K. Conaway

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. With that, I will support the amendment and yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition even though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONAWAY. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. CONAWAY. I appreciate that. I also tentatively support the amendment--certainly, the spirit of the Berry amendment--as well. But, as drafted, the GAO study, I think, will be very difficult to implement. Servicemembers are not required to keep records of the items that they purchase with their clothing allowance; nor are they required to set aside these dollars in a teacup to purchase uniforms only. So the GAO may not be able to determine what servicemembers bought with their clothing allowance, let alone whether those items were produced domestically. If the sponsor will allow us to revise the amendment in conference to specifically evaluate the sufficiency of the domestic supply of military uniforms, then I can certainly support that. But I support it with some reservations that the study as drafted specifically under this rule would be less than optimal. And if the sponsor would allow us to work on it in conference, I would support it.

Mr. CONAWAY. One comment and then I will reserve, and that is that some of the criticisms about the multitude of defense acquisition reform studies and laws and bills that line the shelves of many offices is that they haven't worked. This one, Mr. Chair, I would argue will have a better chance of working with proper oversight by the Armed Services Committee, which I know the chairman and the ranking member are committed to, because the matrixes that are laid out for the agencies to abide by are such that we can conduct proper oversight. We will know that the programs have been put in place, and then we will also be able to see that the Department of Defense is using them properly to manage their business. So unlike previous efforts in this regard, I think these improvements are subject to being properly oversighted, if that's a proper word, by the Armed Services Committee, and I know that we are committed to do that.

Mr. CONAWAY. I rise today in support of H.R. 5013, the IMPROVE Acquisition Act of 2010. First, I want to thank Chairman Skelton and Ranking Member McKeon for the trust and confidence they placed in the Defense Acquisition Reform Panel. I want to give special thanks and commendation to my good friend, Rob Andrews, for the hard work he did in leading this effort. He led it very, very well. He proved once and for all that we can start meetings on time and get our work done, even if those meetings start at 8 a.m. in the morning. So I have enjoyed this work with Rob. He and I may not agree on certain things, but in this arena and most things on the Armed Services, we are in pretty good agreement, and on this work, full agreement. I want to tell him thank you very much for the good work and his commitment to making this thing work. The panel truly did approach its work on a nonpartisan basis. In fact, if you were to read the transcript of the hearings and read the questions without the names attached, you could not tell or distinguish between a Republican question or a Democratic question. I think that speaks volumes for the way most of the work on the Armed Services Committee occurs and in particular the work of our panel. I was very proud to be a part of that and to lend my efforts. I also want to thank Chairman Skelton and Ranking Member McKeon for their generous praise for Rob and me, but I would be remiss if I don't also acknowledge the other dedicated members of the panel: Jim Cooper, Duncan Hunter, Brad Ellsworth, Mike Coffman, and Joe Sestak. This bill, as Rob said, bears many fingerprints, but the seven of us have the most fingerprints on it. And I want to thank my colleagues for work they have done. I also want to thank the staff. They did an outstanding job, Andrew Hunter and Jenness Simler, who made this work--they put this together and did the heavy drafting--as well as the staff from my office, Serge Morosoff, for the great job that they did in making this work product come together as quickly as it did. As ranking member of the Panel on Defense Acquisition Reform, I can attest that H.R. 5013 will truly be instrumental in reforming the full range of the defense acquisition system. I believe this bill will improve the way we measure value in acquisition, create a more responsive requirements process, sustain the acquisition workforce, and will manage certain elements of the acquisition system. My colleague, Mr. Andrews, has talked at length about the reforms the bill implements, but I would like to speak to one that's a little dearer to my heart that's a little less obvious but no less important, a provision that plays a critical role in improving the financial management practices of the Department of Defense and provides incentives to achieve an unqualified audit opinion for all of the Department of Defense. The publication of a clean audit, an unqualified audit of DOD would finally give the American people the confidence that their tax dollars are, in fact, being accounted for and spent wisely in the defense of this great Nation. Since 1990, there's been a requirement for the Federal Government to publish audited financial statements, but the Federal Government is not in compliance with that Federal law. A large share of the responsibility for that circumstance rests with the Department of Defense. The Department of Defense is the largest agency in the Federal Government, owning about 68 percent of the government's assets, estimated at $4.6 trillion. Over the last two decades, money has been spent by the Department of Defense in an unsuccessful quest to obtain auditable financial statements. There have been good people working very hard on this issue for a long, long time, and good people today in the Department of Defense who are working hard at this issue. But we're not there yet. We have got a lot of work to go. Quite frankly, we cannot allow these past failures and past unsuccessful efforts to deter us from the heavy lift that's ahead of us to get this job done. I'm a CPA and I used to audit entities. And I'm fully aware how hard this is; it is not an easy task. But it is possible and it's necessary to implement the financial control systems necessary