David Scott

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. And it comes directly from this administration's Treasury Department. That is why I wanted Mr. Cooper to make sure he pointed out the authorship. This is not our report to Mr. Cooper. This was put together by the Treasury Department.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. It is a word that is very familiar to me.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. You are absolutely right, my friend.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Oh, yes.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. If the gentleman would yield, you bring up a very good point. The waste that has happened in Iraq with our military is just astounding. It is very important that the American people realize this is the trust of our legislation. We are going to support the troops. We are going to have a military and we are going to spend more on our military. We are going to enlarge our military. Under our Democratic leadership, we are going to make our military stronger. In order to do that, there are two important points, as the gentleman pointed out, in our legislation that will address and act as a catch to stop some of this waste, and that is under our legislation, we will require that the Inspector General in the Defense Department report to Congress quarterly on exactly how the money that Congress is allocating is being spent. And the Inspector General in Iraq for the Reconstruction of Iraq will also report to Congress on how that money is being spent. So our financial accountability act for Iraq accountability is very important, and I want to just take a minute to point those things out that address how we are going to respond to the concerns of waste and fraud that you have just spoken about.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee. You brought some very significant wisdom, that our debt burden is $50 trillion, and a very important piece of information from the Treasury Department which gave great expanse to what our burden is: $8.73 trillion in national debt, and our share for each individual in this country is $29,000. I would like to call on a distinguished Blue Dog, one of our hardworking Blue Dogs, and one of my fellow travelers. We just returned from an extraordinary trip abroad with NATO, had some very interesting meetings there, Ben Chandler, a Representative from the great State of Kentucky.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. The gentleman mentioned what happened today in the stock market. It is very interesting to note that this whole change happened and started early in the morning in China. When you look at how much money we are borrowing from foreign governments, needless to say China with $360 billion in debt, the interconnectedness of this, and our liability to these other countries, make us so dependent on them. In some cases when they sneeze, we are getting a cold, which is what happened today.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Thank you much. Would the gentleman share with us that document, where it came from, who wrote it and what it means?

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, we are gathered here this evening to talk about the budget, to talk about the debt and to talk about the Blue Dogs' Iraqi accountability legislation. This is a very, very important time for us, and we hope that this hour will be illuminating and be very informative for everyone. We are accustomed having my good friend, Mike Ross, in this position. Mike Ross is from Arkansas, and, as we know, there was a tornado that went through there. Mike Ross and a group of us just came back yesterday from Europe. Mike Ross had to jump on a plane and go down to Arkansas to see about his constituents, and we want to make sure that we send our prayers down to the folks in Arkansas. Of course, Mike knows that we stand ready to help in every way we can to make sure that they get the services that they need. So we are here to carry on. We have a great lineup and array of Blue Dogs here tonight to carry on and to talk about the budget, we want to talk about the debt, we want to talk about our Iraq resolution that we have before us, and the whole issue of accountability. Mr. Speaker, as we get started, I want to call your attention to our chart. As you know, one of the hallmarks of the Blue Dogs is fiscal responsibility and accountability. Let's look at the national debt and what it is today. If we look at it correctly, it is now $8.773 trillion. The share for each individual in this Nation is $29,000, and it continues to go up. We want to talk about that tonight. The Blue Dogs have a plan. We want to talk about our 12-point plan to bring down this debt. It is one of the most horrendous areas that we have to deliberate on. We want to get started with some of our Blue Dogs that are here. First, I want to recognize our distinguished cochair from the great State of Tennessee, Representative Cooper. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is, as we mentioned, a very important bill that will certainly increase the confidence of the American people in our financial systems and make it smoother and with less complexity. And I want to also thank the leadership of the Financial Services Committee, Chairmen Barney Frank and Kanjorski, for their excellent leadership on this very, very important and timely issue. And, again, I want to commend the hard work of my colleague Mr. Davis in providing leadership on this.