Gene Taylor

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, in all probability, tomorrow the defense authorization bill for the year 2002 will come to the House floor. Three or 4 years from now, it probably will not be remembered for what it has done for military procurement, because it does not do much. It buys only six ships for the fleet, which is actually one ship less than the Clinton administration asked for. It does almost nothing to address the aging of the military air fleet. It does not do a whole lot as far as replacing aging weapons systems. But what it will be remembered for, if it passes, is the defense authorization bill that comes to the floor tomorrow includes base closure. Having been a Member of the House for three rounds of base closure, I am going to oppose that and offer a motion to recommit, because I truly believe in my heart and in my mind that base closure is bad for America. First, I think it hurts our Nation's ability to defend itself. I think it is bad for those people who have served our country, I think it is bad for those people who are serving our country, and I think it is bad for those people who will serve our country. On behalf of those who have served, a little-known fact is that about half of our Nation's military retirees have chosen to retire near a military installation. They do so so that in their golden years they can use those base hospitals and they can use the base commissary. We, in effect, when we took them away from their families and sent them all around the world to defend us, we took one family away from them but gave them another. The new family is called the Air Force, the Coast Guard, the Marine Corps, or the Army. When we close the base, we have taken the family away from them. They have purchased a house that is automatically reduced in value by the closure of that base. They are up in age, they do not want to up and move again, so in effect we have taken away their family doctor, the family grocery store, and once again, added to the list of things where they say we have broken promises to them. I think it is bad for the present. Right now, all across America there are people working today, tonight, early into the morning, working overtime to take care to do those things that need to be done so our troops in the field in Afghanistan and all around the world are taken care of. With the passage of this bill, they will immediately begin to wonder whether or not on November 7 of 2005 if that base will be open and if they are going to have a job. So instead of being rewarded for doing a good job for our Nation, they will immediately begin to worry about their future, and in all probability start looking for another job. I think it is bad because when I asked my Senate colleagues, the other body, if they could name one single weapons system that has been purchased with savings from the previous three rounds of base closure, they cannot name one, because there is no savings. See, the myth of base closure is that we somehow save money because we close the base, we save a little bit on salaries. However, we are going to turn around and sell the property. The part that was never explained to this Congress, but I will explain, is that the Nation has to live by the same laws as any other individual. Therefore, those laws that require properties to be cleaned up before they can be sold or given away apply to this Nation. Today, our Nation has spent over $13 billion cleaning up bases that were in turn given to local governing authorities because they could not find anything to do with them. They had suffered devastating effects to their local economy. I think it is bad for the future, because once again we are breaking bonds between local communities and military installations. As we see a shrinking force, we also see a shrinking number of bases and a shrinking number of citizens who appreciate on a day-to-day basis what those bases do for us. The young soldiers, young airmen, young Marines, young Coast Guardsmen, the young folks who participate in the Special Olympics, in the Toys for Tots, who get involved in the Boys and Girls Clubs, they are gone. They are no longer part of the community. They are shipped off, and once again the military becomes somebody else's constituent, somebody else's neighbor. It is bad, because when we lose that property, we never get it back, particularly our bases that are in waterside communities, once that property is disposed of, should there be another national crisis. And let me tell the Members, there will be another national crisis. I have been in Congress for 12 years. I no sooner got here than the Berlin Wall came down and 3 months later American forces were in Panama. Less than a year later they were in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Since then they have gone to Bosnia, Kosovo. Right now, they are in Afghanistan. Who knows, given the open-ended use of force resolution that this Congress has passed, what happens next. I think it is a horrible message that we are going to tell those people who defend us that their military housing is at risk because we could very well close down the base that houses them. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), for helping me to introduce this resolution. I would hope my colleagues would give serious thought to this. Not one Member of the House has voted to close bases. The other body only passed it by three votes. I think it would be insane of the House of Representatives to allow this bad policy to become law tomorrow.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 417, which I missed, had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to oppose this rule. I find at a time when we are getting ready to ask another generation of Americans to lay their lives on the line for our Nation, that we are now willing to fulfill a promise made to previous generations of Americans who have served our country. One of the many promises that were made to the men and women in uniform was the promise of free lifetime health care. The implied promise for almost all of those people who served and enlisted back then was that the base hospital would be made available to them for the rest of their lives. Mr. Speaker, last year, after some effort to get an amendment to the floor, 406 of my colleagues voted to pass something called Medicare subvention, which would allow 65-year-old military retirees to use the base hospital and for Medicare to reimburse that base hospital so that there was no cost to the DOD for providing health care to our Nation's military retirees. Our military retirees, like every other American, pay Medicare taxes. This would allow them to take those Medicare taxes to the doctor of their choice. Unfortunately, the other body, after we passed that by such a large vote, chose not to include that in the final version of the defense authorization bill. They took our language that said ``you must do it'' and said ``you may do it.'' Unfortunately, events have shown that neither HCFA, which is Medicare, nor the DOD could reach an agreement on the compensation. So now, because the Committee on Rules said we would have to waive the budget rule, we cannot take care of our Nation's military retirees. I guess the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) and I would be the only two guys in this room to know that there is a song by the Isley Brothers called ``Harvest for the World.'' The rhetorical question is why do those who pay the price come home with the least? Mr. Speaker, if these Americans have paid the price, then why are they coming home with the least? We are told that for hundreds of millions of dollars, we cannot reimburse the base hospitals with their own Medicare money. Mr. Speaker, 31 times this year, the Committee on Rules has seen fit to waive the budget rules; but almost always, it was for someone who had a big PAC, folks who made big contributions. Well, military retirees do not have big PACs; and they do not make big contributions, not the least donation-wise. What they have done is contributed their lives to our Nation, and we are not even willing to see to it that we can keep the promise to them. So I am going to oppose this rule, and I would ask my fellow colleagues to oppose it. I would also like to point out that one more budget tightening that is going on has to do with concurrent receipt. Federal employees who are disabled on the workplace are allowed to draw their disability and their retirement pay. Once again, the only Americans who are singled out to get one or the other are our Nation's military retirees. As the President just pointed out, we are going to have casualties in this war against terrorism; and if those casualties happen to have been someone who served our Nation for 20 years or more, and if they become disabled as a result of their military service, they will get their disability; but it will be deducted from their retirement pay. Mr. Speaker, I want my colleagues, the Committee on Rules, I want the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) of the Committee on Ways and Means, I want somebody to come to this floor and tell me that that is fair. Just