to generate auditable financial statements. This bill ensures that DOD is no longer held to a separate standard from the public business and the rest of government. The reliability of financial data is crucial to improve acquisition outcomes. Without understanding where the money is being spent or understanding what assets it owns, there will not be the proper accountability for acquisition costs or new requirements. Perhaps every dime is in fact being well spent. But we don't know that, the Department of Defense doesn't know that, and the taxpayer doesn't know that. Financial accountability must continue to be the high priority. If correctly implemented, this legislation will allow American tax dollars to be stretched further and will have a substantial impact on waste, fraud, and abuse. I applaud the panel and the House Armed Services Committee for adopting these recommendations and encourage each of the components of the Department of Defense to take full advantage of the incentives provided in this bill to accelerate the auditability of the financial statements of the Department of Defense. Again, I want to thank my colleague, Rob Andrews, for the hard work he did in moving this forward by his strength of will. In closing, I look forward to the progress this legislation will allow, and I encourage my colleagues to vote for this bill later on this afternoon.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, here in Washington, in these hallowed Halls, we have the power to do many things. At times, it might appear as if there is no riddle so complex that the careful arrangement of words on a paper cannot overcome it. Indeed, the very rationale behind the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act was to solve forever the Gordian knot of equality in our citizens' access to health care. Yet, for all its words, commands, prescriptions, and boards in the bill, Richard Foster, the chief actuary of CMS, has laid bare an essential truth about these mandates. Mr. Speaker, they have consequences. On page 10 of his recent report, Mr. Foster states unequivocally that this bill will make hospitals, long-term care facilities, and other part A providers unprofitable. It's clear to me, Mr. Speaker, that while we in Washington can pass words on paper that guarantee all Americans health care, that the doctors and hospitals throughout America may not be around long enough to provide them care. More jobs, Mr. Speaker, lost to wrong-headed policies being forced upon the American people by this majority.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to pay tribute to a visionary man and true American hero, Colonel John Rees. John Cliff Rees was born in 1922 on his family farm in Mason County, Kentucky. After graduating from high school and then Bowling Green Business University, he met and married the love of his life, Bess Anderson. Not long after that, John joined the Army Air Corps and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1944. In time, John would serve in four wars: World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War, eventually earning the rank of Colonel. While there are many men who have served with as much pride, honor, and distinction as Colonel Rees has, I remember him today specifically for the last stop on his tour of duty. As Colonel, he was appointed the Wing Commander at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas. In that position, both he and his wife came to be known and loved by the people of San Angelo. A kind man with a keen intellect, Colonel Rees worked relentlessly to forge a deeper bond between the Base and the City. In one of his lasting legacies to the people of San Angelo, he was instrumental in bringing a linguistic training center to the base, breathing new life into its mission and ensuring that the base would remain a strategic asset in the community for years to come. Colonel Rees passed away on October 12, 2009. Some weeks ago, Colonel Rees' wife Bess also passed away on March 3, 2010. They will be laid to rest together the Friday after Easter, April 9, 2010, in Arlington National Cemetery. Colonel Rees was a dedicated and faithful servant of the American people and has rightly earned his place in Arlington. Death is always a heavy burden to bear for those of us who remain behind, but I know that Colonel Rees is with God in all his glory and has been reunited with the love of his life in heaven. On behalf of the people of San Angelo, the people of Texas, and all Americans, I offer his family my deepest condolences. Your father fought gallantly to protect the nation he loved. He was our commander, our friend, our mentor, and our inspiration. As Colonel John Rees is laid to rest next month, I know that the lives of his family and friends will dim just a bit. However, they need only look up to the sky to see that the stars over Texas shine brighter because he looks down on us all.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay a small tribute to one of the finest public servants in all of Texas. For over 25 years, Bert V. Massey II, has been mayor of Brownwood, Texas, a city of 20,000, in central Texas. Later this year, Mayor Massey is set to retire; and when he does, he will leave a great void in the public discourse of Brownwood. Before he takes leave of public office for good, though, I want to take a moment to brag on his tireless work for the people of Brownwood. Mayor Massey has been involved in public life since he first ran for the Brownwood City Council in 1978. Since then, he has been a voice of fairness, integrity, and honesty in city hall. He is a man with a big heart and a deep love for the people of Brownwood. It is with heavy hearts that we see Mayor Massey retire, but I know that he will remain a fixture in Brownwood, happily measuring out his advice to his successor, encouragement to his friends, and history lessons to all. On behalf of the people of central Texas, I thank Mayor Massey for all his years spent in service to his neighbors. I would be remiss if I failed to thank his wife, Melinda Brooks Massey, as well, for being so willing to share her husband with us all these years. As Bert retires, I wish both my friends all the happiness and good health that God can grant two people. May God bless you both.