K. Conaway

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor an outstanding citizen of the city of Midland, Texas. James ``Doc'' Dodson was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on April 22, 1936. In 1958, he moved to Midland where he became an athletic trainer at Midland High School. It was there that he touched the lives of MHS Bulldogs for the next 32 years. Doc's greatest joy is his family. He married Gayle McMullan in 1963, and they have two daughters, Kelly Hullender and Jamie Dodson. Kelly and her husband, Todd, have Doc's three grandchildren: Blair, Mills and Sam. In 1972, Doc was the first high school athletic trainer selected to be a part of the U.S. Olympic team in Munich, Germany. In 1978, he was the first recipient of the Outstanding High School Trainer award, an honor he was given twice. Doc is now the director of physical rehabilitation at Southwest Orthopedics in Midland where he continues to help many people each day. Doc is truly an outstanding American. We are blessed to have him live in Midland, Texas, and District 11 in Texas, and I am proud to be his Congressman and call him my friend.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, the amendment I have is pretty simple. It would strike section 3010 in its entirety. 3010 deals with the acceleration of the payments on LIHEAP from fiscal year 2007 into fiscal year 2006 by some $750 million. The basis of this being in there has not been laid. This is not an emergency, certainly. We have had one of the mildest winters that we have had in a long, long time. I have also got it on relatively good authority, scientific authority, that we will have a winter in 2007, that this money was originally set up to supplement LIHEAP funding in that year. This funding came about as a result of some very difficult work that was done on the Deficit Reduction Act, and offsets were put in place to allow for this spending in 2007. All of the hard work that went into it, all of the groundwork that was laid to convince us that this was needed for 2007 would be inaccurate, I guess, if we were, in fact, to pass this amendment, because that Deficit Reduction Act was passed in early February. So it has been a little more than a month since the work was done that this House collectively said this $750 million should be spent in 2007 for the LIHEAP program. I know that there will be those who say, well, LIHEAP has been authorized at much, much higher levels than we have it and than it has ever been appropriated at; but we have not seen any evidence that the appropriation levels that we have had in the past were inadequate, that there has been evidence shown that there has been needless suffering going on as a result of this funding being less than what was authorized. I would also remind my colleagues that we have a very disjointed national policy in that we restrict drilling in areas where we know there is crude oil and natural gas, the basis for most of the energy costs that we are talking about helping low-income with, we restrict that drilling. And it does not take a great economist to understand that if the supply of a commodity is greater than the demand that the price will go down. So it seems wrong-headed on one hand to have a subsidy program for our energy costs and then at the same time restrict the drilling for that commodity to continue to drive that price up, which then means you need more subsidies to support the higher and higher prices. So my amendment is pretty straight forward. It strikes this section in its entirety. And I would encourage my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I certainly have a great deal of respect for my colleague on the other side of the aisle, but I think it is a bit misplaced to compare the salaries which you and I make, which I think is $165,000 a year, to every malady known to man. Because if we are going to do that, there is not enough money in the Federal Treasury to make that happen. So I would disagree that that is a very good analogy. We will also consider in this Chamber in a little while a suspension bill that will add a billion dollars in funding to LIHEAP. In fair disclosure, I intend to oppose that as well. But if for no other reason, in order to simplify the world and make it easier on the conferees, my amendment would strike this section out of the bill so that when we go to conference with it, the $1 billion that will be in the suspension bill, I suspect it will get approved, and this $750 million, there would be no confusion that this $750 million is not tacked on top of the $1 billion. I think the analysis has not been made. The price has gone up less than 50 percent and this funding would increase support by well over 100 percent, from a billion to a billion. So I want to respectfully disagree with my colleague and ask my colleagues to support this amendment to strike this section from the bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Chairman, I rise tonight to support an amendment that would address what I believe is a hypocrisy that permeates a very important area of national policy. Section 3010 of this bill will pull funding for LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, from fiscal 2007 into fiscal 2006. The idea is that certain low income folks need help with high fuel prices, high home heating fuel bills or just home heating bills in general. The reason we have high bills is a lack of supply of crude oil and natural gas. While we have this lack of supply, it is because we have not drilled in certain areas, which I believe will provide prolific reserves that would address the energy costs. None of us like these high energy prices we are experiencing. There are no short-term solutions. But the most immediate impact we can have open prices is to drill in areas where we have reserves. These areas include the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, as well as the outer continental shelf. There have been many attempts, throughout my short time I have been here, to open up these areas to drilling. The drilling contractors, the operators today so, can do so in an environmentally sensitive way and a responsible way, and it is hypocritical of us to, on the one hand, ask the taxpayers of this country to underwrite the high energy bills, and then, on the other hand, restrict supply that, in fact, drives up those costs. So my amendment would say that none of the LIHEAP money would be available as long as we maintain restrictions on drilling in ANWR as well as the outer continental shelf. Another point, as to the safety of the drilling in these areas, if you look at the experience we had as a result of Hurricane Katrina, you cannot imagine, you cannot formulate a worse natural disaster in the Gulf of Mexico as it relates to the producing and drilling platforms than we had in the gulf that was Hurricane Katrina. You just cannot imagine anything worse than that. As a result of the great engineering, the hard work of many men and women throughout this industry, there was not one oil spill, one natural gas spill as a result of Hurricane Katrina sweeping through there and destroying the surface equipment. All of the sub-surface protections that are put in place to protect against that eventuality did in fact work. I think the idea that we can't do so, we can't drill offshore safely and responsibly has, in my mind, not played out. So I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment to address what I believe is a hypocritical position in national policy. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Point of Order

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Chairman, while I respectfully disagree, I accept the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, today, March 9, 2006, I missed rollcall vote No. 33, H. Res. 713, on ordering the previous question to provide for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2829) to reauthorize the Office of National Drug Control Policy Act. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall vote 33. personal explanation