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, this Promoting Transparency in Financial Reporting Act is a bipartisan bill that the House considered last year and passed on a voice vote. The legislation, however, failed to become law during the 109th Congress; and as a result, we now must consider these matters anew in the 110th Congress. H.R. 755 has a simple premise, Mr. Speaker. For the next 5 years, it would require annual testimony before the House Financial Services Committee by those entities most involved in establishing and implementing our Nation's financial reporting system. These parties include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Since the 1930s, the Securities and Exchange Commission has required public companies to file financial reports like income statements and balance sheets. Today, companies also rely on the generally accepted accounting principles developed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to prepare these reporting documents. This independent accounting standard-setter came into existence in the 1970s. The tidal wave of accounting scandals at the start of this decade led Congress to reassess our Nation's financial reporting system and adopt further reforms in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Among other things, this landmark law created the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. This body establishes the auditing standards used to examine public company accounting statements. It also registers and inspects the auditors of public companies. Even without this legislation, the Financial Services Committee is already working to examine accounting and auditing issues and the work of each of these parties. Earlier this month we approved an oversight plan for the 110th Congress. Several of the action items in that plan address accounting issues. For example, the oversight plan calls for the committee to review the efforts of the Financial Accounting Standards Board to improve financial accounting standards. It also calls for us to study the progress being made on establishing international accounting standards. The plan further calls for the committee to examine the work of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board as it implements the auditing improvements made by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This legislation, therefore, builds on what we had already planned to do in the 110th Congress and what other sessions of Congress should plan to do. These proposed annual hearings over the next 5 years will help us to reassess complex accounting standards. It will help us improve the understandability of financial statements, and it will encourage the acceptance of interactive data. Even though it seems highly likely that the parties subject to this legislation would testify before the Financial Services Committee on these matters if asked, this bill will make certain that the committee remains focused on these important issues in the immediate future. In addition, the adoption of H.R. 755 will help to encourage our regulators and standard-setters to fulfill their own roles and initiatives to achieve greater transparency, promote greater uniformity, and reduce complexity in financial reporting not only at home but also around the world. In recent years, our financial reporting standards have become more and more complex and complicated, especially as we have sought to address more difficult issues like the accounting treatment of derivatives and hedging instruments. This complexity has created difficulties not only for the companies that operate in the United States or that access our capital markets but also the investors and advisers who read and use financial statements. For our Nation to remain competitive, we need to have robust capital markets. For our capital markets to be strong, we need to have transparent, clear, and understandable financial reporting. We also need to ensure that the entities responsible for accounting and auditing issues continue to work smoothly together. H.R. 755 will help us to stay focused on achieving these important and desirable goals. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the hard work of the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Davis), who is the primary sponsor on this bill. And I want to commend Mr. Davis for introducing this measure, and I am proud to work with him as the lead cosponsor over these last years. And, hopefully, this time will be the charm. This bill is aimed at ensuring that individuals have access to the information that they truly need to make better investment decisions. And I urge support for H.R. 755. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 755, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. SCOTT of Georgia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, to my distinguished colleagues from Georgia and other Members of Congress who are here, this is indeed a sad occasion. Charlie Norwood led an extraordinary life. He was a combat veteran. He was a dentist. He pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, truly a son of the South, a son of Georgia. He is a person that cared about all of the people of Georgia. Let me give you an example, if I may. I remember when I was serving in the Georgia legislature as a State senator, and we needed some help for the Morehouse School of Medicine's National Primary Care Center. The person that led the fight up here to secure the Federal dollars for the Morehouse School of Medicine's Primary National Care Center was Charlie Norwood. And we thank him for that. Mr. Speaker, as I think of Charlie Norwood, and I think of so many of the great debates and the battles that we have had up here that we have shared, I am reminded of a great conversation that took place between two great men, Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee. It was at a time when this Nation was going through its great Civil War and how to fix that. That conversation went like this. Robert E. Lee said, it is not incumbent upon us to complete the task. And Abraham Lincoln said, nor are we free to desist from doing all we possibly can. That was the essence of Charlie Norwood. We might not have to complete this task, to make America a better place, but neither are we free to desist from doing all we possibly can. Charlie, we appreciate you. You fought the good fight. You stayed the course. And for you, God has put up an extraordinary crown of righteousness. We thank you, and we thank God for passing our way.