Artur Davis

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Madam Speaker, we overlooked Gerald Ford's significance when he served as President. His tenure was only slightly longer than a congressional term, a cruel irony for a politician whose political career was so grounded in the by-ways of the House. He was hardly a master politician, if the term refers to the winning of elections or the swift dispatch of opposition: Ford came within an inch of not being re-nominated, and he lost in the general election to the most obscure winner of our times. This week, as we mourn Ford's passing, his legacy is much clearer: first, he gracefully presided over the aftermath of Richard Nixon's forced removal, and over the culmination of our debacle in Vietnam. Had he gotten either moment wrong, the country might have been ripped into two, bitter competing halves. As we contemplate the mistakes subsequent presidents have made, it is a virtue that Gerald Ford made not a single major error in judgment: he did not blunder into any ill-chosen wars, and as much as an opposition dominated Congress thwarted him, he never resorted to subterfuge in an effort to tip the scales. Then there is the graceful way Ford practiced politics. The challenge from Ronald Reagan was perilous because even in 1976, Ford was not of a philosophic kin with most Republican primary voters. A less principled president would have demagogued on issues like busing or affirmative action; certainly, he might have abandoned the detente that was a major contributor to taming the Soviet Union. A modern, win-at all cost politician would have savaged an unknown like Jimmy Carter. The fact is that the 1976 election season was at once breathtakingly close and remarkably civil. Imagine if Gerald Ford's major value, the cultivation of common ground, had dominated the last two fractious decades. Our two major political philosophies would not have been at irreconcilable odds, with both tending to treat each battle as if it were the ultimate one or as if we weren't bound to share a future together. We mourn Gerald Ford's decency and we also mourn the loss of the political character that left the stage when we retired him.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Let me say just one thing at the outset, Mr. Speaker. Prior to the conception of the HOPE VI program, we tended to believe that public housing was a condition that was not alterable, it was not changeable; and, similarly, we believed that it would look pretty much as it did when a public housing unit was conceived. The signal event that happened when this program was passed in the late 1980s was that, all of a sudden, we recognized that a public housing unit, like any other piece of property in America, can be transformed. It can be made esthetically attractive. It can be made a unit that will attract residents from different income levels. It can be made a place that is not just a shelter, that is not just four walls, but that is a home. I have to think that that recognition about the capacity to physically change communities has had a carryover impact on the lives of the people who live there. So put aside all the statistics that we have talked about, put aside the information that we have discussed today about the leveraging of investments and the leveraging of dollars in the communities. This is ultimately about a new stake and a new confidence in places in America that have historically been neglected. Let me thank a few people. I certainly want to thank the outstanding Chair of this committee, as he leaves the House and moves into the private sector, for being such a consistent voice in support not just of this program but all kinds of other good housing programs for the United States. Obviously, I want to thank the ranking member for being so diligent on this issue. I want to thank two of my colleagues who are here, Mr. Watt of North Carolina and Ms. Waters of California, who yielded time. A lot of us support HOPE VI, but what has distinguished Maxine Waters and Mel Watt is that for a period of their whole 14 years in the House they have constantly said, yes, we can make it better, yes, we can fix it, but let us not do away with it. And when the critics and the detractors have questioned this program, the two of them have been enormously vigilant. Let me certainly thank Mr. Shays for his work, and let me recognize someone whose name has not been called, who is also departing the House, Ms. Harris of Florida. Twice we have had to bring amendments to the floor of the House to sustain funding for this program. Twice we have had to ask the House to second-guess the administration, to make a dollar commitment to this program. Two years ago, we got 59 Republicans to cross party lines. This year we topped that. We got 64 Republicans to cross party lines. And a lot of that was a function of Ms. Harris' work. So I want to end on this note. We all agree, or so many of us in this Chamber agree about the value of this program. I hope there are two people in the United States who will take heed of that, the President of the United States and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Because for 4 years now they have given us budgets that would do away with HOPE VI. For 2 years, this House has accurately and correctly second-guessed them and put the money back in. And today this House will make another statement by reauthorizing this program. This works when the two branches of government that the people select, the executive and the legislative, actually listen to each other. This business works better when the executive branch every now and then takes heed of what we do here. There are two more budgets, Ms. Waters, that will be issued from the Bush administration before the President takes leave to Crawford. I hope that both of those budgets are much more reflective of Mike Oxley and Chris Shays and Katherine Harris, as well as the numerous people on this side of the aisle who believe in the utility of this program. So this is an important statement for families who live in these units, and it is a statement of our values as well.