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, today may well mark a great victory for President Obama and the Democratic Leadership of Congress. After months of bitterly partisan debates, massive protests, and wrenching arguments, it appears as though they finally have the votes to bend an unyielding electorate to their will and pass the most massive expansion of the Federal Government in two generations. Yet, a victory today would be a pyrrhic victory; the costs of implementing their vision for the future of American health care will bankrupt our treasury and rob us of our liberty. Make no mistake, the Democrat's plan pushes our Nation down a path from which there is no easy retreat. The changes imposed by this plan fundamentally renegotiate the relationship between the Federal Government and the citizens of our country, making Americans look first to Washington to secure their health care. This bill is sweeping in law, but revolutionary in spirit. I believe that this legislation will be the beginning of the end of our grand American Experiment. Many of my colleagues and I have discussed the staggering costs imposed by this legislation. In fact, it might be the single most expensive piece of legislation ever passed in the history of our country. Although supporters like to point out that the Congressional Budget Office scores this bill as one that reduces the deficit, more realistic Members will note that CB0 does not have particularly good marks in predicting the cost of legislation. Most recently, the CB0 was off by almost 10% on the final cost of the Stimulus bill, underestimating its final cost by some $80 billion. This bill, like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid before it, creates yet another massive expansion of government without a definitive price tag. One need not do complex arithmetic to see how underestimating the cost of this bill by 10% would cost us at least an extra $100 billion over ten years. Unfortunately, by the time we discover our error, it will be too late: the promises will have been made, the money will have been borrowed, and the checks will have been drawn. It should come as a surprise to no one that we will pay for this bill by borrowing. With massive deficits projected far into the future, the cupboard is bare. We have no money to pay for this spending. We will borrow it and continue to help ourselves to the fruits of our children's future. Yet, even the vast scale at which this bill borrows money and transfers wealth, this pales in comparison to the rate at which this legislation borrows our liberties and transfers authority to Washington. With each new board, commission, mandate, and tax, we surrender a small part of the authority we each hold over our own affairs to Washington. The Majority's bill will raise taxes, hand down mandates, and further our culture of dependency on Washington. Granting ever more authority to the Federal Government will continue to sever the community bonds that hold America together. Each time we make Washington responsible for part of our welfare, we become just a little less concerned about the plight of our neighbors. Their trials and tribulations become something someone in the Federal Government should do something about. Unfortunately, it turns out that in Washington someone and something too often means no one and nothing. My constituents understand that a full accounting of the costs of this bill cannot be made unless we include the intangible costs. While many before me have recounted the massive financial charge this bill will toll, our freedoms and our liberty will also be diminished by this bill. The Majority's plan offers a pathologically Washington-centered vision of America and its passage forces us to look not first to ourselves, our families, and our communities for support, but rather to the Federal bureaucracy. This bill will force Americans to lobby the Federal Government on every aspect of their health care. We will lobby in Washington for access to medicine, procedures, and tests; our doctors will lobby in Washington for better payments for services rendered; our insurance companies will lobby in Washington for the right to charge higher rates; and our families will beg in Washington for more subsidies. No one on my side of the aisle disputes that individuals have a moral obligation to help those around who are less fortunate than they are. In fact in 2008, private individuals and American companies gave over $300 billion dollars--over 2% of GDP--to charitable causes, $21 billion of which went to organizations involved in health care. This personal, private giving is one of the hallmarks of our unique American ethos--we take care of our own. The Democrat's sweeping health care plan will destroy this core American value and replace it with one of subservience and deference to the governing elites. This bill goes well beyond simply assisting the poor among us. It subsidizes middle class families with billions of their own tax dollars. It is a vast engine of good intentions that transfers wealth from one pocket to the other, all while binding us ever tighter to a bureaucracy that will care for itself before the American People. Undoing the wrongs unleashed by this legislation will consume the American People and this body far into the future. This November, each Member of this House will appear before their constituents to be judged on how well they have represented their constituents over the past two years. Without a doubt, this health care vote will be forefront in their minds. Some of my Democratic colleagues have said they relish the idea of being judged on their support for this legislation. I suspect that the American people will be all too happy to oblige them.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this flawed health care bill.