John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, among the amendments included in the en bloc is an amendment known as the Hastings amendment. The Department of Energy requested $350 million for accelerated clean-up of defense sites, old nuclear weapons production sites, where some of the world's most radioactive nuclear waste is stored. The chairman's mark authorizes 250 of the $350 million that DOE asks for. I am glad to see us go close to at least 300. I wish we could have gone to 350. But the amendment before us does leave out the fence or the conditions or the limitations that DOE would have imposed. Both of these provisions, both the additional money taking us to $300 million and the lack of any fence of conditions are steps in the right direction, and I commend the gentleman for his amendment and urge everyone to support it.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, let me just pick up on where we left off. We have got thousands of nuclear weapons in order to achieve deterrence. This weapon is not necessary. It is not only unnecessary, it is counterproductive at a time when we are trying to get countries like Iran and North Korea and countless other want-to-be nuclear countries to give up their nuclear ambition. And it raises a fundamental question: How long can we move the world in one direction while we move in another direction, and do we want to backslide into an era that we finally emerged from where we had a nuclear weapon for every tactical mission? They are not practical, they are not necessary, and this weapon will not come close to destroying or hardening up the hardened, deep geological targets for which they are reputedly available. To the extent we want to go after a target like that, we have bombs for that effect, and you can dial a yield. In addition, we have conventional weapons that serve this purpose. This is not necessary. And anyone who thinks this is a minor item, the justification indicates that $480 million needs to be spent for this particular program over the next 5 years. This is a major item in the defense budget. This amendment should be adopted.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I remember when John Sullivan was first appointed and moved from the House Committee on Armed Services. The day after he took his office as the Deputy Parliamentarian, the staff on the House Committee on Armed Services concocted a convoluted parliamentary problem, which I presented to him as an innocent junior Member of the House, which John was immediately stumped by before he realized that it was all a hoax. Today, if we presented him that Gordian knot, I think he could probably cut it. Charlie, you have taught us not just the procedures of the House and taught us well, but you have taught us the reasons that those rules must prevail. That is a legacy that will last for a long, long time. I think the brooding omnipresence of Charlie Johnson will loom over this House for a long time to come. Thank you for everything you have done for us and this great institution.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I have served in the House for more than half of the 40 years that Charlie Johnson has served as Parliamentarian. As a matter of fact, I had just become a Member of the House with no more than 3 weeks of experience when I wandered onto the floor one day, having mistaken the bells and thought there was about to be a vote. Before I could get off the floor and go back about my business, Charlie beckoned me to the chair; and the next thing I knew I was wielding the gavel, presiding over the House, never having done that before in my life. I was never more thankful to have someone who knew what he was doing sitting behind me whispering instructions, and I have been thankful ever since that Charlie Johnson was in that position. For all those 22 years that I have known him, his chair behind the Speaker, his office across the hall have been sources of civility in a House that is often contentious, sometimes bitter and pugnacious and embattled. For all those years, the Parliamentarian has been an authority that everyone in this House, both sides of the aisle, have recognized and respected because his rulings and his advice and his good judgment have always been based on precedent and on sound thinking. His office made him powerful. Anyone who became the Parliamentarian of the House would be powerful inherently, but his knowledge, his ability and his manner made him authoritative. The House could not be the House that the Framers intended us to be, the people's House, without sometimes passionate, hard-hitting debate; but the House could not operate in that mode, sometimes pushing the envelope of civility, without a referee that everybody trusted and respected. For a long, long time, Charlie has been such a referee. My respect for Charlie Johnson on our side, the Democratic side of the aisle, was established over the years and well-founded, but his great ability, his inherent decent fairness, was recognized to his credit and theirs when our Republican colleagues moved into the majority and made him their Parliamentarian, too. He proved his fairness, his basic inherent fairness, by serving both parties without ever breaking stride. I do not think anyone in the years that I have served here has ever accused him of bending with partisan winds. Charlie Johnson has called them the way he saw them for the last 40 years. The House of Representatives is losing, we should not fool ourselves, a huge amount of institutional memory with the loss and retirement of Charlie Johnson. Four decades in the Parliamentarian's office, 10 years as Chief Parliamentarian, and during all those 40 years he has embodied those qualities that we need most in a parliamentarian: erudition and evenhandedness, great authority and great good humor, too, and overall a keen understanding of this great institution of the Republic. He has made the people's House deserve its name. He has helped us make this complex system that we call democracy work and work well. Though he is leaving, he leaves behind him a legacy that will inform the proceedings of this House for a long time to come, and he is leaving a well-trained staff of Parliamentarians.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey). (Mr. MARKEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to respond to the gentleman. The gentleman said jobs are coming back, and the recent job growth is a welcome development, but, Mr. Speaker, we are still 2.2 million jobs below the level of jobs existing in the economy in March of 2001 when the last recession began. We have never seen such a jobless recovery as we have seen now. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, could the Chair tell me how much time is left?