last week we bailed out the airlines, and I voted for it, and some of the people we bailed out make $20 million and $30 million a year to run those companies, and they have not run them very well. We have seen to it that the wealthiest 5 percent of all Americans got more than their fair share of 1 trillion, 200 billion dollars worth of tax breaks; but we cannot take care of folks who have been disabled serving their country, and we cannot honor the promise of lifetime health care to our Nation's military retirees. I want the Speaker of the House, I want the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), I want someone to come forward and just tell me if they think that is fair, because if we are willing to do it behind the cloak of secrecy, if we are willing to get the folks on the Committee on Rules to do our dirty work for us, then please do not have the nerve 2 months from now to go to Veterans' Day celebrations, and when that military retiree comes to you and says, you know what, they will not let me in the base hospital, and when that disabled veteran comes to you, and says, you know what, I can get my military pay or disability pay, but I have earned both of them, and I cannot get both, you can look that guy in the eye and say, well, I was not aware of that, and maybe he will forget about it a year from November, or you can tell him the truth: yes, I knew you had a problem, but we were trying to move that bill along, so we just ignored you one more time. Just last week we found $18 billion to bail out the airlines. The week before that we allocated $40 billion additional defense funds, but not one of those pennies is allocated to solve either one of these problems. Does somebody want to tell me that is right? This defense bill is more famous for what it does not do. It does not balance the budget. As of the end of August, even before the tragedy on September 11, our Nation was $31 billion in the red, again. It does not build ships. At the rate we are going, we are losing 15 ships a year, that is the impact, and headed towards a 200 ship fleet. I say to my colleagues, not the 400-ship fleet of just a few years ago and not the 600-ship fleet of the Reagan years. So someone tell me where the heck all the money goes and why we cannot set better priorities. So for a lot of reasons, on behalf of my 405 colleagues who supported Medicare subvention last year, and who only asked for a fair up and down vote on that issue so that we can fulfill the promise to our Nation's military retirees, I ask my colleagues to oppose this rule.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to the people tonight about the terrible tragedy that occurred a week ago Tuesday, about the terrible loss of life for not only people who serve in the military at the Pentagon, the folks that worked at the World Trade Center, the people on those airplanes, but the firefighters who lost their lives trying to save the lives of others. I think it has caused us all to reflect and hopefully appreciate more those people who work every day to look out for us. It also brings to mind the importance of rewarding those people who serve us, treating them well, paying them well, giving them the best possible equipment because as the President spoke last night, they will be called upon in the very near future. One of the promises that has been made to those people for decades, certainly since World War II and in the Army recruiting those years all the way up to 1991, was a promise of free lifetime health care if they served their country honorably for 20 years or more in the military. Mr. Speaker, I regret to inform my fellow citizens that because of the failure of an agreement between the Department of Defense and Medicare those military retirees who were hoping to take that benefit to a military treatment facility will probably be turned away on October 1. I say I regret that because, as we probably know, more than half of our Nation's military retirees have chosen to retire near a military treatment facility. That is their family. We as a Nation asked them to leave their parents, leave their loved ones to go to places like Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Panama. We are getting ready to ask them to go to places like Afghanistan. In doing so, for many of them, they lose the ability to maintain their nuclear family, so their family becomes the Air Force, the Marines, the Army, the Navy. Since they were 18 years old, they were told they could go to a military treatment facility; but now because of the draw-down in the Department of Defense, there are not as many doctors as there used to be, and because the defense budget is tight, the Department of Defense made the decision that for those who have reached the age of 65, you cannot go to the base hospital anymore. You have got to find a private sector doctor. You have got to leave the family. I think that is a tragedy. Again, over half of our Nation's military retirees intentionally bought a home near a base so they could use that base hospital, and now the same Nation that can provide $16 billion in foreign aid, the same Nation that can waive the budget rules to bail out the airlines, give their corporate executives 20 and $30 million a year to run those companies into the ground, the same Nation that can spend money left and right, waiving the rules anytime they feel like it for those who really have not earned it to this extent are going to tell our Nation's military retirees that because you do not fit quite right into the budget we cannot find the money to solve your problem. Mr. Speaker, I am asking for an amendment that has already passed this House overwhelmingly about a year ago right now. There were 406 of my colleagues who voted to say to our Nation's military retirees that they could continue to use that base hospital and that Medicare is going to reimburse that base hospital for their care. After all, the sailors, the soldiers, the Marines, the airmen paid their Medicare taxes just like everybody else; and if it is their choice to go to a military treatment facility, then that is where they ought to be able to go. Unfortunately, the law now blocks them from doing so. We sent that bill over to the Senate; and unfortunately the Senate chose to take our language that says they have to do it and said to Medicare, they may do it, they can reach an agreement if they feel like it. Well, the bureaucrats at Medicare did not feel like it; and so now our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen, our Marines, our coast guardsmen, they are the ones that have to suffer. Mr. Speaker, I am asking for a real simple thing on the defense authorization bill next week. I am asking for an opportunity for this House to speak in favor for fulfilling the promise of lifetime health care to our Nation's military retirees and a Nation that is going to find $320 billion to defend itself that just last week spent an additional $40 billion on defense, one would think we could find a hundred million or so to do that for our Nation's military retirees. I am particularly disturbed, Mr. Speaker, that you have put the word out that if I so much as ask for that amendment that you are going to pull the defense authorization bill. Let me say that again. If an elected representative of the people of south Mississippi so much as asks for a recorded vote on an amendment to fulfill the promise of lifetime health care for our military retirees, the Speaker of the House says he will not allow that bill to take place at all. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I would like to thank my colleague from Hawaii and my other colleagues for bearing with me. Mr. Speaker, the point I want to make is, I wish this Member had the power to keep some bills from coming to the House floor. I wish I could have kept NAFTA from coming to the floor because it has lost so many jobs for my fellow Mississippians and every American. I wish I could have kept portions of that tax bill that saw to it that half of the $1.2 trillion in benefits went to the wealthiest fat cats in America, not the average Joes. Mr. Speaker, if you can find the time and waive the rules to give the fat cats a tax break, you can find the time and you can waive the rules to let our military retirees go to the base hospitals. I am asking for an up or down vote. Be a decent human being and give us that vote.