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, thank you very much. It is indeed an honor to stand before this House as a very proud member of our Foreign Affairs Committee under our distinguished Chairman Lantos and also to stand as our co-chair of our Democratic Group on National Security, as well as a voting member of the NATO parliament. I have been to Iraq. I have been to Afghanistan, been to Pakistan, been to Kuwait. I have been there with our soldiers and our generals, and what I am about to say is based upon my experience in this whole arena. Now, a lot has been said and I think it has been misguided, very unfortunate. So allow me, if I may, to state for the record exactly what this resolution does. There has been talk up here about this resolution is here to cut funds. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no Democrat in this Congress who would dare cut the funds from our soldiers who are in harm's way, and any Member that continues to say that is doing a disservice to this Congress and to the people of the United States. This resolution does not say we are pulling out troops. We know the situation in the Middle East. We know this region is vital to our interests. The issue here is not pulling out troops. The issue here is a vote, up or down, on a policy that says two things, 57 words. Allow me to read them to you. It says that the ``Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq.'' Then it says: ``Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.'' That is what it says. Those two things. Let us not mislead the American public anymore, certainly not on what we are going to vote on here today. I stand as a proud member who has cosponsored, who supports this resolution 100 percent because of four important reasons. The first reason is that this 21,500-man escalation, number one, is deceiving in and of itself, when we know from the CBO account that it is not 21,500. It is more like 48,000 when you put the support troops involved. I am here to tell you, this is a dangerous strain on an already overstrained military. Let me share with you what the National Security Advisory Group is saying. It says this: nearly all of the available combat units in the U.S. Army, Army National Guard, Marine Corps, have been used in the current operations. Every available combat brigade from the active duty Army has already been to Afghanistan or Iraq at least for a 12-month tour, and most are now in their second or third tours of duty. There is a strain here, and some are on their fourth tours of duty. Approximately 95 percent of the Army National Guard's combat battalions and special operations units have been mobilized since 9/11, and there is very little available combat capacity remaining in the Army National Guard. All active duty Marine units are being used on a dangerously tight rotation schedule, but here is another. We often forget that these are soldiers with families, with mothers, with fathers who are out there, separated from their children. Listen to this. This is why we are against this 21,500, or 48,000, surge. Between 2001 and 2004, divorce rates among active duty Army officers have tripled, and rates among Army enlisted soldiers have gone up. Let me conclude by saying this: on the bleached bones of many great past nations and civilizations are written those pathetic words, ``too late.'' They moved too late. The American people are watching us and they are hoping and they are praying that we not move too late, and let us get our young men and women out of this crossfire of a civil war

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Thank you very much, Mr. Ross. It is always a pleasure to be on the floor with you. There is so much we need to cover. Sometimes, you wonder where to really begin. But I think today we need to begin with what the President brought over here in his budget. I have had a chance to look at it, to go through it, and I am just astounded. I truly am astounded at the recklessness of the President's budget, at the irresponsibleness of the President's budget. Here we are at a time when this country is crying out for very serious attention in health care, especially health care for those at the lower income end and the middle class, and what do we get in the President's budget but a tax increase for the middle class in health care. What we get in this budget is a slash to Medicare and to Medicaid. I want to go through it just very quickly so the American people and our colleagues who might not have had a chance to really get into this budget can see how surprisingly irresponsible this budget is. The President's budget that he just sent to us slashes Medicare and Medicaid by about $300 billion, at a time when Medicare and Medicaid are in greatest need, to slash those programs by $300 billion over the next 10 years, with legislative and regulatory Medicaid cuts totaling about $50 billion and Medicare cuts totaling $252 billion. And rather than using these monies to reverse the growing number of uninsured Americans, and, indeed, listen to this startling statistic, since President Bush took office in the last 6 years, we have added an additional 6.8 million uninsured Americans. This is not a time to cut the basic government safety net program for insuring Americans when we are having more. This is why I say it is reckless. This is why I say it is irresponsible. And these monies are being offset, in his mind, by tax cuts to millionaires. It is totally out of sync. The Medicare cuts include premium increases for millions of beneficiaries totaling $10 million over the next 10 years. And at the same time the budget slashes Medicare funding, it protects special interests. Here is how: It leaves untouched massive overpayments by Medicare to HMOs