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Judge, I thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to share this hour with you tonight and to be able to discuss these very important topics with our colleagues in the House. One of the things that occurred to me while I have been here in Congress is that we don't do a real good job of delineating between the role of the Federal Government and everybody else. There is a great push every single day while we are here to expand the reach, to expand the scope, to expand the Federal Government's role in all of our lives. One of the reasons for that is I don't think we have a really good, clear appreciation for our founding documents. So I have introduced a bill, H. Res. 485, called the America Act, a modest effort to reinstitute the Constitution in America, which would require every Member of Congress, every Representative, every Senator, to read the Constitution once a year. It would also require our senior staffers to also read the Constitution, because an awful lot of what you and I do every single day is somewhat influenced by what our staff does; the idea being that you and I raise our hand in January of every odd-numbered year, one of the seminal moments of my short term here in this Congress in January of 2005 when we stood up to take our oath of office. We pledge to protect and defend the Constitution. In our role as lawmakers, we write laws to implement the Constitution, and, every once in a while, we attempt to change the Constitution. So it seems pretty self-evident to me we should know what is in the Constitution, and, given the reach of this Federal Government over the years, it seems we may have lost our way with respect to that. When the Constitution was being written 230-plus years ago, there was a constant struggle or tension, as has already been discussed on this floor tonight, of what the role of the Federal Government should and should not be. Those headed up by Alexander Hamilton thought a wide- ranging, wide-reaching government would be appropriate. Others, such as Adams and Jefferson, thought a much more narrow interpretation of the Constitution would narrow the scope of this Federal Government. I doubt that if our Founding Fathers could join us today, that even the strongest proponents of the most expansive Federal Government would recognize what we have done under the Constitution with this Federal Government. It reaches into every single portion of our lives. You and I also, when we campaign and when we are talking on this Hill, talk about reducing the size of government, reducing Federal spending, the threat that the growth in spending has to our way of life. The real solution, in my mind, is going to lead to some hard decisions that sweep major programs, major perhaps Cabinet-level agencies, out of the Federal Government; a clear recognition that this Federal Government should be limited; that there should be certain things that are totally left up to the States. I am not going to name any of those tonight, because that is going to create some controversy when we begin to talk about that. The truth of the matter is if we are, in fact, going to rein in the growth of the Federal Government, we have to begin limiting the reach into particular areas that our Founding Fathers did not envision. So a modest step, a new effort to try to help each of us understand clearer what our role should be and what this Federal Government's role should be in our day-to-day lives, will be a reading of the Constitution. So I am going to begin asking each of my colleagues to cosponsor and join this effort to pass this resolution that would require all of us to read the Constitution once a year. It is going to be an honor system. We are honorable men and women in this body, and I think we can trust ourselves. I am a CPA by trade. You are an attorney. Our professions all require continuing professional education: doctors, lawyers, engineers, CPAs. CPAs in particular have to have 40 hours a year of continuing education just to stay current. It seems to me that politicians and folks serving this body should be as well informed about their job as anybody serving in a profession should be informed, and the start of that would be the Constitution, the base document on which this great hall is founded. So this requirement would require each of us to read that Constitution once a year, and record that in our records, and be available for constituents to ask us, now, when is the last time you read the Constitution, Mr. Congressman? I want to thank my good colleague from Texas, the great judge from the southeast part of the State. We are from the same State, but we are probably 600 miles apart in our homes. But it is a wonderful State to represent, and I am honored to have Ted Poe and the freshman group with me this year. I want to thank you for giving me this time to share this hour with you tonight.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia and appreciate the gentleman from Georgia inviting me here tonight to allow me to share this time with him. Almost 16 years ago I participated in a Midland introspective. This was a look at what was going wrong and what was going right in Midland, Texas, where I am from, led by the United Way and a bunch of other folks who helped fund the introspective. We did a statistically valid survey of the community to find out what the needs were. This was a needs assessment, and we asked people what was happening in their neighborhoods and their cities and their homes, and to come up with some sort of sense as to how we should be addressing the social issues within our communities. Once we got the data back, again, it was statistically valid, we came up with our top 10 list of needs that Midlanders told us were Midland's needs, as opposed to those of us in certain organizations trying to decide on behalf of Midland what it was. Anyway, it was an idea that we could do this periodically to try to track how we were doing. If you look at the top 10 needs within our communities, nine of those needs would have been positively impacted by a job. The needs were family needs and needs for child care. The needs were health care. Every single one of them except one, and I probably ought to remember what that one was that was not directly associated with the solution being a job, because when a family gets a job, those 4.73 million jobs, I suspect, are associated with probably half that number or better, families, moms, dads, children whose lives are better every single day because someone in that family now has a job, someone's bringing in a paycheck, someone is creating an environment within that family so that the children see mom and dad working, the children understand responsibility, the children understand how families work. The families are so much better off when they have got a job. So we have 4.73 million jobs, and the number of families that are affected by that cannot be understated. In a body on the floor where hyperbole and overstating and overreaching and puffing is an art form, I probably ought to be able to come up with some flowery language that would help communicate how important job growth is, but I am burdened, though, by being a CPA, and we just do not puff and brag and all those kinds of things very well, and other folks it do it much better than us. What I really want to talk about tonight is what I see as the single biggest threat to our way of life that we face. I serve on the Armed Services Committee. We are a country at war, and I suspect most of our colleagues in the House tonight would think I would talk about the war being our single biggest threat to our way of life. I think it is the growth of Federal Government and the growth of spending that represents the single biggest threat to our way of life. Federal spending is a drag on the terrific economy that we have got going. Federal spending does not create wealth. As we all know, it may create a few jobs, but those jobs are dependent upon programs. So the real effective jobs that create wealth and help families are those created in the private sector. The CBO, Congressional Budget Office, has recently published a study that is posted on their Web site that anybody can go to, cbo.gov, that looks at the 50-year trend in the growth in this Federal Government. If you look at 2050, and they have several different scenarios that they run through, but the one that seems to make the most sense to me would show that by the year 2050, 45 years from now, that the Federal Government, left unchecked, left unchanged, will consume 50 percent of the gross domestic product of this country. We are currently at about 20 percent, and in my mind that is about the gag threshold for a Federal economy. So at 50 percent plus, there has never been a free market, free enterprise system anywhere in history that has allowed the central government to take half and allowed the rest of us to prosper on the other half, prosper in terms of an improved standard of living, of opportunities, of the kinds of things of the America that, quite frankly, my colleague and I inherited from our moms and dads and our grandparents. I have six grandchildren, six terrific grandchildren, and it is unfair of me as an adult to pass on to them a world that doesn't look better than the one I inherited. That ought to be our role as parents and grandparents, to make this world better for our children and our grandchildren. Well, in 2050, my oldest grandson will be about 53 years old. He will be where we are right now. Maybe he will be in Congress. That would be kind of cool. But he and his colleagues in that bracket will be where we are today. And if we don't do something beginning now to address this issue, then they will inherit a world that is radically different than ours, that is fundamentally different than the one you and I currently enjoy. And that is just wrong. Let me drive this point home. Who among us as grandparents, or any of us who want to be grandparents, would take, in my instance, my six grandkids down to the nearest bank and say, Mr. Banker, I want to borrow every single dollar in your bank, and I want you to prepare notes that my six grandchildren will sign. I am going to take the money and I am going to spend it the way I want to. I will spend it on some good stuff, but I am going to spend all of it, and you are going to have to look to these six grandkids for repayment of that debt. In all the times I have used this anecdote, or used this story, I have never found one grandparent who would say that they would in fact do that with their grandchildren. But collectively, somehow this mob