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker I yield myself 4\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, my good friend, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and I work together well, and I have the greatest regard for him, but let me put it the way it is. He is trying to put the best face on a bad situation. What we have got here is a new high for the budget deficit and a new low for the budget process. For the first time in 20 years, for the first time since the 1980s we have a budget that only goes out 1 year. Ever since the Budget Act was adopted, the principle has been that you will run out your numbers 5 years so that we can see the implications of tax cuts and tax increases, spending cuts and spending increases, spread over a reasonable period of time. Not in this budget: 1 year for the first time in 20 years. Now, what does that allow you to do? It allows you to dodge the deficit. It keeps you from having to show on a multiyear basis how you will get from a $300-$400 billion deficit to something that is half that size to a respectable, sustainable number. If you only take it out 1 year, there is no way in the world that we will ever get our arms around the deficit in that period of time. So it exonerates you from presenting any kind of process or plan to get where we all know where we have got to go, and that is to a much lower deficit. Another thing: When you do not put real numbers in the outyears, in 2006, 2007, 2008, it allows you to reduce the President's request and not acknowledge what you are actually doing. By our calculations, when we look at the numbers that are on the chart contained in this budget resolution, this budget resolution provides $122 billion less for defense than the President requests or projects for himself over that same period of time. This much is clear: Vote for this and you are voting for a huge deficit by the acknowledgment of the drastic $367 billion. And while they have included $50 billion for supplemental spending in Iraq and Afghanistan next year, I think that is at least $25 billion short of where we will really be. Add that 25 to the 367; you get to 392. Take out the Social Security surplus because it should not be included, and the deficit in the basic budget is $552 billion. That is what you are voting for if you vote for this budget resolution, a deficit of $552 billion. Now, when you run a deficit like that, you stack up debt, and once again we will have to raise the debt ceiling; and one of the key provisions of this bill buried beneath all of the line items is a provision which would automatically spin off an increase in the debt ceiling of $690 million--$690 billion. It will take the debt of the United States up to $8.1 trillion. It is hard to get my tongue around those numbers. When Mr. Bush came to office, the statutory debt ceiling of the United States was $5.9 trillion. Adopt this budget resolution and we will raise that ceiling by $2.2 trillion to $8.1 trillion. That is how much we have had to increase the debt ceiling, $2 trillion in order to accommodate the fiscal policies of the Bush administration. Now, we have got record deficits. We have record debt. That is bad enough, but even worse, even worse in this budget resolution, there is no plan, no process and no prospect, not even a PAYGO rule for balancing the budget or anyone issuing the deficit over a period of time. All we have here, after a lot of huffing and puffing, is a puny version of the PAYGO rule that House Democrats and House Republican on two occasions in the 1990s adopted to apply to both tax cuts and spending increases on the entitlement side. All we have got here is a 1-year extension that applies only in the Senate, no application whatsoever in the House. That is all we have got. The gentleman says if you do not vote for this, it could impair the recovery. Well, let me say, Mr. Greenspan warned us only a week or two ago that this recovery we are beginning to enjoy may be short lived unless we come to grips with this critical problem, and that is mounting, never-ending deficits that these budgets are producing. So the thing that is incumbent upon us now is not to kick the can down the road, is not just to pass something for the sake of saying we passed the budget resolution, we fixed the 302(a) number. We can go ahead with our appropriation bills. We need a plan; we need a process. We need to deal with this deficit now, and this budget resolution does not do it. That is why we should defeat it, send it back to conference and do it right. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the minority whip.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the ranking member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. (Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for the purposes of a unanimous consent request. (Mrs. MALONEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind). (Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, could I inquire of the Chair how much time is left on this side.