Jim Cooper

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Chairman, earlier today, I was speaking at an event being held in the basement of the Rayburn building and because the clock and bell system did not work in Room B-338, I missed two votes on amendments to H.R. 2965, the Federal Prison Industries Reform Act of 2006. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on the first Scott Amendment and ``aye'' on the second Scott Amendment.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the First Annual Patriot Day Community Candlelight Tribute in Mt. Juliet, TN. Tonight, citizens from across Wilson County will come together to pay tribute to the men and women in uniform who work hard to protect our communities everyday. With flags flown at half-staff, a moment of silence and heartfelt prayer and a candlelight ceremony this evening, Mt. Juliet will remember all those who were lost on September 11, 2001 and honor the Americans who serve and protect our country today. At home, our law enforcement officers, sheriff's department personnel, firefighters and emergency rescue workers give their energy and expertise to fight a variety of challenges and threats to make sure we are safe. From natural hazards and fires, to crime prevention, and the ever-growing meth epidemic, these local heroes endanger their lives to make ours safer. Overseas, we count on the brave men and women of the Armed Forces to defend our freedom and protect democracy. They face countless dangers as they serve under the most difficult of conditions. We remember our family members, friends and neighbors across Wilson County and Tennessee who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. And it is with great pride and admiration that we support the Tennesseans who continue to serve their Nation overseas. Tonight's Patriot Day Community Candlelight in Mt. Juliet is an opportunity to personally thank our local heroes--both at home and overseas--for their dedication and sacrifice. It is a time to remember those patriots we have lost, and it is a chance for us to renew our own patriotic spirit.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, today I wish to recognize Bethlehem Centers of Nashville and express my heartfelt congratulations on their fourth year to receive a three-star rating from Tennessee Department of Human Services for their child care services. Founded in 1894 as the United Methodist Neighborhood Centers, today the Bethlehem Centers of Nashville serve thousands of children, young adults, adult women and senior citizens in the North Nashville and downtown neighborhoods. Bethlehem Centers provide a variety of services designed to support individuals regardless of their economic background. With the goal of helping individuals toward becoming strong, independent and contributing members of their family and community, Bethlehem Centers provide Nashvillians with life skills training, tutoring, nutrition counseling, senior outreach programs, business and career training, GED preparation, mentoring, and even daily hot lunches. In addition to these community programs, Bethlehem Centers have earned a three-star rating for their high quality child care services from the Tennessee Department of Human Services. This is their fourth year to receive the highest rating awarded by the State and to be placed among the top rated child care centers in the Nation. I am proud to send my heartiest congratulations to Bethlehem Centers' Joyce Searcy and all the dedicated staff members who have committed themselves to bettering Nashville's communities. I join with everyone in Tennessee's Fifth District in applauding the Bethlehem Centers of Nashville for all that they do for the community and I commend everyone at Bethlehem Centers of Nashville who make it a special place to learn, play and grow.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friends from Arkansas and Georgia for their leadership in the important Blue Dog Coalition, as we are the centrist group in Congress. We try to do the right thing, whatever the parties say. We try to do the right thing for the American people and the American taxpayer. The gentleman has been a particular leader showing the tragic waste around the town of Hope, Arkansas, the thousands and thousands of trailers lined up there, the clear mishandling of taxpayers' dollars, but I would like to bring up for the Speaker and for the American people tonight a new book that is pretty remarkable. It is called ``The Broken Branch,'' and the subtitle is, ``How Congress is failing America and how to set it back on track.'' This should be available in most all bookstores around America. It is not a Democratic book. It is written by a scholar, Norm Ornstein, who is at the American Enterprise Institute which, if anything, is a Republican think tank. Another coauthor is Thomas Mann, who is at the Brookings Institution, which bills itself as a nonpartisan think tank. Some of our friends might call it Democratic, but this is a thoroughly bipartisan book. What it does is list the many ways that this institution needs to change. That is what I think Blue Dogs are all about is bringing that needed change to this institution because, under Republican leadership, as the authors of this book point out, things are clearly not working. The gentleman has pointed out quite eloquently that the deficits are clearly out of control. We seem to have no clear policy in Iraq. There are so many things that are not allowing our great Nation, the greatest Nation in the history of the world, there are so many things that Congress is not doing to allow America to live up to its potential, to allow our families, our kids and grandkids to live up to their potential. We, Blue Dogs, we want things to work. We want things to work right. We want taxpayer dollars to be spent wisely, and this book is an important read because it lists it in a nonpartisan fashion. This book is called, ``The Broken Branch.'' It is Oxford University Press. It lists hundreds and hundreds of ways that the Republican leadership has failed the American people. So I want to encourage everyone to take a look at this. Do not take our word for it. Read it in the bookstore. Get it online. See what is really happening in Congress because, sadly, our TV stations, our newspapers are simply not reporting all this. They are spending way too much time trying to entertain us or affirm what we already think, but this book tells us the truth about Congress and how we need to change. So I thank my friends from Arkansas and Georgia for yielding, and I will chime in at a later point in the debate.

Mr. COOPER. I thank my friends Arkansas and Georgia. Another Blue Dog proposal for reform that is extremely important, because it would do a lot to fix our entire fiscal situation, to get our budget balanced again, and that proposal goes by the name of pay as you go. It is a very simple concept. Every household back in our districts has to follow it. Because if you don't have the money, you can't spend it. You might be able to borrow a little for a little while, but sooner or later, you have to pay the bill. That is the same principle America should be run on. It is not just us saying it. The former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan, said that that would be the single most important reform America could undertake. The single most important reform, and we Blue Dogs are championing it. We, as Democrats, are championing it, and yet the Republican majority in this House has prevented that reform from even coming up for a vote. Now, this isn't theoretical or experimental thinking that Chairman Greenspan is proposing, this pay as you go proposal, this idea that if you want to spend more money on a program, fine, but get money from somewhere else to pay for it. Or if you want to cut taxes, fine, get money from somewhere else to pay for the tax cut. This proposal was the law of the land in America from 1990 to 2002. For 12 years, from 1990 to 2002, the pay-as-you-go proposal worked and worked well in America. Most historians agree it was the single most important factor during that era that helped America live within its means so that we could have a stronger Nation for our kids and grandkids. And former Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan even remembers the day that the Republicans allowed the pay as you go proposal to expire, and that day was September 30, 2002. September 30, 2002, the end of that fiscal year, was a dark day in America, because the 12 years of fiscal restraint that we had had, the 12 years of living within our means, the 12 years of kitchen table budgeting were then over. And, basically, all hell broke loose when that happened. Because suddenly there was no restraint. You could spend anything. Earmarks and other things exploded. That is going to be a terrible fiscal headache, a nightmare for our kids and grandkids. So that is probably the most important of all the Blue Dog proposals. We have had many, and the gentleman from Georgia has mentioned several. We have had the 12-step plan so that America could get off its addiction to deficit spending, much as the 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program helps many people across America get off their addiction to alcohol. So these are just a few of the reforms that the Blue Dogs have been participating in to make us have an even stronger Nation. We are proud of America. We want a strong America in all respects, but America can be even better than it is today. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. COOPER. The point that the gentleman from Georgia was just making about how much money we borrow from foreign countries, the American people need to know it is not just China we borrowed $300 billion from. It is also countries like Iran, another part of what President Bush called the Axis of Evil. They own a big part of the American debt now. Venezuela, under Hugo Chavez, not exactly a friendly nation. Other nations like the Soviet Union with whom we do not have good relations these days. It is incredible our dependence. And for President Bush to have borrowed more money from foreign nations than all previous Presidents put together going all the way back to George Washington, that is incredible. The average American back home just does not understand how much President Bush has borrowed from foreign nations. And that makes us terribly dependent on those nations. We do not want China or other countries trying to foreclose on America or any part of America, but that is the situation we are getting more into every day. We are borrowing 2 to $3 billion every day from foreign nations.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to salute one of the great voices in American music and a resident of my hometown of Nashville: Charlie Louvin. Charlie just celebrated his 79th birthday at a day-long celebration held at the Louvin Brothers Museum in Nashville last weekend. Folks from around the country came to wish Charlie well and to thank him for his many great musical accomplishments on stage as a performer, and to recognize his extraordinary songwriting achievements. Charlie Louvin's career has spanned more than six decades and earned him a following that cuts across all music genres and generations. Charlie Louvin was born Charlie Loudermilk in Alabama in 1927. Along with his older brother Ira, he grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio at night and dreamed of a career on the stage of Opry. Changing their name to Louvin, the brothers made their first musical performance on July 4th, 1940, playing background music for the merry- go-round at a country fair. From that time on, the Louvins became known for a distinctive style of harmony singing that blended gospel harmonies with country influences. They performed regularly across the South, particularly in Alabama and Tennessee, building a following that would earn them attention--and a recording contract--in Nashville. From the mid-1950s through the early 1960s, the Louvin Brothers had over twenty entries on Billboard's country chart, including ``Cash on the Barrelhead'' and ``You're Running Wild.'' The Louvins would achieve their childhood dream, invited to join the Grand Ole Opy in 1955. Ira Louvin would die in a tragic automobile accident in 1965 but Charlie would continue on his own to record, perform and win the hearts of music lovers everywhere. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, groups like The Byrds and country rocker Gram Parsons introduced rock fans to the Louvins' talents, recording some of their classic songs. In 2002, Charlie was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and, the following year, artists as diverse as James Taylor, Patty Loveless, Merle Haggard and Dolly Parton joined together to pay tribute to the Louvins. The result was a special CD: ``Livin', Lovin', Losin': Songs of the Louvin Brothers'' that became a must-have recording for country and rock fans alike. Even today, Charlie is apt to be found on stage performing alongside the likes of Cake, the popular rock band he recently toured with, or on stage at the Opry. As one of Nashville's most highly respected musicians and writers, I congratulate Charlie Louvin on his 79th birthday--and for creating music that is just as relevant today as it was 50 years ago.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Madam Speaker, virtually every family in America has been stricken with one dread disease or another. It may be cancer, it may be heart disease, it may be diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's. The list goes on and on. And finally, there are scientific breakthroughs called embryonic stem cell research that allow hope for a cure. Sadly, the President of the United States is about to veto the legislation that this Congress has finally passed to give these families hope. This is a sad day for America because the President has never vetoed any other bill. He is the first President since Thomas Jefferson to endorse all our legislation as if it were perfect, except for this one bill, the bill that gives hope to virtually all American families. Why, Mr. President, are you vetoing hope for Parkinson's victims, vetoing hope for cancer victims, for diabetes victims, for Alzheimer's victims? Why, Mr. President are you, alone, standing in the way of hope and progress for our people?