mentality, that is exactly what you and I and our colleagues are doing in America, is that we are spending money today that we don't have and we are creating debt that our grandchildren are going to have to pay off. I spoke earlier today to a trade association and was asked for questions. And one of the guys in the audience asked about the budget deficits that we are experiencing and should we, in effect, continue to borrow this money that our grandkids are going to have to pay off; shouldn't we do something to address that? Well, I said, yes, we should, but it should not be a tax increase. Now, you and a couple of our colleagues have already talked about this. We do not have a revenue problem in America. The Federal Government does not have a revenue problem. We will have record tax collections this year. We had record tax collections last year. And our tax revenues, our ability to grow those is growing at about 5 percent a year. Collectively, we should be able to live within that spending frame. So I would disagree with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who call for increased taxes, who call for a bigger share, a bigger take out of our working families and working people's take-home pay to help with our spending problem. So we don't have a revenue problem; we, in effect, have a spending problem. We just are simply spending too much. I know that my colleague and I belong to an organization that is going to bring forth a pretty radical budget scenario that could balance the budget within 5 years, and it is going to call for some pretty radical changes. The problem with cutting Federal spending, whether it is discretionary spending or mandatory spending, every single dollar that the Treasury writes a check for winds up on somebody's deposit slip. Somebody gets that money. They feed their families with it and do things with it that they think are important. They believe the Federal program that generates that check or that dollar is probably the single most important Federal program that we have going out there. It is much like surgery. You are a surgeon. If we are cutting on one of our colleagues, then it is minor surgery. But if that same surgery is being performed on me, it is major surgery. So cutting Federal spending is much the same way. We are going to see, once this budget is prepared by the Republican Study Committee, once it is published, and we have already seen it from the President's budget, we will see an awful lot of people who represent every single one of those dollars that are going out and the constituents for those dollars, the special interest groups for those dollars are going to be in pushback mode trying to convince you and I and others that we need to cut somewhere else. Not their program, some other program needs to be cut. This is going to be a little self-serving, and I don't want to intrude on your time tonight, but I introduced a bill last week that would require you and I, every Member of the House, every Member of the Senate, and our senior staffers to once a year read the Constitution. Now, it is going to be interesting as I begin to make the rounds and try to get our colleagues to agree with that to see what kind of pushback I get. As a physician, you had continuing education hours that you had to do every year to stay current in your profession and your field. I had, as a CPA, about 40 hours a year to keep current. It seems to me, and you and I have taken an oath to defend and protect that Constitution, you and I who write laws that implement some of the powers that are granted to the Federal Government under that Constitution, you and I who propose amendments to that Constitution, that this is kind of a novel approach, that we ought to know what is in it. So reading the Constitution once a year may help us begin to think about just big areas that this Federal Government should not be associated with. Not denigrate the area itself. That is not the issue here. Our Founding Fathers were incredibly brilliant. As modern-day Americans we have a pretty jaded view of other peoples and certainly other times, and we think we are the brightest and the smartest generation to have ever lived. But as you read our founding documents and read the Constitution, and as you think about what people did 230, 240 years ago, there were some pretty bright folks that put this thing in place. And I think every single one of them, including Alexander Hamilton, who wanted the most expansive Federal Government he could think of, would be really shocked to see what collectively you and I and all of us have done with that document, with those authorities and powers. They had envisioned a pretty limited Federal Government, a pretty limited role. Everything else was to go to the States. Clearly, some of the roles we would all agree on, national security, homeland defense, border security, those are things everyone agrees is the Federal Government's job, period. It is not the States' job or local municipalities' jobs. It is ours, as representatives of the Federal Government, to get that done well. But we have an awful lot of areas that the Federal Government has crept into. And in order to make substantive changes in that growth in government, in that growth to 50 percent of GDP that CBO thinks is an inevitable track, that we are going to have to make some very strong substantive changes in the way we are doing business. As your colleague talked about earlier today, there are probably 10,000 reasons in that budget that is going to be proposed for every single Member of Congress to vote against it. I have got six reasons why we ought to seriously consider it. Reason number one is named Michael; reason number two is named Caleb; reason number three is named Cameron; reason number four is named Emily Kate; reason number 5 is Conally, and reason number six is Alexandria. Those are the first names of my six grandkids. So that is what we ought to be about doing. It is going to be hard work and it is going to require some tough, tough choices, some tough things to tell people. Some folks are going to have to figure out a different way to feed their families and they will have to figure out ways to provide the goods and services that they think the Federal Government is currently doing that we don't think under our Constitution is an appropriate role. And it is going to be hard. We are going to have to ask people to make some sacrifices and do things in a whole lot different way than they have been doing it. Almost every one of us have grandchildren or will have grandchildren. And the path we are on, the path you and I inherited and that we are perpetuating, is one that leads to a very ugly conclusion. Now, as a CPA, that sounds like pretty standard stuff we say, and it is awfully downer talk, and it is not particularly uplifting, but it needs to be a clarion call. Our issue is that you and I and our colleagues are pretty good at handling stuff tomorrow, next week, and maybe some into 2007. But when we look beyond that, that is an eternity. This issue, this growth in Federal Government is 20 years, 30 years, 40 years down the road. And so because it is far enough down the road, it is very easy for us to stick our heads in the sand and let it be someone else's responsibility, let it be someone else's decisions as to how to fix it. So if I don't do anything else tonight, hopefully I can scare some of our colleagues into at least taking a look at that CBO study. Don't take my word for it, go look at it for yourself. And, look, if the number is only 40 percent of GDP, if it is 60 percent of GDP, it is a number that is unsustainable. It is a world that is fundamentally different than the one you and I currently enjoy, the opportunities we have and our colleagues have, and it is just patently unfair for us to hand that off to our children. I want to thank my good colleague for letting me rant tonight and share with you and other members of this Truth Squad, and I thank you for organizing this and getting it done.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield for just a moment, your good colleague from Georgia was sharing with us last night an experience he had with a town hall meeting. Somebody asked him about a proposed cut of the President, and I will not name the particular policy area because I don't want to get off into that kind of thing, because it just distracts us. But anyway, they asked, why are you in favor of cutting whatever? His great answer back, and I am going to steal it from him, was to look at them and say, okay, how many in here think that is the Federal Government's responsibility; that particular area of public policy? And not one person raised their hand. And this is an area that is very important to our country, very vital to our country, but it is just not the Federal Government's role. And he did it again. Somebody else brought up another area. And he thought, well, it worked once so let me try it again. How many people here think that is a role that the Federal Government should be doing? Not one hand raised. So I think Americans are like that. They understand that if we begin to pose things in that frame, questions just like that, that we will begin to get the political will and the political backbone and support for getting back to basics and getting back to the constitutional Republic that we have.