John Tanner

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose what I think is a well intentioned but misguided effort here to amend the first amendment, the Bill of Rights. Every nation on Earth that I know of has a flag. There is only one that has a bill of rights and that is us. And that is the difference here. Every repressive regime I know of throughout history has tried in some form or another to repress the destruction of whatever they have consider symbolic. Again, every nation on Earth has a flag. There is only one that has a bill of rights, and that is us. We are talking about the first amendment. For Congress to knowingly give to the government the power to prescribe what is permissible protest when that protest does not affect any other freedoms, nor does it physically harm anybody else, but yet give to the government the right to prescribe limits on that I think is wrong. And I just say this, once we breach the Bill of Rights, they then become relevant. Up until now they are not. We breach those, they become relevant, believe you me it will not be long before there will be some on this floor talking about the second amendment and why we need to change that. So I want all the conservative thinkers in this body and around the country to think about what we are doing. As a symbol, we are going over ground that has not been plowed. Every nation has a flag only. One has a bill of rights, and that is why I think this is a misdirected effort.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have ever been accused of exercising bad faith because we were given 30 minutes to talk about this and we actually took it. I think that one other point ought to be made, and that is that on January 1, 1995, our national debt subject to limit was $4.8 trillion. On January 1, 2004, it will be $7.4 trillion. That is an increase of 54 percent in 8 years. That is not a political argument; that is a fact, a demonstrable, proven fact. Now, part two of this motion says, to the maximum extent possible, within the scope of the conference. To me, that means what the Blue Dog plan was that was rejected on the floor, because, to the maximum extent possible, the Blue Dog plan does what we have asked. It neither increases the Federal budget deficit, nor does it increase the amount of debt subject to the public limit. So when one wants to say to the maximum extent possible, we can do that. We could do that by adopting the Blue Dog plan. The other thing I would simply say is this: if we keep going down this road, we are building in such a structural long-term tax increase called interest on the national debt that the young people of this country are going to be unable to have the options and the choices about what kind of government they want when they are our age, because they will be strapped to the gurney with debt and interest that has to be paid on that debt that we are leaving them. That is not a political argument either. That is a fact. With interest, compound interest, capitalism, whatever you want to call it, interest must be paid before anything else in our system. So I would just hope that we would actually take a look at what we are doing.

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, is it permissible for a Member to impugn the motives of another Member? I think he is out of order because he has impugned the motives of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) and those of us who want to speak on this issue by his words.

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, it is not easy to oppose a tax cut if one holds public office. It does not take a lot of courage to vote for a tax cut. That is something that everybody who seeks public office likes to do, and it is no fun to oppose a tax cut. But who in the world do you all think is going to pay for the ships that are in the Persian Gulf tonight? Who is going to pay for veterans' benefits for people who come back with one leg or one arm off? Who is going to pay to educate the children? We have a $6.4 trillion deficit. You are raising the debt of this country $980 billion. You borrowed every dime for the Persian Gulf War, and nobody wants to pay for anything. It is not easy to oppose a tax cut. But I will say one thing. It does not take a whole lot of courage to vote for it because you can go home and get patted on the back tonight. But we are digging a hole that is going to haunt this country this terms of future interest payments. Who is going to pay the bill? All these young people around here, they are the ones that are getting the bill because they are going to pay interest on every dime that is in this bill tonight.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I used to talk about the debt of the Nation and the deficit in terms of what we were doing to our children and grandchildren. I called it a generational mugging on this floor last year. That is still the case. We are still mugging our children and grandchildren with debt that we are unwilling to pay and we are unwilling to stop spending for our own convenience and our own purposes, so that is still true. But I used to say also that I wanted everybody under the age of 30 to listen to me because they were going to be directly affected by this reckless economic plan that we are engaged in here. Then I moved that up to age 40. Then I had to move it to age 50. Now with the knowledge that this government borrowed $111 billion in the first quarter of this year alone, I want to speak to every American who is alive and well and paying taxes because what is happening is we are engaged in a long-term structural tax increase on me and you and everybody that lives in this country because we are unwilling to rein in our appetite for tax cuts and more spending. Just to pay the interest on the first quarter borrowings this year alone will require an additional $4 billion next year. When you go to write a check to the Internal Revenue Service next April 15, you will be paying your part of an additional $4 billion just to finance the interest cost on the borrowings of one quarter this year. I spoke to the American Hospital Association's convention here in town about 3 weeks ago. Everybody in this country knows the demographics of our population. We are growing older. There are more and more senior