John Tanner

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1591, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health and Iraq Accountability Act, which sends the message to the Iraqis that we will not commit open- endedly our blood and tax dollars if they are not willing to step up and take control of their own country. We have lost more than 3,200 of our best men and women over the last 4 years and 4 days we have been in Iraq, and more than 24,000 others have come home wounded. We are spending about $200,000 a minute in Iraq. The Iraqi people need to know that we will not continue to do all the work if they are unable or unwilling to put aside their religious differences and come together to build a civil society. Mr. Speaker, I feel that this legislation has been mischaracterized as a timeline on our troops. The true intention of this measure, as I see it, is to put a timeline on the Iraqi people to meet the benchmarks that have already been established by the President. The bill we will vote on today will not withhold a single dollar from our men and women on the ground in Iraq, and it will not tie our commanders' hands but simply holds the Iraqis accountable for taking command of their own country. As chairman of the U.S. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, I have talked at length with our allies who are helping us fight the war on terror in Afghanistan, where we are in a very critical year, with the Taliban planning a new series of attacks on U.S. and NATO troops there. I fear we are threatening our work on that very important effort if we continue to focus most of our resources to a deteriorating sectarian conflict that General Petraeus has said cannot be won with military might alone if there is not timely political and diplomatic progress. I served 4 years in the United States Navy and 26 years in the Tennessee Army National Guard. During that time, it was my duty to carry out the orders handed me by the civilian leadership. Now that you and our colleagues and I are part of that civilian leadership, it is our responsibility to help shape military policy and hold the civilian leadership at the Pentagon and elsewhere accountable for the way they have managed--or mismanaged--operations in Iraq. To that end, Mr. Speaker, I am not willing to keep asking our military families and the American taxpayers to commit their lives and tax dollars forever. The only alternative to this bill is an open-ended bleeding of our blood and tax dollars with no end in sight and no pressure on the Iraqi government to make the changes necessary.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize a west Tennessean who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor 40 years ago for the ultimate sacrifice he and his family made in service to our country. Sergeant Walter K. Singleton of Shelby County was killed in action in Vietnam on March 24, 1967, at the young age of 22. Sgt. Singleton was a proud Marine who, when coming under fire from the enemy, gave his own life to protect the lives of his comrades. The heroism, gallantry and courage Sgt. Singleton demonstrated on the enemy battlefield 40 years ago represents the selfless service that millions of our Nation's finest have given to the United States Armed Forces. The sacrifice he and his family made is what makes this country great. Madam Speaker, I hope you and our colleagues will join me in honoring Sgt. Walter K. Singleton for his patriotism and recognize the 40th anniversary of the day he received the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravely giving his life in service to his country.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, today I, along with my colleagues Reps. Nita Lowey (D-NY), Kenny Hulshof (R-MO), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) and with 70 co-sponsors, rise to introduce the Preserving Patient Access to Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospitals Act of 2007 to ensure that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, does not continue to implement the misguided 75 Percent Rule and unnecessarily compromise the ability of rehabilitation hospitals and units to continue to provide much-need critical rehabilitation care. The 75 Percent Rule is one of seven criteria inpatient rehabilitation hospitals and units must meet in order to be paid under the inpatient rehabilitation facilities prospective payment system, IRF-PPS, rather than the inpatient prospective payment system, IPPS, under which general acute care hospitals are paid. The rule was first issued in January 1984 pursuant to the Social Security Act Amendments of 1983, and has faced minimal revision to date. Simply put, to qualify as an IRF under the 75 Percent Rule, 75 percent of a facility's patients must be receiving treatment in one of 13 specified conditions. The result is that inpatient rehabilitation hospitals and units are the only Medicare providers that are classified on the basis on patient condition rather than the services provided to patients admitted to their care. Inpatient rehabilitation hospitals and units provide specialized programs and services for patients who have suffered brain injuries, strokes, spinal cord injuries, and other rehabilitating injuries. However, CMS has consistently refused to update the 75 Percent Rule to reflect medical advances made over the 20 years since the classification