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for not only those kind words but also for creating the Truth Squad and being the motivating factor behind that. I think it is going to do us good to come here from time to time to talk about these things. I also want to thank my colleague from Tennessee for those very kind words. The bill the gentlewoman is talking about would actually be a change in the House rules for next session, the 110th Congress, and that is if you can find something that the Federal Government is not already currently doing, in order to convince us that new program should come into existence, you have to do away with an existing program of equal or greater spending. In other words, if your new program is not more important than some other program in the vast array of public programs, basically you are telling us this new proposed program is the least important thing that our Federal Government can do. If that is the case, obviously why would we do it? Now the great thing about being freshmen, except for Mrs. Blackburn, is that we do not know what we are not supposed to suggest and we do not know what, quote/unquote, cannot be done. I know this is going to cross jurisdictional lines within committees, and some would say that it puts a damper on the creative spirit that brings these new programs to life. In the short run, maybe that is not a bad idea. Nancy Reagan had it right when she said just say no to drugs. Maybe we should say just say no to new programs for a little cooling off period and get an evaluation. The President in his budget came up with 141 programs that through the evaluation process, an objective evaluation process, that could be targets for this program. What I would like to talk about tonight is the reason why the discussions we are having tonight are so important and try to add a little sense of urgency to the overall issue of the budget for 2007. That is the long-term look, the 50-year look at the growth in the Federal Government, growth in Federal spending. I would argue with just about anybody that the single biggest threat to our way of life is the growth in Federal spending over the next 50 years. Now I say that with a recognition that we are at war, the global war on terror is important and it is a crisis that we ought to have to deal with, but I think spending of the Federal Government will ruin the American way of life. If you look at studies done by the Congressional Budget Office, they have recently posted one to their Website, CBO.gov. If you look at that long-term study in the growth in Federal spending, it will frighten you or it should frighten you and add a sense of urgency to the need for what we are doing here and what we are discussing here tonight, and that is to try to trim back the rate of growth in this government. Today, we spend an equivalent amount of 20 percent of our gross domestic product. It is consumed by the Federal Government. That $2.7 trillion, in round numbers, that we will approve for the 2007 budget is about 20 percent of GDP. Our current tax revenues, all revenues for the Federal Government, are about 18 percent. So we are creating a deficit that we all have to deal with and decry. Nobody defends the deficit and nobody thinks it is the best way to go, but being an accountant and a CPA, those are the facts. As the photographer said, if you want a prettier picture, you need to bring me a prettier face. But let us look at that spending out over 45 years. In the year 2050, if you look at the CBO report, the Federal Government will consume about 50 percent of gross domestic product. My colleague from Atlanta knows the world has never seen a free market enterprise country where the central government can consume half the GDP and the rest of the country prosper on the other half. It just does not work that way. So we have two choices as I see it. One, reduce the rate of growth and reduce the programs that are not sustainable and bring the projected growth in Federal Government in line with what tax revenues can be. Or out of whole cloth, come up with a brand new economic system, a brand new way of doing business that will allow the central government to consume half, and the rest of us prosper and grow and have a better standard of living on the other half. Today, we had hearings in the Budget Committee. We had General David Walker, the head of the Government Accountability Office; we had Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was the immediate past chair or the director of the Congressional Budget Office; and we had Elizabeth Sawhill from the Brookings Institute, three individuals with impeccable credentials in this area. They bring a great deal of credibility to the table. Today in the hearings they were unanimous in the problem we are talking about, in their agreement with the problem we are talking. Now GAO's estimate is about 40 percent of GDP by 2050, and the Congressional Budget Office is about 50 percent. There is a margin of error there that is irrelevant when you look at revenues. The question was asked, can we grow our way out of this problem? And the short answer was eloquent in its brevity. All three simply said, no, we cannot grow our way out of it. We cannot grow our way out of it, an elegance to that answer that was deafening in the room. So we cannot grow our way out of it. It requires us to begin to make choices today that are easier than the choices available to us next year, and are clearly easier today than any choice we will have 3 years from now regarding how we will begin to reduce the rate of growth in this Federal Government. As I have said, in this Chamber we give speeches, and with hyperbole we typically overreach and puff and brag in order to convince our colleagues that our particular argument is correct. But a threat to our way of life, the threat to my grandchildren, your grandchildren, is there. It is imminent when you look at the long term. The bad news about it is it is not imminent in the sense that it is going to happen tomorrow afternoon. We as Americans just tend to deal with today's issue, tomorrow's issue, maybe next week's issue; but we rarely want to take a look at 45 years down the road and make some hard choices that we have today. Let me finish up with one quick anecdote about the importance of doing this. I have six wonderful grandchildren that I am incredibly proud of. When I talk in the district to town hall meetings and groups like this, I typically ask all the grandparents to raise their hands. You get a good smattering of those folks. I say, which grandparent in the room today would take their grandchildren to their local bank and say, Mr. Local Banker, I want to borrow every dollar in this bank, but I want my grandchildren to sign the note. I want them to be responsible for paying it off. I am going to take the money, and I am going to spend it on a few good things, but I want to spend it the way I see fit. But I want you to look at my grandchildren and make them pay off that debt. There is not a grandparent in the room that says yes. There is not a grandparent anywhere that I know of who would take that. Then I look at them and say that is exactly what we are doing as a group. Our collective conduct is doing just that. By 2050, we will have an economic model that cannot be sustained, and the size of the Federal Government cannot be supported by any level of taxation that would make sense. In an attempt to add some sense of urgency to the importance of what our colleagues, you and our other colleagues, are talking about tonight with respect to this year's budget and next year's budget and next year's spending, the long look is important. As I said to start with, I believe that this is the single biggest threat to our way of life that we face, that is, acknowledging the fact that we are at war with some pretty terrible people. Dr. Price, I appreciate you allowing me to speak with the group tonight. I appreciate you allowing me this time, and thank you for your leadership in this Truth Squad effort as we go forward in the second session of the 109th Congress.