under the GOP 2003 Medicare Modernization Act. And many of the Federal Medicaid cuts will simply increase State costs or lead to further restrictions in Medicaid benefits. Thus, instead of assisting State efforts to reduce the number of uninsured, the Bush budget will impede those efforts. But in the area of health care, and I mentioned at the outset that there would be in here this hidden tax increase for the middle class. Here is where we find it. Under the President's budget, employee health benefits would, for the first time, be treated as income and would be subject to income and payroll taxes, just like wages. This is new, for the first time. Listen carefully. At the same time, the President would create a tax deduction for health insurance of $15,000 for families and $7,500 for individuals. This proposal would fail to reduce the number of uninsured, and it would also mean a tax increase for millions of middle-class families who have employer-sponsored health insurance worth more than $15,000. You have to really look at the fine print. And also, because the new deduction would reduce taxable income, people's future Social Security benefits would be reduced as well; and, as many health experts have pointed out, the President's proposal would undermine employer-provided health insurance and would push people into the individual health insurance market, a market where insurers are able to refuse coverage to workers based on their health. As Karen Davis, who is head of the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund, pointed out about the President's proposal, it is not solving the uninsured problem and it is not solving the cost problem, so it is not really advancing what we need to have happen. Here at the most basic need, where government and people need the help, soaring high health care costs, this budget not only fails but, to add insult to injury, adds a tax increase to the middle class in the process.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Will the gentleman yield just a moment? On the issue of China and our lending, we are now in debt to China well over $350 billion. Now just to show you why this debt in the hands of foreign governments is such a threat to our national security, just this example. China is now engaged with Iran in building a, supposedly building, a gas pipeline from China to Iran. The United States, in its efforts to tighten certain screws, economic and political, on Iran, in addition to the saber rattling we are doing, has begun to ask China if they would desist from that relationship. To this point, China has stonewalled; and in large measure it is because we don't have the leverage. If you owe me $360 billion, that weakens my position. The other area, in terms of our national security, is the situation in Iran as we are dealing with it, because that is in the news now. There are all kinds of questions and issues now of whether or not we are going to attack Iran, which is why we have got to hurry up and get our resolution passed and make sure that the President understands what article I, section 8 of our Constitution gives the Congress the extreme role, the exclusive role in determining the funding and the declaration of war in that regard. But the whole reason why this whole funding operation puts us in a weakening position from our lending and our debt with our foreign countries is this: Iran has to depend upon a tremendous amount of lending from other countries to support them. It puts our Treasury Department, our Secretary of Treasury, our Secretary of State, and I plan to ask Ms. Condoleezza Rice tomorrow, we will have an opportunity to meet with her, this specific question. The fact that we need our partners, who we are working with, to stop lending to Iran, if we tighten that financial economic screw, that is how you avoid this unfortunate military clash that might be pending. But the point I wanted to make is, as long as we are so overly dependent and have this indebtedness in the hands of the foreign governments, we lose the leverage we need to secure our Nation and to secure a better peace in the world.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. I thank you, Mr. Ross. I just want to make clear, as colleagues are saying, and I want to make sure that this debate is within the right frame of mind. This is not a debate that is personally against the President. The President is a likeable person. It is just his policies. His policies are wrong for the American people. Even the American people are rising up and saying so. We have, as Congress, the responsibility to respectfully disagree with the President. That is what we are doing. We are simply saying it is wrong to cut veterans', it is wrong to cut seniors' programs, it is wrong to cut education, it is wrong to cut the COPS program out, from getting folks in to be employed for first responders. It is wrong to cut homeland security. It is wrong to cut every single basic domestic program that is cut in this budget. It is wrong to do that. It is wrong also for the President to say on the one hand that he is going to have a surge of 21,500 more troops, when, in fact, we now know that it is not 21,500. It is more like 48,000, according to the CBO that has just corrected that. So when we have these kinds of situations, this is what makes this government what it is. This is what makes us the envy of the world. This is why we have this House. This is why we run every other year, why people hold us accountable, to come and to make sure that the voters and the people of America and their tax dollars, that we are good stewards of them. That is our responsibility. And we have a right, more than that, we have a duty, to raise the tough questions and to hold the President's feet to the fire when he comes with such a wrong-headed budget as this that goes right to the heart of where America is hurting. This is why we are here today, and this is why the Blue Dogs are offering this. This is why the Blue Dogs are also offering Resolution 98, to bring this fiscal accountability and financial accountability, to stop war profiteering, and to make sure the money goes to the soldiers so that we can take care of them while they are on the battlefield and to make sure we restore these cuts to make sure we take care of them when they come home. This budget doesn't do it, and it is our obligation to raise these questions and to make sure that this budget responds appropriately.