citizens as a percentage of our population. And everybody knows what that means to our medical system, Medicare, Medicaid and the rest. I told them, as long as we continue to engage in this economic pattern of borrow and spend, we are just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The iceberg in this economy is the national debt, because it is going to soak up in the form of interest payments to service that debt all of the new money that comes to town. Last year we had a Federal income, if you want to call it that, of $1.8 trillion. Of that, we paid or accrued interest of $332 billion. We actually wrote checks for about $185 billion. A third of that went to foreigners, because they are the ones that are buying the Treasury auctions of bills, notes and bonds that take place in this town every 2 weeks. This is an unsustainable economic path that this country is following. There is no way, and let me repeat, no way that we can borrow the kinds of moneys that we are borrowing and grow our way out of it. The reason I say that is because if you do the math, last year, 18 percent of the money that came here went to either pay interest or was accrued to other government trust funds, primarily Social Security. An 18 percent mortgage, as any businessperson knows, is something that cannot be sustained over the long term. There simply is not enough new income, regardless of growth, to take up the slack and to service the debt that we are building. And so I am more concerned about this than I guess I am almost anything save the security of our Nation and the people that live here from the various terrorist groups that we know of around the world, al Qaeda and the rest. But we are building a long-term structural tax increase under the guise of a short-term tax cut. Everybody in this country knows there is no free lunch. Every time you hear people say, we are going to cut taxes and that will create jobs, to some degree that is true; but it depends on the kind of tax cut. I do not know if any of my colleagues have heard Warren Buffett; but he wrote an article that was, in my judgment, excellent about the kind of tax cut that the Senate put together this week and the kind that will be discussed in the conference committee. He said basically this: to cut taxes in the way that is fashioned around here and sunsetted in 3 years is ludicrous if one wants to argue that that is stimulative and will create jobs. If we really wanted to do that and we are going to spend money we do not have, rather than a tax cut that benefits primarily people who hold paper that will pay a dividend on, if we really wanted to do that, we would invest in some public work jobs that would do two things: one, additional spending for homeland security on our harbors, on our railroads and on those targets that we think the terrorists are after. That would do two things, create jobs, number one; and, number two, and more importantly perhaps, make our country safer. That would be the way to stimulate the economy if we wanted to go down that road. But the second thing we ought to do, in my judgment, is realize that when one cuts taxes and has to borrow the money to make up the income lost to the government, we are experiencing short-term gain, but we are putting in place long-term pain. There is no other way to look at it. The interest charges alone next year will approach $350 billion. That is with interest rates low. If interest rates suddenly spiked up and as the government rolled over its debt, we could be paying 4, 5, perhaps even $600 billion a year in interest on past consumption before we ever get a dime available for a world-class military, for health care for the people of this country, for education and investment in human capital. All of these things directly affect us. When people say deficits do not matter, then you better question what they are saying because they have not factored in the carrying charges on this massive amount of debt that has been created here in the last 24 months. As the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd) said, we have been asked to raise the debt ceiling, the amount of money the government can borrow, by $1.43 trillion in less than 12 months. I do not care what kind of economic theory you subscribe to, supply side or anything else, that is unsustainable. There is no way that this economy can generate that kind of growth in order to service that kind of debt. I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana for having this Special Order tonight. I do not know what else to say about it, other than I wish the business community would at least pay some attention to what we are saying. There is no businessperson that I know of in this country, certainly they will not be in business long if they do, that would follow this kind of economic plan. Why, then, would you expect those of us who you entrust with the public's business, which is your business, why would you want us to do something that you would not do in your own business? That is exactly what people are asking us to do. It makes absolutely no sense to cut your income with borrowed money, then piling that much debt on and interest will start on it tomorrow. That is why I said, I used to say we are passing it on to our children and our grandchildren. That is still true. But now we are passing it on to ourselves. It is irresponsible. It is reckless. Just one more thing. The morality issue here of borrowing money for people in my generation to take a tax cut, give the bill to the young men and women in uniform and their families who just fought over in Iraq, when they get home, they get a bill with interest so we could take a tax cut. There is no honor in that kind of behavior. I said that on the floor some weeks ago and I say it again. There is no honor in this House what we are doing. There is no honor in this building in what we are doing to the men and women in uniform. Not since the War of 1812 have noncombatants in this country not been asked by the administration, by the President and the Congress to help pay for a war that others fought for them and in their stead and on their behalf, and that is exactly what is happening here. You can color it any way you want to, but it is what is happening; and there is no honor here in what is going on.