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Thank you. I thank my good friend from Arkansas, and I appreciate your excellent summary of our fiscal situation. Because Americans lead busy lives, we were happy to get a little bit of good news last week, or what we thought was good news. The President and the administration certainly built it up as if it was good news. I am glad that the deficit is looking a little smaller than the White House had predicted. That is good news, and I appreciate that. But it is still very important for Americans to put that in perspective. As my friend from Arkansas points out, it is good news, and it is not the largest deficit in American history; it is only the fourth largest deficit in American history. So that is something to be grateful for. But it reminded me a little bit of telling somebody, hey, the good news is your cancer is in remission. Well, that is good news. It is good news the cancer is in remission, but the bad news is you still have cancer. What we are concerned about as Blue Dogs is not a temporary deficit. Sometimes the Nation has to run a temporary deficit. What we are concerned about are permanent structural deficits, deficits that grow beyond our possible ability to repay the debt, deficits that strangle economic growth, that prevent us from building a stronger country for our kids and grandkids. We are worried about deficits that hurt the middle class, because as my friend from Arkansas mentioned, there is a $28,000 per citizen tax on everyone in America, man, woman or child. That is a lot of money to be born owing the country before you even have a chance to grow up or earn a living. But I know there are some folks out there who are watching us, and they are saying, well, the Blue Dogs, they are only mentioning absolute deficit dollars. They are not putting it in perspective with gross domestic product. I would agree that is a percent of GDP; we should look at it that way too. You can say, well, this is not a percent of GDP, the largest or even the fourth largest deficit in American history. But I brought along a document tonight that I hope everyone in the country will pay attention to. I first saw it when it was in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago. It is a document not from the Republican Party or the Democratic Party or anybody connected with politics. It is a document from one of the Nation's leading business organizations called Standard & Poor's. Now, they are a Wall Street outfit, but they are supposed to be the neutral judges of all the debt from all the corporations, and all the debt from all the countries, and all the debt from all the States and cities and towns in America and around the world, S&P, it is called, Standard & Poor's. Well, they issued this document on June 6, 2006. To read this document, you wouldn't dream that any President of the United States could have a press conference a few weeks later championing good news. Because what Standard & Poor's says about America is this, it says that we are in such bad fiscal shape, and getting worse every year, that by the year 2012, which isn't that far away, it is just 5 or 6 years away, that America will lose its AAA credit rating for the first time in our modern history. Now, American Treasury bonds, bills and notes are considered basically the gold standard of all debt instruments on the planet. If you need to put your money in a safe and secure place and you want it to earn interest, Treasury bonds are safer than putting it in any bank as a deposit or putting it anywhere else, because they are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government. There is no sounder financial instrument than the U.S. Treasury bond, and we should be proud of that. But what Standard & Poor's is saying, as a result of the deficits my friend from Arkansas is talking about, in just 5 or 6 years, we will lose our AAA credit rating. Now that is not just like getting, say, an A minus instead of an A in class. What it means is higher interest payments. It means that every time that America borrows money in the future, possibly forever, we will have to pay more for it. Because the good part about being a solid credit risk is that you pay the lowest possible rate of interest. You are able to borrow money cheap. But by losing our AAA credit rating, our interest rates are going up. There is another bad part to this S&P report. Again, this is not a political report; this is from one of America's leading business organizations. It says that by the year 2020, which isn't that far away either, that our Treasury bonds will basically be junk bonds, or what they call below investment grade. Now, that is such a far cry from our current AAA rating, the rating that U.S. bonds have had for all of modern American history; it is a literal tragedy to see America go from AAA ratings down to junk bond ratings in just a few short years as a result of the work of one administration, the current administration. Because even though the current administration will be out of office in 2008, the impact of their fiscal policies stretches for decades beyond their time in office. That is why this S&P report is so significant. They state carefully that it is not a prediction. They are hoping, and I suppose praying, that America will change course drastically from what we have seen from the current Republican administration. But they do say that although it is not a prediction, it is a simulation of what will happen if we don't change course. So it is a lot like that famous old ship, the Titanic. When they saw the iceberg in the distance, did they change course? No, they hit it head on. Well, America still has a few short months and years to change course before we hit the iceberg that literally destroys America's credit rating and forces us to borrow money at much higher rates of interest, possibly for the rest of American history. That is permanent structural damage to our economy. Permanent structural deficits caused that damage that hurt the outlook for our kids and grandkids. So I hope that people will go to the Internet, check out the Standard & Poor's Web site, look for this publication dated June 5, 2006, and check it out for yourself. Some of it is written in fairly technical business language. You will see that a number of nations face the problem that we do in America of an aging population. Some nations face it more severely than we do. But we are in such a fundamental imbalance that it is important to note that one of the primary causes for that imbalance is actually the crowning achievement of the Bush administration domestic policy. They cite specifically the U.S. position has worsened since 2003 because of the new drug benefit added to Medicare, which increases estimated health care costs by nearly 2 percent of GDP annually by 2050 and accounts for one-quarter of the rise in spending on the elderly. Now, we all want seniors to have medicine. Medicine needs to be affordable. But the Wall Street Journal pointed out in their editorial that in the Bush legislation that Congress passed and was signed into law that only $1 out of $16 by that bill would only actually buy medicine, only $1 out of every 16 would go for its intended purpose.

Mr. COOPER. Today's news revealed that that bait-and-switch provision that was in the Medicare drug bill would add $2 billion in additional profits to our drug companies this year. Two billion, billion with a B as in boy, and that is all as a result of this sleight of hand that was engineered in part by the committee chairman who left public service to go almost immediately to represent special interests, and not just any special interests but the very drug manufacturers for whom he had just passed legislation. Think of $2 billion extra profits in one year as a result of this technical switch with a lot of seniors from Medicaid to Medicare, from a program that could negotiate for lower prices to a program that cannot, by law, negotiate for better prices. It is outrageous, and some of the money in that horribly expensive bill has gone not to help seniors get more affordable medicine but to line the pockets of major drug companies. We are all thankful for the life-saving discoveries they make. We are thankful for the research and development, but I am less thankful for the advertisement and TV ads where things like that are not helping create new medicines. They are more trying to make money off people's illnesses, and there has got be a better way. We live in the greatest country on Earth in the history of the world, and there has got to be a better way to do is this so we can live within our means, so we can treat everybody fairly, so we can build a stronger middle class, so we can be strong so we can be the world's only superpower. We are not living up to that potential today.