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, later this week the Speaker is going to ask the House to take the final vote on health care reform, including the Senate health care bill. The Senate bill contains such rarified legislative compromises as the Cornhusker kickback, the Louisiana purchase, and Gator aid, and for the first time ever, it allows for Federal funding for abortions. Nevertheless, the Speaker has asked us to vote on it. I understand my Democratic colleagues are being assured that the Senate will take up the bill of fixes if the House will simply just pass their underlying reform bill. I offer a word of caution to my friends on the other side of the aisle: once you pass their bill, there is not a guarantee that can be made that will force the Senate Democrats to take up your fixed bill and pass it. The bill that passed out of the Senate satisfies 59 sitting Senators, all of whom voted for it. The compromise that will pass out of this House will please far fewer. Simple logic tells us that the Senate Democrats do not have a real and abiding interest in bailing out House Democrats for having passed the Senate bill. Of course, simple logic has never really been a part of this debate. Madam Speaker, my Democratic colleagues are playing a game of chicken with the United States Senate. In the end, the President might just go ahead and sign this Senate bill into law, along with the Cornhusker kickback, Louisiana purchase, Gator aid and abortion funding, and every other twisted deal jumbled into this mess.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we had a serious and earnest debate about our future role in Afghanistan. I firmly believe that there are respectful differences of opinion on this war, and that support for a war is not a litmus test for one's support for America. However, I'm grateful that this House has overwhelmingly rejected running from America's vital interests and the people of Afghanistan. Our debate today presented a stark choice to Members, quite literally, to stay or to go in Afghanistan. It is one in which there is no middle ground, no hedging, no fudging. In the most unequivocal terms I can muster, I resolutely oppose our retreat from Afghanistan. Mr. Speaker, more times than I can count in the past few years, we have been reminded that the war in Afghanistan was the good war, that it was the war of necessity over the war of choice. I stand here today to remind my colleagues of their many statements in that regard. We did not seek this war. Our enemy sought us out. We did not march into Afghanistan for profit or pleasure or plunder. We went to ensure that Afghani soil is never again used to wage war or terrorize civilians. We did not ask for this war; but now that it's come, we cannot loosen the amount of responsibility that we have taken up. To be certain, our goals in Afghanistan are difficult. Continuing to forge a partnership with the Afghanis will take military might, diplomatic finesse, and our hard-earned taxpayers to succeed. However, these are costs that we must bear and should bear. The President and our military leadership understand the seriousness of our task. Time and again in speeches and testimony and interviews they have repeated that Afghanistan is the epicenter of Islamic extremism, and that defeating al Qaeda in central Asia is essential to securing peace both in the region and here at home. Our partners in bringing peace to Afghanistan are the Afghan people themselves. It is their homes that have been destroyed and their children who have perished in 30 years of war. Yet these beaten and downtrodden people have stood next to our soldiers to fight for their future and their country because we told them that we will help them bring order to the chaos of their homeland. Many of my colleagues have discussed the costs of war, and they are right to consider what we have paid in blood and treasure to fight this fight. However, they have failed to weigh what giving up would cost us. Practically speaking, to retreat today means the Afghan central government will fail. When it fails, the Taliban will return to reclaim what was theirs and again plunge the country into the despotic darkness of blind religious zealotry. The Taliban will welcome home radical Islamic jihadists back to their soil to again plan their acts of murder and destruction. They will also expand their fight to the tribal areas of Pakistan, which has the potential to destabilize a nuclear power, and inflame the simmering tension between Pakistan and India, another nuclear power. While it is relatively easy to estimate what we have spent so far and what we will spend in the coming years in Afghanistan, it is impossible to know the value of the calamities that have been prevented because we remain. There is no value that can be put on the growth of a civil society, no cost that can be put on stabilizing Pakistan, and no price that can be put on the recent rapprochement of Pakistan and India. Failure in these developments will hurt our national security, yet a retreat will make them more likely. I believe, as we all do, that Americans want peace above all else. None of us desires our friends and families to be deployed overseas, battling among the rocks and caves of the foreign countryside. However, peace will not come until our enemies end their drive for our destruction. Until that day, talk of leaving Afghanistan means only that our enemies will bring the fight back to us. There can be no peace in Afghanistan without a cessation of hostilities. Whether we leave today, tomorrow, or at the end of this year, this war does not end simply because we choose not to be engaged in it. The Taliban will return. With their return, they will expand their efforts to destabilize our ally Pakistan, and again provide sanctuary for radical Islamic jihadists who will continue to try to murder Americans in the name of their faith. Mr. Speaker, I hope and pray fervently for a day when our Armed Forces do come home. However, until our enemies lay down their arms and give up their fight to destroy our civilization, our military must remain out there on the wall, doing their duty to uphold America's democracy and our safety. That we have spent so much time today discussing abandoning our allies deeply saddens me. Halfway around the world I know that our Afghan partners were watching what was said and trying to divine our intent by holding this debate. It is my firm hope that they see today's vote for what it is, the unqualified, overwhelming voice of the House of Representatives announcing that we will not abandon our friends in their deepest hour of need.