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding this time. I will be brief, as we have one more speaker. Several of our colleagues tonight have talked about the war in Iraq and the global war on terror. I just want to add a little meat to that bone that says when we have a free Iraq, a democratic Iraq that is at peace with its neighbors, is no longer a haven for terrorists, that the war on terror will go on. I would like to beef up that argument by a brief historical review of some of the things that our enemies have done outside of Iraq over the last several years. In October 2000, the USS Cole was in Aden, Yemen, refueling, when a small rubber boat ran up beside it, set off a charge that blew a 40 foot by 40 foot gash in the side of the USS Cole, killed 17 young sailors and injured 39. Without provocation, without warning, these terrorists struck. In Saudi Arabia, in 2003 and 2004, on May 12, 2003, suicide bombers killed 34 people, including 8 Americans, when they blew up a housing compound that housed westerners. In May of the following year, 22 people were killed when terrorists attacked a Saudi oil company in Khobar, taking foreign oil operators hostage and leaving 22 dead, including one American. June 11, the next month, in Riyadh, terrorists kidnapped and executed Paul Johnson, an American in Riyadh. Two other Americans and a BBC cameraman were killed by gun attacks. Then in December of 2004, in Jeddah, terrorists killed five consulate employees at the U.S. consulate there in Saudi Arabia. In Madrid, March 11, 2004, just before the elections in Madrid, in an attempt to affect the elections, which as history shows us this bombing did affect it, 13 rucksacks went off at a train station on four commuter trains almost simultaneously at the height of rush hour, killing 191 civilians and injuring over 1,800 people. The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group has claimed responsibility for this tragic killing; again, an unexpected, unannounced, unprovoked attack on civilians. Then in July of this year, this past year, July 7, I was actually in Kuwait on my way to Iraq when a suicide bomber struck again, this time in trains in London. Three different underground trains were blown up, killing some 56 people, injuring 700, again in an unprovoked, unannounced sneak attack using suicide bombers. Finally, on November 9, 2005, in Amman, Jordan, at a wedding ceremony in the three hotels there in Amman, again suicide bombers blew up, killing 57 people and injuring 115 others in an attempt to create terror among those who oppose the violent Islamic Jihadist movement. I remind my colleagues and others that we are in a global war on terror, no place in this world is safe, and while it is counterintuitive to talk about playing an away game, it is clearly in our best interests that we continue to fight this war in Iraq and around the world so that we don't fight it in the streets of America.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in support of this rule and also the underlying bill that will come up later on. I am a CPA. I have spent 30-plus years in business dealing with clients and families and other businesses. Our family business or our family home runs by a budget; it cannot run at a deficit very long. Our businesses cannot, certainly State and local governments cannot do it. About the only one that can is the Federal Government. Simply because the Federal Government does run a deficit or can does not mean it should. The only way to whack down a deficit is to cut spending and raise revenue. Tonight we are about cutting spending; actually, cutting a reduction in the growth in spending. The problem with spending, and I suspect even my good colleagues on the other side of the aisle use the phrase ``we need to cut Federal spending.'' It rolls off the tongues very easily, but it is, quite frankly, very hard to do it. It is hard to get that done. We have been at this since February, and it is going to be hard. It is hard because every single dollar that comes out of the Treasury has a constituent attached to it, has a special interest group attached to it. If we listened to much of the rhetoric here tonight, every single one of the reductions in the rate of growth that we talked about affects a program that is the single most important program in the entire Federal Government. Logic does not allow that to happen. We cannot have every single program that we do in this Federal Government be the most important. We have to set some priorities, and reducing the rate of growth that this bill does is an appropriate way to do it. I would also like to respond to the religion issue that was brought up earlier. I cannot speak to all religions, but I can speak to the faith that I follow. I am a reasonably good student of the New Testament and there is plenty of evidence, plenty of scripture where Christ instructs me to take my wealth, resources, and benefits and help those who are less fortunate, help the poor and needy, all of those kinds of things. I cannot find anywhere where the Christ tells me to take money from everybody else and fix those programs, fix those problems for the needy in our country. So I am curious as to a religion that might have a concept like that. So I speak tonight in favor of the rule and also the underlying bill.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Oklahoma for yielding me this time. I serve on the Armed Services Committee, and I am proud of the underlying bill this rule represents, and that is the way we provide for the defense of this country, with all of the equipment and gear and training and personnel that we have in place. But I want to speak specifically to a provision that is in there relating to the drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. I come from west Texas, where a good slug of the daily production in America comes from, the area that I represent; and we have been drilling there for a long, long time in a responsible manner. America imports crude oil every day in the millions of barrels. To the extent that we can reduce that dependency on foreign crude, we will improve the national security of this country. We have drilled in ANWR three test wells; and with the best science we have and the best estimates that we have, we should be able to produce between 800,000 and a million barrels a day. Now, if you come from oil country, you know that until you drill it, you do not know if the production is going to be there. But let us say for the sake of argument that that production is there. I believe that our current drilling companies, drilling operators and contractors can do that drilling in an environmentally sensitive and responsible manner. To put the 2,000 acres we intend to drill on in perspective, if you take the full front page of the Wall Street Journal, every letter on that page, the drilling in ANWR is the equivalent of one letter on that page. Now, I am not trying to minimize the responsibility of the commitment to do this drilling in an environmentally sensitive manner, but we will do that in this regard. Drilling in ANWR will improve our daily production of crude oil, it will reduce the amount of crude oil that we will have to buy, and that purchase of crude oil from foreign countries obviously aggravates the trade deficit. So I speak in favor of the rule and the underlying legislation and encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and the bill itself.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the Iraqi people. Today, millions of people in Iraq are headed to the polls to cast their vote for a free and open society. This vote stands directly in opposition to the prior government which was predicated on terror and fear, and ruled by the iron fist of one of the world's most vicious dictators. This is the most powerful blow to the terrorists and rejectionist elements of the Iraqi insurgency to date. Iraqis are determining their own destination, their own destiny, and by doing so they have reached an important benchmark drawing the U.S. closer to victory and reducing American presence in Iraq. Today's parliamentary elections in Iraq have the makings of a watershed moment in history, not only for the Middle East, but for the long-term security of the United States. A democratic Iraq is absolutely essential to winning the global war on terror. Now, more than ever, America's leaders must stand united behind the Iraqi people as they venture forward in the hope for a better future.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in order to recognize El Magnet at Reagan Elementary School in Odessa, Texas, for their commitment to excellence in education. On September 13, the Intel Corporation and Scholastic named El Magnet at Reagan a 2005 School of Distinction for demonstrating exceptional commitment to achieving innovation in education. They were selected from over 3,300 other participating schools from across this Nation for programs such as Crossing Borders which partners their Spanish classes with technology integration, and also allows students to serve as teachers. El Magnet was also held up as an exemplary model for success here in Washington, D.C. in October 2005 at a gala for distinguished recipients, and was awarded $10,000 in cash in a grant to continue their scholastic progress. Not only do all of Reagan students pass the rigorous Texas Assessment for Knowledge and Skills Test, but the number of students scoring in the 90th percentile ranks Reagan in the top five schools in Texas every year. The reputation of El Magnet Reagan extends beyond the Permian Basis in the State of Texas, and again on September 19, 2005, Reagan was named a 2005 No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon School by the Department of Education. I congratulate the students and teachers, administrators and families of El Magnet at Reagan Elementary School. I wish them the best in the future, thank them for their hard work, and their dedication that have made these prestigious awards possible.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. If the gentleman will yield for one second, let us correct our language. Because what we are talking about voting on this week are extensions of the current Tax Code. These are not tax cuts. They are only cuts when the Federal Government has got some claim to this money. So what we are talking about doing on Thursday or Friday of this week is to extend the current pro-growth, pro-job creation tax scheme we have in place. So let us not talk about it in terms of cuts in the future, let us make sure my colleague and I use the right phrases.