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, we are, like all Americans, acutely aware of the terrible tragedy that happened on September 11, 2001. That changed the world, but we should not make the mistake of thinking that it gave us all these deficits because that claim, that belief would not be true. It hurt our economy temporarily, but we were already pulling out of a shallow recession, and we have not been in a recession since. So you cannot blame our overall economic condition for that. What it is the result of, and again, do not take our word for it, read the reports from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative foundation think tank here in Washington; read the reports of the CATO Institute, a libertarian organization, and they will tell you, they will demonstrate to you that the Bush administration is the biggest- spending administration since at least Lyndon Baines Johnson and probably even way before LBJ. It has nothing to do with defense or homeland security, budget needs that are really set more by our enemies than by ourselves. It has everything to do with a wasteful and mismanaged and sometimes incompetent government like we saw in Hurricane Katrina relief. That is a waste of taxpayer money. That is a shame for everyone because no one wants to pay more taxes. We are not for more taxes. We want every tax dollar to be spent wisely so the taxpayers think their government is on their side instead of working against them, but we really have not been seeing that and especially with these deficits. Adding these taxes to our kids and grandkids, a tax that can never be repealed, a debt tax as the gentleman so ably described it a while ago, is limiting our growth in future years. It is crippling America's future potential. As I showed with this S&P report, it is destroying America's credit rating, and yet the administration holds triumphant press conferences as if they are announcing good news. A lot of folks think maybe we have been cured, but the cancer is still there, and we have got to get at that cancer.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, what does it mean to be a hero today? We each have our own ideas about what act of bravery earns a man or woman that very special privilege--the honor to be called a hero, to be saluted by friends and neighbors and strangers alike for doing something extraordinary that, at that moment in time, just seemed like the right thing to do. Today, I am honored to stand before you here, on the floor of the House of the Representatives, to tell you and all of America about someone I consider a true hero. This young man has inspired me and so many others around the world who have heard his story of courage and patriotism. On August 13th, 2005, Specialist Kevin Downs of Kingston Springs, Tennessee was traveling in a Humvee near the city of Tuz in northeastern Iraq with three other members of the 278th Armored Calvary Regiment. The Humvee was struck by four explosive devices. Kevin was blown 60 feet. He lost both legs, his arm was broken, he was severely burned over 60 percent of his body, including bums to his eyes, throat and lungs. He was 20 years old and had been in Iraq eight months. Specialist Downs was the only survivor of the IED attack that day. His three friends, crewmates and fellow Tennesseans were killed that day: 22-year-old Gary Lee Reese of Ashland City, 35-year-old Staff Sgt. Asbury ``Fred'' Hawn, Jr of Lebanon and 30-year-old Shannon D. Taylor of Smithville. Specialist Downs was first evacuated to a hospital in Germany where his injuries were stabilized. As his father Joe told friends and reporters at the time: ``The young man is fighting and battling, and he's going to make it.'' Joe and Catherine Downs remained at his bedside during his time in the ICU in Germany. As soon as possible, Kevin was transferred to a burn unit at the Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. But the challenges were far from over. Since his injuries almost one year ago, Kevin has endured more surgeries than his family can even count--two in the last ten days. He is able to get around using a wheelchair today, his father reports. And he is learning to maneuver using his prosthesis. His father adds that any time he and Catherine fall into the habit of saying they'll do something for him, Kevin politely but firmly refuses saying, no, he wants to do it for himself. Kevin's determination and positive outlook have touched the hearts of so many. Thanks to local news coverage of his challenges, Kevin has received thousands of letters of support from folks around the world. His resolve and bravery as he faces the latest surgeries and treatment have made him a true hero to all of us in Tennessee. We had all hoped Kevin would be able to join us this July 4th for the annual Independence Day Parade in Pegram. He's doing great, his family reports, but it looks like his treatment is going to keep him in Texas just a little longer. But Kevin is going to be the Grand Marshall of the parade anyway. His parents will be there in his place on the 4th-- and we all look forward to the day when we get to welcome Kevin back home to Tennessee and have the chance to thank him personally for his service to our country and congratulate him on his recent promotion to sergeant.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, in the vain hope that there still is an undecided Member of this body, I think it is important that we look at the facts. I would encourage my colleagues to oppose both the rule on the line item veto and on the estate tax. Why? I am afraid people watching this debate are seeing Congress at a historical low point. On the estate tax, if you read the editorial in today's Wall Street Journal, the Wall Street Journal is claiming that King Bill Thomas' proposal is hardly an improvement over current law. Hardly an improvement over current law. So if you are for repeal, you better check with King Bill Thomas, because he has been given near royal powers by this House. Members of the vaunted Ways and Means Committee were denied an opportunity to even meet and discuss this legislation. So no one really knows what is in it, except perhaps King Bill Thomas. What an outrage. This is supposed to be a deliberative body, but because of this rule, the Pomeroy substitute was not allowed to be considered. What is King Bill Thomas afraid of? A debate? A discussion in the House of Representatives? This is a shameful moment in our history. But now turning to the rule on the line item veto, Mr. Spratt was denied an opportunity to offer a substitute. What is the Budget Committee afraid of? A debate? A discussion? The possibility we actually might know what we are voting on in this rubber-stamp Congress? Now, I am not a hard-core partisan. While I oppose repeal of the estate tax, I am planning on voting for the line item veto. I would suggest to my colleagues who care about budget deficits that that is the appropriate and consistent approach. But look at the line item veto. The only thing that that bill will do is deprive President Bush of his last excuse for accepting all congressional spending bills. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle know that this is the biggest spending domestic President since LBJ; in fact, probably exceeding even the Great Society spender himself. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle know that earmarks have proliferated. They are now up to some $50 billion a year. And what has the President done about it? He is the first President since Thomas Jefferson to never use his constitutional veto power, that chainsaw for cutting spending. President Bush has never touched it. There is a lesser power, more like a scissors cutting power, that President Bush has. Every President since Richard Nixon has had that power, and President Bush has never used that power. So what is he asking for here? Now it is called line item veto, but it is not really. That is a lie. Properly titled, the bill is expedited rescission. Why? Because line item veto is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court decided that in 1998. So all this bill is is a pair of sharpened scissors for the President, who has never used his regular scissors. Well, I for one hope he will use those sharpened scissors. How are they sharper? Well, it does require that Congress actually vote. We can't blow off the President by delaying indefinitely a vote on his recommended cuts. And that is a small improvement. But you are telling me, with the Republican tyranny that we have today, Republicans in charge of all branches of government, that President Bush couldn't have forced a vote on his suggested cuts if he had dared bring them up in the last 6 years of his Presidency? Certainly the President could have gotten a vote on it, but he has not dared ask. This is the most feckless, cowardly administration in terms of cutting spending that we have witnessed in American history.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, today I commemorate the sesquicentennial anniversary of Cheatham County, Tennessee. May 5, 2006 marked the official 150th anniversary of the county, and this week, with Ashland City Summerfest and Redd Stewart Homecoming Days, Cheatham County residents will take part in the culmination of a year's sesquicentennial celebrations. Cheatham County was founded on February 28, 1856 when the Tennessee General Assembly designated the 50 acres of land to the west of Nashville and north of the Cumberland River as Cheatham County. It was named after Speaker of the State Senate, Edward Saunders Cheatham. Ashland City was established as the county seat. After the sale of the first town lots, the county was able to build its first courthouse and jail on the public square, where they stand today. Cheatham County is the third fastest growing county in the State; today more than 38,000 people call it home. It is also a center of commercial and industrial growth with A.O. Smith Water Products, Triton Boats and Trinity Marine as the county's top three industrial employers. While agricultural production has declined in recent times, many Cheatham County farmers remain major contributors in the beef and tobacco sectors. Despite all the growth and industry, Cheatham County's beautiful rolling green hills are preserved in the Cheatham Wildlife Management Area, a 21,000 acre game reserve for hunting and fishing. One of Cheatham County's most notable citizens was the late Redd Stewart, a singer and songwriter who wrote our state song, the ``Tennessee Waltz.'' This week, the events of Redd Stewart Homecoming Days will pay tribute to the musician with two days of free bluegrass concerts. In addition, Cheatham County residents will commemorate the sesquicentennial anniversary at Summerfest in Ashland City. We'll get together at Riverbluff Park on the Cumberland River to share good times as our Cheatham County founders did: eating home-cooked food, playing games and dancing to old time bluegrass music. I am proud to honor all the generations of Cheatham County families who have contributed so much to this special place. I join with everyone in Tennessee's Fifth District in commemorating Cheatham County's 150th anniversary, and I commend County Mayor Bill Orange and today's residents for ensuring that Cheatham County remains a community where folks can live, work and raise future generations of great Tennesseans.