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Permission to speak out of turn, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I have the honor of being the first of a series of Democratic speakers tonight about the budget. And my colleagues will talk in some detail about the deficit and the debt and its consequence on the country. But, if I can, I want to begin with a memory of a 10-year-old child growing up in Montgomery, Alabama. I remember being 10 years old and listening to a very conservative radio commentator talking about the liberal government in Washington, D.C., spending too much money. I remember hearing this very skilled radio commentator talk about the fact that amazingly the Government of the United States of America was running a $36 billion deficit, and that it might rise to $100 billion the next year. And I remember hearing that very conservative radio commentator say: If we do not get our hands on our budget, if we do not figure out a way to restore fiscal discipline, there was no way that we can have a strong and solvent economy. Well, that radio commentator was named Ronald Reagan. He would be elected to the Presidency 2 years later; would forget a lot of what he said. He ended up running up massive deficits during his own time in office. I begin with that observation, Mr. Speaker, because for the next, what is it, 51 days between now and November 7, we will hear a lot of talk about which party can be trusted to better manage the money of the American people. We will hear a lot of talk in this 51 days about the danger of Democrats being fiscally reckless and irresponsible, and we will be told that all we will do is we will tax people too much, and we will spend too much. And I looked in the paper today, Mr. Speaker. The President's approval ratings are rising, we are told, and they are rising for one reason. He has gone from a 70 percent approval rating among Republicans to 86 percent. And when I read the various political reports that we are regularly favored with in this city, I read the Republican's strategy on November 7 hinges on one factor: bringing home the base. Bringing home those Republicans in Tennessee and Missouri and Ohio who drifted away, getting them to come back and to believe again. So I want to direct my remarks, if I can, at the Republican base for a minute. I am not a member of it. We have got a lot of conservatives in Alabama, and I think I can speak to them. It is interesting, Mr. Speaker, I want them to know a few basic facts. I want them to know that fiscal conservatism has changed its meaning in this city, and the government in which they put their votes and in which they put so much faith is now running up these massive deficits, and the Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors went before a group of Republican-leaning businessmen last week and said, you know what, it doesn't even matter. Deficits are just things that the statisticians worry about. I want all of the conservative people who are listening tonight, again, many of whom are in my great State of Alabama, to know that, well, you may be a conservative, I bet you care about the security of your border. One of the reasons we cannot put enough money around enforcing border security is because of these debts and deficits your government is running up. To all of the conservatives who are listening tonight, you may be a conservative, but I will bet you would love the see the veterans of this country given adequate health care. Well, the government that you value so much, the government to which you have given your votes the last several cycles cannot do it because they cannot afford it. We had a debate on this floor, Mr. Speaker, just 1 year ago, September of 2005. The subject was whether we were going to provide full funding for health care for Guards and reservists. And our esteemed colleagues on the other side of the aisle rose in the Chamber and said, we just cannot afford it; it has got to be health care for veterans and reservists, or it has got to be helicopters. We cannot afford to do both. In part, that is because of the debt and the deficits that we have. I want to say finally to these conservatives, Mr. Speaker, before you go back home so easily, before you go back to your base, understand what your party has become, a conservative party that says the debt does not matter, a conservative party that says that red ink is not important, and a conservative party that cannot find enough money to secure the border or provide benefits for veterans. It is enough to prevent you from going home. It is enough to make you look at an alternative. Now, my colleagues will talk tonight, Mr. Speaker, about a lot of other lost opportunities. They will talk about the fact that if we could get our fiscal house in order, we could do all kinds of things that we thought we could do just a short time ago. You remember the debates, Mr. Speaker, when there was a $236 billion surplus. Republicans had ideas on what they could do. They talked about middle- class tax cuts instead of upper-end tax cuts. People on my side of the aisle talked about a refurbished commitment to veterans and the health care and education. We cannot debate any of those things right now because of this debt and these deficits. So I end with that point. The conservatism that is on the ballot on November 7 is a conservatism of missed opportunities. It is a conservatism that has totally changed the notion of what it means to be fiscally responsible. It is a conservatism that is fading and failing for a reason. I think a lot of people will come home on November 7, Mr. Speaker, but it will not be to a party that used to call itself conservative, it will be to common sense, it will be to a notion of reasonable sacrifice in this country, of shared sacrifice. And that is why I think the ranks will change so much on November 7.