Gene Taylor

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise and ask my colleagues to defeat the previous question. I do so knowing that there are honorable people who serve on the Committee on Rules, and that by and large they try to do the right thing every time. But I can tell my colleagues in this instance the Committee on Rules acted somewhat out of character when a bill that has been sponsored by 8 of the 13 members of the Committee on Rules that I tried to offer as an amendment to this bill was defeated in the very same Committee on Rules, by and large, by the eight people who sponsored the bill. The bill is all about keeping promises. The bill is all about changing the way Congress does business. First to the promises. When we think about it, the only people in America who were really promised free health care were those people who enlisted in the military when their recruiter told them, if you serve our country honorably for 20 years or more, at the end of that period of time, you will be given free care in a military health facility for you and your spouse for the rest of your life. That promise was made in the 1930's. It was made in the 1940's. It was made in the 1950's. And I can assure my colleagues that on June 25, 1971, in the Customs House on Canal Street in New Orleans, LA, it was made to me. I did not serve for 20 years, and, therefore, I do not deserve free health care. But there are a heck of a lot of people who served for 20 years, 30 years, who fought in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, most recently Desert Storm, Panama and Grenada who had their enlistment officer tell them just that and who, effective on July 1 of this year, upon reaching the age of 65 when they showed up at the military hospital for the treatment they had been receiving for years were told we cannot take you anymore. You have to go to a private doctor. Medicare will reimburse some of those costs, but not all of those costs. So, now at the point in their life where they cannot go back to work because they are over 65 and not very many people hire people over 65, where they thought they had been promised free health care for the rest of their lives, they were being told they are not. They are being told that now they have to dig into their pocket. Now, sometimes it is not a whole lot of money if it is just a common cold. But what if it is something like leukemia? What if it is something like cancer? What if it is a serious heart condition that involves not dozens of dollars but tens if not thousands of dollars? Now they have to pay, and they have to pay dearly for something that our Nation promised them. The amendment that I would like to offer is really not my idea. It is the brainchild of the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Hefley] and it is cosponsored by almost 270 Members of this body. It is cosponsored by both the chairman and the ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. It is cosponsored by the chairman and ranking member of the National Security Committee. It is cosponsored by the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations. It is cosponsored by myself, and it was a part of the Blue Dog coalition budget because we think it is important that this Nation keep our promises. When brought before the Committee on Rules with all of the things that I have just told my colleagues, the importance of keeping promises, the importance of this Congress, of any Congress ever before keeping its word to the American people, in particular keeping our word to those people who have given the most to our country, the Committee on Rules voted in a party line vote, I am sorry to say, not to bring it before this body. That is wrong and it is time we changed things. If Members recall, 1\1/2\ years ago a group of people were swept into office with the promise that no more business as usual, no more letting parliamentary rules keeping the right thing from happening, no more losing the forest for the sake of a couple of trees. Today is an opportunity for those people to keep their word. Today is an opportunity for the 270 people who cosponsored this bill to put their vote where they put their signature, and that is to defend the rights of our military retirees who served this country so well, who kept their part of the bargain. And all they ask in return is for our Nation to keep its word. As I said before, they are the only people in this country who were promised health care. Prior to Medicare and Medicaid coming along, they were the only people who got health care. And now is it not ironic that the people who dodged the draft, that the people who may even be here illegally get free health care? But the people who paid with 6 months at a time at sea on aircraft carriers and submarines, the people who lost limbs, the people who lost their vision, the people who were away from their families, whose families split up because they were away defending our country, they are not getting the health care they were promised. Mr. Speaker, this rule is wrong. It needs to be defeated, and we need to give those veterans of our country, our military retirees, what they were promised.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I again thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, the people of this body are going to have two chances to vote on Medicare subvention. Again, 270 Members, including the chairman of the Committee on Rules, who is not here on the floor unfortunately, are sponsors of this measure. The chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]; the chairman of the Committee on National Security, the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence]; the chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Stump]; and the ranking Democrats who serve on those committees are cosponsors of this measure. It is the right thing. They are the only people in America who were promised health care and the only people in America who are being denied the health care they deserve. We have a chance to fix that. Two hundred fifty-seven Members of this body, including most recently 258, because the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson] has signed on, have said this is something that this Nation ought to do. It is a promise that ought to be kept. Mr. Speaker, we should defeat the rule and make this in order. If it is not, then I am going to take the words of the gentlewoman from Ohio [Mr. Pryce], who is a cosponsor of this measure, to task and see if it is truly an open rule, and we will offer it as an amendment so that the Members of this body will have the chance to do the right thing for our Nation's military retirees; to prove that we are putting right over procedure and we are going to keep our promises to the military retirees of this country.