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I adopt everything that has been said about the debt of this country. We are going broke, if anybody looks at it, but I want to say one thing here this morning. This is a sad day. My colleagues can hide a lot of things around theories of job creation and so forth, but there is one thing they cannot hide today, and that is we are borrowing money after we sent young men and women in uniform to die in Iraq. We buried one in west Tennessee last week, and my colleagues cannot deny the fact that what is going on here this morning is shameful. They are borrowing money to give a tax cut to people like me, to give the bill to the kids that died in Vietnam and Cambodia and everywhere else over there, but today in Iraq and Afghanistan they are doing it. They are borrowing the money and giving them a bill and they have got to pay interest on it. There is no honor in that. No President and no Congress since the war of 1812 has sent people into war and then tried in no way to pay for it, no way, and what they are doing is there is no honor here this morning. This room reeks with the stain of what we are doing.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to honor the memory of a fine American, a young husband and father from Dresden, Tennessee, who gave his life serving our Nation in Operation Iraqi Freedom. SPC. Thomas Arthur Foley III, 23, served with the 2nd Battalion of the 44th Air Defense Artillery Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army. On the 14th of April, he and a fellow soldier were killed outside Baghdad. Tommy leaves behind a wife of a year and a half, Paulette, and a seven-month-old son, Logan, who reside at Fort Campbell Army Base on the Tennessee-Kentucky border. Tommy's stepfather and mother, Brian and Emily Penick Darden, reside in Dresden. His father and stepmother, Thomas and Angela Foley Jr., live in Montgomery, Kansas. He has a sister, Rebecca Barrington of Martin, Tennessee, and two brothers-- David, who lives in Dresden, and Sean, who lives in Kansas. Tommy's brother David has also been serving in Iraq and was able to return to Tennessee last week to see his brother buried with full military honors in Martin, Tennessee. Family members and friends say Tommy was a man who loved life. He bravely gave that life to help make this world a better place for his son Logan and indeed for us all. Mr. Speaker, please join Tommy's friends, family and me as we honor his memory and thank him for his heroic service to our country.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega) for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, as the National Wildlife Refuge System celebrates its 100th anniversary, recognition for water fowl hunters and the contribution they have collectively and individually made on behalf of the refuge system is in order. Acquisition of lands for the National Wildlife Refuge System is funded in part by sales of the migratory bird hunting and conservation stamp, known wide and far as the duck stamp. Water fowl hunters are required to purchase a duck stamp as part of their hunting license to hunt water fowl on or off any refuge. Since 1934, the hunting community virtually alone has been funding the duck stamp program, raising more than a half a billion dollars for the refuge system. In fact, 98 percent of the revenue generated from sales of the duck stamp goes directly to acquisition of our national wildlife refuges, some 5 million acres so far, an extraordinary contribution, I think, by any measure. Currently, the 8th Congressional District of Tennessee is home to seven: Chickasaw, Cross Creeks, Hatchie, Lake Isom, Lower Hatchie, Reelfoot and Tennessee national wildlife refuges. Beginning back in August of 1934, Federal law mandated that individuals buy a duck stamp for the privilege of hunting migratory water fowl. Some 635,000 hunters paid $1 each for that stamp issued and it was none too soon. For the if the Great Depression was bad on people, it was worse on the ducks. Their prairie pot holes, ponds, marshes, and wetlands dried up and blew away along with much of the Midwest. Revenues from the duck stamp program were used to purchase and restore submarginal land for wildlife, particularly migratory water fowl. Today, the cost of a duck stamp is $15, but duck populations are stable and growing. So the next time you are at a National Wildlife Refuge and see a flight of ducks sweeping across the sky, remember to thank a hunter.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, it is almost midnight here on the east coast, and I hope that whoever is up and watching will understand what I am about to say. What we are witnessing here tonight is the largest, long-term, structural tax increase on the American people in the history of this Republic because every year we borrow money, we have to pay interest on it, a tax on the American people, the Blue Dogs call the debt tax, that cannot be repealed. Mr. Speaker, you have heard under their budget resolution, if it works like they say, we are going to incur $1.2 trillion in additional debt in the next 12 months, in addition to what we have already done and seen the last eight. Mr. Speaker, at 4 percent interest that is $40 billion a year that the American taxpayers have to pay every year. This is the largest, long-term structural tax increase in the history of this Republic, and nobody can doubt that. At 5 percent, it is over $50 billion a year in perpetuity. If that is not bad enough, Mr. Speaker, what really is happening here is we have sent young men and women from this Nation to die for other people in the Middle East; and Mr. Speaker, what we are doing is saying we are going to take a tax cut while they go over there and die, and we are going to send the bill for this war and we are borrowing the money to fund and borrowing the money for the tax cut, we are going to send the bill to these young men and women in uniform, the only people who are being asked to sacrifice anything at all in this war, send it to them and their children; some of whom do not have a daddy now because they are dead in Iraq. Mr. Speaker, where is the honor? Where is the sacrifice? Where is the honor of this House when we try to do something like this? That is exactly what is going on tonight.