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Madam Chairman, last Tuesday was a tragic reminder of what a dangerous place this world is. It is also a tragic reminder of how dangerous the world is not only for the men and women in uniform, but the people they protect. Last Tuesday, we did not do our job as well as we should have. The fact that any American died means that we have to do better. This bill will address a lot of our Nation's needs, but it also leaves some things unattended. I regret to say this year's shipbuilding budget will lead to a Navy that is 210 ships in the very near future. That is inadequate. Maybe what happened on Tuesday will cause us to rethink that, and I hope so. I had the assurance 2 weeks ago from the Secretary of the Navy that he will try to do better. Unfortunately, he told me next year's budget does not look any better than this year's budget for shipbuilding. Earlier I told my colleagues that defense was more important than tax breaks. I will say it again. Defending this Nation is more important than tax breaks. Having served in both State and local government, I can tell my colleagues that the States and cities can do almost everything; but they cannot defend the Nation. That is our job. Madam Chairman, it is also equally important, as we are asking young people to put their lives on the line for our Nation, that we keep our promise to those people who have already served our Nation. One of the promises made to them was a lifetime of health care. Part of that was answered last year. This House, interestingly enough by over 400 votes, voted to allow our military retirees to continue using the base hospitals and to have their Medicare taxes, the taxes they pay just like every other person in America, be used to reimburse that base hospital for their care to ensure that promise was kept. Over half of our Nation's military retirees live close to a military base, and the overwhelming preponderance of them did so so they could use the base hospital. Unfortunately, language was changed in conference last year that instead of saying they must do this, allowed Medicare and the Department of Defense health care system to reach an agreement. For 3 months under the Clinton administration and for 8 months under the Bush administration, neither HCFA nor the DOD have reached that agreement and now talks have broken off. So on October 1, military retirees who walk into a base hospital will be turned away. Many have been going to those base hospitals since they were 18 years old. They like being called colonel or chief. They earned those titles. They want to go to the base hospital because that has been their family for 20 to 40 years of their life. Madam Chairman, I have gone before the Committee on Rules with the same amendment that over 400 of my colleagues voted for last year. It is a very simple premise. It would allow our Nation's military retirees who pay Medicare taxes, just like every other American, to take their Medicare benefits to a base hospital. Unfortunately, thus far the Committee on Rules has not made that amendment in order. I am here publicly to ask my colleagues, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), I have met with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the ranking members on both sides of the Committee on Rules, let us make that amendment in order before we ask one more kid to serve their country with promises of doing good things for them. Let us keep the promises that we have made. Those promises have been made. Those promises were in the recruiting manuals all of the way up until 1991. It is the right thing to do. It can take an otherwise good bill and make it into a great bill. I think it is a very simple request. Madam Chairman, I hope that request is fulfilled. I hope I do not have to cause mischief to get that amendment made in order.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues from Mississippi in expressing deep appreciation and admiration for one of the most gifted literary figures of our state and nation, Eudora Welty, whom we lost this afternoon following a lifetime of contribution to her art. Although recognized and celebrated throughout her career, Welty had a gracious and genteel demeanor. She spoke frequently to students of literature and lovers of writing, encouraging them to develop an ability to listen and to carefully observe before trying to understand or tell a story. Born in 1909, Welty was a life-long resident of Jackson, Mississippi, where she grew up in a close-knit extended family. She claimed to have been sheltered and protected from outside forces of all sorts. She attended Mississippi State College for Women, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and Columbia University in New York. She returned to Mississippi during the Great Depression. She held various jobs, including publicist for the Works Progress Administration and a number of lecturing and teaching posts. She also had a love for photography, and took many pictures during that era that were later displayed and published. Photography had a profound influence on her mode of writing, teaching her that life does not hold still and inspiring her to try to capture its transience in words. Notoriously taciturn about her life, Welty carefully controlled her public persona. She firmly insisted that her work was not political, and did not discuss social or cultural issues in her work outside those endemic to immediate community and family. She traced her upbringing and mediated upon the forces, both familial and situational, that shaped her as a writer and as a person. Welty's novels include The Robber Bridegroom (1942), Delta Wedding (1946), The Ponder Heart (1954), Losing Battles (1970), and The Optimist's Daughter (1972). Her short story collections include A Curtain of Green (1941), The Wide Net and Other Stories (1943), The Golden Apples (1949), and The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories (1955). She also wrote the non-fiction works The Eye of the Story (1978), and One Writer's Beginnings (1984). Welty's works seem not to reflect so much an attempt to write the great American novel, but rather the act of simply telling a story and having the readers connect with its characters. These beautifully written works offer not only a panorama of Welty's extraordinary vision, but they also give a sense of, as she said herself, ``watching a negative develop, slowly coming clear before your eyes.``

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, in the tradition of the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), I should have worn a paper bag down here today. How can anyone look the American people in the eye and say we have a surplus when we owe the Social Security trust fund $1 trillion? There is no account. There is no money. They have nothing but IOUs. But somebody else is going to get a tax break today. We owe the Medicare trust fund at this moment $228 billion. There is no lockbox. There is no bank account. They have an IOU. We owe our Nation's military retirees, the people who they are all going to go give speeches to next Monday and tell them how much we value them, we owe them $163 billion. There is no account. There is no bank account. They took the money and they are going to give it to somebody else. We owe our Nation's civil servants $501 billion. Now, how can anyone look me in the eye and say we have a surplus when we owe those folks that money? My colleagues have taken money out of their paychecks with the promise that my colleagues were going to set it aside for their retirement. It is not there. This is wrong for America. We have a unique opportunity to start paying down the debt; and, instead, my colleagues are giving their big contributors a tax break. Shame on you.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, today we are privileged to have been joined by Reverend Whit Grace, who is the pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Long Beach, Mississippi. I have to confess it was not until I was elected to Congress that I fully appreciated just how tough a job our priests and preachers and rabbis and ministers have. See, Mr. Speaker, I have discovered that when something goes wrong, the local Congressmen usually are the second or the third call. The first call is to the local priest or the preacher and minister. It has to be an incredibly tough job when all you do is hear someone has gotten in trouble with the law or someone is ill or someone has just died or someone is near death. So, Reverend, for what you do and for what all of our priests and preachers do on a daily basis, to listen to our problems and to help as best as you can, to ask for divine intervention, I want to thank you, and I want to thank everyone who chose to serve our Nation in the ministry.