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I have the privilege of working closely with our troops, the best fighting force the world has ever known. And I am proud to support this resolution, because if people will just sit down and read it calmly, you will see that it expresses the strong support for our troops and for victory. Now, it is being used here today as some sort of political Rorschach test. I regret that, because the great leaders in American history have used our times of war to unite our country instead of divide our country. Mr. Speaker, our troops are probably wondering why we are debating the Iraq war now 3 years after the beginning of that conflict. We should have had a good debate at the start of the war. I was not serving in Congress then. But it has gone down in history as one of the worst debates in American history. There are many other flaws in the process. But today all Members of this body support our troops. All Members of this body support our troops. Democrat, Republican, Independent, you name it, we support our troops. Now we should all question how the war is being run because that is our patriotic duty. I for one trust our military. I wish our Republican friends trusted our military before, because few times in American history has military wisdom been overridden as with this administration.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight as a Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee to try to place the upcoming debate we will have tomorrow on the Iraqi war resolution into context. It is very important that people realize that we do not get to vote on general ideas here in Congress. We get to vote on specific pieces of legislation. The case tomorrow will be H. Res. 861. I encourage not only our colleagues here, but folks across America, to look this up on the Internet and see what you think of it. My guess is, and while there are many varied opinions on this controversial war, my guess is that when you actually read the resolution, you will find that there is remarkably little in it that is controversial. Now, you know that resolutions are primarily composed of whereas clauses, which have really no effect, and then there are a few resolved clauses. In this resolution, you will find that there are only seven resolved clauses. Let me read them to you. They say, resolved that the House of Representatives one, honors all those Americans who have taken an active part in the global war on terror, whether as first responders protecting the homeland, as service Members overseas, as diplomats and intelligence officers or in other roles. That, to me, is uncontroversial. We must praise our troops. Point two, we honor the sacrifices of the United States Armed Forces and of the partners in the coalition and of the Iraqis and Afghans who fought alongside them, especially those who have fallen or have been wounded in the struggle, and we honor as well the sacrifice of their families and of others who risked their lives to help defend freedom. Who is against that? Point three, we declare that it is not in the national security interest of the United States to set an arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment of U.S. Armed Forces from Iraq. Now, while that point can be controversial among some individuals, no Member of this House wants to do anything to give our terrorist foes an advantage. So it is very important that we realize that even this point, number three, I think, if seen in the proper light, is pretty uncontroversial. Point four, we declare that the United States is committed to the completion of the mission to create a sovereign, free, secure and united Iraq. That to me means that Iraq will no longer be a haven of terrorists. It will no longer be a play thing for a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein. So that to me is another point that should be uncontroversial. Point five, we congratulate Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi people on the courage they have shown by participating and increasing millions in the elections of 2005 and on the formation of the first government under Iraq's new constitution. I think all Americans were impressed to see some 70 percent of the eligible Iraqi population braving gunfire, braving bullets in order to go vote. I wish we had that level of participation in our own country. Point six, the resolution calls on the nations of the world to promote global peace and security by standing with the United States and other coalition partners to support the efforts of the Iraqi and Afghan people to live in freedom. Who is against that? Finally, point seven, we declare that the United States will prevail in the global war on terror, the noble struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary. This is a resolution we will debate for some 10 hours tomorrow. I think when you get down to it, there is really very little that is controversial about it. But the context is somewhat controversial, because under the rules of debate tomorrow we will not be allowed to amend or change this document in any way. We will be required to accept it as if it were perfect. Every American has suggestions for change. There are many ways, countless ways that this document could be made better, but we will not be allowed to consider any of those, because under the procedures laid down by the Republican majority they do not want to hear any alteration to this document. That is one flaw in the debate we will have tomorrow. Another is that this is really not a debate about how best to win the war on terrorism. This is more of a public relations campaign 3 years into a very controversial war designed to try to make the administration look better. I am not against any administration trying to improve its public image. But for the safety of our troops, this debate is 3 or 4 years late. I had the privilege of serving in this House during the first Iraq war, and that debate went down in history under the first President Bush as one of the best debates in modern American history. But that was under the first President Bush. That first conflict, which followed the rules of the Powell Doctrine of defending an explicit American interest of going in with overwhelming force and having a clear exit strategy, sadly, in this conflict, the Powell Doctrine was not followed, even though General Powell was second as Secretary of State of the George W. Bush administration during the onset of this war. That is another clear difference from the Iraqi war of the past and another clear flaw in this debate that this resolution will be debated several years late. In a sense this is going to be a debate that is unworthy of our troops, because some 2,500 Americans have already died, almost 20,000 are casualties. Now, the House of Representatives is getting around to having a debate on the war in Iraq, a debate that allows no amendment, no change. We have to accept this as if it were perfect. There is another lesson that we should take into account, because you know that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. I almost wish we could repeat the experience in the first Iraq war, because under the first President Bush he was so persuasive with a broad coalition of partners around the world that of the $60- to $80 billion cost of that war, the American taxpayer only had to pay for about $2- to $4 billion, $2- to $4 billion, the total cost of the first Iraq war to the American taxpayer. Why? Because our allies were so eager to bear the burden of cost of the war, the first Iraq war. Now, of course, we are involved in a conflict which has already cost a minimum of $350 billion, but according to other estimates, more likely $450 billion, and it looks as if it is headed towards $1 trillion, and almost all of that burden is put on the backs of the American taxpayer. Allied contributions verge on the negligible. You may remember that Jim Baker, former Secretary of State, former Secretary of Treasury, was sent around the world to collect contributions from allies. Well, where is the money? Show me the money? Our allies have put up a few billion dollars, but the American taxpayer has been required to shoulder the burden of this war. Of course, running massive budget deficits, as the George W. Bush administration has been doing, effectively we have been borrowing much of the cost of the war from foreign nations. Increasingly Nations like China, increasingly Nations that are oil rich like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Nations like that are seeking to reinvest petro dollars. I ask, Mr. Speaker, does that make America stronger when we are increasingly dependent on foreign lenders, many of which are not our allies but may, in fact, be adversary? Does that make us a stronger, better Nation? Mr. Speaker, in the first Iraq War we were very careful not to damage the American military. Our troops went in for a limited purpose, with an overwhelming number, and exited in a very safe and prompt fashion. That is not the policy today, even though President George W. Bush is the son of the first President Bush. So, all of these changes should worry us, especially those men and women in uniform, because I am an advocate of letting the military be the military. We have never had a finer fighting force than the one we have today. It is an all-volunteer force. Our men and women in uniform are terrifically capable. It is incredible the challenges that they have met and overcome, oftentimes without the help of their superiors, because especially their civilian superiors in this war consistently underestimated the threat that our troops faced. When our troops first went in, they were told that they might face a few Baathists dead-enders, and of course, our civilian leaders disbanded the Iraqi military, created all sorts of extra problems for our troops. We could not even control looting in Baghdad, the major city in Iraq. So, soon, disorder prevailed, and pretty soon we were on the verge of an insurgency that our civilian leadership in the Pentagon was claiming it was really not much of a problem. Victory was always around the corner. The President appeared on an aircraft carrier and declared that the mission was accomplished. Well, that was, at best, premature. Now we are hoping and praying the Nation of Iraq is not on the verge of civil war, and let us not forget Afghanistan, where we have a smaller troop commitment that is still a vital one, and as the NATO forces try to take over from our men and women in uniform, we should be very much concerned because the Taliban seems to be on the rise. General Barry McCaffrey just returned from Afghanistan and briefed us last week and said that the Taliban fighters were better equipped than the NATO forces, better equipped, in some cases, than the American forces. Well, where is the Taliban getting all its money? Probably from the drug trade because Afghanistan, as most observers are aware, has once again become one of the leading drug exporting countries in the world. Their poppy production has exploded. We have done very little, if anything, about it, and that is financing not only the Taliban but other forms of illicit terrorist behavior, not only in that country but around the world. So, Mr. Speaker, this debate comes to us in a tough context. It makes it hard for men and women of goodwill to focus on the text of this resolution, as praiseworthy as it is. It also makes it difficult for some Members to acknowledge with a joyful heart the good news that we have received recently in Iraq. All Americans should be pleased that we have caught and killed Zarqawi, one of the most notorious terrorists in the history of the world, a man who reveled in beheadings of innocent people, who killed fellow Muslims with abandon, all to promote his warped ideology, his non-Islamic ideology. Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege of being in Baghdad the day that we caught Saddam Hussein. That was a high point in the war in Iraq. That was a moment at which our troops were filled with hope and anticipation that the conflict would not last for many, many years. That the Baathist dead-enders and other Saddam supporters would quickly turn toward more peaceful pursuits. But sadly, as we know now, we were not ready for what came afterwards. We were not prepared for a franchising or spreading of the terrorist threat. Some people view it as a nationalist threat. Perhaps it is a tribal threat. There certainly are serious divisions between the Kurds, Sunnis and the Shiias, but we should be prepared this time for whatever follows the capture and death of Zarqawi because there are many other enemies in that country who would love to exploit any weakness that they see in the American forces. Mr. Speaker, I could go on. I see that my colleague from the Intelligence Committee has joined us here tonight, and I do not want to rush him into this, but I welcome Mr. Ruppersberger's participation in this debate. He is an outstanding Member of this body and of the Intelligence Committee which is, of course, privy to our Nation's deepest secrets. So he bears that position with distinction and honor, and I welcome Mr. Ruppersberger to comment at this point. (Mr. RUPPERSBERGER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for his great contribution to the debate, and his proposal is just one of the many ideas that could and should be considered by the House of Representatives. This is a deliberative body. The debate tomorrow will allow us to focus on only one proposal that was drafted in a secretive, partisan fashion that does not allow ideas like Mr. Ruppersberger's to be considered. I think if you look at the debate, you will find that the folks who are most short-changed in it are probably our own troops. I mentioned earlier that the debate will not be worthy of them because the debate is occurring some 3 years late, after 2,500 of them have already been killed in service to our country and another 20,000 wounded, many of them grievously. We should have focused on this earlier. I was not in Congress when the decision was made to go into this Iraqi conflict, although I was here for the vote on the earlier one, and I think it is important that we hear the voice of our troops and of our military commanders. In many ways, these are the voices that have not been heard because, in many cases, they have been drowned out by the civilian leadership in the Pentagon. That civilian leadership, particularly the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld, and the former Under Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, have systematically disregarded military advice. Not only did these two gentlemen consistently underestimate the threat, oftentimes, as General Schwarzkopf, the great commander of the first Iraqi war pointed out, they seem to be enjoying their jobs too much. War is serious business, and I think it is time that we hear or at least read the comments of several of our Nation's top generals right now and see their reaction to Mr. Rumsfeld. At the top of this poster you see Lieutenant General Greg Newbold say that ``What we are living now is the consequence of successive policy failures.'' Mr. Newbold was top Operations Officer of the Joint Staff, Commanding General of the 1st Marine Division, a recipient of the Legion of Merit, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals. Look at the comment from Major General Paul Eaton. ``Two-and-a-half more years of that leadership was too long for my Nation and too long for my army and for my family.'' General Eaton led the initial effort to create an Iraqi army. He was Commander of the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team, Commanding General of the Army Infantry School. Look at the comment from Lieutenant General John Riggs. ``They only need the military advice when it satisfies their agenda. Well, that is not paying proper respect to the professionalism and the valor of our military. When you ignore military advice or use it for your own political purposes, it is betraying the military.'' General Riggs was the Director, Objective Task Force, Commanding General of the 1st U.S. Army, and served six tours overseas. General Wesley Clark said, ``They pressed for open warfare before diplomacy was finished. It was a tragic mistake. It was a strategic blunder.'' Look at the comments from additional generals. Major General John Batiste. ``Rumsfeld and his team turned what should have been a deliberate victory in Iraq into a prolonged challenge.'' He was the commander of the 1st Division in Iraq, the Chief Military Aid to Paul Wolfowitz and a Brigade Commander in Bosnia. Look at this comment from General Anthony Zinni. ``Rumsfeld has committed acts of gross negligence and incompetence.'' General Zinni is a former CENTCOM commander. That is the regional command there. One of the most experienced men in the region, and a man whose advice was systematically disregarded by this administration. General Zinni was the recipient of the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, and other distinguished awards, including the Distinguished Service Medal. I happened to visit General Swannack when I was on my first visit to Iraq. He is the former Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq. We met in Ramadi, one of the tough towns in the Sunni Triangle. Listen to what General Swannack has to say. ``I do not believe Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person to fight that war based on his absolute failures in managing the war against Saddam in Iraq.'' That is a vote of no confidence from one of Secretary Rumsfeld's top commanders. Look at this comment from Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper. ``If I was the President, I would have relieved him from duty 3 years ago.'' General Van Riper is the first President of the Marine Corps University, wounded in action in Vietnam, and a Silver Star recipient and other awards. You know, Secretary Rumsfeld makes no secret of the fact that he has offered to resign twice and the President has not accepted his resignation. Well, I am proud of Secretary Rumsfeld for having offered to resign, because certainly great blunders have been made. But he has been very reluctant to admit any of those publicly. Perhaps he admitted them to the President. It is important to realize that Secretary Rumsfeld knew early on in this conflict that he was not really prepared for the job. In a famous leaked October 2003 memo Secretary Rumsfeld himself said something along these lines, that ``He did not have the metrics to understand whether we were winning or losing the war against terrorism,'' but he did know that we were losing the cost-benefit equation; that the terrorists were effectively being able to use $80 IEDs to blow up $2 million tanks and take the lives not only of Americans but of surrounding Iraqis. So this is an amazing moment. Here we are 3 years later. I have asked Secretary Rumsfeld periodically in hearings something along the lines of every 2 or 3 months, ``Mr. Secretary, in October of 2003, after the war had begun, you said you did not have the metrics to understand whether we were winning or losing the war on terrorism. Do you have those metrics today?'' Well, I haven't ever heard a good answer to that question. So I trust our military leaders. I trust our men and women in uniform at all ranks, because so often today in this conflict the folks who have the most combat experience are not the generals in the Pentagon, they are the colonels, the majors, the captains, the lieutenants, the sergeants, and the privates in the field. And with the advent of advanced military communications, in some cases the plain old Internet, there has been a lot of contact and communication between those officers and enlisted men to find out the best techniques, the best way to pacify a town, the best way to engage in nation-building and get the infrastructure up and going again, the best way to use commander emergency funds, to help employ Iraqis and get the water turned on, get the electricity working, and things like that. But it has been a surprisingly ad hoc effort. We are the greatest nation on earth. We are the greatest nation in the history of the world. And one of the primary reasons for that is the brilliance and the dedication of our troops. We have a fighting force like the world has never seen before. It is the most forceful group of warriors, the most humane group of warriors, and the most ethical group of warriors ever. And we should appreciate that. We should be grateful for that, because we would not be able to take a breath of freedom without their vigilance for our country. Too many of us forget that our men and women in uniform are posted in 120 nations around the world every day and every night on lookout to protect our freedom. I repeat, 120 nations around the world. Most Americans, even with an atlas, could not even name those nations. Not only are our soldiers making a terrific sacrifice for us, their families are, their loved ones back home, and we should never, never let a day go by without praying for them and showing our deepest heartfelt appreciation for their sacrifice. I wish our leaders in the Pentagon would listen to them more, because our men and women in uniform on the front lines of freedom know more about the