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. The final analysis of what we are saying is what the American people spoke to in November. They spoke to warning this Congress to stand up and demand accountability and be good stewards of their tax dollars, and that is the core of our Blue Dog resolution. I believe that and I hope that within the next couple of months we will have this resolution passed. Might I ask for the benefit of our audience if I could ask Mr. Ross if we could give the number of our House Resolution in the event that there might be some individuals who are in the C-SPAN audience who might want to give us a little helping hand here to help us get this bill passed.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. I want to build on the point that my good friend from New York (Mr. Israel) talked about. It was very important when James Madison wrote into the Constitution the words, ``Raise and support the Army is the exclusive domain of the Members of Congress.'' There was a reason for that. The reason was because Members of Congress, unlike the President, unlike the Senate, my good friends in the Senate, it is the Members of Congress that are closest to the people. Every other year we must run, and that is why they put it in there that if we are going to war, yes, we will spread this authority, some of that as Commander in Chief to the executive branch, but we must have a check and a balance. They put that in the bosom of the Congress, which has to go back before the people every other year and be accountable. I am here to tell you the people of the United States are looking to this Congress. They are looking for us to bring some accountability to it. They are looking for us to be fair and understand what is at the core of this. You know what is at the core of this is the soldier. When is somebody going to look at this war from the standpoint of that soldier that we are sending to Iraq now and placing in the cross hairs of a civil war, a questionable gambit at best? The President of the United States does not have to run again. He can have all the surges he wants. He can do everything he wants. His concern now is building his legacy. He has his right to do whatever he wants to do, but the one thing he does not have to do, he does not have to go and face the American people again. We do. That is why Madison gave us the arbitrary decision to raise and support the military. So when the Bush administration made the decision to use large numbers of these private contractors that were talked about on the battlefield in Iraq, it now has had somewhat of a perverse effect of incentivizing highly trained special operation force personnel to leave the Armed Forces. They are there voluntarily, in order to work as some of these contractors for much higher pay. There is so much just built into this for war profiteering, but here is a statistic that we have got to be concerned about. We have got to look at this hardship on the soldier. These are not 21,500 other soldiers just sitting over there waiting. These soldiers are going, many of them, on their third and fourth tour of duties. We have a situation where we are running the military in the ground, and no more pointed example of that is this startling, disturbing and tragic information that has been handed to me by the National Security Advisory Group. Listen to this: Between 2001 and 2004, divorce rates among active duty Army officers tripled and rates among Army enlisted soldiers grew, divorce rates by 50 percent, as deployments lengthened and with increased frequency as they are doing now. These divorce rates have served to underscore the severity of the strains on the active duty personnel and their families, and similarly, incidents of domestic violence increased over the same period. There is wear and tear not just on the equipment that we talked about, not just on not having the bulletproof vests or the Humvees riding around; it is wear and tear on the hearts and souls of our soldiers. It is too much of a strain, and we have got to correct this situation. These and other warning signs have caused some commanders to fear that personnel who were willing to undertake successive deployments as part of, and they use these words, part of the surge cannot sustain this tempo of operations over the long term. If they do so, it will be at the adverse impact on their families. How much more do we want to ask of our soldiers? I would tell you one thing, this Blue Dog resolution is dedicated to giving our soldiers the respect that they are due. We are going to make sure that the money we appropriate in here goes to them, and we are going to make doubly sure that we can end this situation in Iraq quickly and bring our soldiers home to their families.