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I wish my colleagues from Georgia understood something very fundamental about this Voting Rights Act. It is not a burden on the South. It is not some scourge or tool of oppression against the South. It has been a liberator for people, black and white; and I wish my colleagues from Georgia understood this basic truth that all the children who are here understand today. There were Barack Obamas in the old South. There were Mel Watts in the old South. There were Bobby Scotts in the old South. There were Jesse Jacksons that lived in the South in the 1930s. But their talent was not allowed to breathe until this act was passed. It gave all kinds of people of genius and brilliance and talent a chance to be elected to office. That is the legacy that we celebrate here today. So I urge all of us to join Mr. Sensenbrenner in this bipartisan statement today that the Voting Rights Act belongs to all Americans, black and white, Democratic and Republican, and everyone who believes that merit ought to determine who holds office in this country.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Norwood said some things change in 25 years, and he is right about it. One thing that has not changed in 25 years is that people say one thing and have a different agenda. We have heard all day that we are opposed to unfunded mandates, and now we want to put a new mandate on the Department of Justice with no new money. We have heard, when Mr. Westmoreland writes about this topic in the pages of The Hill, that he wants to lift the South from the whims of Federal bureaucrats, and this amendment would empower the bureaucrats of the Department of Justice more than ever. We heard his remarks, again on this amendment, by saying, I want to save the Voting Rights Act; and then he proposes to save it by making it harder to administer, more subject to judicial challenge, and far more complicated. It has not changed. People say one thing and have another agenda. I close by saying the agenda today appears to be to water down this act and strip it of a lot of its power, and that is wrong.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in support of your resolution that the House will not get to vote on; and I have to begin by pointing out some of the absurdities put before the House tonight, Mr. Frank. On one hand, we hear that the terrorists are cunning and brilliant and threaten every liberty that we have. On the other hand, on the next hand, they are too dense to know we are monitoring their bank transactions. On one hand, we decry, with every piece of passion and indignation we have, the New York Times. We dust off the reputation of the deputy chief of staff who tried to leak classified information to them and put him in charge of the fall campaign strategy. So I begin with the absurdities, but I end with a more profound point. If you vote for this resolution, you are voting for two simple statements: The first statement is to one newspaper and to one executive branch. This is an admonition by the Congress to prosecute an American newspaper. I do not know that we have done that in all the years that we have been here. And then there is the second statement to every newspaper in the United States of America and every magazine, to everyone who carries a journalist's pen that the next time you think about piercing the veil of secrecy, be afraid, be very afraid, because the hammer may fall on you. And I do not trust that, Mr. Frank, for a very simple reason. These checks and balances have swung far too widely in favor of the Executive. The President, I respect all of his power and all of his authority, but he is not the sole arbiter of what is right and what is wrong. And because we haven't performed our oversight role, we have left him with this role of being the arbiter of what is classified, of what is wise, and what is necessary to protect this country. So I end with this trade-off: We would be very happy to give up some of the freedom of the fourth estate if this branch of government, the legislative, would do its task of oversight. But because we are not doing our task and we see instances of it time after time, yes, we need a fourth estate that is free. We need a fourth estate that is not chilled.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. That is the effect, Mr. Oxley. It is the effect of it.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, it is interesting. I have a button on my television that, if you click it, you can convert everything that you hear to Spanish so that people can hear American Idol and Desperate Housewives, and my English-only friends on the other side have not so much as lodged an objection to that button on my TV. They don't have a problem translating what goes across the dial every night. It is more than passing strange that they are troubled by making the ballot accessible, when our televisions are accessible. My friends from Georgia have said it very well. This is about American citizens. You can't vote unless you are an American citizen. If you are an American citizen, we all have a stake in removing the obvious impediments toward voting, and what do we gain in terms of high ground by objecting to some of our fellow citizens having all the tools that they need to translate the choice of the elections? How do we justify televisions translating, and ballots not being translated?