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. If you stay here for a little while, you will see almost anything. I remember about 10 years ago the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) came down to the House floor, placed a brown paper bag over his head and said he was doing that because he was embarrassed to be associated with a Congress that had its own bank, that was giving Members free overdraft protection, that they in effect could write checks for money that was not there. The gentleman from Iowa, if the truth be known, did a good thing in bringing the public's attention to that. The bank is gone. We all bank at the same credit union that every other Federal employee on Capitol Hill does now. But what troubles me about the present budget chairman and what is going on on the House floor today is if we should have been embarrassed for Congressmen writing checks on money that was not there, should we not be ashamed that we are passing tax cuts on a day when we owe the Social Security system $1.1 trillion? We have taken their money, we have spent it on other things and now when we have a small surplus, instead of putting that money aside for Social Security, we are giving some Americans a tax break. It goes beyond that. For years we have been taking money out of the defense budget. Since the 1980s, we have pulled $162 billion out of the Department of Defense budget with the promise that we were setting it aside to pay future military retirees' benefits. Every penny of that has been spent. Again, if we were ashamed that some Congressmen were writing checks for $500, $200 over their amount, should we not be embarrassed to look a veteran in the eye and say we have spent your retirement and we are not putting any money in to pay it back? Since the 1980s, we have taken money out of all of our civil servants' paychecks, again with the promise that it would be there for their retirement. To date we owe them $501 billion. Now, a billion is a thousand million. A million is a thousand thousand. Now, for folks who want to, you can visualize probably a thousand dollars. So $501 billion is a thousand, thousand, thousand. Money has been taken out of their paychecks with the promise that we would spend it only on their retirement, but it has been spent on other things. This budget does nothing to pay it back. Lastly, the Medicare trust fund. Everybody up here, everyone in the gallery, everyone in this room who has a job, money is taken out of your paycheck with the promise it is going to go to your Medicare retirement. To date, we owe that system $229 billion. There is nothing in that so-called lockbox but an IOU. But instead of taking the small surplus we have and applying it to pay off our military retirees, our Social Security recipients, our civil servants, and the folks on Medicare, we are going to pass tax breaks to give some Americans, and incidentally the wealthiest Americans, a tax break while we continue to overcharge people on their Social Security, on their Medicare, on their military retirement, and the civil service retirement. I hope at some point today someone will tell me why that is fair because I think you are going to have a heck of a hard time explaining that to the American people. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. In the time that remains I would hope the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) would explain a few things to the American people. Number one, how is a Nation that is $5,661,347,798,002 in debt, how does that Nation have a surplus? How does a Nation that owes its Social Security Trust Fund $1.103 billion of unfunded liability, money that has been taken from people's paychecks and squandered on other things, how can we say we have a surplus? How can a Nation that has taken 235.5 billion of people's tax dollars, promised to spend it towards Medicare and spent it on other things, and tell people we have a surplus? How can a Nation that has taken $160.5 billion out of the military budget over the past 15 years, set it aside with the promise that we are going to spend it on our military retirees, but spend every penny of it on other things, how do we have a surplus? Finally, for Federal employees, how do we take $497.6 billion out of their paychecks, promise to set it aside for their retirement, spend it on other things, and then look them in the eye and say we have a surplus and therefore we have to cut taxes and, therefore, we cannot fund defense and therefore the fleet will keep shrinking? How can we say that when we cut the shipbuilding budget this year by almost $4 billion that we are taking care of national defense? Since the Republicans have taken over Congress, the fleet has shrunk from 392 ships to 313. And my colleagues are cutting the shipbuilding budget, but yet they keep saying this is good for defense. I say to my colleagues, if they are looking for waste, the most wasteful thing we do is squander a billion dollars a day on interest on the billings we already owe. If my colleagues are serious about addressing that waste, then we should take every penny that we have and address it to national defense and paying down the national debt. This budget does not do that, and therefore I am going to oppose it.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. The one thing that apparently is not being talked about today is that as of the end of last month, our Nation was $5.735 trillion in debt. Just since September, our Nation's debt has increased by $61 billion. I guess many of my colleagues would like to ignore that, but they cannot ignore the fact that we owe the Social Security Trust Fund $1 trillion of unfunded liability. We owe our Nation's military retirees, including the gentleman who just spoke, $163 billion. We owe the Medicare Trust Fund $229 billion, and we owe our own public servants over half of $1 trillion. When folks ask me on the street to cut out the wasteful spending, they are pretty shocked to discover that the most wasteful thing our Nation does that costs $1 billion a day is interest on the national debt. Now, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) and his proposed plan to try to solve the problem for most of those Americans who do pay an estate tax would allow people to keep $4 million of their parents', or whoever left them the money or estate, tax-free, and we can do that for less than $30 billion. The alternative costs five times more. Now, as someone who spends my time looking out for the defense interests of our Nation, that difference would build 20 aircraft carriers or 100 destroyers, or no telling how many 30-year-old UH-1 Hueys could be replaced. Right now we have 20 young Americans in captivity in China because the pilot was afraid to ditch that ancient aircraft he was flying for fear that the lives of the crew would have been lost. Mr. Speaker, why do we continually underfund the things that our Nation should be doing the best it can for the sake of tax breaks, in many instances justified tax breaks, but in many instances tax breaks whose people are only deserving because they can write big checks to political parties?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I want to encourage all of my defense-oriented colleagues, Republican and Democrat, to support this budget. The Blue Dog budget would provide an additional $48 billion over the President's request for the Department of Defense. Just 1 year ago right now General Hugh Shelton appeared before the Committee on Armed Services and said that there was a $100 billion shortfall in defense spending. It has been echoed by the gentleman from California, (Mr. Hunter), my colleague, they need the money. We really do not need a study to tell us that our planes are old; that there are over 900 30-year-old Huey helicopters in the Army's fleet today; that the fleet has shrunk by 74 ships since my Republicans colleagues have taken over control of the House and the Senate. We also do something we have never done as a Nation, and that is we have heard much about protecting Medicare and Social Security trust funds, we have not heard one word about protecting the military retiree trust funds. Right now our Nation owes our military retiree trust fund $163 billion. The Blue Dog budget for the first time ever will protect those funds in a lockbox, much like Medicare and Social Security, so that those people who did so much for us will have their retirement check there for them when it comes due, rather than being a burden on future generations. We have been pulling money out of the Department of Defense budget, but they have been spending it elsewhere. They have not been putting it aside for retirement pay. We protect those funds. Lastly, as far as veterans' benefits, it is very sad to say, but statistically accurate that 1,300 World War II veterans are dying every day. We all know that about 90 percent of the health care costs for all of us will occur in the last 6 weeks of our lives. Mr. Chairman, I am very sorry to say that those last sixes are coming for many of our World War II veterans. We would provide the funds to take care of our veterans with dignity in the last weeks of their lives, $2.1 billion more than my Republican colleagues and spend $10 billion more on the Montgomery GI bill benefit over the next 5 years than the Republican proposal. I urge those of my colleagues who care about veterans, who care about defense, to support the Blue Dog budget.