terrorist adversary than the folks in the Pentagon and know more about tactics and procedures for best dealing with the terrorists. And if as my friend Mr. Ruppersberger said, his proposal for perimeter defense makes sense to those military leaders, then I would hope our civilian leaders in the Pentagon would listen as well. We have had a lot of controversy because early on in the Iraq war many of our top military leaders said we needed far more troops to go in and work with the Iraqis in order to preserve security so that the nation could be rebuilt. General Shinseki, Eric Shinseki, was probably the leading proponent of that approach. In a Senate hearing he was asked how many troops it would take, and he said a couple hundred thousand. He was retired early for having told the truth, and no leader in the Pentagon attended his retirement ceremony; a clear snub in military culture. You didn't see General Shinseki's name on this chart because he has been too tight-lipped to really blast the folks who mistreated him in such a grievous fashion, and mistreated him for what? For having told the truth. For having admitted publicly that it would take a couple hundred thousand troops to do the job right. Mr. Speaker, a lot of Americans don't realize that not only do we have troops posted in 120 nations around the world right now, but our troops are under great stress. In military terms, they call it OPTEMPO. Our troops have the highest OPTEMPO now than our troops have had since World War II. That means greater stress than during Vietnam and greater stress than during Korea. Our troops are stretched pretty thin right now. Most Americans don't realize that just a short while ago in Iraq, when Tennessee's own 278th Guard unit was there in Iraq, in country, that half or more of the active duty troops in the country were in fact National Guardsmen, what some people view as weekend warriors. These men and women from back home, who are not full-time active-duty soldiers, were called up for tours of duty for 6 months, a year, or more to serve their country in the sandy desert, tough climate, of Iraq. They went willingly, without carping, to serve our Nation. I am from the Volunteer State, Mr. Speaker. We earned that reputation in many of our Nation's conflicts because when duty called, our men and women back home didn't have to be asked twice to serve. They took their rifle, their horse, whatever they had with them and volunteered for duty. That spirit survives today. It also survives in the independence of Specialist Wilson, who asked Secretary Rumsfeld that famous question in Iraq about why National Guardsmen had to go scrounging around in garbage dumps to find metal to attach to the Humvees in order to try to protect themselves driving down Iraqi highways. Secretary Rumsfeld, you will recall, was somewhat startled by that question. But Specialist Wilson, a Tennessee guardsman, got more reaction from Secretary Rumsfeld, got more response in terms of really armoring our Humvees and other vehicles in Iraq than the House Armed Services Committee was able to accomplish. So I am proud of Specialist Wilson's courage, not only in serving his country but in speaking truth to power. Secretary Rumsfeld clearly didn't like to hear what he was saying, but it finally got our military industrial complex working a little harder to up-armor our Humvees, to provide the bullet-proofed vests, and other things that our troops lacked for so, so many months and years in the Iraqi conflict. Why? Because our civilian leadership persistently underestimated the threat. So all I would ask, Mr. Speaker, is that the upcoming debate tomorrow, the 10 hours, be conducted in a civil fashion, bearing in mind the relatively innocuous text that has been put before us; bearing in mind that the Republican leadership must feel insecure. Even though they command an absolute majority in this House, even though they command the Senate as well, and even though they control the White House, they must feel so insecure that they would not allow any amendment to this resolution. The context, Mr. Speaker, is that we face a heavily divided country on this issue. The House gave this war such a cursory debate when it was undertaken that most Americans were unprepared, as in fact the civilian leadership of the Pentagon was unprepared, for the length, the duration, the toughness, and the cost of the conflict. Now there were many people in our government who knew better. Secretary Colin Powell was one, the four-star general who commanded our troops in the first Iraq war, but he was plainly not listened to. Many other experts in government, experts in nation-building, knew this would be a tough and long struggle. But the Vice President, Mr. Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld and others insisted on, created several illusions: One, that we would be greeted as liberators, toasted, greeted with flowers, and that Iraqi oil revenues would somehow pay for the conflict. Well, that plainly did not happen. Now we are faced with a situation where we are indeed proud of the bravery and valor of our troops, but the administration is still unwilling to pay their bills. Until very recently, there was no money in the regular budget to pay for the war in Iraq. It was always an emergency supplemental. Everything was unexpected. Now, finally, the administration seems to be getting a little more realistic and they are at least willing to call it, as Secretary Rumsfeld said, the long hard slog or the long, long war. We can get through this. We have overcome all of our adversities in the past. We are the greatest Nation on Earth and the greatest Nation in the history of the world; but we owe that greatness in large measure to our troops, the men and women in uniform, and not too much to our civilian leadership in Washington. In many cases they have not acted in a way to honor our troops. One of the best ways to honor our troops is to listen to their good advice. In so many cases our military leaders asked for more troops and those troops were not supplied. Read the book ``Cobra II'' by General Bernard Trainor. He is another general whose name is not listed on this list but whose advice is very crucial and whose history of the Iraq war is a very timely reminder of what really happened, not only in the early months of the war but later on. It is a truly shocking book that all Americans should read so we never repeat these mistakes again. So that we go into future conflicts better aware of the dangers and better prepared, and so the American people are fully informed in advance so they are not shocked by things, for example, that General Colin Powell knew all along. Mr. Speaker, it is going to be an interesting debate tomorrow. Ten hours on a largely innocuous resolution. This will probably be used as part of the public relations initiative that we are seeing now. I found the President's trip to Iraq very interesting. I think he stayed a full 5 hours. I hope he learned a lot, because it takes 15 hours to fly over there and 15 hours to fly back, and to stay only 5 hours is not a great learning opportunity. I hope, too, we will have fuller bipartisan communication. When the President first announced that he was going to speak to the new Iraqi Cabinet by teleconference from Camp David, I thought, that's good. Maybe he can speak to House and Senate leadership the same way, maybe even in person, because there are so few opportunities for that interaction, even though we work at different ends of the same street, Pennsylvania Avenue. Mr. Speaker, we will get through this conflict. We will bring our troops home safely. Nobody knows exactly when yet, but we must stabilize that tough region of the world. We must bring hope to so many people who have been oppressed, especially Muslim women and religious minorities and people who yearn for freedom. We can and will overcome. We welcome the good news that we have received recently. We want more good news. I think it will come, but there will be bad patches as well. As we face the debate tomorrow, I think it is important for all Americans to read the text first before they have a strong reaction to it one way or the other, so they can read and see whether the whereas and resolved clauses are offensive, or whether they find them as I do, largely praise for two central objectives that I think all Americans can agree with: praise for our troops and praise for the valor of the Iraqi people. We will prevail in this conflict, Mr. Speaker. It is not easy to mark out today a path to victory, but I trust our men and women in uniform. I trust our troops on the ground and our military experts, not our civilian experts, to get us through this because we have the finest fighting force in the history of the world and that will keep America strong.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Missouri, for yielding. This is a very, very important subject. We, the members of the House Armed Services Committee, support our troops and we are for victory in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the global war on terror. We welcome the recent good news. We are glad that they took out Zarqawi. But there is more work to be done. I also serve on the House Committee on the Budget. I am particularly interested that we pay for this war, that we do not borrow the money to support our troops from China and Iran and nations like that because those nations are increasingly large creditors of our country at a crucial time when we do face a global war on terror. And where are we getting so much of this money to fund this war? From foreign nations. Where are the war bonds for this war? Where are we borrowing from our own people to pay for this war? What are we paying with for our troops? It is simply not being done by this administration. But I am joined tonight by two outstanding military veterans who are also members of the House Armed Services Committee. First to speak is the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Solomon Ortiz, who has got terrific experience not only in the military but in preparing our troops for war.