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the recognition. I have an amendment at the desk which is a repetition of a bipartisan amendment that was brought to the floor of the House a year ago, and it has to deal with the HOPE VI housing program. Many of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle have seen their districts benefit from HOPE VI. It is a program that was launched under the George Herbert Walker Bush administration. In fact, its chief architect was former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp. It is a program which has been in place for 16 years now, and it has literally changed the face of public housing in numerous communities around our country. I have seen it happen three times in Birmingham, Alabama and Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Abandoned, near dilapidated public housing projects, which had been given up, have now been turned into mixed- income developments. And whole communities of Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, which had been squandered, are now on the road toward economic revitalization and recovery. That has been the story of Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. It has been a story that has spread all over this country. When we brought this amendment to the floor last year, no less than 59 Republicans joined in support of it with 188 Democrats, one of the strongest levels of bipartisan support that any amendment has commanded. I simply ask the House to do essentially what it has done before. The President attempted to zero out funding. The committee has not added funding. We propose to add $30 million from the Administration and Management Fund to the Working Capital Fund. The reason, Mr. Chairman, that it goes in the Working Capital Fund is we have a reauthorization issue around HOPE VI. As of September 30, the program will have lapsed. It is our full expectation that it will be extended. There has been a unanimous voice vote in the Financial Services Committee to reauthorize it, and there has been strong support on the other side of the Capitol in the Senate to reauthorize it. What we simply want to do is make sure that when the program is reauthorized, that the money is being held so these projects can go forward. $30 million is a very conservative amount of money. The average HOPE VI project is indeed around 20 or $30 million. But what this commitment of resources will do is to in effect preserve the HOPE VI program and effectuate the intent of the Financial Services Committee that HOPE VI be reauthorized. Let me thank someone who is not in the Chamber at this point, my colleague from Florida, Congresswoman Katherine Harris. She worked very hard to bring this amendment to the floor last year. She has worked very hard to give us support for it tonight. I certainly thank her for her bipartisan commitment. But it is a very simple statement, Mr. Chairman. If we value a future for public housing, if we want to transform the lives of these communities, this is a small nominal amount in a massive Federal budget of $3.7 trillion. It is literally a drop in the bucket, but it is a very meaningful drop in the bucket for many families who are living in urban centers all around this country. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Harris) and thank her for her outstanding work on this issue.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Let me put several things in perspective. Mr. Watt made the obvious point that these projects take awhile to succeed. Therefore if we stop the funding flow, it will make it impossible for commitments to be made that have been kept. Observation number two, we need this appropriation of funds to effectuate the intent of Congress. The committee that has jurisdiction over HOPE VI, the Financial Services Committee, has voted unanimously on a voice vote to reauthorize HOPE VI. The Senate has expressed or manifested the same plan to reauthorize HOPE VI. If we don't put funding forward, the clear-cut congressional intent will be undercut in this instance. Third of all, there is a strong, clear congressional intent from the last several budget cycles. Four times in a row now, the administration has tried to zero out HOPE VI. Every single time Congress has put it back. The Senate had put $100 million back last year. The House, in a strong bipartisan vote, put $60 million back. We anticipate the Senate will put another significant amount back into this budget. The next point, talk to the people who have seen this work on the ground. The League of Cities, a bipartisan collection of mayors and leaders of municipalities, has endorsed this amendment. They are an eloquent testament to the fact that HOPE VI revitalizes neighborhoods. The National Home Builders, a strong bipartisan group, has given its endorsement to this amendment. They have a statement it meets important private sector and public sector goals. We don't have to look very far other than the quotes of some of our own colleagues. Charlie Dent from Pennsylvania, a Republican the last time I checked, this ``project will be a catalyst for the revitalization of the entire community and it will serve as a model of what public housing can and should be, a path to homeownership for its residents.'' Fred Upton, a Republican from Saint Joseph, Michigan: ``This is tremendous news for the Benton Harbor community. It is another example of folks from the local State and Federal levels coming together for the betterment of Benton Harbor.'' Anne Northup, our colleague from Louisville, a Republican: ``A HOPE VI grant, great news for Louisville, a major investment in the downtown neighborhood.'' My good friend and our colleague, Chip Pickering from Mississippi, a Republican the last time I checked: ``The full range of this project will not only improve the lives of the residents in my district, but also their children for years to come. The HOPE VI grant represents a significant investment to the overall economic development and renewal of the East Mississippi