama has taken a very solid step, in my feeling, toward putting our country on the right path by the recent announcement of a fiscal summit in the near future. The fiscal summit will be headed up obviously by his economic team, Dr. Orszag, the new OMB director, and others and so we look forward to participating in that summit and are hopeful that out of that summit will come some very solid ideas that the President can then advance and work with the Congress in putting into law. Madam Speaker, we've got some very serious challenges as a Nation in front of us. I have been in legislative politics for 20 years, not nearly as long as some of the other folks who serve in this body, but I've never seen the challenges and the problems faced so dear. And we can all agree that if our kids are to have any kind of future that we have to figure out a way to give them the good standard of living, and we need to fix our budget problems, and we need to fix them quickly, and we need to focus on stimulating the economy, but also, we need to focus on the long-term fiscal discipline and restoring commonsense budgeting and commonsense fiscal management to the operation of this government. I want to thank my friend Mr. Melancon from Louisiana for his leadership in the Blue Dogs, for his leadership on the issues of fiscal responsibility, and also for allowing me a few moments here to come speak to the Nation.

Mr. BOYD. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. BOYD. I know that the gentleman and our viewers understand that America is the richest country on the face of the earth. America a few years ago, with 5 percent of the world's population, controlled 25 percent of the world's wealth. But 8 years ago we decided we didn't want to pay our own bills. That was the effect of those decisions that were made and that we would go into the capital markets to borrow that money. That's not the way our economic model is set up, and that's the mindset that we really have to change. Now it's my belief that President Obama, whom I think many of us ad- mire because he's going to lead us through this, he understands what you have to do. Some tough decisions have to be made. He's been given a very tough hand to play with the economic and fiscal situation of this country at the moment, but I believe that all the Nation wishes him well, and we want to work with him to get us back on the right path and fiscal responsibility. Let's do some hard, tough work on Medicare and Social Security. We've known for years that those programs have to be reformed, that insolvency for these programs is right around the corner, and we have punted that ball down the field for many years now. He knows you can't do that anymore, and he's making the right calls and getting the right people together and getting the right team in place to move forward with this and get it done right. So I want to thank my friend for getting this hour for us to speak for a few minutes about fiscal issues in the country and our economic situation.

Mr. BOYD

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

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate Congressman Bud Cramer on his many years of service to our Nation and to the people of Alabama's Fifth District. Since I first came to Congress in 1997, Bud has been a respected colleague, a good friend, and a personal mentor. Over the years, I often have looked to him for guidance on different issues before Congress, and he has always given me wise and thoughtful advice. Bud's work on the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee has served as a model for me. I have seen firsthand his ability to work across the aisle to advance good policy to the benefit of our national defense efforts, our military community, and the American people. As a founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition, Bud has dedicated his time in Congress to being a good steward of taxpayer dollars and creating a more fiscally responsible government. The Blue Dogs have been able to grow and continue our message of fiscal responsibility because of the groundwork that Bud and other founding members laid over 13 years ago. Bud, as your friend and colleague, I will truly miss your leadership in Congress. I wish you the best of luck in all of your future endeavors and hope you enjoy your much deserved retirement.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr. Arcuri, my follow Blue Dog from New York. I'm always intrigued by the arguments made on this floor. But, ladies and gentlemen, I need to tell you the debate here today is about an underlying principle that most Americans understand very well, but a principle that the folks who have been running Washington, DC, for the last 8 years don't have a very good handle on. And that principle is, is that if you want to buy something, in a business or whether it be in running your local home budget, or whether it be in a local government, or in the Federal Government, if you're going to buy something, you have to be willing to pay for it. We do that in our own home budgets, we do it in our own businesses and our local governments. But in Washington, DC, since 2001, we have said to the American people, You don't have to operate the Federal Government that way. We can spend and buy anything we want, but we really don't have to pay for it. We will go into the capital markets and borrow the money. There are many of us who have been saying for years that that will work for a while, but when the economic markets, the financial markets, figure out what is going on, then the house of cards will come tumbling town. We have been told for years, up until last Wednesday afternoon a week ago, about 10 days ago, that everything was good, the underlying economy was good even though many of us have been saying there are problems looming. On Thursday afternoon, the Secretary of the Treasury of this administration and the Federal Reserve Chief appointed by this President, came to Congress, House and Senate, Republican and Democratic leaders, and said, ``Ladies and gentlemen, we have a crisis. The financial markets