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished Member for yielding the time. No one comes here to increase the deficit. No one comes here to dismantle America's might. But just last night, the new majority voted for a budget for the next 2 years that increases the annual operating deficit and in turn the national debt. Today we are going to have a choice of whether or not we are going to dismantle America's industrial might. I have to my left, and I hope the television camera can show this, one of the 66 jewels of America's industrial might. It is so huge that this 990-foot warship appears to be but a toy when compared to that overall industrial facility. It is called Ingalls Shipbuilding and is one of the six remaining shipyards in America that build ships to defend our country. This agreement would preclude any chance Ingalls Shipbuilding ever has of in the long run staying in business. And that is what it comes down to. You see, as mentioned before, during the Reagan years there was talk of a 600-ship Navy and therefore people like Ingalls and Newport News would have plenty of work building those ships. We are now looking at a 150-ship Navy, which means there is not work for all six of them. If we do not find commercial work for those yards, they will simply go out of business. Why is that important? This island nation during World War II had to build 16,000 ships to save itself from Japan and Nazi Germany. We are now down to what will be in the near future a 150-ship fleet so, if we lose our ability in the meantime between wars to do some commercial work, those yards will not be around. If you had to start this yard from scratch, you would have to find $800 million. That just is not going to happen. So why is the agreement bad? The agreement is bad because we are counting on about 20 other nations to quit subsidizing their yards unilaterally. It is not going to happen. It has not happened. Even today in the Journal of Commerce, here is the story, that the Danes, even before the ink on this agreement is dry, are already cheating on this agreement. The reason the Danes say that they are cheating is because the Germans are cheating. So we are being asked by the Committee on Ways and Means to unilaterally disarm, to give away the ability of our Nation to defend itself in future wars. So the Committee on Ways and Means can proudly proclaim that they have passed another failed trade agreement. May I remind them of their tremendous success of NAFTA? May I invite the Committee on Ways and Means to come to Lucedale, MS, or to Hattiesburg, MS, or Poplarville, MS, and go to the cattle auction and see the cattlemen who cry because they are selling their calves for one-half of the price that they were just 3 years ago before NAFTA. Or maybe once again to go to Lumberton, MS, or Poplarville, MS or Wiggins, MS or Neely, MS, or Gulfport, MS and visit the empty garment plants where thousands of people have been laid off as a direct result of NAFTA. In Neely, MS, when you lose your job, job retraining does not matter because there is no other factory in Neely, MS. The only business in town shut down. So based on the success of NAFTA and our ability to pass an agreement that hurts only us and helps only our competitors, we want to do this again, except this time we want to do it with regard to national defense. We want to take the magnificent machine built up over the course of the past century, first by Democrats like FDR and later by Republicans like Ronald Reagan and George Bush, and we want to put it out of business so that when the next war comes we will not have a yard. And maybe if we are lucky, the Germans will sell us a ship. Maybe if we are lucky the Japanese will sell us a ship. But maybe if we are not lucky, they will be on the other side. Then what do we do? The great powers of the world have always been great manufacturers, and they have been great maritime powers. Those two things go hand in hand during the course of recorded history. With NAFTA, we have given away a lot of our manufacturing might. With this agreement, they are trying to give away our maritime might, what is left of it, and our ability to get back in the business. Title XI works. It is a loan guarantee program that works. We are building ships in this country, and now they are saying, let us take it away. The gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bateman] is saying, let us slow that down a little bit. I encourage Members to vote for the Bateman amendment. At the very least it will slow it down a little bit. And then I encourage Members to vote against this entire agreement because we do not need to give up our sovereignty to 20 other countries to tell us where and when we can invest in the industrial might of this Nation.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

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

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I thank the dean of the Mississippi delegation. It is common knowledge that world's populations are moving to the shorelines. Even in this country, well over half of the people in this country live within 50 miles of the coast. Mr. Chairman, that means that every one of them is vulnerable to a typhoon or hurricane and every one of them needs to know when to leave prior to that hurricane. The greatest commission that these planes that the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] would do away with serves is to let people know where and when a killer storm is going to land. Coming from a place which Hurricane Camille literally knocked off the map, where 250 people in south Mississippi were murdered in one night by a storm, I call tell my colleagues how important it is that people know where and when a storm hits. People thought Hurricane Camille was going to hit New Orleans. It did not. It hit Mississippi, and because people did not leave, 250 lives were lost. So, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young] for his opposition to this amendment, and I thank the senior member of the Mississippi delegation for standing firm in trying to replace these 30-year-old aircraft, that is the newest, where people are literally playing Russian roulette every time they fly a mission because they are the most dangerous peacetime missions that the Air Force serves.