region.'' Our colleague from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), a Republican the last time I checked, talks about the wonderful collaboration of the Stamford Housing Authority, the Fairfield Resident Council and the City of Stamford to make this project a reality. There is an overwhelming statement from our colleagues on both sides of the aisle about the utility of HOPE VI. So for this body to fail to pass this Davis-Harris amendment will not only be in contradiction of what we say in our press releases, it would be in contradiction of what the U.S. Senate seeks to do and would be in contradiction of what we do with our own votes. While the administration fails to get the message, I think that our colleagues in this body tonight will get the message. I urge passage of this bipartisan amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, this is a very simple issue. We have ongoing litigation in the courts. There are hearings being held. There is discovery being conducted. And most of us who have conservative impulses on both sides of the aisle think the Constitution means something and the separation of powers means something, and the courts ought to finish their process. For the executive branch to come in and take a side in this dispute is disrespectful to the balance of power in the Constitution. There is a dispute that is going on that may have merit on both sides, but let the litigation play itself out. If this can happen in this instance, there is no possible controversy involving the Army Corps of Engineers where there is not a possibility of the executive branch inserting itself in the judicial. That is why I stand in strong opposition to the Deal amendment today, and I urge my colleagues to follow course.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, a minute gives me time to make one essential point: mark the time as 9:15 tonight, the first time anyone has mentioned that 3 hours ago the President of the United States signed a $70 billion increase to the deficit that was enacted by this body 1 week ago, and it returns to your fundamental point about candor. This document levels with the American people and the choices it makes, the CBC document. The document in opposition it us tonight and the RSC document do not level with the American people, because how do you defend a document on the grounds of fiscal austerity and add $70 billion to the deficit? It is the wrong set of choices, and it masks a retreat from all kinds of commitments, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, this has been one of those periodic weeks where a lot of people in the country turn on the television and they look at this institution and they wonder if we live in another world. They see us, or at least one of us, going down the hallway giving high-fives the day after announcing the end of a career in disgrace, they hear us obsessing on all kinds of things that do not matter to the American people, and then they hear this budget debate. And they hear the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle), for whom I have a great deal of respect, announce that under his budget everyone in America is a winner. They must wonder if we live in the same world because I wonder if the 13.5 million American families on Medicaid who have to pay more money under last year's budget, and more money under this year's budget to go to the doctor, really think they are winners. I wonder if the veterans who have served our country who are looking at cuts in years 2 through 5 under Mr. Nussle's budget think they are winners. I wonder if the Guard and Reservists who still will not get a fully funded TRICARE program think they are winners. I wonder if the 45 million uninsured that Mr. Moran talked about think they are winners. I wonder if the 13.5 million children living in poverty think they are winners. The reality is under this budget proposed by the chairman's mark, some people win under this budget: people who have already been winning and who have been winning for a very long time. People who need a little bit of generosity and have counted on a little bit of help from this city are not winners at all. I remember the first year I stood in this Chamber as a relatively new Member when the President of the United States stood in the well and gave his State of the Union. The one thing I remember this President saying is this President and this Congress will not leave for other generations and for other Congresses, I wonder as the President stood here it occurred to him that all these problems that plague this country involving the old, the sick, the poor and the young, did he mean for us to leave those problems for another Congress and another generation, because the budget of Mr. Nussle does that. It leaves all of these problems unaddressed by the richest country in the world, and I think it makes this budget so fundamentally wrong.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend from South Carolina, and I would say to Mr. Nussle, you could have had 35 or 40 of us on this side of the aisle if you had done one thing, if you had combined some of these cuts with some retreat on these tax cuts, not getting rid of them all together, not getting rid of them in their whole, but simply pulling some of them back for the wealthiest Americans. You could have had 35 or 40 of us. You left it on the table, and it is one of the last things you could have done in your chairmanship.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Actually 1,000, Mr. Meek.