are about to crash, and we need $700 billion to rescue the financial markets and the economy of this Nation.'' Seven hundred billion dollars. Just 3 days ago we'd been told everything was cool. The underlying problem is the fiscal and monetary mismanagement of this government by this administration for the last 8 years. And the chickens have come home to roost, as they say back home. That's the underlying discussion we're having here today about whether we would pay for a spending program or tax cut or whether we just go into the capital markets to borrow it. You can't spend your way out of this. You can't tax-cut your way out of it. You need good, solid economic fiscal and monetary policy, and we haven't been getting it. Now, this bill does just a couple simple things, and I want to tell you what they are. It extends the production tax credit, energy production tax credit, investment tax credit, and all other energy-related tax provisions. They're very similar to the Senate bill.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. And it uses the same offsets as in the Senate energy amendment and mostly has to do with oil production. It takes away some of the favors that we've given away to the oil companies in the tax code and uses them in alternative energy production. Those who oppose it say we ought not to do that, just leave the existing tax credits for the oil companies and don't find any new pay- fors and just let it go. The other thing that this bill does is it's a 2-year extension of expiring business and individual tax credits that relate to research and development, and it also has provisions in it which go to the State and local sales tax deductibility for individuals, mental health parity, and a third provision which addresses the education needs of those who have rural schools and who have United States forests in their counties. This is paid for--now get this--this is paid for by offshore deferred compensation: those people who take their money offshore and put it in an account so they won't have to pay U.S. taxes on it.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. It would be awful to ask those people to pay for a spending program we may have or another tax cut, wouldn't it? Also, the other part is worldwide interest allocation. Again, moneys that are taken offshore, companies, major public companies that operate in other places and get a tax break because they operate in other places in addition to the United States. This is the right thing to do. This is a very basic principle that our constituents understand that if we're going to have a spending program, if the United States Government buys something, it's going to have to pay for it, and we ought to start right here today. I thank my friend.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Let me thank my chairman, Mr. Edwards, for yielding. Ladies and gentlemen, when our men and women are committed into combat, that has very long and costly consequences. Sometimes I think people in this town don't recognize this. But I can tell you there are some people in this Chamber, particularly Chairman Chet Edwards, Ranking Member Zach Wamp, who do understand that commitment into combat has very long and costly consequences. Mr. Chairman, I see a lot of ``Support Our Troops'' slogans around. I see a lot of yellow bumper stickers and those great things. I see people going to churches and preparing care boxes to send overseas. But that's not enough. That's not enough. We must make a commitment to take care of the families of those who put on the uniform when those in uniform are deployed. We must make a solemn commitment to provide for the health care and education benefits for those who come home after wearing the uniform. Many of them come home injured. Mr. Chairman, there are some folks in this Chamber that understand that. Congressman Dave Obey clearly understands that. Congressman Bill Young, whom you just heard from. I saw Congressman Steve Buyer earlier, Bob Filner from California. Those are the folks who were involved in the writing of this legislation which provides the benefits and the commitment that we have made to our men and women. We have got a whole new generation of veterans who need our support. Those are veterans of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, obviously, it's our moral duty to provide them with the care and benefits that they need. You've heard in detail about the details of what's in this bill. Mr. Wamp and Mr. Edwards have explained that. But it's important that we do this, ladies and gentlemen. This is a promise we've made, and it's simply the right thing to do. If not for those who answered the call of duty, we would not be the great Nation we are today. For their service and sacrifice, we as Americans are eternally grateful, and I encourage this Congress to honor them by supporting this bill. And, again, I want to thank the bipartisan work of Chairman Chet Edwards and Ranking Member Zach Wamp, our committee leaders, for what they have done.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Madam Speaker, I want to voice my support for the landmark Supreme Court decision to overturn the District of Columbia handgun ban. This was a long and hard-fought battle, one in which I signaled my support for the rights of gun owners by joining many of my colleagues in signing an amicus brief supporting gun rights. In the end, the Court's decision affirmed that all citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. I am pleased with this decision because now honest, law-abiding citizens of the District of Columbia, as well as those in Florida and across the Nation, can be assured of the right to self-protection in their homes. As a strong defender of our Second Amendment rights, I am glad to see this outcome from the Courts.