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the thousands of men and women who serve in the Tennessee National Guard, many of whom have dutifully answered the call to serve our country in this time of war. In Tennessee, we have always been proud of our strong volunteer spirit, made famous when volunteers from Tennessee traveled with Davy Crockett in 1836 to defend the Alamo in Texas' fight for independence. Today, the volunteer spirit is still alive, and one fine example is in the more than 14,000 men and women who serve in the Tennessee Army National Guard and Tennessee Air National Guard, under the leadership of Tennessee Adjutant General Gus Hargett. I have had the privilege of working alongside Tennessee National Guard members during my 26 years in the Tennessee Army National Guard. I know from working with these men and women that their dedication to Tennessee and to our nation is unequaled. That dedication has been proven time and time again. Immediately following the attacks on our nation on September 11, 2001, members of the Tennessee National Guard responded. Guard members secured airports and Tennessee landmarks, refueled fighters for battle and prepared for deployment overseas. The 164th Airlift Wing from Memphis deployed four C-141 aircraft within 20 hours of the attacks. The 118th Airlift Wing helped save the life of a small child on September 11th of that year by transporting a liver transplant from Nashville to Texas. Now, thousands of Tennessee's National Guard troops are again answering the call to duty, leaving their families, homes and jobs to serve our country in its time of need. Mr. Speaker, I hope you will join me in honoring the thousands of Tennessee volunteers who are serving our country honorably as members of the Tennessee National Guard.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, today I want to tell you about Tommie Goodwin, a fine public servant who dedicated himself to the people of Tennessee during a distinguished 20-year tenure as mayor of the City of Trenton, Tennessee. Tommie first became mayor of Trenton in 1983 and served honorably in that capacity until his passing last year. Under Mayor Goodwin's leadership, our community made great strides in economic development and improvements in the quality of life of our citizens. Mayor Goodwin's service was also beneficial to our neighbors throughout Gibson County and the state of Tennessee, leading to his recognition as Mayor of the Year in 2000 by the Tennessee Municipal League. Tommie Goodwin cared deeply about those around him, and that was clear in the dedicated service he provided to our neighbors in Trenton. While we all miss Tommie, we will never be able to forget all he did for Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I ask that you join me in honoring a distinguished public servant, an outstanding citizen and my friend, Mr. Tommie Goodwin.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the celebration of Tunisian Independence Day, a historical occasion that occurred forty- seven years ago today when the people of Tunisia officially declared independence. Since that time, the people of Tunisia have begun building the foundation for a great democracy, a process that continues to move forward. The almost ten million citizens of Tunisia now live in a country that shares many of the democratic values that make our own nation great, including civil rights, a more open political process and a thriving culture that highlights the history of the Tunisian people. The quality of life for the Tunisian people has been greatly improved in recent decades, largely due to trade agreements and economic development in the nation's urban areas and elsewhere. There are great economic strides still to be made, but much progress has been made in a relatively short period of time, and that progress will continue. Tunisia has been an important friend of the United States throughout history, including serving as an important ally in the ongoing war on terrorism. Mr. Speaker, I am hopeful that our relationship will continue to strengthen as Tunisia continues building onto its democratic foundation.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Chairman, the Blue Dog budget is based on a very simple premise that basically says that our generation needs to be willing to have the courage to pay the bills that we are incurring and not pass this staggering debt on to our children. As hard as this may be to imagine, we the people of the United States of America owe $6.4 trillion. If we follow the budget plan that the majority has put forward, that number will balloon to $10 trillion, and our country will be unable to meet its obligations. Can you imagine the richest country on Earth dead broke? Eight months ago Congress increased the debt ceiling by $450 billion to pay for additional spending and tax cuts. Now the Treasury Department has notified us that we have reached this new debt limit, and it will have to be increased in the coming weeks. It gets even worse. The Congressional Budget Office recently reported that the deficit for this year will be $287 billion, and that is without paying any cost of the war that has begun in Iraq. They also predicted over the next 10 years another $2 trillion of debt will be piled onto what we have already incurred. Last year taxpayers in this country paid an accrued $332 billion in interest on revenues of $1.8 trillion. That amounts to a Federal debt tax on American families of 18 cents on every dollar. Said another way, we have an 18 percent mortgage on this country, and it is growing. Notwithstanding the moral arguments of what we are doing to the next generation of Americans, at some point, in order to make the public investment needed to keep a world-class military, a healthy and educated workforce, and the bricks-and-mortar infrastructure that enables private enterprise in this country to flourish, we must stop deficit spending. People since the dawn of civilization have tried to borrow themselves rich. It never worked then, and it will not work now, and it will not work in the future. That is exactly the prescription that the Republicans are asking us to follow; we can borrow ourselves rich. It will never happen. We must stop the hemorrhaging, the hemorrhaging, from the Federal Treasury, because it is bleeding