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Okay, guys, they called my bluff, I cannot speak to you anymore. Mr. Speaker, for those Americans who are paying into the Social Security system and have paid into it, some a lot longer than others, you would probably be shocked to know that our Nation owes the Social Security trust system $1.7 trillion. That is money collected out of every working American's paycheck with the promise starting in the Reagan years, a Democratic House, a Republican Senate, a Republican President which promised that money would be set aside for retirement. They took the money, but they did not set it aside for retirement, it was spent on other things, and the Nation now owes the Social Security trust system $1.7 trillion. At the same time, they increased the fees on Medicare. It is a line item on pay stubs, and they are taking money out and setting it aside. It is supposed to help subsidize the cost of your health care after you reach 65. It will not pay for all of it, but it helps a great deal. Right now our Nation owes the Medicare trust fund $229.2 billion. Right now. The much-vaunted lockbox that my colleagues talk about, if you opened it up, you would discover it is nothing more than Tupperware; and if you opened it up, all you would find is an IOU for $229 billion. How many Americans have devoted their lives to defending our Nation? In my life time there was a war in Vietnam. There was the invasion of Grenada, there was Desert Storm, Panama, Kosovo, Bosnia. Americans are risking their lives today; there was a horrible accident that took place in Kuwait just 2 days ago which reminds us how dangerous that job is. And they are in some really crummy places. They are in some nice places like Biloxi, but they are in some crummy places like Bosnia and Kosovo right now where it is cold, no fun whatsoever. But the promise made to them is that you are not going to make as much money as you would if you were working in the private sector, but we are setting aside a good chunk of money so you will have a better- than-average retirement. It is sad to find out that of the money set aside, our Nation now owes them $163.5 billion. There is not a penny in that account. It has been spent on other things, and yet the President and the majority leader and others will tell us there is a surplus. When you owe a trillion here, $229 billion here, $163 billion here, you do not have a surplus, and it gets worse. What about all of these nice folks who work at the Capitol, one of whom gave his life defending a Congressman's life a couple of years ago. They pay into a public employees' retirement system with the promise that money is set aside and spent on their retirement. They would be very disappointed to find out that our Nation owes the Civil Service Retirement System $501.7 billion. So again, where is this surplus that people keep talking about. The truth is that there is no surplus, and the truth is I think one of the reasons Americans are disillusioned with their government is for too long politicians have been promising them a surplus when there is not. They have been saying everything is rosy when it is not. I think the best Americans are those Americans who tell the truth, and I think it is time for this Congress to rise to the occasion and tell the American people the truth. And before we do anything else, before we make any new promises, let us fulfill the promise to Social Security that we already made. Let us fulfill the promise to Medicare that we already made, and let us fulfill the promise to our military retirees that we have already made, and let us fulfill the promise to civil service that we have already made. Mr. Speaker, I had a nice lady from home write me and say I would like to have that tax break, and put the money back in Social Security. Mr. Speaker, you cannot do both. Last year's surplus when you pulled out the trust fund surplus was only $8 billion. Now $8 billion to me is a lot of money, but it was not really $8 billion because there were some accounting gimmicks; just as if you chose not to make your mortgage payment 1 month and the mortgage was $1,000, and you decided at the end of the month, I have a thousand dollar surplus. No, you have a thousand dollars more that you owe on your mortgage, and you have to pay $2,000 next month to break even. Mr. Speaker, one of the tricks that was played last year that I am furious, we normally pay the troops on September 29, a Friday. Almost half of the force now is married and a great many, almost half, have children. So you have a lot of young guys, onesies, twosies, threesies, fours who do not make much money who have one, two or three children. That is tough to do on an enlisted man's salary. One of the gimmicks that the Republican majority passed last year was to delay their pay to October 1. Now for a Congressman, we make plenty of money. If you delay my pay for a couple of days, I am going to do okay. But for an enlisted guy, that means a weekend of digging around under the couch for nickels and dimes for baby formula and Pampers just so they could move that account from last fiscal year to this fiscal year so they could show that $2.5 billion pay period like they saved that money. They did not save that money. So the $8 billion surplus was only $5.5 billion, and that is one gimmick that I caught. No telling how many others there are. But they are the party that keeps saying that they love the troops. Doggone it, if you love the troops, pay them on time. Mr. Speaker, how about replacing some of that old equipment. All of the folks who have been talking about a surplus, they have been in the majority for 6 years. And in the 6 years that the Republicans have controlled the House and the Senate, the United States fleet has shrunk from 392 vessels to 318. But they keep telling us they are for a strong national defense. If they are for a strong national defense, why do we have 74 fewer ships than when we started? The Constitution says it is Congress' job to provide for an army or a navy. No money may be spent from the Treasury except by appropriation from Congress. Would it have been nice if the President had asked for more ships? Absolutely. But last year the Republican Congress did not even build as many ships as Bill Clinton asked for. Now, I think that is a shame, and I think we could do a heck of a lot better. Let us take the last thing I want to mention before I turn this thing over. When they say we have all this surplus, if we have a surplus why are so many young American 18-, 19-, 20-year-old Marines and Army personnel riding around in 20, I am sorry, 30-year-old helicopters? If my colleagues were to go out today and see a Hughey flying over with Army and Marine markings on it, if they are lucky, they will be looking at one of the new ones. The new ones were built in 1972. If they look up and see one of the helicopters with the twin rotors on top, which is the CH-46 or CH-47, depending on which branch of the service, again if they are seeing one of the new ones, it was built in 1972. So all these folks out there telling us we have a surplus cannot find the money to replace 30-year-old helicopters that young Americans are defending us with right now, risking their lives in right now, but they say they have enough of a surplus for tax breaks. I say they are wrong. I say the most important thing we can do is to defend our Nation. I say the most important thing we can do is keep our word, quit lying to the American people about the true size of the deficit, and, yes, the most important thing we can do is keep our word to the folks who paid into Medicare, the folks who paid into Social Security, the folks who paid into the military retirement trust fund, and the folks who paid into the civil service retirement fund. Let us pay back the money we owe to them before we start making any new promises to any other Americans. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) very much for the time.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) for yielding to me. I want to thank the young people and not-so-young people in the audience today. I hope I can make this halfway interesting. And since you cannot talk back to me, I am going to pretend like you can. Now, I have town meetings in south Mississippi. I try to have at least two a month. On almost every instance, somebody in the crowd says, Gene, you know, we would have plenty of money for all those really important things, like taking care of our military, taking care of military retirees, building roads, educating kids if you just did not waste so much money. So I am going to pretend like one of you all said that. I would counter by saying, and probably shocking you when I told you that the most wasteful thing our Nation does, we squandered $1 billion yesterday, the day before that, the day before that, tomorrow, and every day of the rest of our lives on interest on the national debt. Now think about it. If you were to come down to Pascagoula, Mississippi, a town I am very proud to represent, and go to Greenville Ship Building, you would see that we are one of two suppliers of naval destroyers, surface ships, for our Navy. The DDG 51, the greatest destroyer in the world, half of them are built in Greenville Ship Building. And if you were to see a DDG 51 loaded with weapons, loaded with fuel, getting ready to set sail, to go join the fleet, you would probably know that one of those destroyers cost about a billion to build. Yet, we only built three of them last year because the folks in this House, the Committee on the Budget, said, Well, we do not have enough money to build destroyers. But we had enough money to spend $1 billion a day on interest on the national debt. Now, let me show you, I do not get any great kick out of showing this to people, but I think it is important for Americans to visualize. When you think of 5.7 of anything, whether it is biscuits or dollars, it does not seem like many. So 5.7 trillion probably does not sink in until you look at it. That is $5,735,859,380,573.98 that