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the outstanding achievements of one of Nashville's most respected music professionals, Buddy Cannon. Just two nights ago, Buddy was named by his peers as the Producer of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas. Buddy has worked with a long-list of chart-topping recording artists during his years in Nashville. Kenny Chesney, Chely Wright, Reba McEntire, John Michael Montgomery, Sara Evans and George Jones have all benefited from his work as a producer. In addition, he helped launch the careers of stars such as Shania Twain, Sammy Kershaw and Billy Ray Cyrus while a recording company executive. While his award this week honors him for his work as a producer, he is also well known and celebrated as a songwriter with songs recorded by artists from Mel Tillis to Alabama, George Strait and Vern Gosdin. According to those who have worked with Buddy, his gifts extend beyond the world of music. Buddy is known throughout the music community for his generous spirit and his willingness to spend time with young artists who are still in search of their own sound. Kenny Chesney, honored by the ACM as Entertainer of the Year, said recently that ``Back before I even had a record deal, Buddy was writing songs with me at Acuff-Rose and he gave me a lot of respect as someone trying to find their way, and he taught me a lot about respecting songs--even before he was part of my team.'' Buddy Cannon's passion for music and respect for musicians is well known in Nashville and the music world. I join with so many others in congratulating Buddy on his latest achievement--being named Producer of the Year. But I also join with so many others in thanking Buddy for his many important contributions to the global music community and to my hometown of Nashville.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Robert Yazzie, a remarkable American who served his Nation with great courage and honor as a code talker during World War II. We lost a great Tennessean, veteran and patriot when Mr. Yazzie passed away on Memorial Day--Monday, May 31, 2006--at the age of 81. Robert H. Yazzie was born on June 1, 1924 in Arizona and grew up in an Episcopal orphanage on a Navajo Indian reservation. At the age of 17, he enlisted in the Marines to serve as a code talker in World War II. Yazzie and the other code talkers developed a code based on their native language for military communications in battles with Japan. They used the code in telephone and radio messages to transmit commands, tactics and troop movements. The Navajo code was used in every Marine assault in the Pacific and played a large role in the U.S. victories at Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and other major battles in the Pacific between 1942 and 1945. It was never once decoded by the Japanese. After the war, Mr. Yazzie was discharged as a Private First Class in 1945. He married Carrie A. Yazzie of Gainsboro, TN and moved to Nashville in the early 1950's. He raised a family while earning an honest living as a welder. Mr. Yazzie battled diabetes for the last 35 years of his life and suffered heart problems and a blood infection. He passed away peacefully at his home in Madison, TN. Mr. Yazzie was always very humble about his contributions to the war effort, ``We just sent messages,'' he said in 2003. ``We were sending codes on the radio, and we would just talk on the radio using my language.'' Because the code talkers were considered such valuable assets to the military after the war, they never received public recognition for their contributions in the Pacific. Finally, in 1992, Mr. Yazzie was among 35 Navajo code talkers to receive official recognition for their service from the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C. In addition, I had the great honor of awarding Mr. Yazzie a Congressional Silver Medal for Distinguished Service at a special ceremony in Nashville on July 4, 2003. I am proud to salute the remarkable life and contributions of Mr. Robert Yazzie and his legacy of courage and patriotism that will live on. On behalf of the Fifth District of Tennessee, I offer my most sincere condolences to his family--Bruce M. Yazzie, Martha Prater, Marjorie Lowe, Charlie Burris and Harvey Lee Burris--and the loved ones he leaves behind.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, my colleague from New Jersey who just spoke is exactly right. This Congress, this year, this House of Representatives will probably meet fewer days, fewer hours than any Congress since 1948. President Harry Truman called that Congress the Do-Nothing Congress because it did almost nothing, and it only tried to work for about 110 days out of the whole year of 365 days. We will meet for substantially fewer days than the Do-Nothing Congress. So how do you do less than nothing? Sadly, the American public is about to find out. Now, how does the schedule happen? Well, in the House of Representatives, it is set by the majority party. They can choose. They can make us work a long year or a short year, or a very short year as they have decided to do this year. Now, why are we meeting for so few days? Well, it is not because taxpayers back home aren't paying us a full-time, full-year salary. We are making the same pay. But yet we are able to spend 9 or 10 months of the year back home in our districts. And I love that. My wife and kids are back home, I love being home 4 or 5 days a week every week. But I am worried about America, and I am worried that this House is not confronting the problems that America faces, because the workweek here in Congress is really too short to even be called a workweek. The normal congressional schedule, and this week is not a normal week, but the normal schedule is we come to Washington Tuesday afternoon for a few votes on Tuesday night; those are usually inconsequential votes such as, for example, renaming post offices. On Wednesday, sometimes there are some real votes, and sometimes on Thursday, usually Thursday morning. And then by Thursday afternoon our so-called workweek is over. Well, this is called the Tuesday-Thursday Club. I have been in Congress a number of years, there always was a Tuesday-Thursday club, but membership in that club used to be reserved for a few folks who happened to have congressional districts nearby in Virginia or Maryland, or, quite frankly, for some members who didn't really care about the job, who didn't want to attend all the hearings, who didn't want to participate in the debates, who didn't want to study the legislation and really face the problems that America faces. Sadly, today, Mr. Speaker, pretty much everybody belongs to the Tuesday-Thursday Club. Because if you are here in Washington on Monday or Friday, you will discover that none of your colleagues are. No hearings are being held. No investigations are being conducted. For example, the majority in their wisdom has abolished most all of the subcommittees that has the power to investigate because they simply do not want investigations to take place. Well, that is one of the primary functions of Congress, is to conduct what they call oversight. And that doesn't mean overlooking a problem. It means digging into a problem so you can find out exactly how taxpayer dollars are being spent. So, Mr. Speaker, we are in this ironic situation with America confronting a myriad of problems, and here we are working less than any time in literally a half century, working less than any time since 1948. It is time that this Congress got down to business to confront problems such as, for example, what my constituents back home want is an immigration bill. And the House passed one back last December. The Senate hopefully will pass one this week or next week. But then those two have to be reconciled into a bill that both Houses can support. With only a few days left in this entire session, how are we going to reconcile that legislation? Is it going to be a good bill when it is reconciled? The clock is ticking, Mr. Speaker. There is very little time left. Let me mention one other issue that I think is of great concern to all Americans. If you have anyone in your family who has been touched by the dread diseases of Parkinson's or Alzheimer's or diabetes or cancer or a stroke or heart disease, or any other of a myriad of diseases, you are probably interested, you are probably in strong support of embryonic stem cell research so that our brilliant scientists can try to discover cures for these dread diseases. The best information we have is that some 72 percent of the American people favor research in this area. They want it done. They want it done now. They want it done in America, too. They are not willing to outsource an entire area of scientific hope for our patients. But although this House passed a stem cell bill, the Senate has not, and we need action on that, because the House passed stem cells a year ago. I see that my time is expired, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I speak tonight as a cochair of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of fiscally conservative Democrats, and I speak tonight with some disappointment because I am one in this Chamber who knows how hard it is to put together a budget. It is a tough job that the majority has. I am sorry that my friends who are moderate Republicans sold out so cheap. And I am even sorrier that my friends who are part of the Republican Study Committee did not get more of what they wished. But it is tough to put together a budget. In all this blizzard of words and numbers we have been hearing about tonight, there is one central principle that should guide the Members here, at least the ones who are listening and not already at the big Republican fund-raiser tonight, and that one central principle that should guide our deliberations is the principle that not only I hold dear, but Alan Greenspan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, one of the great financial minds in this country, said was the single most important reform that this House could undertake. And what is that? It is called pay as you go. We had it in this country from 1990, under the first President Bush, all the way through the second President Bush. We had it for 12 years, from 1990 to 2002, and then the Republican majority let it expire. But Alan Greenspan said it was the single most important thing we could do to regain our fiscal balance, our fiscal sanity. Yet there is no real pay as you go in the Republican budget. There is in the Democratic budget. That is why on behalf of the Blue Dogs I urge all of our Members who care about Alan Greenspan, who care about pay as you go, who care about fiscal sanity to vote for PAYGO. Because that is the principle that every family back home understands. If you want something, pay for it. That is what the Democratic budget does, and I am proud to vote for the Democratic budget tonight.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of problems mentioned on the House floor today. We should be aware that this House is doing a very poor job of addressing any of these problems. Why? Because this is one of the laziest Congresses in all of American history. We are scheduled to meet this year fewer days than any Congress since at least 1948. And that is even before I was born. So far, we are in the 123rd day of this year, and yet we have only had 26 voting days in this body. That is a shame. This Congress is simply not doing its job under Republican leadership. They are the ones that set the schedule. Harry Truman called that Congress of 1948 the ``Do Nothing Congress'' of 1948. How do you do less than nothing? Sadly, the American people are about to find out, thanks to our friends on the other side of the aisle.