from every pore of our body. Any rational person understands that this business plan for our country is not a tenable plan and cannot be sustained over time. Now, here we are debating today what direction our country will take. This plan includes no cuts in the veterans' programs that some have talked about. But it does something else. At this moment when our men and women in uniform are in battle, they are the only people in this society being asked to sacrifice anything, anything, and that is absolutely unfair. It is not only unfair, it is immoral. So what we have done in the Blue Dog plan is we have asked the most financially well-to-do people in this country to defer the additional tax cuts they get in addition to everybody else under our plan, we have asked them to defer their additional tax cuts in order to help pay for this war so that we do not continue to dig this hole deeper. Now, I agree with the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) on one thing: When you say in Washington, and only in Washington, that an increase is considered a cut because it is not a projected increase, then it is considered a cut here, that is baloney, and I agree with the gentleman. I will also tell the gentleman that when you try to accuse somebody of raising taxes on a tax cut that is not yet effective, that is equally political baloney, and everybody knows it. I just would say this: Something has got to be done. We cannot continue down this road of debt, more debt and more debt. And if we do not do something about it, we have completely abdicated our responsibility not only to our country today, but to our country tomorrow. That is why I would urge every Member who worries about the financial condition of this country and its ability to maintain the world-class military that we all desire and all of the other things I have talked about, please consider voting for and supporting the Blue Dog budget.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I wish to recognize the honorable service of the men and women of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army, who are again answering this nation's call to duty. They have already been deployed to the Persian Gulf in preparation for whatever conflict may lie ahead. While international debate continues over the appropriate course of action, Mr. Speaker, it is easy for us to forget about the men and women who are already on the front line, preparing for the unknown, ready to accept the orders that are handed down. There are almost 20,000 men and women stationed at Fort Campbell, which sits on the border between Tennessee and Kentucky. Fort Campbell is home to the 101st Airborne Division ``Screaming Eagles,'' under the command of Maj. Gen. David Petraeus. The 101st Airborne Division has a long history of outstanding military service, playing key roles in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Desert Storm. From an Apache fighter-helicopter, the ``Screaming Eagles'' fired the very first shots in the Gulf War, taking out Iraqi communications and paving the way for the ground attack. In the ground war, the 101st made the longest and largest air assault in world history into enemy territory. About 4,500 ``Rakkasans'' from the division's 3rd Brigade also spent six months in Afghanistan, fighting in Operation Anaconda, one of the toughest fronts in this nation's war on terrorism. Now, the men and women of the 101st are again answering the call to duty. The ``Screaming Eagles'' have left behind their families and their homes to set up camp in the desert. These brave soldiers know that their country may need them, and they are ready to serve. Mr. Speaker, I hope you will join me in applauding the dedication and duty demonstrated by the courageous men and women of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army. Their love for our country, the safety of its people and the protection of its liberties, is what makes this nation free and great.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, I think the gentleman is correct in his assessment that our generation ought to be willing or have the courage to pay the bills that we are incurring for our protection and for the protection of our children and not pass on a debt that we have been working on to the extent that we are. Let me give Members a few facts which are painful to even read. Right now we, the people of the United States, owe about $6.4 trillion as represented by our national debt. Even worse, 8 months ago Congress was called on to raise the debt ceiling; that is the amount of money that the people of the United States borrow. Eight months ago, we raised that debt ceiling $450 billion, which represents almost 10 percent of the then-$6 trillion debt. Do Members realize that 8 short months later we are told by the Secretary of the Treasury we are going to hit that ceiling in the next few days or weeks. That means we have run through in 8 months $450 billion of additional debt. It gets worse. The Congressional Budget Office last week reported that the deficit for this year would be $287 billion, and that does not include any monies for a potential war in Iraq. CBO further predicted that the deficits over the next 10 years if we continue to follow the economic model that we are operating under right now and do the things the President has suggested with regard to the Tax Code, that over the next 10 years we will rack up almost $2 trillion of additional debt. Now any rational businessperson understands that such an economic business plan, either in their business or for the country's business, is unsustainable; and the reason it is unsustainable is because interest must be paid on this debt. Last year we, the people of this country, paid $332 billion, paid and accrued $332 billion of interest on the national debt. The revenue of the Federal Government last year was $1.8 trillion. That means we have a debt tax, D-E-B-T, debt tax of 18 cents out of every dollar. Said another way, we have an 18 percent mortgage on our country and this debt tax, as we continue to borrow more and more money, is the only tax increase on the American people that cannot be repealed because interest has to be paid. This does not even touch the moral argument of what we are doing to the next generation. I told somebody the