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. I thank my friend, the ranking member on Rules, for yielding. It is with very mixed emotions that I come to the floor today to oppose the rule that we are debating at the moment. As you heard the other speaker say, the underlying substantive legislation is legislation that really needs to be passed by this Congress and signed into law. You've got a very unpopular war, but as the debate about the policy goes on in Washington, the men and women in the field wearing the uniform need to be provided the funds and the resources they need to carry out that policy until such time as it is changed. And I think many of us feel very strongly about that, so we have to do the war funding piece. Secondly, you have a significant domestic policy piece, and part of it is the GI Webb Bill, the education benefits package. That needs to be updated, and it's an appropriate thing to do. We are doing it, though, probably in a, if not an unprecedented way, certainly a very unusual way in that we are creating a new mandatory spending program in an emergency supplemental bill. I know that's never been done since I've been here, but nevertheless, it is a piece that needs to be done. I wish it could be debated and funded separately. We have the unemployment insurance benefits package. Obviously, in today's economy, with a 5.5 percent unemployment rate, is something that I think everybody on this floor supports, and most of us have already voted on it and supported it earlier in the previous week. As has been stated before, you've got true emergencies in the Midwest with the floods, you've got the Katrina levee piece, which continues to be a problem. And all of these things are items that the government of the richest Nation in the world ought to be doing, and we ought to be paying for it. But here is the reason I stand here to oppose this rule.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. I thank Madam Chairman, my friend. I would say that the richest Nation on the face of the Earth, we ought to be willing to find a way to pay for these things which are so important for the continuation of this great democracy that we have, the strongest economy in the world. But what we've chosen to do is to borrow the money, not pay the bill, and send the bill to the generations of the future. And I think that's morally wrong. It's a mistake. It's economically a mistake because our children and grandchildren will live in an economy that's much different than the one that our fathers and grandfathers and grandparents built for us. So I feel very strongly about this. We're making a serious mistake by not paying for these things. I know we have another body on the other side of the Capitol here that doesn't understand this concept. We have a White House which doesn't understand the concept of pay-for, but this House has stood pretty strong on this issue until today. This bill is $257 billion, over a quarter of $1 trillion. As my friend from California (Mr. Campbell) said earlier, it adds to the already $319 billion existing deficit that we're running in this fiscal year. I feel strongly about this. I think it's a mistake. And I think it's one that our children and grandchildren will pay for.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is great to see you in that chair as a member of the Blue Dogs, a freshman member of the Blue Dogs. We are very proud of you. And also I want to thank my friend and colleague from Utah (Mr. Matheson). Mr. Matheson has been a solid leader of the Blue Dog Coalition since he arrived here 6 or 8 years ago. And he actually, in the previous Congress, served as one of the Chairs of the Blue Dog Coalition. And I am grateful to him for his leadership and also for filling in tonight. Thank you very much, Mr. Matheson. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield as much time as he would consume to our friend, the gentleman from Kansas, Dennis Moore, who is the cochair of the Blue Dog Coalition. He is the cochair for policy. So I will yield at this time to Mr. Moore.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. I want to thank my friend and colleague, Mr. Moore from Kansas, for coming tonight to speak to us on behalf of the fiscally responsible 49-member-strong Blue Dog Coalition. Dennis Moore has been a great leader on this issue in Congress ever since he got here 8 or 10 years ago, and I'm very pleased to work with him. Mr. Speaker, this whole notion of how we run our government's fiscal matters is not rocket science. The people watching us out in the country tonight understand that they have to balance their budgets in their own households. They have to balance their budgets in their own small businesses. They can't spend more money than they take in. In local governments, if they didn't balance their budgets, if they continuously spent more money than they took in, the people would elect somebody else. It's only the United States Government that doesn't put in place a requirement that it lives within its means. I think it's time that we fix this. The Blue Dogs will continue to press this issue. PAYGO is one of the tools that we can use to make this happen. I'm delighted to be joined tonight by other Blue Dog members. There is no member who is more passionate about this issue and more principled on this issue than our friend and colleague from Indiana, Representative Baron Hill. I would like to yield to Representative Hill now whatever time he may consume.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I know that the viewers can see the passion that exists within Congressman Baron Hill. He is a great Member of Congress. He is a good leader of the Blue Dogs. I am happy to serve with him and to call him my colleague. He has explained what the PAYGO rule does. It makes us make the hard choices. If money just grew on trees, we could do any program we wanted, but somebody has to pay for these programs, and we either pay for them today or we borrow the money and send the bill to our children, along with an interest bill, down the road. We think that's immoral. We think it's wrong, inherently wrong. I know Mr. Hill said that the Blue Dogs care passionately about PAYGO and about getting this thing back on track. We went to Speaker Pelosi after the 2006 election and said we would like to do this. We know that we can't get a statutory PAYGO, which is one that goes into