criteria were first developed. It is shocking how many patients have been turned away because of this rule. The 75 Percent Rule functions as a quota system without any foundation in clinical or scientific evidence, which makes it just that much more frustrating to watch the inpatient hospitals and units in my home state struggle to comply with the regulation without jeopardizing patient access to crucial rehabilitative care. Our legislation will ensure that patients across America will continue to have access to the rehabilitative care they need, and that CMS will take a long, hard look at the impact this policy is having on Medicare beneficiaries and the Medicare system itself. The legislation would freeze the compliance threshold at 60 percent indefinitely, allowing facilities to continue to provide care to Medicare beneficiaries in need of intensive inpatient rehabilitation therapy. The legislation also codifies medical necessity standards and requires CMS to provide Congress with a comprehensive assessment of what is happening to patients that are denied care in this specialized health care setting. Congress has year after year called on CMS to modernize the 75 Percent Rule. This year we face a time-sensitive imperative. Unless Congress acts by July 1, 2007, the CMS rule automatically imposes a 65 percent compliance threshold. It is abundantly clear that this chamber will have to take legislative action if we hope to stop implementation of this policy and ensure that our constituents have access to intense rehabilitative care in the appropriate inpatient setting. We urge our colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, I rise today in memory of William R. Anderson, a well-decorated Navy Captain and former Congressman from the state of Tennessee, who died late last month at the age of 85 and will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Anderson was a decorated World War II submarine combat veteran and in 1958 captained the Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, and a crew of 115 on a mission under the North Pole. For the feat, the first of its kind, the Nautilus submerged in the Pacific Ocean, traveled beneath the polar ice cap and resurfaced four days later in the North Atlantic. President Eisenhower awarded Captain Anderson the Legion of Merit for ``foresighted planning, skilled seamanship and thorough study of the Arctic Area.'' After he retired from the Navy, Anderson was elected as a Democrat to Congress from a district west of Nashville, a portion of which I now have the honor of representing in this chamber. During his tenure in Congress, from 1965-1973, he was a principled leader unafraid of speaking up for what he felt was right and questioning what he strongly felt were abuses of power by some in Washington. Madam Speaker, I hope you and our colleagues will join me in remembering a distinguished former Member of this House of Representatives and a military hero, U.S. Navy Captain William R. Anderson; thanking him for his service to our nation; and expressing our sympathy to his family for their great loss.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 987) to endorse further enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and to facilitate the timely admission of new members to NATO, and for other purposes.

Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Lantos and my good friend, Representative Paul Gillmor from Ohio, for helping with this bill, and also the ranking member on the Foreign Affairs Committee. NATO is probably arguably one of the most important organizations now in this post-cold war period. NATO, our allies in Europe and Canada, have presently almost 17,000 troops on the ground in Kosovo and 35,000 in Afghanistan. The alliance is strong, and it is very important from the standpoint of being an international organization that can go anywhere and bring order to chaos and back it up with some military capability. That is unique and critical, in my judgment, in this post- Cold War world. NATO itself symbolizes really the cooperative effort across the Atlantic to promote regional and area-wide stability and also to encourage fledgling democracies, particularly in Eastern Europe. This legislation before us recognizes the continuing efforts of Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Macedonia and Ukraine to become members of NATO and encourages them to continue on that path. It is a statement from the Congress that we believe that what they are doing is important, and we believe that they are moving in the right direction. Since 1989, 10 countries have joined NATO. We have seen Eastern European countries join NATO and make a remarkable contribution to the ongoing effort not only in Afghanistan and in the Balkans, but also as it relates to the furthering of democracy across some of those formerly Warsaw Pact countries. Every President has endorsed the efforts that are embodied in this bill in terms of the expansion of NATO, and this process is not yet complete. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to recognize a member of our delegation to the NATO PA; and by the way, Mr. Gillmor is a vice president of the NATO PA this term, and I am proud to serve with him, and now I would like to recognize a member of our delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson), and yield to her such time as she may consume.

Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, I want to thank Mrs. Emerson and Mr. Gillmor, and you, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, for participating. This is an important bill. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 976, the Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2007. My family has owned small businesses in Tennessee for generations, and I understand the unique challenges these family-operated businesses face in remaining successful and meeting the needs of their communities. We also understand their importance in helping fuel the local and national economies. I am proud of the work we are doing here to support small businesses as they continue to thrive and give them the assistance they need to help raise their workers' wages. It is fitting that this is the first major tax package to adhere to the new PAYGO rules this House has re-implemented to curb deficit spending, because ``pay as you go'' is a basic principle that every small business owner we are helping here today already follows every day. I am glad that we are following their lead and operating under responsible business values such as PAYGO. Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Rangel and Ranking Member McCrery for the way they have worked together on this bill. I have been a part of the Ways and Means Committee for 10 years, and this is the first major tax bill I know of during that time that has been reported out of our committee by a unanimous, bipartisan vote. I am encouraged by that and hope the bipartisanship will continue as we look forward to the other legislative priorities facing us on the Committee.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be here with the other Democratic Members who are veterans to talk about this resolution. I want to start off by saying what Allen Boyd said. I was on active duty during the Vietnam years. The problem here is not the troops; the problem is the competency of the civilian leadership that has gotten us into this mess. This resolution supports our troops and calls for a different strategy by our civilian leadership with respect to Iraq. When I was on active duty when I was in the military, I followed orders. That was my job. My role here in Congress as I see it is to try to help formulate some sort of competent civilian leadership and strategy so the troops can be successful. We have not seen that in 4 years. The war began in Iraq in March of 2003. Since then, we have lost 3,124 people dead and over 23,000 wounded, and it is not a bit better today than it was the day we started. The war has cost Americans almost $400 billion, with another request for $285 billion more, with no end in sight. Competent civilian leadership for our men and women in uniform on the diplomatic and political fronts must be demanded by Congress and the American people if we are to properly honor the sacrifice of the dead and the wounded and their families. Instead, what do we have? We have unbelievable reports that the Pentagon can't identify 170,000 guns issued to the Iraqi forces in October of 2005; some of our soldiers buying their own body armor; up- armored Humvees sitting in Bosnia or Herzegovina while we needed them in Iraq. And David Walker, the Comptroller General, says he believes that almost 30 percent of the money spent over there has been wasted, stolen, or otherwise unaccounted for. I think any patriotic American ought to come to this floor if he or she has the opportunity and ask questions about the incompetency of the Pentagon and civilian leadership thus far. I believe any viable Iraqi strategy to be successful must contain clearly defined goals to hold the Iraqi leaders accountable for their own security. Mr. Boswell, a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, said as much earlier. Our men and women in uniform have performed magnificently. They have completed every task assigned to them. But impressive military might alone is not enough if the Iraqi people cannot or will not make progress in securing their own country and establishing a civil democracy. Western-style democracy works because we have a theory called separation of church and state. When people don't go to the same church, they nonetheless can get together Monday through Friday and build a civil society and get along with each other. If these folks are unwilling or unable to do that for philosophical or psychological reasons, then we can only try to force a square peg into a round hole for so long. It has been going on for 4 years, and they are seemingly incapable. And I say that what we need to do is rethink our strategy and that a pullback to the perimeter is preferable to prolonging a costly and deadly military strategy toward a political goal that is out of reach. Whether or not this new strategy works, I am glad to see that General David Petraeus will be commanding our men and women on the ground. He has proved himself a strong military commander, and I wish him well. It is not his strategy that I question. Here is why this resolution is important to me: not only do the majority of the Iraqis in every poll that has been taken over there say they will be better off if we leave or get out or pull back, or however one wants to talk about it, but what it is doing in Iraq to our effort in Afghanistan. I am going to be leading a delegation to Brussels next Saturday to talk about Afghanistan. We are losing our momentum in Afghanistan because of the Iraqi whirlwind that is sucking everything into it in terms of our military supplies, our military approach, and so forth. Almost everyone who has looked at this situation agrees, from the Baker-Hamilton Report to everybody else, that we need to radically change our strategy. Listen to these words from the Council of Foreign