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Madam Chair. This amendment is a pretty simple, straightforward one. It's about good governance. It's about protecting the assets of the American taxpayer as utilized by the intelligence community. This bill came out of committee 8 months ago. We've now learned some things in the last 8 months that we didn't know then, and this amendment would simply substitute a new paragraph A for the old paragraph A. This paragraph would simply say it's an important initiative for the intelligence community to work to get audited financial statements across all of the entities. This takes a lot of work, a lot of effort to make that happen. I'd like to call the Chair's attention to the National Reconnaissance organization, who is the only entity within the intelligence community that has, in fact, achieved an unqualified audit opinion on their financial statements. Under Dr. Scott Large's leadership, that hard work was done. And then more directly, Karen Landry, the Chief Financial Officer for the NRO, and Sandra Van Booven, the Director of Financial Management, led an incredible team to do an awful lot of hard work to make that happen. I don't discount how hard that is. From my professional experience, I know it's hard. But they're to be commended as the agency that has achieved clean audited financial statements. As important as that is, it's an ongoing effort, and I hope that General Bruce Carlson, who is now the leader at NRO, will continue to lead the efforts needed to make that happen. This is a top-down function. It has to have the initiative of the leadership. The Office of Director of Intelligence has to make this a priority. And this amendment would seek to recognize that priority and continue to draw attention to it from our body so that the executive branch body, in fact, knows that we believe that it's important to get this done. So it's a pretty straightforward amendment, Madam Chair. I recognize the hard work of some of the folks over at NRO is kind of a pat on the back for having done it correctly, shown us how it can be done, an incredible amount of hard work done by the team led by Ms. Landry and Ms. Van Booven. So, with that, I encourage my colleagues on the floor today to support this good governance amendment that would further the hard efforts being done across the community to achieve unqualified audit opinions on their financial statements and all of the internal controls and systems that go behind that. One final comment. There are some tough decisions ahead for Director Blair and others to make this happen, and I encourage them to make those decisions sooner than later. And I encourage my colleagues to support the amendment. I yield back.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to continue the theme that my colleague just had, and that is the President's vision for these United States over the next 10 years. That vision is exemplified in his budget that he brought to Congress yesterday, which, for fiscal year 2011, which doesn't start until October of this coming fall, which spent $3.8 trillion, a record, it would generate another deficit of $1.3 trillion in 2011; it would have some $2 trillion in tax increases over the 10 years; and it would accumulate $8.5 trillion in cumulative deficits during that 10 years. It would double the national debt. Mr. Speaker, I would argue that that's not much of a vision for America that my grandkids really want to look at and want to see. To put that in context, if you look at the cumulative deficits during the 8 years of the previous administration, they total $2 trillion. To put that in context, if you look at the cumulative deficits during the 8 years of the previous administration, they totaled $2 trillion, a number that we ought to be embarrassed about. But if you look at the deficit in the first 15 months of the current administration, it is $1.8 trillion, and we will surpass the $2 trillion number some time during this second quarter. If you look at just the first quarter deficit under this administration in 2010, in 15 months, it is larger than all but two annual deficits in our Nation's history. Again, Mr. Speaker, that is not a vision for America that my grandchildren would embrace, nor is it one that we ought to embrace on behalf of our grandchildren. My appeal tonight is to the Budget Committee. The Budget Committee now takes up the President's budget, and I would appeal to my former colleagues on the Budget Committee to simply ignore this flawed vision for America. It is unsustainable, and it is not one that is worthy of us to even consider in the least. What I would ask the Budget Committee to do instead is to bring forth a budget that truly addresses what I believe is the single greatest threat to our way of life that we face these days, and that is the growth of this government as represented by spending growth, 29 percent growth in spending since 2008. And again, that is unsustainable. Our budget colleagues on the Budget Committee, Mr. Speaker, have the ability to do that. They have the ability to say let's put out a budget that truly does address this threat, this grave threat to our Nation's prosperity. There are a couple of suggestions I would make. Let's roll back spending to fiscal 2008 levels and start the spending freeze there. Let's put a hiring freeze on today for all Federal Government agencies except perhaps DOD, Homeland Security, and maybe intel communities. That is a true action that every business and every family around this country knows exactly what it means and exactly why we have to do that. I'm reminded of the folks, and you see them all the time, who are constantly searching for a way to lose weight. They are always looking for that new diet plan, and they are always willing to start, however draconian the plan might be, ``tomorrow.'' Well, Mr. Speaker, any of us can start a diet tomorrow, but we need a spending diet that starts today. And I ask that our Budget Committee brethren start that process. We need a spending diet that starts today, not 20 months from today when the President's statement of a freeze would actually start. His freeze won't start until October 1, 2011, and then it's a bit of a fig leaf at that. Mr. Speaker, these are tough times. These are hard times. This isn't about being Republicans. This isn't about being Democrats. This is about a vision that we all ought to have for this country. That vision ought to include ways of fixing today's problems, however difficult those might be, with today's money. We have taken the process of using future generations' money to fix today's problem as far as it will go, and we simply cannot continue to do that. Mr. Speaker, I would also ask that my colleagues consider a balanced budget amendment. If you were to ask me what is the most important constitutional amendment that we ought to be considering among that broad array of important constitutional amendments, it would be a balanced budget amendment that would force Congress to make those tough decisions; not a commission out there that could be some sort of a facade to try to get it done, but a true balanced budget amendment that every State government except one has to operate under. Municipalities, counties, families, and businesses have to operate under the exact same discipline. We ought to be doing the same thing. Mr. Speaker, I would call for both of those things tonight.