other day, I said I do not think any of us in this room want to leave our children a country where the rivers and streams are so polluted that fish cannot live in it, kids cannot swim in it, and people cannot drink from them. I do not think anyone wants to leave our children a country where the air is so foul and smog infested that our children have to wear a surgical mask to ride their bicycle, and I do not think any of us want to leave our children a nation that is so burdened with debt that they will not be able to make the public investments that only the government can make to enable private enterprise to grow, expand and flourish. If there is any businessperson in this country who thinks for one moment that private enterprise can flourish and grow without public infrastructure investment, whether it be in bricks and mortar, airports, railroads, harbors on our rivers and streams, or anything else, interstate highways. If they think private business can grow and flourish without that kind of public investment, then they have never been to a country that does not have any government because in those countries, nobody is doing any good. I have been there, seen that. So I want to just say that under our present scheme if we listen to some, the deficits do not matter, that this is just a short-term problem. People have tried since the dawn of civilization and the invention of something we call money to borrow themselves rich. It has never worked then, and it is not working now, and anybody who thinks that we can borrow ourselves rich expects what never was and never will be. We have a serious problem in this country. We are not doing our children right by passing on such a debt to them because we do not have the courage to either raise the necessary revenue for what we want, or we do not have the political courage to cut spending where we can. Something has got to be done, and that is why the Blue Dogs came today with a new budget for this fiscal year that will get us back on a glide path to balance. The biggest gift we could give to our country and to our children is a country that is debt free. Just think, if we did not pay $332 billion in interest last year what we could do, either cut taxes or make the investments in education, in a world class military, in all of those things without ever raising taxes again. That is the kind of financial management I think people expect us to exhibit up here, rather than trying to borrow ourselves rich and tell them everything is going to be all right. Madam Speaker, I just want to say that I hope people will give some consideration to the God-awful debt that this country possesses now and what is forecast for the future, and will help us as we try to wrestle with it.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I am a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, as everybody knows. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) is here with me. The gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) was here earlier, as was the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor). This is going to be a first in a series of, I hope, enlightened or enlightening exercises that we do with regard to why deficits mean something in this country. I heard some of the most astounding rhetoric I have ever heard in my life when there are some in this town who say deficits do not matter. We are going to try to point out why they do over the next few weeks. Mr. Speaker, do you realize that today we are passing on to our children and our grandchildren an 18 percent mortgage on this country? We have literally mortgaged our children's future by our spending habits and our inability or our lack of courage to raise the necessary funds to pay for what my generation wants. The President has submitted a budget that is another $300 billion in the red. Let me just say why that matters. We already are paying, as a people, a billion dollars a day in interest on past consumption. If we do the math on that, there are 129.9 million individual taxpayers in this country, that means that every individual taxpayer last year paid on average $2,556 on the debt, interest on the debt, a debt tax that will continue to go up under these present economic policies that we are asked to follow. It gets even worse than that, though, because what happens is, every time we borrow money, we have put a tax increase not only on us, but on our children and grandchildren, that can never be repealed because the interest must be paid. It is a tax increase every day we sit here spending more money or not having the courage to raise the money we need to protect this country and the people who live here. Every day we do that is another tax on our children and us and our grandchildren that cannot be repealed. That is what the debt tax is. That is what the interest tax is. And it really is ironic that people would sit here and say, we are not going to pass on the problems of this Congress on this day, in this hour, to those who come after us. If our forefathers had done to us what we are doing to our children and grandchildren, we would not have the standard of living we have today, that we have had and enjoyed. We would not have the opportunities, because we would not have the discretionary income for education, for health care, for veterans, for the world class military that we all know is necessary for the defense of this country. We will not have that money. It will continue to go out in the form of interest payments. What the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) said about Brazil, we are not creditworthy were it not for the full faith, credit and confidence of the people of this country in terms of what we have done in borrowing money. It is a shame what is going on each and every day. The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) asked for a balanced budget amendment vote, 1,400-some pages. We do not have one. This Congress, if it does not come face to face with the fact that we are spending a lot of money that we did not count on because of 9-11 that we have to spend to protect this country, our first and foremost obligation as Members of Congress, if they do not come face to face with that and understand that we have to get the money up to pay for it or else pass it on to our children in the form of a debt tax that can never be repealed, then we have shamefully failed not only our oath of office, but we have shamefully failed those who will follow us. And each and every day a billion dollars goes out of this place to pay interest, and each and every day we operate in the red, it is more piled on. That is why deficits matter and that is what the Blue Dogs are going to be talking about over the next few weeks.