Relations. They say: ``The United States' interests in the Middle East and Persian Gulf region can be more effectively advanced if the United States disengages from Iraq. Indeed, the sooner Washington grasps this, the sooner it can begin to repair the damage that has been done to America's international position.'' Speaking of Afghanistan, they also say: ``Iraq is siphoning off so many resources that we could end up failing in Afghanistan as well.'' The report warns that Iraq is all consuming and makes it difficult for the United States to address other priorities. That is exactly what we are talking about here, a different strategy for Iran, for our troops to be successful; an accountability from them as to their own security, so that we can concentrate with 26 other nations in NATO who are helping us fight the war in Afghanistan, a war that we can win, a war that we must win, and a war that is every bit as important if not more so in the war on terror than Iraq ever was.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Bill Hiles, who is retiring this week after working for 23 years as a journalist at the Dyersburg State Gazette in Dyersburg, Tennessee. He has proven himself a quality writer who fairly, accurately and completely covers the information that is important to our community in northwest Tennessee. Even before coming to the State Gazette, Bill was a distinguished scholar, journalist and pastor. He received a Bachelor's Degree in Philosophy at Transylvania College in Lexington, Kentucky, and a Master's Degree in Systematic Theology from the University of Durham in Durham, England. He has also studied at Vanderbilt University and the George Peabody College for Teachers, taught college--level writing and public relations courses and, having been ordained as a minister of the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, served as pastor at several churches throughout Tennessee. After working at the Associated Press and United Press International, Bill was a general assignment reporter and sports columnist at The Tennessean in Nashville, Tennessee, where he once sat across the desk from future Vice President Al Gore. Madam Speaker, it has been a pleasure to work alongside Bill during his long service to Tennessee, and I am proud to call him my friend. I hope you and our colleagues will join Betty Ann and me in thanking Bill Hiles for his work, congratulating him on his well--earned retirement and wishing him all the best in the years to come.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 65.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues in support of H.R. 4, the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act. We all share the goal of adequate access and reasonable prices for prescription drugs for our nation's seniors. I believe that the Medicare prescription drug program can be improved and one improvement will be to allow the Secretary an opportunity to try to negotiate for lower prices. While I do support this legislation, I want to make it clear that I do not support any government-imposed restrictions on patients' access to their medicines. Nor do I support government price controls on prescription drugs. Each patient must have access to their doctor prescribed medicines without a government bureaucrat blocking that access. I also do not support the imposition of government price controls that might restrict access to medicines and the development of new medicines needed by those with conditions like Alzheimers, ALS and cancer. I believe that provisions in H.R. 4 that protect against government imposed formularies is the right policy. In supporting H.R. 4 today, I am saying Yes to negotiation, No to government-imposed restrictions on patient access to the drugs prescribed by their doctors and No to government price controls.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a valued employee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Louis Costantino, Sr. This year marks his 26th year of service to the Capitol and the House of Representatives. Mr. Costantino was born in a house on New Jersey Avenue, just a couple of blocks from the Capitol and it has always been an integral part of his life. Growing up on Capitol Hill he has fond memories of playing in the halls of the Capitol as a child. There is no wonder that he grew up to be one of our Chamber's finest gate keepers. For years he has taken up his post outside the main entrance to the chamber--``the same door the president comes in for his State of the Union address,'' he will quickly tell you. He first began his career with the House of Representatives in 1980 with the Office of the Doorkeeper and he currently works for the Sergeant at Arms. Mr. Costantino has the deepest respect and admiration for our institution and all of it Members. He truly loves his job and the people around him. Mr. Costantino has been struggling with cancer for the last two years, and I am happy to report that he has won that struggle. His physician, Dr. Kressel, this week gave him the good news. This was what his wife Doris, his children Eydie, Lou and Amy, his first grandchild Bella and his friends everywhere had long waited for. Mr. Speaker, I ask that we congratulate Mr. Costantino on his 26 years of service to the House of Representatives and that we wish him continued good health.