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I commend my good friend, the chairman. We do not agree about everything; nevertheless, I hope that is not a sign of what is about to come. He does a wonderful job of chairing the committee, and he has brought to the floor a good piece of legislation. We thought it could be better. I wish there were more amendments in order, but I do not want to diminish the significance of what is in the bill. Mr. Chairman, with troops in the field being bombed and shot at, we cannot be stinting about what we provide our troops. We have got to give them the resources they need to do the tough tasks that they have taken on. But with the defense bill before us running at a level of $422 billion, that is an increase of $125 billion in 3 years, and with the costs of our operations in Iraq alone approaching $200 billion by the end of next year, military and economic reconstruction, Congress also cannot relax its oversight responsibilities and we should not rubber-stamp what the administration sends us. That is why I thought more of the 100-odd amendments we offered should have been made in order. We could have a good, full debate on the House floor about priorities. That is why I wanted to take the ballistic missile defense account, which the administration wants to increase by $1.2 billion, to make it twice as big as any other program in the procurement and R&D accounts; why I wanted to take just a little bit, $400 million off the top of that, leaving an increase of $800 million; take a little off the top of that and then spread it to someplace else in the budget where I think it would do a lot more good, and that is in compensating the backbone of our military services, our NCOs and warrant officers, with a pay raise above the level provided other troops, at least in the rate of increase. In addition, I wanted to provide $25 million to $50 million, that is all, so we could say to every troop we send into combat, Uncle Sam will pick up the premium and we will see to it that every one of you has $250,000 of group life insurance. Now, there are some good things in this bill, as I said. I want to congratulate the chairman for leaning on DoD to send us a supplemental, because we were sailing into the next year under the artificial representation that we had enough money and we could move it around and we could get to the next calendar year. We cannot do it. But I do not think we should give the administration a blank check, and, to a great extent, we have not done that; and I commend the chairman for that. We have provided some line item specificity in title 15 of this bill. We have also, in response to the administration's request for transfer authority, we said to them you can have transfer authority for $3 billion, but not for $25 billion. All of that is an improvement over the request. But nobody should think that $25 billion is going to get us through the year. We will be lucky if it takes us to March. That is because we are spending $4 billion to $5 billion easily every month in Iraq; it is not likely to go down. We are spending $700 million to $900 million every month in Afghanistan; it is not likely to go down. We are spending $500 million a month for Noble Eagle, United States air defense and other things like that. It is close to $6 billion a month. The arithmetic is easy, even on the back of an envelope. $6 billion times 12 months is $72 billion. We have only provided $25 billion of it. We could easily have another supplemental coming in 2005 of $50 billion. That is why I want to remind everybody of the budget. It just so happens we are going to have the defense bill back to back with the budget; and let us keep in mind when the administration talks about runaway spending, the increase in spending in the budget, that much of it is occurring in the defense accounts. That is not to diminish or damn the amount of money that is being spent there; it is essential. But it also gets added into the calculation, and it is having an impact. If you look at current services for everything in the discretionary budget and look at the spikes that are really standing out, what you will find is that 90 to 95 percent of the increase in discretionary spending over the last 4 fiscal years, every year has either been defense, homeland security, and our response to 9/11. Quickly, let me show you a chart that is almost too much to read from this perspective. Basically, what we show here is the FYDP, the Future Years Defense Program, run out of 10 years, when Mr. Bush came to office was about $3.6 trillion in 2001. If you include what he has added, plus the costs just through this year of Iraq, it is about $4.6 trillion. If you go back and make some reasonable adjustments for policy changes in procurement and also add in the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan after 2005, you are easily up to a $1.5 trillion increase in spending. Mr. Chairman, what I am saying is that we cannot forget the budget; we cannot forget the deficit. It has a huge impact on the economy. The economy is the first instrument of our national defense. Secondly, sooner or later, if these costs keep running at this level, we have got to turn to the American people and ask more than our troops to share the sacrifice; we have to ask the American people to pick up some of the costs that we are running here for our defense and homeland security. The bill has to be paid sooner or later, the day of reckoning is coming, and we are only postponing it with the budget we will take up after this bill is considered today.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I humbly suggest that if we want to make the poppy in our lapels more than a mere gesture, we should vote ``no'' on the previous question on the rule that will make in order the defense authorization bill. Because by voting ``no,'' we will make in order the consideration of an amendment that I have offered which contains two key elements that go to the very heart of what it is we are discussing here right now. We would take a little bit of money out of a huge increase in ballistic missile defense and put it in a place where it will do a lot of good, namely, in targeted pay increases to our enlisted personnel, particularly our NCOs and our junior warrant officers. It costs $300 million. It is not something I pulled out of the air. It was recommended 3 years ago by the last quadrennial review. For 2 fiscal years we have done it; this year we have not in the bill before us. We can rectify that by voting ``no'' and then voting for the amendment. In addition, we do something else in the amendment that I would offer, that is, we say to every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine going into combat, into harm's way, Uncle Sam is going to see to it that you get the maximum in servicemen's life insurance, group life insurance, $250,000. The premium will be paid by an increase in your imminent danger pay, two things that will say volumes to our soldiers about how much we appreciate what they are doing for today, the risks they are taking; two things that we can say that will make more than just this mere gesture a sincere commitment to those who have gone in harm's way and laid their life on the line to make this the home of the free and the land of the brave.