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to honor our colleague, an outstanding statesman and my friend, Congressman Bob Clement. I have known Bob for more than 30 years, having gone to school with him at the University of Tennessee. He served his country with distinction in the United States Army and the Tennessee Air National Guard. He previously held positions as president of Cumberland University and TVA board director before being elected to represent Tennesseans as a member of the United States Congress. Bob is a man of energy, intelligence and vision. I am certain that as he prepares to leave the House of Representatives, Bob will continue to serve his state and nation in a constructive capacity.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a World War II veteran, a successful businessman and family man, a true civic leader and my friend, Mr. Vincent O'Brien of Dyersburg, Tennessee. Vince's life has always been marked by a desire to change the world he lives in for the better. That dedication is still proven by his continued work for the city of Dyersburg. He has served for 30 years as a member of the Dyersburg Planning Commission and has chaired the commission for 20 years. During that time, the city of Dyersburg has experienced tremendous growth, including the development of many new businesses and a shopping mall that have become vital to the economy of West Tennessee. Vince served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and received the distinguished Flying Cross. A few months after the war, Vince married Virginia Marr of Dyersburg, and they eventually moved to Dyersburg and established Marr Cleaners, which operated successfully for more than half a century. Virginia passed away 10 years ago. Vince still enjoys spending time with their daughters and their families, eight grandchildren and six great- grandchildren. Now, at 86 years old, Vince shows no signs of slowing down. While still continuing his work for Dyersburg, he splits his time between Dyersburg and Caruthersville, Missouri, home to his wife Dorothy. Vince O'Brien is an example for us all. He has always lived a life of compassion, involvement and service. His accomplished leadership has been vital to our community, and I am proud to call Vince O'Brien my friend.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, right now, I do not believe that the majority of the people in this country realize that we are in debt over $6 trillion; we are paying $1 billion a day in interest on consumption that we are either unwilling to make cuts to bring the budget into balance, or we are unwilling and do not have the courage to raise the revenue for a first class, world class military, a first class system of education, a health care system second to none. Last year we ran a unified deficit of $159 billion. The statutory debt ceiling will probably have to be increased again next year, creating further incentive for Congress to borrow more money, and it is in this light we are asked to vote on a bill that throws out the PAYGO rules, and for erasing the $60 billion debt. We are here tonight because the PAYGO rules have failed. We are passing on more and more debt to our children. Those are the facts. I would say to the gentleman from Iowa, my friend, you all are in control of this place, you are in charge, and all we are asking is that there be some plan put in place before we throw these rules out, these budgetary rules for 5 years, to at least get us, talk with us to get back to a plan that will let us get back in the black in 5 years. Mr. Speaker, I came here in 1988 because our country was awash in red ink and, sadly, tonight, in 2002, we are back awash in a sea of red ink for as far as the eye can see. We are engaged in a generational mugging of the young people of this country on a scale that is massive and has never before been done, and we are unwilling, all of us, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, you name it, we are unwilling to face up to it. If my colleagues will not talk to us and bring these bills where we cannot even have a chance to sit down and say within the next 5 years can we not agree on a plan as Americans, not as Democrats and Republicans, as Americans with a moral obligation to those who follow. That is all we are asking for.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 5063 with regard to unemployment extension and the TANF measures, and I agree that we need to address the problem facing our Nation's physicians. But there are other health care providers who are in just as dire straits, hospitals, home health, nursing homes and others. We have in Tennessee, particularly in the rural areas now, hospitals operating in the red, laying off nurses; we have elderly citizens that cannot get home health care services. What we are trying to do when asking for Members to vote against the previous question is to allow us to bring up a bill, H.R. 5729, that includes the package of provider reimbursements or provider help that the Republicans passed in H.R. 4954 earlier this year and is within the budget. This seems to me to be imminently reasonable and fair to all of the providers across the board. It recognizes that we have a serious problem in the country. Should we be able to defeat the previous question, we would then be able to insert into this procedure the House-passed bill, H.R. 4954, with the provider package for all health care providers. I would urge as we debate this that we do that and point out that we in no way are trying to jeopardize the passage of the provisions with regard to unemployment and TANF that are in here and that are necessary, nor the physicians, but to recognize that people other than physicians in the health care delivery industry in this country are in just as dire straits, and it seems to me to be an imminently reasonable thing for us to do.