law. As you know, Mr. Speaker, in order for it to go into law, the House would have to pass it; the Senate would have to pass it, and the President would have to sign it. We were assured by some other bodies and the White House that that wouldn't happen. So we asked the Speaker to at least put a rule in place in the House of Representatives that would make the House abide by PAYGO. We knew it wouldn't be as good as statutory PAYGO, but it would, in some ways, serve the same purpose. It would be a rule for which the House would have to take a two-thirds vote. Even though it would only apply to us in the House, the House would have to take a two-thirds vote to waive that. She agreed to do that, to her credit, and she is a great advocate of the PAYGO principle. I am grateful to her and the Blue Dogs are grateful to her for her position on PAYGO. Now, we would like to see PAYGO become part of the law, like it was back in the 1990s. PAYGO, along with discretionary spending caps and other tools that were used, enabled us to dig out of a hole back in 1992, the largest deficit in the history of the Nation at that time, $290 billion. Congress, working together with the White House, and in the 1990s, that was mid-1990s and late 1990s, that was a Republican-led Congress, and a democratically controlled White House, working together in a bipartisan way, put in place statutory PAYGO, discretionary spending caps and other budget enforcement tools. This enabled us to dig out of that big deficit hole, $290 billion in 1992 is what we were borrowing to operate this government, $290 billion. For the efforts of the Congress and the White House in the 1990s, tools were put in place. We had an economic turnaround and, lo and behold, the next thing you knew all kinds of good things were happening. In 1997, Congress put in place The Balanced Budget Act. I had just gotten here as a brand-new freshman, and I was very fortunate to be a part of the Blue Dogs in some ways, and in some minor way involved in helping President Clinton and the congressional leadership get the votes to pass that budget, The Balanced Budget Act. That was an important act in 1997, and statutory PAYGO, the law of the land, paying your bills as you go, don't borrow money to do it. If you are going to have a program, you have either got to cut spending someplace or find a revenue source. That was a good tool, and it served this country well economically, the greatest economic expansion in the history of this Nation during the 1990s, the greatest economic expansion in the history of this Nation during the 1990s. The government was doing its part, acting responsibly in the discharging of its duties and acting fiscally responsible. So, what happened, $290 billion deficit in 1992, we worked hard together, we cut spending, we put in place the PAYGO rules. Lo and behold, at the end of the 1990s and the year 2000, we had a budget surplus for the first time, as Baron Hill said, for the first time in 40 years, with we had a budget surplus. The next year, I think it was 1999, we had our first one. The next year in 2000, we had another one, over $200 billion surplus. It was unheard of in recent American history. Then what happened? We had an election. The economic forecasters were forecasting over a $5 trillion surplus, its projected surplus. Now, it's not real, it's projected if things worked like they were supposed to for the next 10 years. We had an election, had a new President, and that President and the Congress decided that they wanted to go a different route, as Baron Hill says. Now, they came and met with the Blue Dogs. I remember Vice President Cheney and the OMB Director, who now is the governor of Indiana, came and met with us. We told them they needed to do three things with that surplus. Cut taxes, who doesn't want to have lower taxes? We know what lower taxes do for our people. It gives them more to spend on their own families, and it helps economically. Cut taxes, number one. Pay down debt, number two. Debt was continuing to climb, and we thought it was important to pay that down. Thirdly, we could see the baby boomer retirement coming right over the horizon, and we knew Social Security and Medicare were in trouble. Let's take some of that projected surplus and use it to fix Social Security and Medicare. Those were the recommendations that we as Blue Dogs made to the White House and their fiscal team, their budget team. What do they decide to do? They said, no, we can't pay down debt, and we don't have time to fix Social Security and Medicare. We have got to take all the money we can get our hands on and put it in tax cuts. The number back then was about $1.7 trillion. It was projected now, it wasn't real, it was projected. That was like in June of 2001. September 11, 2001, everybody here listening knows what happened. All those projections, every assumption that went into that rejection went out the window on September 11, 2001. After the Bush economic plan had been put into place, then what do we do as a government? We just charge right ahead with that economic plan. You have seen a continuation or a return to budget deficits that have set records in the last 3 or 4 years, highest budget deficits in the history of this Nation. You have seen an increase, as Baron Hill said, from $5.6 trillion debt to the a debt that is expected this year to pass $10 trillion, $10 trillion, trillion with a ``T.'' That's a lot of zeros on the end of it. I think it's about 12. I am not even sure. So the economic policy is wrong, and the Blue Dogs are going to insist that we do it differently. If we have to take baby steps, if we have to do with a PAYGO rule, we are going to stand tough when it comes to the votes on that rule. We are hopeful that the other Members of Congress, House and Senate and the White House, will come to us on this position of fiscal responsibility.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. I will be glad to yield to the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. I thank my friend for those insightful remarks. May I ask the Speaker how much time we have remaining?