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I have served here for 22 years and served all those years on the House Committee on Armed Services, and today I am the recognize second ranking Democrat on that committee; and if there is any comity left in this institution, surely I should have the right to offer one well-considered, carefully crafted, very serious amendment. That is what I proposed. That is what I offered. I knew that the Committee on Rules had been narrowing down the debate for years and years, so I went prepared to the Committee on Rules and asked for simply one amendment. Now, I do not stand here in personal pique because my amendment has not been made in order. Far from it. It is not that this rule shuts me out or shuts out the people I represent in South Carolina. It shuts out our troops. It shuts out our sergeants and warrant officers. It denies every trooper who goes into combat the opportunity to have $250,000 of group life insurance at Uncle Sam's expense. That is what it does. The amendment that I proposed would take $414 million out of ballistic missile defense and move it, first of all, $300 million for targeted pay increases for noncommissioned officers, NCOs, who bear the burden of fighting, who are the backbone of our military in Iraq and Afghanistan. These personnel, grades E-5 through E-9, are the troops we need most to keep. If they vote with their feet and leave the Army, we will have a broken Army. What I proposed is what the Quadrennial Review proposed 3 years ago, what we have voted up twice in the last 2 fiscal years, but do not in this budget, is a targeted increase for these troops. In addition, I proposed we take 25 to $50 million and say to every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine going into harm's way, into combat, once you draw imminent danger pay, the Government of the United States of America will pick up the premium, we will provide you with $250,000 in group life insurance, SGLI, a great idea. It is the least we can do for these troops. After all, we did, and I think rightly, $1.4 million in average benefits for the victims of 9/ 11. Can we not guarantee our troops in combat at least $250,000 in light of that? So what they have denied me with this rule is the opportunity to have a hearty, healthy debate on our priorities. Can we take a little bit out of a program that is slated to increase by $1.2 billion, take $400 million out of it and move it around, put it into a pay raise for our NCOs and our warrant officers, put it into a life insurance premium for our troops? And then take a little bit of it and deal with some problems in ballistic missile defense, which this budget, for all it does for BMD, does not do, for example to Patriot-3s. It took out a Tornado, it took out an F/A-18. We need to put more money into IFF, Identification Friend Or Foe. Roadside bombs, IEDs, we need to put more money in that. Look at the Marine Corps' unfunded requirement list. You will find it at the top of their list. These are the things that I, if I had the opportunity, would propose that we do with cuts that would not impede or in any way affect the progress of ballistic missile defense. Give me that opportunity. Vote down the previous question. Vote down the rule. And let us have a full fair and serious debate on national defense.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I think it should be obvious to everybody that we have a huge agenda of meritorious issues that will not be brought to the well of the House. We will not have today a free market of ideas as we deal with and debate one of the most important bills we will bring up. So when I emphasize to every Member that if you want to have a free and full and serious debate, then you should vote against this rule and you should vote first against the motion to move the previous question. That will open up the process so that we can offer amendments. And before concluding, I would like to ask the gentlewoman, given the amendment I am proposing that would deal with the needs of our NCOs and an incipient problem, and that is retention and recruitment, will the gentlewoman allow me to make a unanimous consent request to put in order amendment No. 89, which would increase the targeted pay increase for senior enlisted personnel and warrant officers and use, as an offset, a partial reduction in the big increase in the ballistic missile program. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent for the approval of my amendment, amendment No. 89.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, at 6:20 a.m. this morning, this budget resolution, the conference report, so-called, was filed. At 7:15 a.m., it was before the Committee on Rules. No one outside the actual drafters of the legislation had had any time to look at its contents. It only applies to $2.3 trillion of spending authority. Some way to run a railroad. And now, when the bill comes before the House, it comes because the rules of the House require a 1-day layover for a rule, so that we have a little time at least and not get surprised with provisions that we did not see on quick notice. That was overturned by meeting early this morning, adjourning and meeting again and deeming 1 day to have expired. So this budget resolution comes to us under sham circumstances. You have to ask why? Why should something of this gravity, of this importance to the fiscal policy of this country come to us under these circumstances? And there is only one answer I can give you. It will not stand scrutiny. It simply will not stand scrutiny. The Budget Act calls for spending in major functions of the budget, about 19 all together, and it calls for revenues, and it calls for those expenditures and revenues to be taken function by function and spread out, projected out over a period of 5 years. This budget resolution has