Mr. COOPER

Mr. COOPER. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's friendship and leadership of the Blue Dog Coalition because we are perhaps the leading voice in Congress for fiscal restraint and fiscal responsibility. The chart the gentleman has been referring to showing our national debt and each individual's share of the national debt is a truly scary document. But as the gentleman knows, I am afraid there are even scarier numbers in Washington than that because the debt figures that the gentleman is holding shows what the debt is according to a cash basis; and that is, unfortunately, a very weak form of accounting that is illegal for most businesses in America, certainly businesses of any size. I want to put that in context for folks both in this Congress and back home because the numbers the gentleman referred to come from this document here, which is the President's budget. Every Congressman gets a hand-delivered copy of this. It is widely publicized in the media. It has a lot of good information in it, but it is the budget of the United States on a cash basis, counting dollars when they come in and go out. There is another document which is even more important. It is almost secret. It is not classified secret, but it is even better than that. It was distributed on Christmas Eve without a press release by the United States Department of the Treasury. They only printed a thousand copies for all of America, so it is not exactly like they wanted everybody to read it. This is called the ``Financial Report of the United States Government.'' It is issued by the Treasury Department and signed by Secretary John Snow, and it also gives a picture of our financial situation. But it does not use cash accounting; it uses modern accounting that all large corporations in America are required by law to use. So if you really want government to be run like a business, you pretty much have to use this document. The gentleman referred to our MBA President, the first one we have had in American history, and how so many Americans expected him, with his MBA degree, to run our country like a business. But this is still a largely secret and ignored document. Why would that be? Because the numbers in it are so grim.

Mr. COOPER. That is exactly right. Modern accounting is required of all businesses in America with revenues over $5 million. That basically says any business larger than, say, a single McDonald's would be required to use modern accrual accounting. And lest anyone not hear the word correctly, ``accrual'' has nothing to do with the word ``cruel.'' In fact, accrual accounting is probably the kindest form of accounting because it remembers our elderly and sick and disabled. Cash accounting tends not to do that. So modern accrual accounting is a very important innovation in accounting. All our businesses have used it for years. In fact, generally accepted accounting principles, GAAP accounting, really says that all businesses of every size should use accrual accounting because it is a more accurate picture of where we are. As the gentleman knows, because he has a business background himself, the saying in business is if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. That is what accounting does, it helps us measure our financial situation. This shows a picture of our financial situation. I hope it is clear. Maybe I should come down to the gentleman's easel. This is a very important chart because it shows us in clear perspective the difference between the budget numbers calculated on a cash basis and on an accrual basis. This top number of $319 billion is the cash deficit for the year 2005. That is a lot of money. That is the third largest budget deficit in all of American history in absolute dollar terms. It is not quite the third largest in percent of GDP terms; but it is a huge, whopping number. If you look down the chart, you will see if you do not count the borrowing from the Social Security trust fund, the true cash deficit for the year 2005 was $494 billion, almost $500 billion. That is still using the old-fashioned, antique cash accounting method. If you use modern accrual accounting, according to the Treasury Department and the Bush administration, Secretary Snow says the deficit for 2005 was $760 billion. That is starting to be a truly large number. That takes into account many of the obligations that we have in future years because what accrual accounting means, it takes into account when you use that national credit card to buy something. You have obligated yourself to buy something. It might have been pensions for our elderly, health care for our elderly, health care for the disabled, things that we know we are going to have to spend money on but we have not actually paid cash yet. That is the $760 billion number; but that is not the scariest number on the chart. Everybody in this body has said that they believe Social Security and Medicare are vitally important programs for our Nation and that those benefits should be preserved for our seniors and those who are going to be seniors. Guess what, folks. The accrual number, as good as it is, does not take into account Social Security and Medicare benefits. How could that possibly be? Well, the reason is under modern accounting methods you only take into account contractual obligations, and Social Security and Medicare are not contractual obligations. Congress retains the right to vary the benefits. Because of that, those numbers are left out of this deficit calculation. So I believe if you truly care about preserving Social Security benefits and Medicare benefits, as I do and most Members of Congress do, certainly on the Democrat side, you have to look at these other numbers because the budget deficit for 2005 actually goes up to $1.7 trillion if you include the anticipated Social Security benefits that we are going to have to pay in the incremental increase of 1 year. If you add Medicare to that, the true budget deficit for 2005 was an astronomical $2.7 trillion. I am indebted for these last two numbers to the professor of law and accounting at Harvard Law School, a gentleman named Howell Jackson who did these calculations. And they are still in draft form and subject to some refinement. But it is the first time we have really taken the numbers that originally professors at the Wharton School of Business and a business economist in Washington, D.C. have helped put together. Those gentlemen are Kent Smetters and Jagadeesh Gokhale. Those gentlemen have shown America and the world that our true unfunded liabilities are astronomical. If you look out a few decades, they are on the order of $49 trillion to $67 trillion. So it is a situation where if you are just trying to measure it so you can manage it. Look at one year's annual deficit: you will see that the number we are given by the administration of $319 billion is probably not an accurate number. In fact, it is probably only one-tenth of the true size of the deficit because if you believe in Social Security and Medicare, as I do, you have to take into account the obligations that we are incurring on an annual basis to fund those programs. These numbers are huge, Madam Speaker, because even this number of $760 billion, that is a deficit for the year that is greater than most all of the discretionary spending of the Federal Government. That is greater than the entire defense budget and greater than all of the road programs, agricultural programs, parks, recreation, arts, all of the things that the Federal Government is involved with. So that is a large number. But this number down here of $2.7 trillion, that is greater than the total Federal budget of the United States. Madam Speaker, I think we should look at these accounting numbers, these facts, these fiscal facts so that men and women of goodwill all across America can evaluate our situation. As I said earlier, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. This should not be a partisan issue. I am taking these figures primarily from administration documents. This is a reality that I especially think all of our business people should pay attention to. The Tennessee bankers were in today. I acquainted them today with all of these numbers, and we had a number of Tennessee insurance agents visiting today. Unfortunately, our media have not seen fit to do many stories on these numbers. Perhaps they are too large for the media to understand. I think it is very important for America to focus on this. What they really spell is a crisis for our country. We are borrowing so much of this money; and we are not just borrowing it from ourselves, we are borrowing it from foreign nations. I am proud to stand with my friend from Florida who is a great leader of the Blue Dog cause. It is very important that we get the word out on these facts. There are many different ways to measure it. John Tanner from Tennessee points out that it took 204 years of American history to borrow our first trillion dollars. That is 204 years, all of the way from George Washington through almost Jimmy Carter to borrow $1 trillion. Then we started on this pace where we are borrowing a trillion dollars now almost every 18 months, something that it took us 204 years to do before. That is unsustainable, to put it politely. It is crazy if you use more normal language. There are other things that are going on that are worrisome. Under President Bush's administration, we have borrowed more money than all previous presidencies in America put together. President Bush is our 43rd President, and that means he has borrowed more money than our first President, George Washington, all of the way through our 42nd President, Bill Clinton. That is an amazing thing. And it is not just borrowing in general; it is borrowing from foreign nations. We have borrowed more money from foreign nations today than all previous Presidents in American history. I am hoping that men and women of goodwill across this country will focus on some of these accounting facts. Maybe ask a little more of your newspapers and TV stations back home to get more real news because I think this will do more to determine the future of our kids and grandkids than anything else we talk about on the floor of Congress, because when you run deficits like this, that means you accumulate debt and that debt carries a high interest rate, and that interest simply must be paid. That is the one tax increase that can never be repealed, and those debt costs are mounting every year. Petty soon the debt that we are having to pay our creditors, many of whom are foreign, is getting to be so large it is almost larger than the entire defense budget of the United States. So it is a crisis, Madam Speaker. It is something that we must deal with, and I hope that our colleagues will pay more attention to these issues. We understand that next week the budget is supposed to come up for a floor vote. They were unable to pass a budget a few weeks ago. It is vitally important that not only do we have a budget, but we have a budget that reflects reality. The budget that will be brought to the House floor will not reflect these true numbers. They will still be focused on the cash numbers with inadequate accounting. However, I was able to get passed in the Budget Committee unanimously, House Democrats and Republicans, an amendment that said for next year we will start using the more accurate, accrual-based numbers. I think that is progress. Accrual will not replace cash budgeting, but at least you will be able to refer to both sets of numbers as we do the budget so that you can see what our true fiscal situation is. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend from Florida for yielding. He has been a great leader of the Blue Dogs for a long time now, and I appreciate his leadership, and together I think we can continue to make progress on these issues.