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I am always pleased to see you and Mr. Ryan and Ms. Wasserman Schultz lend your eloquence on these issues. Let me make a couple of points. You touched on something enormously important about the President's commitment to more competitiveness in the economy and the strengthening of our workforce. You and I remember, we both came one Congress ago. We came here in January, 2003, and I remember the President's first State of the Union. He was standing not far from where we stand now. And the only line, frankly, I recall from that speech was a rather memorable one. He said that this Congress should not put off what future Congresses would do and this generation should not put off for future generations what it could do for itself. That sounded good. It sounded like a bold President saying that we have real opportunities today if we are daring. Well, you look several budgets later. You have a verbal commitment to make the economy stronger. You have a pattern of cutting student loans and making them harder to get, and by the way, changing the eligibility outside the budget process in the dead of night in a way that it is not even debated by this Congress. You have a promise of more effort to make the country competitive. You see reductions every year in workforce development programs. You see promises every year to strengthen our schools, and you see continued cuts in all of the educational programs in this country or so many of them, and the outright elimination of many of those programs. In fact, almost half of the title items in No Child Left Behind are gone with the wind now as we approach reauthorization. And you see a promise by this President to make America stronger; but it appears, Mr. Meek, that making America stronger does not include making our workers stronger and creating more fair, stronger conditions for them. As I said in the last hour, that is what this debate is about. It is not about cutting spending. You are not serious about cutting spending when you say, I am going to cut $45 billion and then cut taxes another $70 billion. The math works against you on that. You are not serious about cutting spending when you have had the greatest level of discretionary spending increase in the last 10 years, in the last several budgets. You are not serious about those things. What we have is an administration and a Congress that, frankly, is not somewhat serious about cutting spending. They are very serious about changing the definition of what we owe each other as Americans. They want to move us away from a world where we feel connected and obligated to each other across all kinds of lines, and they want to more or less move us to a place where you have got to take care of yourself. These 13 million families on Medicaid who have got to dig deeper in their pocket now to go to the doctor, well, we have decided that it is such an important proposition that poor people pay more for health care that we rammed that into the budget reconciliation several weeks ago, or they rammed it in. They think it is so important to spend less money on child support that they rammed that into the reconciliation package several months ago. It goes on and on. But the question is what exactly do we think we owe each other as Americans. There are some people and some of them sit on the other side of the aisle who believe that we owe each other very little. There are some of us who believe that we can be no stronger than some of our people who are weak and who are hurting through no fault of their own. There are a lot of kids in this country who will be pushed off Medicaid because of this reconciliation bill a few weeks ago. There are a lot of kids in this country who will not get the doctor visits they need because the Federal Government changed them the Medicare rules a few weeks ago. Those kids are blameless. They did not ask to be born into families under Medicaid or the distressed communities they live in. So it is very much a matter of priorities and values and choices, but as I close out, I want to make one other point. You talked about the importance of candor with the American people and the importance of leveling with the American people, not promising you are cutting and spending when you are actually causing the deficit to go up. You talked about the importance of not pretending that you are not taking people off programs, but in fact, you are moving them off programs. I do not know if your office has been like mine in the last week. I have received so many phone calls from people wondering why their government cannot be more straight with them on what is going on with our ports right now. So many people have called our office and they are wondering exactly why we do not have a stronger shipping industry in the United States, why we have not built stronger port operators in this United States and why we have to keep delegating this stuff out. They hear all the procedural stuff about the 45-day review period, but really, what they wonder is why in the world are we doing a $6 billion deal with a country that helped launder money for the people who attacked our towers, a country that is a very strong and vociferous opponent of our strongest ally in the region, why are we doing business with a country that does not follow any of the rules that we said we want for good trading partners. It is interesting. It is as if the administration's policy on this issue is completely unconnected to common sense and, frankly, completely unconnected from values because one value would be if you want to do business with the United States, well, maybe you need to do better in terms of your human rights policies; if you want to do business with the United States, maybe you need strong money laundering laws so people cannot pervert your system and finance terrorists; if you want to do business with the United States, maybe you need to be far stronger than this country has shown itself to be on the question of freedom around the world. These are the values the President talks about every time he stands up there and does a State of the Union. He talks about exporting democracy. He talks about we are this great beacon of democratic freedom. He talks about countries all over the world that are not up to our standard. If that is the case, what signal are we sending? The last point I want to make is the President wanted to know what signal are we sending to our friends in the Arab world if we do not do this deal. The question is, what signal are we sending if we