Mr. CONAWAY. I agree with that completely, and the evidence is in the statistics that we have and that the gentleman is presenting tonight and that my other colleague from Texas will, I suspect, share with us as well.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Georgia for coming out tonight and sharing these facts with us. I want to quote my good colleague from Texas, everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but none of us are entitled to our own set of facts. And the more we speak to the facts and the less we talk about the make-believe, I think the better off we all are. This is clear and convincing evidence that the tax system, while flawed in many ways, is working, and that to tinker with that at this point in time is muddle-headed and hopefully something we will keep from happening. So I want to thank my colleague for coming out and joining us. And I now want to recognize my good friend and colleague from Texas, Congressman Hensarling, who has been at this for four or five times as long as I have been, and who is a constant champion of reining in Federal spending. We sometimes equate Federal spending with the Federal Government's growth, and I think that is an accurate portrayal, and Congressman Hensarling is a leader among many of us here on the Republican side, and in the Congress overall, and a voice calling for a smaller Federal Government and also smaller Federal spending to accomplish that. So I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, was the chicken coop cleaning better or worse than the practice of law?

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for coming out tonight and sharing his background and his experience in this area. He is one of those loud, clear voices on behalf of limited Federal Government, limited Federal expenditures; and I am proud that he has come out tonight to help us with this. Let me flush out what he was talking about in terms of increased Federal receipts. Back in January of this year, the CBO estimated that fiscal year 2005's tax receipts, Federal receipts, would be about $2.045 trillion. CBO is an organization that gets paid to try to estimate these things. They generally do a really good job. When we finished out the year, I was looking at the same Treasury report that my colleague made reference to awhile ago, and for fiscal year 2005 which ended September 30, 2005, receipts were $2.153 trillion, over $100 billion more in Federal tax receipts than we had estimated just 9 months previously. So the numbers we have been talking about tonight, the $50 billion in tax cuts, the $56 billion and the impact extending the current tax law will have on tax revenues, pale against over 108 to $109 billion of increased Federal revenues that has come about as a result of the pro- growth, pro-job creation tax policy that was put in collectively in 2001 to 2003. In addition to that good news, at the end of last week, the GDP growth for the third quarter of calendar year 2005 was 4.3 percent. That is a good growth rate on any economy, a developing economy or whatever it is. But let us make sure that we understand this is on the single largest economy in the world. It grew 4.3 percent in the third quarter, and that is staggering growth under any conclusion. The unemployment rate was mentioned earlier as being as low as 5 percent. That is full unemployment in reckoning of many economists and is certainly lower than the averages of unemployment of the previous 3 decades. The decade of the 1970s, which you remember, we had a big depression then, and as a result of a run-up in oil and gas prices. We had lower than in the 1980s, when those of us in the oil business experienced a significant downturn in 1986 and later, and then lower than the boom years of the 1990s when the unemployment rate was as low as anybody thought it would ever be. The current unemployment rate is actually lower than that. Statistics are full of all kind of odd and important indexes that statisticians and economists use to try to make projections as to where the economy is going. One of those that you do not hear a lot about is the consumer confidence index, and that is supposed to be a measure of how consumers feel about themselves, are they going to go spend money, do they feel comfortable with their job and those kinds of things. It jumped from an 85.2 percent rating in October to a 98.9 percent rating in November, a 1-month jump of over 13 points in consumer confidence. What that tells us is that retailers for the Christmas season ought to do very well. One of my colleagues today said go try to find a parking spot in the mall these days, and for all of the doom and gloom that is out there in the media, it is not being reflected in Americans going to the malls and working on Christmas gifts and charity gifts for other folks that do not have it. So the consumer confidence is up. Another statistic that gets talked about a little bit is that sales of new homes jumped 13 percent in October, the largest 1 month percentage gain in 12 years, and new single-family homes also climbed to an all-time record high of 1.42 million units, more people, again, as we have said several times tonight, more people owning a home in America than have ever owned a home. Now 1 month does not make a trend. But continuing to talk about Federal tax receipts and revenues, the first month of fiscal year 2006 was the month of October of 2005. And during that first month, Federal tax receipts were about $149 billion, and a year ago, the equivalent month in October of fiscal 2005, which was October of 2004, Federal tax receipts was $137 billion, so a $12 billion gain in just 1 month against previous years' months. Now you have got to be careful. That may or may not be a trend. But it is hard to say it is bad news, that the tax receipts for October of this year are greater than tax receipts for October of last year. I think that is good news. I would also like to point out a couple of tax provisions that are included in the extension that we will do later on this week that are important, and one of those would continue the tax deduction for state and local sales taxes for States that do not have a State income tax, States like yours and mine, Mr. Speaker, and my former colleague. Texas does not have a State income tax. And so this provision would allow Texans to deduct, rather than the State income taxes, to deduct State and local taxes, which are used to fund many of the exact same programs that States who have income taxes use those taxes to provide goods and services to their citizens. Another deduction that is extended is the above-the-line deduction for higher education expenses. Now, trying not to bore everyone with tax returnese or speak, above-the-line deductions means that you get to detect that without having to itemize your deductions. So higher education expenses, the deduction for that is continued, as well as an important expenditure for many teachers who find the school budgets do not provide some of the extras, and maybe even sometimes some of the essentials that a teacher needs in providing a good classroom experience for her students, teachers get to deduct their out-of-pocket expenses above the line, which means they don't have to itemize deductions to get to deduct those personal expenses that the teacher may pay. One that I came across tonight, or an example of one I came across tonight is the tax incentive to revitalize the District of Columbia. Included in the Code of the past two tax cuts has been a $5,000 tax credit for anyone, any new first time home purchaser here in the District of Columbia. Well, one of the folks on my staff, who as you know, staff are legendarily overworked and way underpaid. One of the folks on my staff 2 years ago took advantage of this provision and bought his first home and has begun to build equity in that home over the past 2 years and would not have been able to do that were this tax provision not in place. When you sell a home, you have bought it from somebody who previously owned it, hopefully, and in all likelihood, that person is going to go invest that money in another home, so it is important that we have first-time buyers to work into the market, work into the housing market, because as we stated earlier, for many families, the ownership of a home is the single largest asset that they have in their portfolio. And this gentleman now has a home that he is paying a mortgage on, of course, but is building equity in that home, building equity in his personal wealth, and he is going to be better off as a result of having done that. Let me talk about something that we probably should have talked about right off the bat, and that is the Federal Government does not grow this economy. A lot of times, the Federal Government gets a lot more credit for good economic news than it deserves, and in all likelihood, sometimes a lot more of the blame for bad economies than it deserves. But the truth of the matter is a growing economy that we have right now is not created by a Federal Government. It was created by hundreds of