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. If the gentleman would yield, I would feel a lot better about our President tomorrow night if he would say not only are we going to freeze spending, but we are going to freeze it at 2008 levels. I go back a couple years. What has happened with the $787 billion stimulus, much of that money went into already-existing programs and elevated the floor of current spending. And then, on top of that, the 2010 appropriations bill, as our colleague from Colorado said, double- digit increases on that. So we are spending a significant amount of money more in 2010 than we did in 2008. So if the President would say, All right, let's reset the clock back to 2008, when he first got here, at those levels and then freeze it there, I would feel a lot better about what he is trying to propose tomorrow night. I do want to point out that it seems as if over the weekend he was going to freeze spending except for defense, homeland security, VA, and foreign affairs. Then I heard today or yesterday that, well, even within the discretionary spending that is going to be frozen, if programs create new jobs, then they are not going to be frozen. So it will be interesting to see what the fine details are tomorrow night on what the President has to say.

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman from Virginia, and I look forward also to working with you on the balanced budget amendment. As our colleague from Colorado said, the single most important constitutional amendment that is bandied about these days, and there are several that are important, but there is none more important than a balanced budget. If we only could do one constitutional amendment in the next 10 years, let's do this one. Think back. I wonder who those 35 Senators were in 1995 who all voted ``no'' on the balanced budget amendment, if any of them are still in Congress, if we could point to one of them and say, Had you voted ``yes'' in 1995, then surely during the surplus years we experienced in the late 1990s, it's easy to pass a balanced budget at that point in time because nobody's pig's getting stuck. We would have avoided trillions and trillions of dollars in debt had one Senator moved over in 1995. It would be interesting to see if any of those 35 who voted ``no'' are still in the Congress right now and would fess up to having a good slug of this problem. My colleagues all know that anybody can start a diet tomorrow. The easiest diet is the diet you start tomorrow. Wait until you start a diet today. The single greatest threat to our way of life is not al Qaeda. It is not the Islamist jihadists, as bad as they are. They will get some of us, but they will not get all of us. The single biggest threat to our way of life in my view is the growth in this Federal Government as demonstrated by the growth in spending. If you look at the chart, the more insidious two things about that chart are that, one, the 2010 deficit is estimated to be $1.4 trillion, which I think is not on that chart yet; two, the out-years, which are the least accurate, the out-years are all increasing. The deficit goes up. They can't even put together a set of numbers and facts that at least give the facade of showing they are going to drop spending in the out-years.

Mr. CONAWAY. Even over the weekend they were saying that yes, we've lost 7 million jobs but we've created X number of million jobs. The real issue is the net job loss, because those are folks that are out of work. That is kind of a hollow thing to brag about. Another thing about the chart. It assumes that the Bush tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 expire. Hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes are in those numbers, and those numbers are still as bad as they look and with the trillions of dollars of deficit that are accumulating. Now, the bad news about this is that we're not going to pay that debt off. I had a fifth grade student in Fredericksburg, Texas. I was doing a town hall meeting for a school that was K-12. A little fellow raised his hand and said, Mr. Congressman, what's the plan to pay off the national debt? And I looked at him. I said, What? This is a technique you use to try to gain time to try to think of what your answer might be. He said, Yes, sir. What's the plan to pay off the national debt? I said, Young man, that's the single best question I've ever been asked. There is no plan to pay off the national debt. So what we are doing is we're putting a floor under future generations' tax rates, because this cumulative debt, America will constantly pay the interest on this debt from now until eternity. So what we've done to future generations is you're going to have to tax yourselves enough to pay the interest on the debt from now on. That's before you get to start thinking about national security. That's before you get to start thinking about homeland security or anything else you might want to do with the world you inherit from us. You're going to have to pay the debt because your parents and grandparents didn't have the fiscal discipline to just say ``no.'' So I would love to stay around and visit with you this afternoon for some other comments, but I know our colleague from Florida wants to talk as well. I couldn't agree with my colleague from Virginia any more. This is House Joint Resolution 1. It should be number one in our hearts and number one in the docket for this Congress. It should have been that a year ago in January, and it ought to be tomorrow on the ballot to be talking about because there is nothing more important to our way of life than gaining control of our profligate spending ways. So I thank the gentleman for having this hour tonight.