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in tribute to my good friend, Abe Jolley, whose community service and sportsmanship will be recognized next month at the inaugural Abe Jolley Memorial Golf Tournament in our hometown of Union City, Tennessee. The tournament will raise money for a scholarship program in northwest Tennessee. Abe was as avid and skilled a golfer as anyone I have ever met. In 1939--the same year he was lucky enough to marry his wife, the former Velma Taylor--he hit his hole-in-one, only three weeks after he had started playing golf. Another 50 years passed before his second hole- in-one, a slump he blamed on the hole always being in the wrong place. He hit four more holes-in-one toward the end of his golf career, including one at the age of 85. Abe was more than a golfer, though. He was a dedicated husband, father and grandfather. He worked at the Obion County Motor Company, was active at Union City First United Methodist Church, served more than 50 years as a Mason and was a charter member of Union City Civitan Club. I knew Abe Jolley all my life and, like all who knew him, was deeply saddened when he passed in 2004. Abe lived his life with energy and excitement that I always admired. Mr. Speaker, I hope you and our colleagues will join me in honoring the memory of a very extraordinary man and my dear friend, Mr. Abe Jolley.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I come here this morning with the Congressional Roll Call Golf Cup here. We have Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper here, which sponsors baseball games and football and basketball, and we have a Congressional Ryder Cup golf competition between the Democrats and Republicans every year. We recently had this for the First Tee organization. The First Tee organization and its president, Joe Louis Barrow, Jr., is an organization that brings golf and the skills and the character values that golf teaches people to inner city youth all across our country and to those who might otherwise not be exposed to the game. May I announce that this is not a hard chore for me because the Democrats won this year for the first time ever. I was privileged to serve as captain of the Democratic team, and Mike Oxley, who was tied up in conference and asked me to go ahead with this this morning, was captain of the Republican team. The competition was fierce, but we did this for the children of our country who can be exposed to the principles of golf. Golf is the only sport that doesn't have an umpire or referee. You play yourself, and the values that golf teaches is something that we think is worthwhile. I want to congratulate the First Tee Roll Call, and the Republican team and the Democratic team who showed up for this very, very worthwhile project.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. I appreciate my colleague being here tonight, and I want to take a couple of minutes to talk about something that is not a political matter, really. It is a matter of our government: theirs, ours, Independents, Americans. We have seen financial mismanagement of the assets of us all on a scale that really I don't remember in any history book of American history since this country was founded. Look, this is not something that is easy to talk about, because everyone who is in public office wants to give good news to people. We all have to run for elections, and one can't really run for an election talking about doom and gloom or about financial mismanagement. People want to hear uplifting things, people want to have hope, people want to hear, as I do, that things are going to get better. But, unfortunately, things are getting worse, and they are getting worse by the minute. That chart that you have has already changed. We are borrowing almost $1 million a minute, as we stand here tonight. You know, under our system of government, we have an executive branch, we have a judicial branch, and we have a legislative branch. The legislative branch is supposed to make the law, the executive branch is supposed to execute the law, or carry it out, and the judicial branch is to interpret the law. Well, we have a breakdown. The legislative branch in the last 5\1/2\ years has abdicated completely its responsibility to oversee the money that is taken away from the citizens of this country involuntarily in the form of taxation. The tax laws are written right here, in this room and on the other side of the Capitol in the Senate, and they are appropriated to the executive branch to be spent, hopefully on behalf of the citizens of this country. What we have seen, according to the September 6 GAO report, that is, the General Accounting Office report, is a complete abdication of any financial responsibility. As a businessperson, one looks at the government of the United States and one sees a failing business. Not only is it failing because we continue to borrow massive amounts of money in my name and yours and everybody else's around here as a citizen of this country, but Congress, this Congress is not even asking this administration what did you do with the money. And if they asked the administration, the administration couldn't tell them. The one thing I think that the American people ought to demand out of this Congress, or any other Congress, is what happened to the money. Tell us what you did with the money. We may not agree with it, but we want to know what happened to it. Well, they can't tell us. Sixteen of 23 Federal agencies, according to the GAO, cannot produce an audit. In other words, they can't tell you what they did with the money. Not only that, you have a trailer picture you have shown before with all these trailers in Hope, Arkansas. The September 6 GAO report reflects that Congress has appropriated $88 billion to 23 different Federal agencies for Katrina relief, the great hurricane; but no central agency tracks the funding. So, in effect, neither Congress nor the American people have any way of knowing how the money is spent. But we do know this: more than $10.6 billion has been awarded to private contractors for gulf coast recovery and reconstruction. Only 30 percent of all of those contracts were bid on a full and open competition. The others were just given as sole source single contracts to people for a myriad of things. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, spent $3 million for 4,000 camp beds that were never used and $10 million to renovate a military barracks that was used as temporary housing for six people. No private company in the country could stand this kind of financial mismanagement. Because of this subcontractor system that was put in place because of these sole source contracts, just given to friends I guess of the administration, taxpayers paid an average of $2,480 per roof for a repair job that should have cost under $300, according to a report from Knight-Ridder newspaper. Credit card abuse. Credit card abuse by government employees after the storm led to the purchase of 2,000 sets of dog booties costing more than $68,000, a 63-inch plasma screen television costing $8,000, and 20 flat bottom boats, only eight of which FEMA has in its records, at twice the retail price. I wish I was making this stuff up. It comes out of the GAO report. The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General identified 1,395 cases of reported criminal activity, including officials who accepted bribes to inflate the number of meals provided by one of these sole source government contractors and to falsify the amount of debris a company had removed. After Katrina, FEMA purchased 24,967 manufactured homes and 1,755 modular homes at a cost of $915 million for housing and temporary offices. The Inspector General said that as of January of this year, only 4,600 manufactured homes and 100 modular homes had been used at all. You have got pictures of them sinking in the mud in Hope, Arkansas.

Mr. TANNER. Again, this is not a political statement. I can't imagine the most partisan person in the world saying that this is good government, when we have money leaving here through a fire hose and nobody asking them where it is going or what happened to it, and if they did ask them, they couldn't tell them. They can't produce an audit. They can't tell you what they did with the money. This is the grossest kind much financial mismanagement on a scale that I can ever recall in the history of this country. We don't even get to Iraq and all the sole source contracts that have been given there and the billions of dollars that cannot be tracked or traced or even accounted for. I don't like to pay taxes any more than anybody else, but the one thing I do expect is the Congress to at least exercise its oversight authority to the extent that they hold people accountable who are spending this money. I know in business, you ask somebody, well, what is this expenditure for? ``I don't know, man. I can't tell you.'' Nobody would put up with that. No taxpayer would put up with it. And yet in our public life, in our public business, in the government of the United States it is happening every day, and people are tolerating it because you have a compliant Congress, a friendly administration. Nobody wants to embarrass anybody else. So what we see here is the grossest kind of financial mismanagement on a scale that is literally breathtaking. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. TANNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I will finish up, because what we have done is introduced a bill, it is not going anywhere, unfortunately, because we don't have the power to pass it or the votes to pass it, that basically says when the Inspector General of any agency identifies either, one, a situation where the agency can't tell you what they did with the money that was appropriated with them, or, two, they identify a high risk program, that is government talk for a program that doesn't work, then in that event Congress must hold a hearing, a public hearing, about this matter, whatever it may be, within 60 days, so that at least the citizens of this country will know that their money is being wasted or stolen or somehow mismanaged. I think that is imminently reasonable. I can't imagine anyone saying we don't want to know what happened to the money we have taken away from people involuntary in the form of taxation and given to any administration. We simply don't want to know what happened to it. That to me is incredible and is not true. So I hope people will demand that Congress engage in what its constitutional responsibility is, and that is to oversee what happens to the money they remove from people's pockets involuntarily. That is all we are asking in this House bill that you referred to, that they hold a hearing and find out what is going on. If they can't tell you what they did with it, as far as I am concerned, they don't get it next year. This is a situation where we are literally mortgaging our country to people who do not have the same interest that the Americans have in world affairs, and we are not even paying attention to what we are doing. I appreciate you doing this every Tuesday night, but I hope that we can do something about this situation, because it gets worse not by the minute now, it gets worse by the second as we continue to borrow. We borrowed probably in the neighborhood of $20 million in the last 20 minutes. No country can survive that. We can't survive it. We used to say it is up to our children and grandchildren. But people say no, no, no, we are going to have all of these things. And who is going to pay for it? Just borrow the money, borrow the money, borrow the money. Well, sooner or later, unless one can figure out how to repeal the laws of arithmetic, the financial mismanagement of this administration and the lack of oversight and accountability by this Congress is going to put this country literally in a deep black hole. Before it is too late, I hope that the people who care about this will rise up and say we want our government back, because that is what we are talking about.