thousands of hard working Americans, employees who go to work every day and work for their employer to try to provide a good or a service that that employer can sell and make money on. Self-employed individuals who have gone out there and taken the business risk of leaving that paycheck, leaving the security of a check every 2 weeks to try to make it on their own. Those are the folks who are building this growing economy, who are adding people to their payrolls, who are hiring new people or setting up additional businesses to take advantage of opportunities that we are having in this growing economy. So we cannot overstate the value of the hard working American in growing this economy. But we do have some risks a lot of times of overstating the impact the Federal Government has. In my view, the role of the Federal Government is to get out of the way of these hard- working Americans and let them continue to grow this economy, pay their fair share of taxes, of course, but let us not do things that puts the government in the way of creating jobs, gets in the way of furthering homeownership, gets in the way of growing this economy and providing new opportunities for men and women in this country. I participated in, back in the early 1990s, in a needs assessment for Midland, Texas. This was an attempt to survey on a statistically valid basis throughout Midland County, what were the needs of people within Midland, what were the needs of your family, what were the needs in your neighborhood, what were the needs within the overall community. And we got all of this information together and began to sort them into like items and pared the list down to 10 so that we had, in fact, 10 top needs that the people in Midland, Texas, told us they were having in their homes, their families, their neighborhoods and the community. And as you look down that list, nine of those needs would have been positively impacted by a family that had a job. It has been my experience that jobs cure an awful lot of ills within every community. When families are working, the family itself is better off. Communities are better off. The strains on the social network, that is the United Way, that is all those social charities that we have in place to create that safety net that is so vital in every single one of our communities, is less strained when more people have jobs. It is also better supported when more people have jobs. So it is important that we give credit where credit is due with respect to this growing economy. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) mentioned one of his, or three actually of his constituents that are good examples of why these pro growth/pro job creation tax policies are in effect now and that we ought to continue them in effect. I want to talk about Calvin Fryar. Calvin is a good friend of mine from Brownwood, Texas. He and his partners own a company that distributes gasoline. They also have convenience stores. They hire people to work. And he told me the other day at dinner that, because we were talking about extension of these current tax cuts. He said that the one that was the most important to him as a small business owner was the section 179 deduction. Section 179 provides for the immediate write-off of certain equipment that is purchased by businesses and put into use each year. And I think it is about $100,000. Calvin told me that when that came into effect, I think it was 2003, that it helped him make a decision to invest additional money into the businesses that he was trying to create. And not only did he invest the amount of money that qualified him to immediately deduct that amount, he also invested a lot of money on top of that, and in doing so, created jobs, and not only did he create jobs for the people who built whatever it is he bought, but he also created additional jobs for his company because he was expanding his opportunities within the gasoline distribution area as well as convenience stores. So he was adding jobs to his business as a result of that one specific Tax Code that is expiring, and under the tax law that we will pass, hopefully pass on Thursday, will be continued. Another one of those that is very important, and my colleagues earlier in the previous hour mentioned it, and that is the tax rate on capital gains and dividends. If you were to listen to the colleagues on the other side, it is as if the Federal Government has some innate claim to some portion of your capital gains, some portion of your dividends, and I would argue that that is not logical. Where is it stated anywhere that the Federal Government has a claim on selling property that you have held, selling property that you have invested in, selling a business that you built from scratch? Why is it that the Federal Government has a claim to a certain amount of that? And right now, under the current tax law, the Federal Government has a claim on 15 percent of that capital gain, or 15 percent of those dividends. That may or may not be correct. It is the law of the land, but certainly, increasing that number, you would have to answer the question is, all right, why does the Federal Government have a claim on or does it own in some way the capital gain that I get when I sell stocks and bonds or when I sell a business? Why is it that the other side believes that a higher tax rate on capital gains is somehow some right of the Federal Government? That is not. If we were to let those current tax provisions expire, capital gains would get thrown back up to the previously high percentage rates. Everything is going to get thrown back in with ordinary income, the taxable income rates and we will be right back into a circumstance where we are raising taxes the wrong way, raising taxes by raising rates, as opposed to raising taxes by having an economy that is growing at a staggering rate providing new jobs to workers in this country. So I would argue against that as we close out this hour. If you look at the reporting, we are talking about the economy tonight, and if you look at reporting of economic news, it is, I guess, an attempt to be balanced. Balance is rarely neutral though. You will hear somebody talk about, well, you know, this economic statistic is looking up and looking better; but if that path continues, it will drive us into higher interest rates, or if we have got increased job growth or jobs going to be created at too fast a rate, then that is going to drive up inflation. So it is rare that you ever have good economic news simply presented as good economic news. And maybe we will never get to a point where that happens. Hopefully, on the nights that we get to come in here and talk about the economy, get to brag on the economy actually, we will be able to help set the record straight. As I mentioned earlier, my good colleague, Mr. Hensarling, has said often that we are all entitled to our own opinion but we are only entitled to one set of facts; not our own set of facts just the set of facts as are out there. Hopefully we can be responsible for what we say in front of these microphones, be held accountable for what we say. The other side made a lot tonight about accountability and all those kinds of things. I would argue that that same accountability ought to go to things that are said from behind these microphones. If I have said something that is incorrect, if I have made an insinuation or made some sort of a comment that was intended to mislead, that I am called to account for that. And I would hope the other side would ascribe to that same kind of philosophy, that the folks in the Chamber tonight who are listening to this debate, or listening to these arguments, not really debate since we are not going back and forth, but listening to the three of us put out information that we believe is important for the American people to hear and to understand--and to understand how we are coming to the conclusions that we are coming too, that we be held to a very high standard of what we say and that we are able to back up each and everything that we do say with facts that are verifiable. So Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you tonight for being able to lead this hour, and I want to thank my colleague from Texas, Mr. Hensarling, for his role in our talk tonight and I want to also thank my freshman colleague from Georgia, Mr. Price, for his helping me out tonight as well. So the message I would leave with the American people is this, that we have got a growing economy, we have got an economy that is well grounded and is going to sustain this growth; but that what we do not need to do is to increase taxes, tax rates on that economy, but that we continue the pro growth/pro job creation tax rates that have been in effect since 2001 and 2003.