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is stunning to think that a stack of $1,000 bills, 1,000 of those, which would equal 1 million bucks would be 4 inches tall. Another way to look at $1 trillion, if you were to try to spend $1 trillion in 1 year, to do that, you would have to spend $32,000 per second every second of the year in order to get, to fight your way through $1 trillion. It's a staggering amount of money. The number that doesn't show on your charts there is the unfunded promises that we've made. There is about $62 trillion in unfunded promises that we've made. To pay off that $62 trillion--that is the present value of those unfunded promises, this Federal Government over the next 75 years would have to run a $62 trillion surplus. I don't know who thinks that is even remotely possible to make that happen. The 4 years out of the last 40, I think, that cumulative $17 billion in surpluses over that 40-plus year period, and now we've added another 10 years to that 40 of deficits. The first-quarter deficit for fiscal year 2010 is the fourth-largest, and would have been the fourth largest annual deficit ever, just to show you how fast we are running through this money. The doctor fix, I mentioned that--starting the diet tomorrow. I hope the President comes in tomorrow night and says, we have a looming problem with our doctors and the Medicare reimbursement issue. The Congress gave it a 2-month extension back in December. The fix he referred to is that doctors on Medicare get a 21 percent cut in their reimbursement rates. None of us want to let that happen, period, to our seniors and to our physicians. But by the same token, we don't want to take the fix and simply add that burden to future generations. Let's start tomorrow night with the first doctor fix, which will expire February 28, and have that paid for by cuts in other spending so that we don't, in fact, take a difficult problem--but it's the most, it's the most near-term difficult problem--and show the world that we can fix it. The other thing I would like to make a point of before I hear from the gentleman from Colorado in terms of what would happen, the Democrats are talking about the economy this and jobs that, all those kinds of things, I don't think there is a single thing we could do more important to incentivizing American jobs than it would be to seriously address this looming financial crisis of the Federal Government. If we were to say, yes, we are serious about balancing a budget, I think the confidence that that would instill in the market, in small businesses and large businesses all over this country, would do more than any $787 billion stimulus, any $150 billion stimulus that the House passed over that one Republican vote in December, the $80 billion stimulus that's being contemplated in the Senate, nothing of that sort will have a dramatic impact the way that balancing this budget, or at least telling the American people we are serious about balancing this budget, with an amendment that requires it; not good faith efforts, but requires a balanced budget. I don't think there's anything we could do that would stimulate jobs and this economy any better than doing that. The confidence it would instill in this country would be palpable, I would think, if we were to do that.