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Thank you so much. And thank you for those kind words you said about me. I appreciate it. And I would have called my mom, because she would have loved to hear those words, too. You know, over this weekend, I did a couple of things when I was home. One was that I really got into the Constitution of the United States. I really got into that section in article I, section 8, that clearly gives us the exclusive responsibility as Congress to raise and support armies. It is clear as a bell there. It gives it to us, it does not give it to the White House or the President or the executive branch. It gives it to Congress. And up until now we have failed the American people. The large measure of this--you touched upon it earlier, Mr. Ross, but this Republican-led Congress has just completely rolled over and allowed this President to fund this war on emergency supplementals, which means that we in Congress cannot conduct the constitutionally required oversight to do what the Constitution wanted us to do. Now, that is why we are in this situation we are in, and I would like to talk for a moment on two points. When I was home, the other thing I did was I got around and I had some great interaction with my constituents out in Cobb County and Douglas County and in Clayton County and in Henry County. We all had town hall meetings, we had my office open. I mean, we had Chamber of Commerce annual dinners. That is a great opportunity for folks to just come up to you and let you know exactly how they feel. And I can tell you, Mr. Ross, they are proud to see us on this floor, offering this bill. This is not just a resolution that is nonbinding. We are going to have those that voice our opinion about this war, they are going to be voted on up or down. Everybody knows my personal feelings about the mistake of this surge, but this resolution that we have carries a tremendous amount of weight. That is why I care about it so much. And I want to share with the American people exactly what it is in this resolution that we are doing and why it is needed and why, finally, this resolution provides a direct link and connection with what the Founding Fathers wrote in article I, section 8, of the Constitution over 200 years ago that we have the exclusive right to determine how we will manage. Now, why do we need that? The other thing I did over this weekend was, I read my home newspaper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution. And in there there was an extraordinary article by the Associated Press that I would like to make a part of this Record because this article points out the very need for this measure that we in the Blue Dog Coalition are pushing. This article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution was written John Heilprin with the Associated Press. The title of it was this: Contractors Investigated After Army Fraud Alleged. Just listen to this, America. ``From high dollar fraud to conspiracy to bribery and bid- rigging, Army investigators have opened up to 50 criminal probes involving battlefield contractors in the war in Iraq and the U.S. fight against terrorism.'' What an opening sentence, what a declarative issue we have here. It goes on to say, senior contracting officials, government employees, residents of other countries, and in some cases U.S. military personnel themselves have been implicated in millions of dollars of fraud allegations. ``All of these involve operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait,'' Chris Grey, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, confirmed just this past Saturday. ``The agents will pursue leads into truth wherever it takes us. We take this very seriously.'' Here is the point. Battlefield contractors have been implicated in allegations of fraud and abuse since the United States invaded Iraq in the spring of 2003. Any wonder why this has happened? Because the Congress did not apply the oversight, because this Republican Congress just simply rubber-stamped everything. The Special Inspector General's Office, focusing solely on reconstruction spending, has developed cases that have led to four criminal convictions. The problems stem in part from the Pentagon's struggle to get a handle on the unprecedented number of contractors now helping run the Nation's wars, and these contractors are used in battle zones to do nearly everything but fight. But they can war-profiteer, they can commit fraud, they can commit bribery, and they can abuse the taxpayers' money on the backs of our good, brave soldiers that are putting their lives on the line for much less than what these contractors are making. They run the cafeterias, the laundries for the troops. They move supplies, run communication systems and repair weapons systems. Special agents from the Army's Major Procurement Fraud Unit were recently dispatched to Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait where they are working closely and sharing information. One case involves an Army chief warrant officer accused of taking $50,000 in bribes to steer a contract for paper products and plastic flatware away from a government contractor to a Kuwaiti company, according to an indictment. The Government Accountability Office reported in December that the military has been losing millions of dollars, and contractors are being investigated because it cannot monitor industry workers in far-flung locations. It summarizes this way: Commanders are often unsure how many contractors even use their bases or even require the food and housing protection, according to one report. One Army official quoted said, ``The service estimates losing $43 million each year just on free meals that are provided.'' That is why this bill is important. Let me just mention specifically how this bill will help prevent and address this glaring situation that was reported in the Atlanta Journal Constitution by the Associated Press, John Heilprin, who I commend for doing an excellent job. Our bill will require, within 30 days of passage, that every 90 days hereafter the Department of Defense Inspector General and the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction shall prepare and transmit to Congress an unclassified report, but with a classified annex, if necessary, that will contain the following: One, a detailed accounting of how military and reconstruction funds in Iraq have been spent thus far; Two, a detailed accounting of the types and terms of contracts awarded on behalf of the United States, including the methods by which such contracts were awarded and