Mr. BOYD of Florida. I thank my friend, Mr. Hill of Indiana. You know, looking back at the 1990s and coming out of an era where we didn't have much fiscal discipline in the 1990s and then to a period where we put in place some tools, I want to cite some statistics to you. Of course, I already talked about one, in 1992 this country had a deficit of $290 billion, deficit, annual deficit. That was the largest at that time in the history of the Nation. By the year 2000, we had turned that into a $236 billion surplus, which was also the largest surplus in U.S. history. Again, that's about a $526 billion swing in 8 years with good fiscal management. Actually, President Clinton was the recipient of those PAYGO policies, but he was very involved, and he believed in it. He, working with the Congress, helped write those PAYGO policies. He was also committed to fiscal discipline, however unpopular that trend was back then, but it also, by doing that, fostered very rapid growth in net national savings and investment in this country. In 1992, the net savings in the U.S. economy, the net savings, by all of its citizens, were only 3 percent. Eight years later, after fiscal discipline and moving from a deficit to a surplus, savings was at a 6 percent level, had doubled, from 3 percent in 1992 to 6 percent in 2000. Actually, you know what these savings are due, they are used to finance investment, domestic investment, and it makes the economy grow and everything works better. Unemployment, obviously unemployment is an issue that we are all very concerned about today. We saw some figures come out last week, we are now at about 5.5 percent. In the early 1990s, unemployment was at 7.5 percent. Those fiscal discipline tools were put in place and the government began to act responsibly from a fiscal perspective. By 2000, 8 years later that, the unemployment rate had dropped from 7.5 percent down to 4 percent. Now, you know, we are back up at that time 5.5 percent figure. Let's talk about jobs. The average annual increase in jobs in America during the 8 years from 1992 to 2000 was during the Bill Clinton presidency at a time when Congress and the President were working together to solve this deficit problem. The average job creation number was 2.8 million a year, an additional 2.8 million jobs a year. Does anybody, do you have any idea what it has been since the year 2000, since the new administration, since this administration came in? It's actually less than a half a million a year. You figure all that out over a period of 8 years, it's 15 to 20 million jobs that we didn't create. Many of us think it's because of the deficit problems that exist, the irresponsible fiscal policy of this Nation. I want to recognize my friend from Georgia again, but I want to close this point by reminding our viewers that PAYGO helped with this economic boom. Fiscal discipline and the conduct of the government's business is an important part of how this economy works. We can increase productivity, we can increase gross domestic product, and we increase employment. I want to remind you that the economic expansion of 1991 to 2000 was the largest in U.S. history. We can do it again, but we have to start disciplining ourselves, and we have to get away from this notion that we can have every program we want, and we can have every tax cut we want, and we go somewhere else and borrow the money and not worry about paying for those programs. I would like to yield to my friend from Georgia.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. I thank my friend from Georgia for bringing forth that point from the foreign affairs perspective. It is a good and valid point. Mr. Speaker, we live in the greatest and richest Nation on the face of the Earth. We have 5 percent of the world's population and control 25 percent of the world's wealth. If we are not careful and with poor fiscal management, we will shift a good portion of that wealth to other parts of the world. A couple of statistics, and I don't know what the trade deficit is today, but we are running huge trade deficits as a result of the oil prices. That trade deficit is ever increasing as a result of the increasing cost of oil because a majority of our oil, more than half of our oil comes from foreign sources. So that is a very serious problem for us. I talked earlier about the savings having been 3 percent in 1992 and we moved it to 6 percent, those are American citizens saving their bucks, saving for the future. You know, for the first time since I think maybe World War II, 2 years ago this country had a negative savings rate. That goes directly to the management of our fiscal policy and the performance of the economy. I think that it is sad that we as a nation have a negative savings rate. We need to turn that around and one of the things that we can do as a government is do our job well. Let's identify those functions that we are supposed to do as a government, national security, transportation, education, and environmental protection. We need good strong foreign policy, and there are some other areas. But we ought to be willing and make sure that we perform those functions well, and we ought to be willing to pay for them and we ought not be wasting money. I agree with many on the other side of the aisle that we can root out some waste. There has to be tremendous cooperation between the legislative body and the executive branch to figure out how to do that because the executive branch obviously operates those agencies that we appropriate money for. So it is their job to operate them and operate them efficiently, and we have an oversight role and we ought to continue to do that. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Georgia for being here and I want to thank the other Blue Dogs who came in and helped today. I see another good Blue Dog in the Speaker's chair now, Representative Space from Ohio, one of our freshmen members, and we are very pleased to see you. You look good up there, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. I thank the chairman, my friend from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), for not only the time but for his hard work in bringing this blueprint to the floor, for our vision about how this government ought to be run and how we manage the economic model. Mr. Speaker and ladies and gentlemen, running a government shouldn't be rocket science, especially a great government like ours and a great country like ours. You identify the priorities that government should do. You perform those priorities well. They are limited. You know what they are. And you are willing to pay for them. That model, ladies and gentlemen, should continuously strive to enlarge the middle class. Let me say that again. This economic model and this government function should be continuously striving to enlarge and enhance the middle class of this country. For the last 8 years, 7\1/2\ years, we've had policies which have shrunk the middle class. We have had a continuous increase of spending, continuous decrease in revenues. We go to the People's Republic of China and other lenders to fund the difference, and we've got a fiscal mess. This vision, this blueprint, this budget that John Spratt and Senator Conrad have brought to us in the form of a conference report changes that and puts us on a path to balancing our budget, complying with the PAYGO principles, which we strongly believe in, and also performing the functions that a government should perform in this great Nation of ours. I strongly urge and hope that you will vote for this conference report. Again, I want to thank Chairman Spratt for all his hard work in getting us to this point.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding. Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, the last GI Bill was written after World War II, and 64 years later we're passing a new expanded GI Bill that will provide important education benefits for our veterans. Simply put, ladies and gentlemen, it's the right thing to do. In the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our guardsmen and our reservists have been used and deployed by our Commander in Chief at a level that we haven't seen since World War II. Many of these guardsmen and reservists were in a career profession before these wars, and many will come home unable to continue that career profession because of physical or mental injuries sustained during their service in that war. This GI Bill will restore the promise of a full 4-year education for our benefits, 60 years since the last one was written, and make the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan part of the American economic recovery efforts just as the veterans of World War II were. I want to thank the Speaker and the House leadership for bringing this bill to the floor.

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Mr. Speaker, this bill was brought to the floor in a fiscally responsible manner. By fully funding this GI Bill for the next 10 years and paying for it up front, we have made this legislation better for our veterans and better for the American people. We are asking those who benefit the most from living in a strong country to pay to take care of those who risk their lives to defend it instead of borrowing the money from China or bucking the costs to our children and grandchildren. Supporting this bill is the right thing to do. And I want to thank Chairman Obey and Chairman Murtha for also including the Iraq loan provisions which will require the Iraqis to pay for the security training of their own people and the reconstruction efforts.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Madam Speaker, last week, I missed the final vote on H.R. 2830, the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows: H.R. 2830. Recorded vote. 24- Apr-2008, 3:13 p.m. Question: On Passage. Bill Title: Coast Guard Authorization for 2008. ``Aye'' for Mr. F. Allen Boyd, Jr.

Mr. BOYD of Florida

Mr. BOYD of Florida. Madam Speaker, I want to commend the House and Senate leadership on their negotiations throughout the last year on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They have worked diligently on this issue and I rise today to encourage them to finalize a version of the bill that protects the civil liberties of our citizens, provides comprehensive guidelines for our intelligence community and reaffirms the importance of private industry cooperation in government investigations. The right to privacy has long been regarded as an inherent American value and it is our Government's responsibility to strike a balance between protecting that constitutionally protected right and securing the country against future terrorist attacks. I have been pleased to support the Democratic led efforts towards Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorization that have made it clear that these rights are to be at the forefront of actions taken by Government officials. In addition to this emphasis, I believe it imperative that a final bill exempts from liability the telecommunications companies who participated in the Bush administration's requests for information on customer records. I join the National Sheriffs' Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Fraternal Order of Police, members of the 9/11 Commission and the Florida State Attorney General Bill McCollum in urging this protection. A provision as such will ensure that the cooperative relationships that law enforcement and the private sector have will continue to facilitate critical information exchanges that protect this Nation and its citizens. I am confident that Congress will continue the role intended by our forefathers to oversee the past, current and future actions of the executive branch, particularly in regard to these bedrock issues that make the United States the greatest country in the world. Our intelligence community deserves updated direction and guidance on these issues backed by the force of law, and I urge our leaders to continue their good work.