Mr. TANNER. I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. September 11, 2001, is a day that will rank with December 7, 1941, as a day of infamy in the history of the United States. That one event, 9- 11, changed the world we live in forever. I serve as a delegate to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly from the Congress and never have I seen the outpouring of good will and support from our NATO allies as we experienced in the aftermath of 9-11. For the first time in the 50-plus-year history of the mightiest military alliance in modern times, article 5 of the NATO charter was invoked stating in essence that when one member nation comes under attack, all consider themselves under attack and each pledges to the other member nations all military, diplomatic, and territorial assets they individually and collectively possess. This past summer, less than a year from 9-11, the President and Vice President began to talk about a regime change in Iraq. The philosophy was this: Saddam Hussein is a despot and a threat to develop and perfect weapons of mass destruction including nuclear capabilities; and, therefore, he must be removed. Further, we, the United States, were going to effectuate that change with or without our allies, save the British. Suddenly the good will and support for America began to erode, particularly among our European allies and even here at home. In fact, some with good reason, in my view, think an election in Germany turned on this one issue. The United States, led by President Bush and Vice President Cheney's rhetoric, was boxing herself into a very dangerous and potentially disastrous position. Should that policy have continued, I would have voted ``no'' on this resolution. Why do I say that? The best offense we have available to us to protect our country and our citizens is accurate, timely intelligence information so that we know what al Qaeda or others are planning, how they are planning it, when they are planning to attack us again so that we can stop it. In this war of terrorism, all of the United States military might and every weapon our country possesses is of little or no value in the defense of our homeland without these intelligence resources. This unilateral approach by the administration threatened to jeopardize cooperation from those around the world who may be in a position to give us such intelligence information. World support, world opinion and the good will of every nation, no matter how small or militarily insignificant, has never been more important to us. A whisper in one ear from Kabul to Bagdad to the Philippines to Germany or even to Oregon can be more important in this war than all of the military might on Earth, for it may give us the warning we need to stop another event in this country as occurred on 9-11. Thankfully, the President's appearance at the United Nations last month and his speech in Cincinnati Monday night sent a signal to our allies and to many of our own citizens who do not and did not support the ``lone cowboy'' approach, that the administration finally recognized the importance of international cooperation and the role of all civilized people as expressed by the United Nations in this war against humanity. Again, I refer not to the military resources offered by our global allies, but to the intelligence information which is vital or perhaps more vital to our national defense. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) has an amendment which I believe does no harm to the substance of the resolution and in my view is much preferable and more compatible with our constitutional powers as Congress. I hope every Member will seriously consider its adoption. But should that fail, I believe that passage of this resolution is in the best interest of our country at this time. Such action on our part will hopefully spur movement in the international arena to enforce the United Nations resolutions when violated, with civilization as the prosecutor and humanity as the victor.

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Mr. T.J. Taylor, whose long record of public service has earned him the title of ``Tennessee's Outstanding Older Worker of the Year.'' T.J. Taylor has worked with the Bradford Special School District for half a century. He has driven a school bus for the district for 50 years and has served as maintenance supervisor for the past 25 years. His work and presence have helped him gain the love and respect of his co-workers as well as the school district's students, who know him as ``Mr. T.J.'' Honesty, dedication, the ability to work with others, and being on the job daily are all attributes Mr. T.J. has said are important for a worker of any age but especially for an older worker. His success on the job has proven over the years that he possesses these qualities and knows how best to use them to benefit the people around him. School officials say his dedication and skill have saved the small school district thousands of dollars every year. At 71 years old, Mr. T.J. says he has no plans to retire anytime soon but will continue to work as long as his health will allow him. It is that distinguished service that has earned him this title of ``Tennessee's Outstanding Older Worker of the Year,'' which he calls his proudest moment. Mr. Speaker, as we seek to recognize those leaders who make our communities better places to live, I point to the distinguished service of Mr. T.J. Taylor. I ask that you and our colleagues applaud him for his strong, long-time commitment and congratulate him on being named ``Tennessee's Outstanding Older Worker of the Year.''

Mr. TANNER

Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I wish to join our colleagues today in recognizing the work of my friend, the Honorable Tony Hall, as he prepares to leaves this House of Representatives to pursue a great endeavor that will call on his practiced leadership skills to help people around the world. Over the years, Mr. Hall's work in this body has proven that his compassion stretches far beyond the Third District of Ohio. He has shown through his tireless fight against world hunger that he possesses a genuine concern for his fellow man, and I know that quality will continue to guide his work from this point forward. I am honored to have had this opportunity to work with Tony, who is an exceptional leader, an honorable man and a good friend. All our best wishes go with Tony as he continues his noble work in this new capacity.