your Nation was in debt on the last day of last month. So when the President or the Speaker or anybody in this town, and many reporters get caught up in this game that there is a surplus, tell you that there is a surplus, I would remind them, this is coming straight out of the United States Treasury figures. That is how broke we are. Now, what is really frightening for you young people is, on the day you were born, if you were born before 1980, our Nation was less than 1 trillion in debt. So the debt has grown just in the past 21 years by over $4.700 trillion. Now, how does that affect you? Well, think about it. If we go to war tomorrow, you 18-year-olds, who is more likely to fight in it, me or you? You, because you are 18, and I am 47. If the schools get messed up, who is more likely to suffer, me or you? Again you, because you are still going to school; and I doubt I will ever go back to school. And if we run up horrible debts as a Nation, who is going to pay the interest on it the longest, me or you? Once again the answer is you. Mr. Speaker, that is why I get disturbed when young people do not take time to vote because they are getting stuck with this bill. The politicians in Washington are telling you that they are paying this debt down, and they are lying to you. I use the word ``lie'' because to intentionally mislead the public is to lie. Since September of last year, the public debt has grown by $61 billion. $61 billion, guys, with a ``B,'' $61,681,170,687.12. We could have built 61 destroyers for that. We could have built 12 aircraft carriers for that. There is no telling how many miles of highway or how many schools we could have built to help improve the lives of people, how much veterans' health care we could have provided. The entire veterans' health care budget for our entire Nation is only $20 billion a year. But that is the increase in the national debt, and a billion a day is squandered on the interest on the national debt, the most wasteful thing we do. Now I see some of you not-so-young folks in the audience who are probably close to Social Security age. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I would like the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), all my Democratic colleagues, all my Republican colleagues, I would like someone to come to the floor now and tell me that our Nation is not $5,735,859,380,573.98 in debt, because we are. I keep hearing about the debt being paid down, but the truth of the matter is, according to our own Treasury statements, the debt has increased since September 30 by $61,681,170,687. How can anyone come to this floor with a straight face and tell me we have a surplus? It gets worse than that. Those taxes that were raised in the 1980s with a Republican Senate, a Democratic House and a Republican President, that placed on working Americans a 15 percent increase on their Social Security and Medicare taxes with the promise that that money would be set aside. The gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) is right on that, because we now owe Social Security $1,070,000,000,000. We owe Medicare $229 billion. There is no surplus. Since the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) mentioned it, and I know he is a military retiree, we owe the military retiree trust fund $163 billion. We owe the civil service trust fund, and I hope every single Federal employee is listening, $501 billion. There is not one penny in any of these accounts, and yet speaker after speaker talks about a surplus. Come tell me I am wrong because this is straight out of the Treasury Report. I am voting against this rule because I offered an amendment yesterday that says before we have any tax relief we pay back to these people, the folks who pay Social Security taxes, the folks who pay Medicare taxes, the folks who had their military pay reduced so that some of it would be set aside for a trust fund, the folks who work for our Nation who had their pay reduced so that some of it would be set aside for a trust fund, that we will fulfill our obligations to them before we make new obligations. Mr. Speaker, I am issuing a challenge to the Speaker of the House, the President of the United States, the Senate Majority Leader, come question any of these numbers, because they know they are all the truth.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad) and every single Member of this House who has talked about a surplus today, this is reality. I have challenged every one of you to say it is not true. Our Nation is 5 trillion 700 billion dollars in debt. What the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) will not tell us is that the people who benefit the most from this tax break are the same people who own this debt and the same people who are on the receiving end of $1 billion a day from the taxpayers in interest payments. They benefit the most. What he will not tell us is that the people who benefit the most do not really care if we do not pay back the trillion dollars to Social Security, because they are not counting on that check. They do not need it. But the folks I represent do. They paid into that fund. We owe them a trillion bucks. I say we pay them back. What the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) will not tell us is that the folks who owe 228 billion to the Medicare Trust fund do not care if we do not pay it back, because they can afford private insurance. My folks cannot. They paid into this fund. I say let us pay it back. What the gentleman from California will not tell you is the folks who benefit the most on this tax bill do not care if we do not repay $165 million to military retirees because that is not what they are counting on to live. But the folks I represent did earn that money. I say let us pay them back.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, a couple of points. Number one, I was deeply disappointed when Mr. Greenspan was repeatedly quoted by Republicans as being the person who they say, well, now he is for tax breaks. I am glad to hear this Republican say he did not think he said that. It is a fact that Mr. Greenspan was in charge of that commission that led to the 15 percent increase in Medicare and Social Security taxes, with the promise that money would be set aside. So Mr. Greenspan, more than anyone else, should know that it has not. The third thing is when the gentleman said, let us go have a good time. I was using the analogy of a person who, for the first time in 30 years, has money left over at the end of the year and it amounts to $1,000; but he ignores the fact that he is $686,000 in debt. That is where our Nation is with an $8 billion surplus at the end of 1 year for the first time in 30 years. The analogy is our Nation does not have $1.6 trillion to give away in tax breaks.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) for yielding. Mr. Speaker, again, I will ask every American who listens to the debate tomorrow, listen for this number, $5,735,859,380,573.98. You will not hear one proponent of the tax cut admit to the American people that that is how far in debt we are, and almost all of that debt has occurred since 1980. I will give you another number you will not hear. You will not hear about the $1,070,000,000,000 that this Nation owes to the people who pay into the Social Security trust fund. You will not hear about the $229,200,000,000 that this Nation owes to the Medicare Trust Fund. You will not hear about the $163.5 billion that we owe to the military retirees, and you will not hear about the $501.7 billion that we owe to the public employees retirement system. I have to be a little bit disturbed about what my friend, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis), said tonight. His statement was that we have to cut taxes because they cannot stop spending. Now I admire many of my Republican colleagues, but they asked for the opportunity to govern and they promised the American people if they were given the opportunity to govern they would stop wasteful spending. So what he is saying, I guess, is that that promise was not true; that they cannot control spending. Let me make a point to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis). Cutting revenues has never stopped spending. It only increased the amount of money that was borrowed. When Ronald Reagan made the same pitch in the early 1980s to cut revenues because it would stop spending, the debt was less than a trillion dollars. It is now $5.7 trillion. Let us remember that Ronald Reagan's veto was worth two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate; just as George Bush's veto will now be worth two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate. If President Bush sees some wasteful spending, I encourage him to veto the bill, and I will work with him to prevent the override of that veto. Do not tell me that you have to increase the national debt, pretending there is an imaginary surplus, so you can give your contributors a $1.6 trillion tax break, because it is not there. We do not have a surplus until we pay back what we owe to Social Security, which is a trillion dollars; until we pay back what we owe to Medicare, which is $229 billion; pay back to those people who served our Nation for 20 years or more and our Reservists who served our Nation for 20 years or more, the $163 billion. We do not have a surplus until we pay back to our civil servants the $501.7 billion that has been taken out of their paychecks. You do not have a surplus to give away in tax breaks. I know these are astronomical numbers, and I know the typical American has just got to be dumbfounded with them, and I think skepticism is a good thing. So let me say where you can look to see this, because these are all straight out of the monthly statement of Treasury Securities. Just a month ago, that was known as a monthly statement of public debt but the Bush administration, in order to disguise the true nature of the debt, changed the title of that from public debt to Treasury Securities; but it is the same thing. So I would encourage you to go to www.publicdebt.treas.gov. I encourage you to go to table 1, page 1, monthly statement of Treasury Securities of the United States, February 28, 2001; go to table 4 page 10; go to table 3, pages 7 and 8. That is where these numbers come from. I am dealing in reality. The Blue Dogs are dealing in reality. The people who are for these tax cuts are dealing in projections, and we are $5.7 billion in debt because of rosy projections, not people dealing in reality.