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, it is great to be here tonight to host this hour, and I am looking forward to having a colloquy with some of my friends from our party to discuss the economy, which I think in this era of where we are right now does not get bragged on enough; and so we are going to spend the next hour bragging on the economy. Before I do that, though, I would like to talk a little bit about what my friends on the other side have been talking about. When I was campaigning for this first time, the Chair and I are in our first term in this House, I talked about trying to make some friends on the other side of the aisle, trying to build a group of folks we could deal with across the aisle in a bipartisan manner. I committed to myself to try to avoid inflammatory rhetoric, overreaching hyperbole, all the kinds of things that sometimes get us and our colleagues in a lot of trouble when we come to these microphones and speak. Having listened for the last few minutes to the folks on the other side, I would like to, with as much respect as I can, challenge some of the things that we have heard here tonight. I am a CPA. I spent 30-plus years in business helping write financial statements and do tax returns and all the kinds of things that a CPA does. With respect to financial statements, it was always the goal of the financial statement to fairly present the financial results of a particular enterprise, whether it is a small business or a large business. The goal was the same, get all the information out, allow the investor, the banker and the owner to make fair and well-informed decisions. One of the things we do here each night is to try to do that same thing. We try to get information out to each other, to the American people, so that they can make good decisions; and then, hopefully, we can make good decisions as well. Sometimes it is not what is said that is as important as what is left unsaid, and I would like to point out a few things tonight that were left unsaid while my colleagues talked about the debt of the Nation and how we got in this particular position. One of the things that you heard over and over is that we are experiencing the largest deficits ever, and that is an accurate statement. But it also ought to be put in context with a couple of other ``largest ever,'' and that is, that we are now in the largest economy, the largest U.S. economy, ever. The American economy, U.S. economy, has never been bigger than it is today. That is not an excuse for the deficit, but it helps to put it into context. We also have more people working in America today than ever. More people employed, more people self-employed, more people at jobs every single day to try to feed their families, provide for themselves, and make their communities a better place to live. That is a point that ought to be said in the same sentence or same several sentences when we talk about the deficit. We have got more people owning homes today than have ever owned homes in America, and that is a major statement because with respect to probably on an absolute basis from the family standpoint, homeownership is the single largest asset, single largest borrowing that most all families will ever do. There is obviously some exceptions to that; but by and large, most folks will see their biggest debt is their home and biggest asset will be the equity in that home. Overall, good news with which to examine the deficits. Now, coming at my role here in Congress with a background in finance, background in accounting, you go at budgets or correcting budget deficits, there is really only two things to do. You either raise revenues or you cut expenses, and what got left unsaid tonight over and over and over as my colleagues on the other side talked about the spending that the Republicans have championed over the last 5 years in our attempt to try to reduce that was where would the Democrats not spend money. We heard a lot of things about what they did not like about the $50 billion that we passed a couple of weeks ago in rates of reduction in the growth of spending in mandatory programs, mandatory programs being two-thirds out of our annual budget. They did not like any of those. They would argue that every single one of those cuts was into programs that were totally efficient and totally without an opportunity to reduce spending in those areas, and they were not really cuts as I have mentioned. They were simply reductions in the rate of growth. What got left unsaid was where would the Democrats, our Blue Dog colleagues, actually cut, which program. Let us be precise. It is real easy for my colleagues and me to stand up here and say we are against excess spending, we are against the runaway spending, we are against all those kinds of things. But talk is cheap in west Texas, where the Chair and I hang out. Where are the specific programs that they think are subject to being cut? We did not hear any of that. Maybe over the next several weeks, as they said, they are going to come down here again next Tuesday night and talk about what their plans are, and maybe then they will lay out for us are they going to cut defense. I do not think so. Are they going to cut homeland security? We did not hear that tonight. In fact, what we did hear is that they are going to increase spending in those areas. Are they going to cut mandatory spending? It did not sound like it. It sounded like they would prefer to increase spending in all of these areas. That leaves the nondefense, nonhomeland security discretionary budget, which is about $400 billion, a lot of money; but if we have got a $300 billion deficit and we only have $400 billion that they would be willing to kind of work on in terms of providing us with spending cut direction, that runs everything else by the way. So I do not realistically think you can cut out of the $400 billion that is in discretionary spending that you can cut enough to eliminate $300 billion in deficits. The other side of the equation, though, is revenue. What I did hear tonight is that my colleagues are in favor of tax increases, period. Someone once said that trying to work your way out of a deficit with tax increases is like standing in a bucket and trying to lift yourself up with the handles. Those do not work. What we have seen over the last 3 years, 4 years now, the new tax rates, the new tax code that we have in place for America, a tax code and a tax scheme that is pro-growth, pro-job creation, is a recovery from a pretty tough time. Let me just go quickly through a couple of numbers that will help you set in context, and then I would like to allow a couple of my colleagues time to visit with us about that. In 1999, the Federal Government's total tax receipts, and this was in the years of surpluses as they have mentioned, was $1.827 trillion; and then in 2000, it was just a little over $2 trillion in tax receipts. Then we had a couple of things happen that seem to get lost often when we are in these Chambers and we are talking about projections that were done back in 1999 and 2000, about the ongoing surpluses as far as you could see into the future. We had a little thing called September 11, 9/11, horrible attack on this country that had a devastating impact on our economy. We also had the bust of the dot-com era, the stock market bust. We had corporate accounting frauds with which I am very familiar. A lot of things went bad. We were already, unbeknownst to most, already in a recession and heading into recession. In 2001, it went down to $1.99 trillion. In 2002, it went down to $1.853 trillion. In 2003, it went down to $1.782 trillion. That is when the 2001 tax cuts and the 2003 tax cuts began to take effect and tax revenue recovered the next year to $1.88 trillion. In 2004, the year we just finished, it was $2.153 trillion. That is the way we should raise taxes, is to grow this economy and to have more people working than have ever worked before. All of those good things increase receipts for the Federal Government, and that is the way you do it. You do not do it by raising rates and taking more money away from people that have earned it. I noticed tonight they mentioned tax increases on earned income. Tax increases on money that people have earned. I spent a long time trying to earn money, and I know how hard it is to come by. I spent a long time trying to advise clients what to do with their money and how to comply with the Tax Code, and I understand how difficult that is when those tax laws go up. So we have got some things left unsaid from our folks on the other side, and perhaps next week they will come back with a specific plan and specific programs that they would propose that we reduce spending in, and then I suspect that will get the attention of an awful lot of folks on our side of the aisle and we can then go about trying to craft some sort of a bipartisan bill that we can work with. Because I hang out with some folks that would really like to reduce the Federal Government's spending. I think we should be about doing that, and I think if the other side comes to us next week with some specific program cuts they would champion, maybe we can do that. I want to ask my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price), also a freshman with me tonight, and he has agreed to come and speak with us on the economy and share his thoughts with us, so I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.