Mr. TANNER. You are talking about OPEC and the price of gasoline. Gasoline in July was $3-plus a gallon. Can you name one thing that has changed between July and now as it relates to the world situation that would make gasoline come down? The uncertainty actually with regard to Iran and other oil producing countries is more now than it was then. The only thing that has changed is we are closer to November 7th. No other factor has changed. And yet we see a dramatic reduction in the last couple weeks in gasoline prices. But the underlying factors are still there. All the uncertainty about the oil producing countries, whether it be Iraq or the situation in the Middle East, is the same as it was in July. It is interesting, isn't it?

Mr. TANNER. We need to start on it tonight.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Ross. I assume the number you referred to are from the IG reports and the requirement that we have a hearing on them.

Mr. TANNER. I want to talk about the government of the United States from a business standpoint, because the Congress of the United States is failing the constituents, the shareholders of our country. Every day, to whoever is watching C-SPAN, every day the Congress is failing in its primary responsibility as a third branch of government, as the legislative branch, to oversee the executive branch. And then you have the judicial branch that interprets the laws that are passed here, but Congress has completely abdicated its oversight responsibility under the Constitution of the United States of America as one of three separate but equal branches. And so I come to this not as a Democrat or a Republican but as a businessperson. My family has been in business in Tennessee for over 100 years, and I know a little bit about accountability, about audits, about responsibility for money that is entrusted to one from another. Now, the Congress of the United States takes money away from all of us, Members of Congress included, in the form of taxation, an involuntary removal of money from our pockets through the form of taxation to the government. The government, as it relates to the Congress here in the Capitol, is supposed to oversee the money it appropriates to any administration. That is our primary responsibility, other than national security, of course. But if we remove that, we are supposed to look out for the taxpayers. This is the people's House. We are the primary representatives of the people in the national government here in the U.S. House of Representatives. The only branch of the Federal Government, the only office I know of that one cannot be appointed to. When someone who serves here dies or resigns, no one is appointed. It is a special election. And very seldom are there 435 Members here, because somebody has died or resigned for some reason, to seek another office or do something else, but there is no appointment here. So this is the only office I know of in the whole constellation of offices, State and Federal, where no one can be appointed. Everyone who sits in this House is elected by his or her peers, his or her constituents. So it is a special responsibility that we have, and this responsibility is not being discharged. Now, the reason I say that is because the last year we have from the GAO of the auditors determinations as to whether or not the executive branch of the government, all the Federal agencies, are able to produce an acceptable audit, in other words to tell us as representatives of the people, we who took money away from people involuntarily in the form of taxes, whether we appropriated it to this or any other administration, what did you do with it? I think that is one of the most basic responsibilities we have to our citizens and to our constituents. This GAO report for the fiscal year 2004, the last one we basically have, we have one later, 2005, but it is still incomplete, asks the Department of Agriculture if they could produce an audit? No. Department of Defense? Could they produce an acceptable audit? No. Department of Education? No. Department of Health and Human Services? No. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD? No. Department of the Interior, which are all the national parks, can they produce an audit? Can they tell us what happened to the money we appropriated? The answer was no. The Department of Justice. The Department of Justice. The answer: No. Department of State. No. Department of Transportation. No. Department of Veterans Affairs. Mr. Ross talked about the veterans. The answer to, can you tell us what happened to the money that was appropriated to your department, was no. AID, Agency for International Development. No. NASA. No. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in charge of nuclear stuff in this country. The answer to, can you tell us what happened to the money, was no. Office of Personnel Management, in the White House. No. Can't tell us. Small Business Administration. No. In short, 16 of 23 Federal agencies could not produce an acceptable audit. What has Congress done about it? Virtually nothing. This is an abdication of one of the primary responsibilities of every Member of this House. Not Democrat, not Republican, but every Member who holds his hand up and says I promise to support the Constitution and all the rest. The people of this country, the shareholders of America, ought to demand at the very least that we can tell them what happened to the money that we took from them, and this government can't do it. The problem is, we have a friendly administration, a compliant Congress. Nobody