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. For the record, for the fiscal year 2001, the Treasury has already spent $144 billion on interest on the national debt. That is the first 5 months of this year. Contrast that with fiscal year 2000, the Treasury spent $362 billion on interest. That is almost a billion a day. That is 20 percent of every dollar that was spent. By comparison, the military outlays total $281 billion, $81 billion less than we pay on the interest. Medicare outlays were $218 billion, $144 billion less than we spent on interest on the national debt. Again, Mr. Speaker, again Senate Majority Leader, Mr. President, please come tell me that there is a surplus, because you are dealing with projections and I am dealing with reality. The people of America are now $5.7 trillion in debt from rosy projections. The debt is real. The interest payments on the debt are real. What we owe to Social Security, what we owe to Medicare, what we owe to the military retirees, what we owe to our own civil servants is real. Let us pay our bills first before we start making new promises.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration, with a Democratic House, Republican Senate, increased by 15 percent payroll tax on working Americans toward Social Security and Medicare, because they realized, because of the demographic change, with fewer and fewer working people, more and more retired people taking money out, fewer people putting money in, that by 2014 the money that was being paid in on an annual basis to Social Security would no longer pay the money that is being taken out. So with Alan Greenspan as the Chair of a commission, they recommended, it passed through Congress, an increase on payroll taxes with the idea being that the money would be collected now while we have a relatively large workforce, set aside to pay those benefits then for Social Security, for Medicare, for military retirees, for civil service retirement. The problem is that money was spent, every penny of it. What we are trying to change and what we will have an opportunity to change tomorrow, I hope, if the Committee on Rules makes it in order, is to say that the provisions of this tax bill tomorrow only take place in years where we fully fund our annual obligation to Social Security, to Medicare, to military retirement and civil servants. If that does not happen, then the tax increase does not take place. I happen to think that is totally in keeping with the President's vow and promise that he made to Congress. He mentioned Social Security by name, he mentioned Medicare by name. He did not mention our military retirees, he did not mention our civil servants, but I am sure he would want to protect their funds as well.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I think the first place we have to start is with the legislation I introduced last week, with a constitutional amendment that honors the promise that was made to Americans, a constitutional amendment that protects the Social Security Trust Fund, a constitutional amendment that protects the Medicare trust fund, a constitutional amendment that protects our public employees' retirement system, a constitutional amendment that protects our military retirement system. I introduced it last week. I would invite the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) and every Member of Congress to coauthor it. I would invite every American to demand that their Congress keep the promises that were made to them, and start with a constitutional amendment that says from this day forward, we will stop stealing from Social Security and we will stop stealing from Medicare and we will stop stealing from military retirement, we will stop stealing from the civilian retirement, and our highest priority is going to be to pay back those funds that have already been taken.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for this opportunity, and I want to invite my Republican friends to join this debate. I think it is important that some of the statements that have been made this week, this year, about this large surplus be addressed tonight. In fact, tonight I have the greatest of medical respect for one of my colleagues, who is a doctor, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske). I have actually changed my vote on the House floor a couple of times on medical matters based on conversations with him. But the gentleman from Iowa said something tonight that is totally out of line. He spoke about a $5 trillion surplus. I heard it with my own ears. So if I heard him wrong, I would invite him to please come correct me. There is no $5 trillion surplus. What we have in this Nation is a $5,735,859,380,573.98 debt. That is as of the end of last month. We hear from so many of our colleagues that the debt is being paid down; the debt is being paid down. I think the President even said it. But the truth of the matter is that the total debt outstanding, as of September 30 of the year 2000, just 5 months ago, the last day of the last fiscal year, was $5,674,178,209,886.86. That means that the debt, just since September 30 of last year, has increased by $61,681,170,680.12 cents. That is the reality that the President did not mention in his State of the Union address. That is the reality that my friends who talk about projected surpluses choose to ignore. Because the reality is this Nation is horribly in debt, and almost all of this debt has occurred in our lifetime. Our Nation was less than $1 trillion in debt when the vaunted Reagan tax cuts took place. They talked about how it grew the economy and the Nation was so much better for it. Well, if the Nation was so much better for it, why were we twice as deep in debt at the end of the Reagan administration as when we started? Who do we owe this money to? A lot is owed to banks. A third is owed to foreign lending institutions. But let me tell my colleagues the real kicker, because this involves every single person listening tonight if they have ever worked in their life, or if their spouse has worked. Our Nation owes the citizens of the United States who have invested their hard-earned money into the Social Security Trust Fund $1.7 trillion. The lockbox that so many of my friends talk about, that they are so proud that they voted for, if we were to open that lockbox that allegedly protects our Social Security, all we would find in it is a slip of paper that says, ``We owe you $1.7 trillion.'' There is not a dime in it. It has all been spent on other things to disguise the true nature of the debt. We hear a lot about the Medicare Trust Fund. And again Congress has voted repeatedly for a lockbox. We have a lockbox so we are protected. If we were to open that box up we would find a piece of paper that says, ``I owe you $229.2 billion. That is right now. That is today. That is money that was taken out of paychecks with a promise that it would be set aside to pay for benefits when the time came to pay for them. Incidentally, this was done during the Reagan Presidency. In the first year of the Reagan Presidency they cut income taxes, much like we are talking about doing tomorrow, at three different times during the Reagan Presidency, with a Republican Senate and a Democratic House. We keep hearing it was the Democrats that did this. They had the White House and they had the Senate. And of course everyone knows the Senate is more powerful than the House. That is why House Members run for the Senate. Senators never run for the House. It is just understood. So they controlled the White House, which is two-thirds, because a veto is worth two-thirds vote in both Houses. They controlled the Senate, which is where the real power is, and that is why everyone runs for the Senate, not for the House. Yet somehow the Democratic House gets blamed for these