real numbers for only 1 year. It is not extended out with real numbers. It has plugged numbers, but not real numbers. For only 1 year are there real numbers. For the first time in 20 years, we will take up today, if this rule passes, a budget resolution that does not contain a 5-year run-out of the spending levels that we are approving. In addition, when we set out with this budget, it was recognized that there were some budget process rules we adopted in the 1990s that worked and had a profound effect on our ability to move the budget from a deficit of $290 billion to a surplus of $236 billion in the year 2000. One of those rules was the so-called PAYGO rule which says, if you want to cut taxes and you have a deficit, you have to offset the cut in taxes with an increase elsewhere, or at least with a cut in entitlement spending that is commensurate to your tax revenue cut. That rule no longer applies because it has legislatively expired. We have tried and tried to restore that rule so that we can put some discipline, some starch into the process here in the House, and we have not succeeded because of opposition on the other side. What we now get in this so-called budget resolution is an extension of the PAYGO bill, the PAYGO rule for 1 year that applies in one House. It will not apply here in the House of Representatives. That means all sorts of tax cuts can still originate in the House of Representatives, will not be subject to a PAYGO point of order, can be sent to the Senate; there they may be defeated on 60-vote PAYGO point of order, but otherwise we have a crippled, broken-down PAYGO rule that applies for only 1 year. When you read this bill, this resolution, and see what little it contains, you have to ask yourself, why bring it up at all? If you are not going to comply with the Budget Act, if you are not going to give 5-year extensions, if you are not going to use real numbers, if you are not going to extend PAYGO, why bring it up at all? Well, it does a couple of things. It allows you to claim that you are doing a budget resolution without doing the single most important objective in a budget resolution, and that is laying down a plan for erasing this huge deficit we have. Members should understand that if they vote for this budget resolution, they will be voting to have a deficit next year of $367 billion by the calculation of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. That includes an offset in Social Security. If they wipe out the offset in Social Security, the total deficit would be $541 billion. And guess what, because of deficits we have sustained every year, we are right up against the statutory ceiling for the national debt. It has to be raised and raised soon, or we will bump the ceiling again. And guess what, if Members vote for this resolution, buried under all of these plug numbers, these phony numbers, buried under them is a critically important feature and that is it will indirectly trigger an increase in the debt ceiling. At least with respect to the House of Representatives, we will be deemed to have voted for an increase in the debt ceiling of $690 billion. I am putting Members on notice of that. So Members who vote for this resolution should know there is a critical working component of it and Members will vote to raise the debt ceiling by $690 billion to $8.1 trillion. So in a thumbnail, here is what you will be voting for when you vote for this sham resolution: First, Members will vote to raise the deficit to $541 billion without Social Security, for $367 billion including Social Security, add $25 billion more in supplementals for defense, and we are right back up to a $400 billion deficit. Members will not be voting for any plan in process, any solution to the deficit, but will be putting us on a path, according to the Congressional Budget Office, of accumulating, and this is their number, $5.132 trillion over the next 10 fiscal years. That is what Members will be voting for if they vote for this resolution. It would be better that we vote down this resolution, send the conferees back to conference and tell them to do what the Budget Act requires them to do and tell them to get a handle on the deficit and put our fiscal house in order. Vote against the rule.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, let me just make Members painfully aware of what this rule will entail, since they have only had minutes to even acquaint themselves with the fact that it was coming before them today. If Members vote for this rule, they will vote to make in order a budget resolution with the following consequences for our deficit and our national debt. Per the calculation in this budget resolution, the deficit for 2005 will be $367 billion. That is probably the best dated sum they can come up with. There will undoubtedly be some more defense supplementals, probably another $25 billion, before 2005 is out. That will take the deficit to $392 billion. If we take Social Security out of the calculation, as we should, we should not include it, the non- Social Security deficit, the deficit in the basic accounts of the Federal budget in 2005 if Members vote for this resolution will be $566 billion, which will necessitate another increase in the debt ceiling. If Members vote for this resolution, they will, make no mistake about it, be voting to raise the statutory debt ceiling by $690 billion. That is the first in a series of raises, because if you read CBO's report on the President's budget which is essentially embodied in this resolution and run that budget out over 10 years between 2005 and 2014, according to CBO, we will cumulatively incur a debt of $5.132 trillion. Vote for this rule and you will be voting against any plan or any process to come to terms with this enormous, record-breaking deficit. There is no plan. There is no solution. Do not fool yourself in this resolution. Vote for it and you vote to tread water while the problem gets worse. You vote to kick the can down the road. If you want to deal with the deficit, deal with this debt, vote against this resolution, and send the conferees back to the conference. If you want to dodge the issue for another year while it gets worse, vote for this resolution. I would suggest we vote against it.