contractors selected; Three, it will require a description of efforts to obtain support and assistance from other countries during the rehabilitation of Iraq; Four, an assessment of what additional funding is needed to complete military operations and reconstruction efforts in Iraq, including a plan for security of Iraq, a detailed plan for how any future funds will be spent, and a statement of how those funds will advance the interests of the United States in Iraq. If either inspector general fails to submit a quarterly report, the Government Accountability Office shall conduct an audit and report to Congress. Sanctions will be imposed against contractors who have engaged in fraud or abuse or war profiteering, and we will create the Truman Committee that Mr. Chandler spoke to earlier. Funding requests for operations in Iraqi Freedom in fiscal year 2008 and beyond must come through the regular appropriations process and not through these emergency supplementals that are explicitly designed to bypass oversight. That is why we have the problems we have here; and also, that is why there was not enough money put in the budget when we sent our Armed Forces over there 3 years ago, as you recall, the news reports where many of our soldiers were digging in dung heaps and landfills trying to get body armor for them. No. No more. This Blue Dog resolution addresses that, and I would expect an extraordinarily large vote in getting it passed. And it is so good to be on the floor with my good friend, Mr. Ross, and also my good friend, Mr. Israel from New York, who we serve together, both as cochairs on our Democratic Group on National Security. And we have been addressing these issues. So it is just a pleasure to be on the floor with you. I hope with this story and this Associated Press Atlanta Journal Constitution report, it will show the American people why we need the specific legislation and the importance in getting some accountability passed concerning our war funding.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Ross very much. It is always a pleasure to be on the floor with you and my other colleagues in the Blue Dog Coalition. I would like to maybe start just responding to what we are doing so that we can set the stage properly for the American people who are watching to understand why we are doing this and the important confirmation that we have for doing it that is embedded deep in the Constitution of the United States. The question on what role does Congress have in this has been put before pundits and before commentators, news articles once the President made his statement about the surge, and I, too, want to go on record as saying that I oppose this surge, almost exclusively because of the strain that it is placing on our military, which is already overstrained, and taking our young men and women and not only just putting them in harm's way, but placing them in the cross-hairs of a civil war. But fundamentally, as I mentioned earlier, what this legislation is that we are here to bring some transparency and to bring some understanding of how the taxpayers' money is being spent is embedded, as I said early, deep into the Constitution. Now, I want everybody to understand that when we put forward this bill, we are not putting it forward based upon what we feel like today. We are putting this forward so that we can be responsive to the job that we were created to do. In Article I in Section 8 of the Constitution, it states clearly, when that question was put to James Madison and to Alexander Hamilton at the beginning of the formation of the Continental Army, the fight for the freedom of this country at the very beginning, the question was this: Who has the authority to declare war; who has the authority to raise and support our military? Here is what it says in Article I, Section 8, that was written well over 200 years ago. Article I, Section 8, gives Congress, not the White House, not the executive branch, not the President, it says clearly it gives Congress the power to ``raise and support armies.'' Those words are in there. In other words, it gives Congress the exclusive power to appropriate the funds for war and then to determine the manner in which those funds are handled and used. That is what undergirds our resolution that we are putting forth as Blue Dogs and as Democrats and as Republicans, because I believe that we will get bipartisan support for standing up and finally allowing this Congress to do what the Founding Fathers put us here to do. Just for a moment, our war in Iraq has been prosecuted at a tremendous cost to our Nation, a tremendous cost in terms of especially our soldiers' lives, and we cannot thank our soldiers enough for the sacrifice that they have given, but also the strain that it has placed on their families through repeated and increasingly hefty deployments, wear and tear on our equipment and, of course, the taxpayers' money. That is what the Founding Fathers said when they said raise and support our Army. They just did not say tax the money. It did not say that. It said raise and support, which means put your arms around it and make sure you take care of your Army. I will tell you, up to this point this Congress has not done so. The strain on our military is extraordinary. Our service members, as we know, are all volunteers. They and their families are more than willing to sacrifice, as they have and as they will continue to do, for the good of our Nation, and the American public at large is also willing to allow its tax dollars to be spent on a worthy cause. However, we in Congress owe it to the whole country to make sure that our service members are not sacrificing needlessly in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that tax money is not being squandered. The American public and Members of Congress have largely not been aware of exactly where the money is going, where the funding that we are providing has been