things. During that time they raised taxes on Social Security and they raised taxes on Medicare for the average working Joe by 15 percent. Fifteen percent. Big guys got a tax break, because income taxes, which is what came out of their paycheck, went down. The little guys, like the folks I represent in Mississippi, their taxes went up. It is even worse. Because if one of those little guys happened to be self-employed, if he was a pulpwood hauler, if he was a shrimper, if he was an oysterman, if he was his own boss and his own employee, his taxes on Social Security and Medicare went up by 33 percent. That was due to the Reagan tax increases, with a Democratic House and a Republican Senate. It is only fair we point this out. It gets worse. One of the guys who is talking about this big surplus and, therefore, we can have a tax break, is none other than Alan Greenspan. Alan Greenspan was the chairman of the commission that came up with this plan in 1983, to take money out of people's paychecks with the promise it would be set aside, and he knows it was not. Now he is telling us we have all kinds of money for tax breaks. Mr. Greenspan's statement in 1983 does not match his statement today. I wish he would come to the House floor and tell me which one is the truth. It gets even worse than that. Back then they recognized that we have a changing demographic system in our country. We are getting old. I am one of them. We used to have, when my dad was a teenager, about 19 working people for every one retiree. By the 1950s, it had dropped to about 10 working Americans for every one retiree. Tonight it is about three working Americans for every one retiree. In just a few years it will be two working Americans for every retiree. So in the 1980s they told the American people that they were going to start taking money out of things like Social Security, like Medicare and, yes, the military budget to fund future benefits. They told the guys in the military back then, we are going to start taking a percentage of the budget every year and we will set it aside and we will lock it up, and they said it would be there to pay for their retirement. So if there was a lockbox, which I have never heard the President talk about for the military trust fund, and if those retirees could open it up, they would find another piece of paper. What we are going to tell those guys who defended this Nation in World War II, who defended this Nation in Korea, who defended this Nation in Vietnam, in Desert Storm, and all the wars since then and all the wars that will be? There is an IOU in there for $163.5 billion. It is an IOU. There is not one penny in that fund. Although all these years, since the early 1980s, funds have been taken out of the Department of Defense budget that could have gone for new ships, could have gone for new planes, could have gone for better housing, and could have gone for better pay. The promise was made that we would take this money and set it aside. It is not there. All there is right now is an IOU. How about the folks who work for us? I am proud of the opportunity to be a Congressman. I am incredibly proud that I have had the opportunity to make things better. We put together budgets, we make laws, but the day-to-day function of the government is actually handled by all those Federal employees out there that make things work. We collect money out of their paychecks with the promise that it will be there for their retirement pay. Same story. Happened in the 1980s. Because we recognized we have changing demographics, so we had better collect the money now, while we have a fairly large workforce and a fairly small number of retirees, and set it aside for the year 2035 when we are down to almost one to one workers-to-retirees. So since the early 1980s, they have pulled $501.7 billion out of Federal employees' paychecks, all these nice people here tonight, all those Capitol policemen guarding us, all those folks working for NASA and the agencies that are out there trying to make our lives better. They have pulled that out of their paychecks with the promise they were going to set it aside and it would be there for their retirement. But if we were to open that bank account tonight, we would find an IOU for $501.7 billion. How can the President, how can the majority leader, the Speaker of the House say there is a surplus? How, with a straight face, do they look the American people in the eye and say there is a surplus when this is our true debt? A lot was made of the surplus last year. Everyone said about a $239 billion surplus. But if we take the time to look where it was, it was in things like money collected from Social Security, money collected from Medicare, money collected from the military retirees, from our Federal employees, from the highway system, and the airline system. All the times when we told people we were going to take this money out of their airline ticket, out of their fuel taxes and their paychecks and we were going to set it aside, and they trusted us to spend it on those things that we told them we would, that is only surplus. When we take those monies aside that are collected for a specific purpose and promised for a specific purpose, it was an $8 billion surplus left over. Eight billion. Not $230 billion, $8 billion. But it gets even worse than that. Because if we really take a good look at that $8 billion, we can discover that one of the tricks the Republican Congress played was to delay the pay of the troops from September 29, which they would have gotten it under normal circumstances for many, many years in the past, to October 1. Everybody knows Congressmen make big money. I am one of them. If my pay gets delayed by a couple of days, I will do okay. I will figure it is not that big a deal. But if I was an E4 with two kids, and my pay was delayed from a Friday to a Monday, that means a weekend of scrounging around in the couch looking for pennies and nickles to get enough money for baby formula or for diapers, because they are living hand to mouth. It is estimated that anywhere from 6,000 to 13,000 of them are eligible for food stamps. So what does the Republican Congress do to tell those folks we appreciate them? Well, they became the only people in the Federal Government whose pay was delayed. Not Federal employees, not Congress, just the military. Why did they do it? Because that pay period moved from the last fiscal year to this fiscal year. We did not save a dime, but that $2.5 billion pay period went from September to October, and it made that $8 trillion surplus look a little bigger. Because when we pull that $2.5 billion out, it is only a $5.5 billion surplus. Now, if I found that one trick, what if I really had the time to study the budget and find all the other tricks? I think I could tell the American people that there was not a surplus. But let us say there was an $8 billion surplus. What does that mean compared to this cumulative debt? Eight billion dollars, compared to this, is like a fellow who, after 30 years, finally breaks even at the end of one year. He has $1,000 left over, and he says, My, God, let us go have a good time, totally ignoring the fact that he is $686,000 in cumulative debt. That is what the ratio is. So I have a real simple question for the President, a real simple question for Mr. Greenspan, who again was involved in raising Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes, and who now says we have all this money left over despite this huge deficit. If they believe what they say, about we can do it after the trust funds, why do they not endorse the amendment I offered in the Committee on Rules today, which says we can only have these tax breaks in years when we fulfill the financial obligations to Social Security, to Medicare, to our military retirees, and to our civilian employees? If you really think the money is out there and you are sincere about those things, I will give you the chance to call a press conference tomorrow morning and say, ``Yep, there's enough money to do it.'' I do not think you will. Because I think they are more concerned with tax breaks than with paying our bills. What the shame about that is, think of the guys who died on the beaches of Normandy. Think about every generation of Americans, from the horrible things that happened to the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, to the kids who died in Vietnam, to the kids who died just this weekend, the National Guardsmen down in Georgia. Do you know what the difference between us and all those other generations is? If we continue down this path, we will be the first generation of Americans ever to leave the Nation worse than we found it, because we have done the easy thing every time rather than the right thing. I as a father have taken the steps to see to it that my kids do not inherit my debts. Do you not think that it is time that our Nation takes the step to see to it that our kids do not inherit this generation's debts? I think the opportunity to start is tomorrow. That is why I laud what the Blue Dogs are doing. That is why I laud what those conservative Republicans who really do care about debt reduction are going to do tomorrow.