do it? Here is the signal. The signal is you can fall short of every value and standard that we have in this country, and we will pick you up on the back end and we can make a good enough deal with you. Now, this is the administration that said it built a foreign policy based on our best moral values. Those moral values appear to be watered down to the way to do a deal, have we got a deal for you, and that is wrong. It has upset people all over this country. It does tie into this debate about the deficit because I think people are wondering who is it we are trying to help; why are we not standing up more for our people who need help and why are we not being more candid about what we are doing. I really predict to you, as I close today, I think when we come back here after the elections in November, I think that our side of the House will be the side that has got more people. I think the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) will honor us by being the first female Speaker of the House. I am being stronger convinced that you will be the new chair of the subcommittee that you serve on so ably as ranking member, and Mr. Ryan and I will get to move up the dais, too, because I think the American people are getting this. They are getting that the side that says it is strong and says it is serious is neither as strong nor as serious as they have said. People are really smart. They are smart in my district and yours and all over the country, and I think that what we will see is a change in the politics of this country, a change in the leadership of the House. I welcome it when we stand up here next year crafting the budget, and it will matter. The Democratic alternative we are putting together right now, it will really matter next year because we are going to be in the majority, and we will be crafting a budget and sending it to the President and saying, Mr. President, we dare you to veto a stronger commitment to education and health care and growing our economy; we dare you to veto a stronger commitment to strengthening working families. I would be happy to. He has not vetoed anything in 6 years.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Madam Speaker, let me follow up on what my friend from Ohio just said. This PAYGO rule you talk about, we call it PAYGO for various reasons. Really, it is the be-like-the-American-family rule. Every family I know, yours, mine, every other one, has to decide, if we are going to go out and buy some new things, we better make some more money or we better pull into our savings. All this rule says is if you are going to have new spending, you have got to pay for it. You can do it one of two ways, with spending cuts by making changes in the marginal rate or changes in revenue. That is the honesty stuff, that is the candor stuff. The reality is, why would anybody not want to do that? If you are a fiscal conservative, why would you not want to go to a world that says let us just be no better or worse than the American family? So this is an argument, once again, about whether we follow the same rules and the same principles that people follow all around the country.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I thank the gentleman for yielding. All of my colleague's points are so powerful that they inspire other thoughts and ideas that just want to tumble out of you. So let me go back a little bit to what you were saying, because you make a very important point. I think there has been an interesting flip between where our party was at one point and where the Republicans are at this point. We are all fairly young guys. This is a little bit before our time, but we hit a zone as a party in the 1970s and 1980s where we would make decisions as a party and sometimes they would not be smart decisions. But we, frankly, couldn't and wouldn't defend them. We would just say to the American people and some folks in our party would say to the American people, you know what, trust us. We have the facts, we are diligent, we know what is right, we have more information than you do, so you ought to just trust us. And, frankly, Mr. Meek, that didn't work terribly well as a strategy for our party and people started to lose confidence in us. And they started to think, well, we put you there, so you have to tell us more, you have to level with us more. Now, what have we seen in the last several weeks, essentially, when everybody all over the country is saying, why can't we find a country that doesn't have a history of terrorist ties to help police our ports, pretty simple question? What do they say? They say, trust us. They say we have got the facts, we have got information you don't have, we know more than you do, let us do our jobs. Trust us. And they have said it before. They say it with these budgets. They say, yes, there is a lot of stuff in here nobody understands, and they bring them to the floor and we get a few hours to look at it. But they say, trust us, we have the information, we have the facts and we know what is right for the American people. And I am sure a lot of folks are probably thinking right now that they did that back in March 2003, and they said, no, you don't have all the intel, you don't have all the evidence, but we do. Trust us and we will get us in and out of this war real quick. And if you doubt that, well, trust us. This ``just trust us'' politics took us from having, what was the number we had, it was 292, was the maximum we got to. We had 292 seats here at one point, but we lapsed into the ``just trust us'' politics and now we are down to 203. Well, I think now they are the ``just trust us'' folks, and they have started to move down the scale in the numbers, and I think they are going to be moving from around 231 to about 208 or 209 or so in not too long. The American people put us here. We get whatever little authority we derive from the Constitution and from them. So we do owe them candor, we do owe them explanations, we do owe them a sense of direction. It is not enough to say, just trust us, is it?