wants to embarrass anybody else. I understand that. But what we have created here is a situation where this government is violating every business principle I know. There is not a private business in this country where one can go to the comptroller and say, here is a $5,000 expenditure, can you tell me what this is for, and get the response, I don't know; or I can't answer that question. Nobody would tolerate that. Nobody would put up with it. Yet that is what our shareholders, the American citizens, are witnessing every day, day after day, here in Congress. There are no hearings. There is no oversight. It is horror stories coming out of whether it be no-bid contracts for Iraq, whether it be no-bid contracts for Katrina. Money is leaving this place through a fire hose and nobody is asking the administration what happened to it. And if they asked them, they couldn't tell them. That is where we are tonight. It is intolerable as a business person. And again, we have a responsibility as Members of Congress. I don't care whether you are Republican or Democrat, we have a responsibility as Members of Congress to answer to our constituents, our shareholders, the citizens of this country, this is what we did with your money. We appropriated to whatever Department one wishes to choose, and we held them accountable for it. What did you do with the money? Well, we don't have that. We have a situation where there is no oversight, for an obvious reason: we have one-party government here. What we want to do and what I want to do is simply for lack of a better term audit the books. Before we ask the American people for one more red dime, we ought to find out what is happening to the money we are already taking away from them, and that is what the Blue Dog Coalition is all about. That is what we want to do. We want to call people in and say you got this and this appropriation, what happened to the money? It is that simple. And if you can't tell us, you don't get it next year.

Mr. TANNER. According to the GAO in fiscal year ending 2004, 16 of 23 Federal agencies, and 19 of 24 in fiscal year ending 2005, according to the GAO, couldn't produce a clean audit. I wish I had made this up, but I didn't. It would be easier to stomach. But nothing is asking. So we filed a bill that says when the inspector general of any Department identifies either, one, an unacceptable audit, in other words they can't tell you what they did with the money; or, two, they identify in government talk a high-risk program, what that really means is a program that was enacted that doesn't work. Our bill says when either one of those two events occurs, Congress must hold a public hearing on that within 60 days so that the American people will have some means to find out just exactly what is going on in this town, because right now there are no hearings. There is no oversight. There is no subpoena power. There are no subpoenas being issued to call people in and say, give us your books and tell us what you did with the money. That is not happening here. It is understandable. It is politics and I understand that, but the American people deserve better than that. They deserve better than that, not just from the Democrats but from the Republicans as well. They ought to be demanding. Even though it is a Republican administration, it doesn't matter. We are a separate but equal branch of government charged with this responsibility. We ought to hold the executive branch accountable. The citizens of this country, the shareholders in this deal, they are getting shortchanged every single day because it is not happening. If it was happening, you would not have these reports. It got worse in 2005 from 2004. That is because nobody is asking them what did you do with the money. If they asked the administration, they couldn't tell them. That is an intolerable situation from a business standpoint, not just from politics, but from a business standpoint. I congratulate and appreciate you doing this hour tonight because this is something that the consequences, and I will be quiet because Mr. Cardoza has just joined us, but the consequences of this continuing borrowing of money from people who are not a U.S. interest are creating a financial vulnerability which is nothing short of a national security matter. It is not hard to imagine. China, Communist Red China, has acquired over $300 billion worth of our paper. It is not a stretch of anybody's imagination to understand that they may be interested in something Iran is doing that is not in our best interest, that they may make a move in Taiwan. I made the tongue-in-cheek statement here one night that it is getting to the point that if China attacks Taiwan, we have to go to China and borrow the money to defend Taiwan. That is a national security matter that is real. It is not a scare tactic. This is real, as it relates to the vulnerability that is created by us financing our government with foreign investment. That is number one. Number two, as you said earlier, Mike, we are transferring our tax base to interest. There is no country that has ever been successful with no infrastructure investment by the government and no human capital investment, human capital being education and health care. No country in the history of the world has been strong and free with an unhealthy, uneducated population. The more we transfer the tax base to interest and away from investment in infrastructure and the human capital of our citizens, our shareholders, the more we are creating a vulnerability in this country which is a national security matter.