going, and there is widespread reports of contractor fraud. There is bribery, there is waste, there is theft of reconstruction funds for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the reason it has been is because we have not fulfilled Article I in Section 8 which gives Congress the power to raise and support our armies and determine how this money is being spent, because this Congress, up to now, has rolled over and given this President everything he asked for without asking the questions because they have allowed him to use the emergency supplemental funding process. For those in America and those on C-SPAN, what that means is that that is a type of funding that prohibits us in Congress from doing exactly what the Founding Fathers said we must do in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, and that is to raise and support armies and determine how this money is being spent. It is because this administration has used the dubious practice of emergency supplementals to fund the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan away from congressional oversight, that is why we have had fraud. That is why we have had bribery. Emergency supplementals do not go through the normal budgeting and appropriations cycle. The administration has also not been forthcoming in providing the detail as to what specifically the funds in the supplemental budget request is being used for, and as a result, Members of Congress typically have not had the opportunity to scrutinize the request thoroughly. Supplementals are considered on an expedited basis and basically a sight unseen. That is why what the Blue Dogs are doing with our resolution is so important. It pulls the covers off and it says let the Congress do the job that the Founding Fathers put us here to do. One more point I want to make in the Iraq Study Group report that came out, it recognized this problem, and it mentions briefly the issue of budgeting for Operation Iraqi Freedom, and specifically they recommended that funding be placed back in the regular budget process, away from the supplemental, saying that this should be done to increase transparency and accountability. The Blue Dogs are taking that recommendation and doing with it what was recommended, and for those of you that have that report, you might find that recommendation on page 59 and 60. It is recommendation 72. So, to correct this problem, we in the Blue Dog Coalition are introducing this bill. As Mr. Ross said, we will be doing it later this week. This bill will allow the Members of Congress the time and the information required to provide proper oversight of defense spending and contracting, and it will allow us the time to apply the new PAYGO rules recently passed by the House of Representatives, and, most importantly, it will allow the American people, that is what this election was about, it was about this country and this country taking this country back and putting into practice those things that the Founding Fathers gave us to do, and in the process the American people will become more fully educated on the true costs of this war and the sacrifices they are making and make sure that this money goes where it is supposed to go, and will hopefully, prayerfully bring our sons and daughters, our husbands and our wives, our fathers and our mothers back home safe as soon as we possibly can and end this war.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson), who has provided sterling leadership on this issue and is an outstanding leader in the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Thank you to the gentleman from Michigan. It is a pleasure to be on the floor with you. Madam Speaker, more than anything else, Dr. King was a man of God. You know, when I think of Dr. King, I think of three people. The first one was the great prophet Isaiah. As you recall, Isaiah cried out in the year that King Uzziah died, was the year that I also saw the Lord. He went on to say that there was a voice that came to him that said, who will go for us, and whom shall we send? Like the prophet Isaiah, in 1956, as a young 26-year-old person down in Alabama, it was Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, Here am I, Lord, send me. Just like the prophet Isaiah. The second person is David the shepherd boy, who climbed up to go see about his brethren, and there was Goliath, issuing all kinds of threats. They told him to go back, much as they did with Martin Luther King, Jr., but he didn't go back. Instead, he stood there and Martin Luther King, Jr., like David said, Is there not a cause. There is a cause for me, and there is a cause for you, and that is to beat down the Goliaths of racism, of prejudice and discrimination. The third one is Jesus Christ, for when the Pharisees asked Jesus Christ what was the greatest commandment of all, Jesus said to love thy neighbor as thyself. At the bottom of it all, Dr. King's essence was love. As Jesus said, There is no greater love than that you would give your life for another. Dr. King paid that price and gave his life, love. As the song writer said: Them's that got shall get and them's that not shall not lose cause the Bible says, and it still is news. Your mama may have and your poppa may have, but God bless this child. Martin Luther King, more than anything else, was a child of God, and we thank God for sending Martin Luther King, Jr., our way.

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to also extend my deep courtesies to Mrs. Biggert. It is always a pleasure to be on the floor with her, and I appreciate her kindness and consideration and the work she has put into this bill and the Republicans on the other side. Madam Speaker, Thomas Edison is truly an American hero, and this bill will go a long way to helping to fix just a minor problem and give just a little bit more time for the people to do a fitting commemorative to him. Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.