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) for what you and Mr. Spratt and Mr. Scott and so many others do. Mr. Moran, Mr. Scott, one of the helpful things about these colloquies and these special orders at the end of the day is that they have enormous nutritional content for people who really want to understand the budget issues. They expose some of the argument that happens on the floor. As you know, when we have our full-fledged budget debate, we match each other in bits of 1 minute, 2 minutes, and it is hard to get clarity in 1- and 2-minute exchanges. These kinds of conversations allow for a lot more light to be shed. And one of the points that you have made, that my friend from Virginia has made, and others have made, is exactly how fundamentally unserious the administration is about restraining spending. That is the point we ought to make over and over again, Madam Speaker, because when people hear these budget debates, they often think that folks on our side of the aisle are enamored with spending, they think the people on the other side of the aisle are resistant to it. Well, you cannot be serious about spending cuts when you pass a reconciliation package that cuts spending by about $45 billion, and then you push just as hard for revenue cuts, for tax cuts to the tune of $70 billion. That is a simple matter of math and arithmetic. You cannot be fundamentally serious about spending cuts when your administration has presided over the largest rise in discretionary spending in the last 10 years for a variety of programs. So the American people ought to understand, this is not an argument about who wants to spend more and who wants to spend less. It is an argument about a far different set of issues. That is what we value and what we prioritize. As so many have pointed out during all of these debates, Mr. Moran, the reconciliation packets that passed a few weeks ago, the budget that we will debate in committee next week will not make much of a dent in the deficit when all is said and done. But it will wreak havoc with a lot of families in this country. Just a few weeks ago, this body thought it was so important to start this session of Congress out by passing a bill, a reconciliation package, that will mean that 13 million working poor and poor families will have to dig deeper in their pockets to go to the doctor. This House thought it was so vitally important to open this session of Congress by passing a package of cuts that took the heart out of the Federal Government's efforts to collect child support, that took the guts out of a program that the administration said was one of the best performing programs in the government. And you will see it again and we will see it again in committee next week. You will see a budget that does very little to rein in spending, when all is said and done, but yet will have a disproportionate impact when it does make cuts on the people who are struggling in our communities right now. And that is what the people ought to understand this debate to be about. We can do all kinds of things, cut spending that will attract support from both sides of the aisle. We can do all kinds of things to rein in the deficit that would attract support from all sides of the aisle. But every choice that the administration and the majority have made has been aimed at one set of people, the weaker people, the older people, the younger people, the people who are struggling to get by. And it is just wrong to put them in isolation. It is wrong to make them bear the brunt of these kind of cuts. So as we move through this budget debate next week and over the next several weeks, I hope the American people understand, it is not an argument about cutting spending, it is an argument about what we value. It is an argument about what we prioritize. And finally it is an argument about who we give value to. We know who the administration and our friends on the other side of the aisle often value. They often value people who are doing rather well in this society and they often reward that. They do not put a lot of value in some of the people who are living in my district, which happens to be the fifth poorest district in the United States. They do not put a lot of value in their needs. So if you believe in a better way of looking at the American people, if you believe in a more principled way of understanding that everyone should count and not just some people, you will vote against this budget, you will reject this budget. And that is the kind of debate that we ought to be having in the next several weeks. So, Mr. Moran, I thank you for your leadership. Mr. Scott, I thank you for your leadership, and I yield back.

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. In 10 seconds, for the 13 million families who will have to pay more money for health care, that is a cut. Because that is less money they can use on food that now they are having to use on health care. And these are the poorest people in our country, Mr. Putnam.