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman. I would just like to add to what you're talking about. U.S. taxpayers have benefited from artificially low interest rates because when the world's economy went bad, a bunch of the money that was out there fled. It was a flight to safety. That money fled into U.S. Treasuries. And we have basically been warehousing that money for folks all over the world at pretty near zero interest rates because they knew they would get it back from the American taxpayer. What's happening now, with these increased deficits, is not only are we having to issue debt to pay off maturing debt, but we also have to issue new debt to fund these trillion-dollar deficits out there every year. Normally, you would expect that an increasing demand would cause the price of whatever it is you are demanding to get more of to go up. And that hasn't happened because the rest of the world, like I said, has fled into U.S. Treasuries. Now, as the gentleman said, economies around the world are beginning to rebound. People are having opportunities to invest their money at higher interest rates or higher expected rates of return. And so we will very soon, one of the first indicators that things are going awry is as you begin to watch the weekly auctions of debt, our interest rates begin to inch up because we have to pay higher interest rates in order to attract lenders to our debt versus the opportunities they have got in other currencies. This fallacy that the stimulus bill worked is based on the premise that government spending will solve the economic problems of this country. If that is the case, then this government has spent more money in 2009, 2010, 2011 than has ever been spent in the history of man. So if runaway government of spending were the solution to a vibrant economy, why aren't we in the most vibrant economy ever known? Because we have spent more money out of the Federal Government than has ever been spent before. It makes no sense that you can continue to borrow greater and greater levels of debt and continue to spend that on programs that, quite frankly, aren't in and of themselves stimulus programs. They are just basically money transfers or transfers of wealth between one group of people and the others. It doesn't create any additional wealth. That cannot sustain itself. But our colleagues across the aisle seem to ignore just the hard common sense that you cannot spend your way out of this problem. I think it was Ben Franklin who said, You can't stand in a bucket and grab the handles and try to lift yourself off the ground, which is equivalent to trying to tax and spend your way out of a problem. And that is what we have been trying to do with this thing, which is a giant bucket with all of us standing in it.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to salute Ron Butler, the longtime coach and athletic director of Ranger College in Ranger, Texas. This past Saturday, the school honored him with Ron Butler Day to thank him for his years of service to their community. Ron worked at Ranger College from 1964, when he was hired, until his retirement in the year 2000. During his tenure at the college, he filled many roles. He was the head coach of both the men's and women's basketball teams, head coach of the softball team, assistant coach and head coach of the football team, and also the athletic director. Throughout much of his tenure, he held many of these jobs at the same time. Most remarkable about Coach Butler's time at Ranger were the unqualified achievements the school had in athletics. In almost every sport, Coach Butler's teams found success and championships. For a college as small as Ranger, this is a big deal. It is not a stretch to say that Dr. Bill Campion, the president of Ranger College, was right when he said, ``I singlehandedly give credit for the reputation and success of Ranger College to Ron Butler.'' Excelling in athletics enabled the school to continue to grow and build its reputation as one of the finest junior colleges in Texas and the Nation. Beyond the wins and the championships, Coach Butler has touched 25 years of students and families. His unwavering dedication and commitment can be seen rippling through the lives of everyone who has played under him or served alongside him. And after all this, Coach Butler still continues to serve his school today, as a member of the Board of Regents. Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to share with this great body a small story of someone who gave so much to so many. Ranger College and all of its alumni owe a great debt of gratitude to this man, and it is my honor to thank Coach Butler publicly tonight.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina. I want to talk to two aspects of this rule, one that sets up the vote on a trick that allows us to vote on the ``son of stimulus'' bill that will becoming before us later on this afternoon, and that is voting, having stripped out the Senate amendment to H.R. 2847 and put in place this other legislation. This trick silences the minority one more time. It would not allow for a motion to recommit and/or a substitute on that bill. This legislation of some $150 billion was apparently thrown together in the dark last night, posted on the Internet about 11:10, so we are now 12 hours and 25 minutes into being able to study this bill, again thrown together. It will increase the deficit in spite of the rhetoric that says we are going to use TARP money to do that. The intent of TARP all along was once it was paid back was to be back into the Treasury to reduce the amount of money we have to borrow and/ or reduce the deficit. There are two provisions in this slush fund and this bill that you need to be aware of. One is that it creates additional billion-dollar spending in the Barney Frank trust fund, the housing slush fund, and makes ACORN available to get back into the game, much to the chagrin of this body, as we voted on. It also replaces $2 billion in the Cash for Clunkers money that came out of the stimulus bill last summer. We were on the bill when the proponents of the Cash for Clunkers said this will not increase the deficit because we will take it out of the stimulus money. Immediately the Speaker came to the floor, along with the others, and said, au contraire, we will find a replacement for that $2 billion, and it's in this bill. Now the stimulus bill, the first stimulus, is up to 787 billion, because, as you all know we all enjoyed the Cash for Clunkers work, but this money is back in the bill with respect to the new stimulus. The other bill I would like to talk about is the Defense Department appropriations bill. This rule waives the demand, waives the requirement that the chairman of the Appropriations Committee post on the Internet the earmarks and/or plus-ups, depending on how you want to call those, in this bill, some 1,700 of them, we were told. Some are good, some are bad, but we ought to know what's in there. They were shortly posted on the Internet last night for a brief period of time and then taken down. Madam Speaker, I would like to know what's in this bill that embarrasses the majority that they will not allow this transparency to come before us to allow us to look at it. Like I said, I am not against or for any of those necessarily, but we don't know what they are. By not posting them until after this bill is voted on sometime between now and the end of the year, we are going to be voting blind one more time at the specific request of the majority. It is your responsibility, Madam Speaker, through the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, to have posted these earmarks on the Internet so that those of us could look at them and see them. We are not going to see those. What has been stuck in here in the dark of night between last summer when we passed the bill and when we are going to vote on this afternoon? Why are there things in there that's going to embarrass the majority before we take this vote? Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule and against the underlying bill on the ``son of stimulus'' bill.