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, will the newest mother in the House yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Sabo] for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my friend that the reason the wealthiest Americans are doing better is they are the ones who buy the T-bills and in effect loan money to the government, so that the rest of us can pay more in interest payments as the Nation gets deeper in debt. The budget you are proposing tonight increases the annual operating deficit and gets the Nation deeper in debt. If the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker] will remember, just a few months ago he voted to raise the Nation's debt limit from about $5 trillion to almost $6 trillion. I, on the other hand, did not.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentlewoman, she is looking out for her children, her child, but she is increasing the annual operating deficit. That is not balancing the budget, that is increasing the deficit.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I thank the ranking member for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, this is a bad rule and following this rule it is a bad bill. It is a bad rule because the greatest lawmaking body in the world will start its day tomorrow waiving the rules that it lives by. One of those rules would allow the 435 Members of this body to come forward to try to perfect this bill. But under the rule as envisioned by the Rules Committee, they cannot do so. They have to take it all or leave it all. So what is it that we are being asked to take or leave? It is a measure that affects our national sovereignty and it is a measure that affects our national security. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Longley] touched on it but I will take it a step further. On the day that I was born, this was the undisputed greatest maritime power in the world. We had more ships than anyone and we built more ships than anyone. That continued for a long time. But the real decline started around 1981 when this Congress, for whatever reason--it probably made sense at the time--decided to stop helping our domestic shipbuilders. There was a wink to them, because the Reagan defense buildup was coming along, that they would build a lot of naval ships. But the 600-ship Navy that was spoken about by President Reagan is now rapidly becoming a 150-ship Navy. The help that was promised has rapidly evaporated and along with it the ability of this Nation to protect itself. Mr. Speaker, we are an island nation. This island Nation that was defended by people like Sam Gibbons at Normandy had to build 16,000 ships during World War II, because when you go to war, one of the things that happens is people sink your ships. As recently as Desert Storm, our Nation had to go out and charter 85 foreign flagged vessels to resupply our troops. We did not lose a single ship to a foreign casualty, yet even in peacetime we did not have enough ships to resupply our troops. Now we are being told that we want to not only lose the fleet but lose the ability to ever build that fleet again. Who is telling us this? It is the same folks who brought us NAFTA. You remember NAFTA. Back in November 1983 when we had a $6 billion trade surplus with Mexico, they said, it would help our trade situation. It has not. It has increased our deficit. We went from a surplus to a deficit. You remember how they talked about the jobs that would be created. Well, maybe they have been, but they have not been created in this country. They were created in Mexico. If anyone in this room needs any evidence, I will invite you to visit Wiggins, MS; or Gulfwood, MS; or Poplarville, MS; or Neely, MS, and see the empty garment plants. In places like Neely, MS, when they shut down the garment plant, there is no place else to go. There is no reason for worker retraining. It was the only business in town. Or, for that matter, I would like to invite you to Lucedale or Poplarville or Hattiesburg and go to the livestock auction. Before NAFTA an average calf was selling for about $1.10 a pound. Right now when the farmers can find a buyer, cattle is going for about 55 cents a pound. People's entire lifetime investments cut in half since the passage of NAFTA and the beef that has come up from Mexico. So the same folks who brought us NAFTA now want to take it a step further, and they want to do away with the ability of this Nation to defend itself. Something that we did in 1993, and I am very proud of, with broad bipartisan support, recognizing that our Nation has to have shipbuilders and that we are down to only six, is we passed the National Shipbuilding Initiative. It is an expansion of the title XI program which was begun under President Roosevelt when our Nation, prior to World War II, found itself in the same situation, and that is an island nation that did not have enough ships to support itself. They started a program of loan guarantees to help our shipbuilders build commercial ships, the kind of ships we need to move goods during time of war. We passed it again in 1993, and we went from building no ships a year up to having 13 on order, and with an incredible market opportunity out there. Because with the passage of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, 2,000 tanker ships will have to be replaced in about the next 10 years. We could be building those ships but, instead, this measure is going to deprive the American shipyards of any help at all, even if it is a loan guarantee, to try to go after that 2,000 ship market. In effect, what we are saying is that just like our garments and just like our beef, we are now going to import ships. We are going to be a Third World country because we will lose our shipyards, and from now on, when we need a destroyer or a carrier or a submarine, we will call up someone else to sell them to us. Now that might have worked in Desert Storm, but I would remind those people who have lived a little longer, that many of those nations that lined up with us during Desert Storm were on the other side during Vietnam. They could be on the other side again. It affects our sovereignty because for the first time in the history of our Nation, if we want to do something to help our domestic shipbuilders stay in business, and incidentally, every one of the major shipbuilders is against this proposal, and they testified before the Committee on National Security to that effect, so the people that the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier] says he wants to help are all against it, without exception. But it would require this Nation to go seek the permission of about 20 other nations just to help our own shipbuilders so that they can be in business when we need them, because there is going to be another war. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain we have had a war in Panama, we have had a war in the desert, and we have had a situation in Bosnia. It is going to happen again. I have kids, and I wish it would not happen again, but the history of this Nation is that it is and it happens whenever we let our guard down, and this is letting our guard down. It affects our national security, because if we cannot build ships this island Nation cannot defend itself. It is that simple. So, Mr. Speaker, for all of these reasons, this is a bad agreement at the wrong time in our Nation's history. The great nations of the world have always been great manufacturers and been great maritime powers. With NAFTA, we have murdered American manufacturing. There have been 10,000 new factories build on this continent in the past 10 years, but they have all been built in Mexico, and now the people who brought us NAFTA want to do away with what is left of American shipbuilding and send it overseas. Mr. Speaker, I urge the defeat of the rule and I would strongly urge the defeat of the measure.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished ranking minority member for yielding the time. Mr. Chairman, the amendment which I am offering is included in the chairman's en bloc amendment. The first section of my amendment contains language which requires the Army not later than 180 days after the enactment of the fiscal year 1997 defense authorization to submit to Congress a plan for the utilization, reutilization, or disposal of the Mississippi Army ammunition plant which is located in Hancock County, MS. The second section of my amendment, which I think many will have a great interest in, would name the multipurpose range complex heavy tank training facility at Camp Shelby, MS, for Congressman G.V. ``Sonny'' Montgomery. As Mississippi Adj. Gen. James H. Garner wrote: Congressman G.V. ``Sonny'' Montgomery has been especially supportive in the development of Camp Shelby to meet the training needs for not only the Mississippi National Guard, but the many other States using Camp Shelby for their annual training * * * I feel that it would be very appropriate, in tribute to Congressman Montgomery as he retires at the end of this year, that the multipurpose range complex be named the G.V. ``Sonny'' Montgomery multipurpose Range. I would wholeheartedly support such legislative initiative to honor Congressman Montgomery in this way. Just briefly, since he was first elected in 1966, Representative Montgomery has steadfastly served as the voice of the citizens of Mississippi's Third District in Congress and our Nation. The gentleman from Mississippi is a veteran of the U.S. Army in World War II, a retired National Guard General, member of the House National Security Committee, and former chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. He has dedicated his life to serving the Nation both on the front lines of battle and in the Halls of Congress. Incidentally, I would like to mention that during every single Christmas break during the Vietnam war, Chairman Montgomery spent his Christmas in Vietnam with the troops. His legislative legacy is impeccable. It includes the Montgomery G.I. bill, championing the concept of an All Volunteer military, making the Reserves truly a ready force, and equipping and strengthening the National Guard. He fought for reemployment rights for reservists and National Guard personnel who were called to active duty. He ensured that our Nation's veterans were eligible for basic benefits like healthcare, low-interest home loans, and a chance for a better education. And, in spite of all his triumphs and personal successes, Congressman Montgomery remains a kind and humble man. His successor will no doubt have huge shoes to fill. Mr. Chairman, I am honored to have had the opportunity to serve with Sonny Montgomery. I will be forever grateful for what he has done personally to assist me, the great things he has done for our State, our Nation's veterans, and our Nation. You will be missed, Sonny. Good luck in your retirement.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, in the past I have supported the Solomon amendment, but as a number of well-attended hearings of this committee pointed out, our Nation does not have the ability to stop a single missile coming from the Soviet Union, the former Soviet Union, pointed our way. For that reason, Mr. Chairman, it makes more sense than ever to try to destroy as many of those 26,000 nuclear warheads that the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] just told us about while they are on the ground, while they are still in the Soviet Union, before they fall into the hands of a terrorist Nation like Iraq or Iran or Libya, North Korea, or Cuba. We cannot stop them in the air and we cannot inspect the 4 million cargo containers that come into this country, should someone want to smuggle them into our country. I would say to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], it would make a whole heck of a lot more sense to fix the program we have and destroy them while they are on the ground in the former Soviet Union. Therefore, until the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] can fix some of those things that he knows the Soviets will not do, I am going to have to vote against his amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the distinguished ranking minority member of the committee for yielding this time to me. I rise in support of the en bloc amendment. Contained in it is language that would require the President of the United States within 15 days to certify to Congress whether or not this Nation possesses the ability to detect the smuggling or importation of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons into our country. Mr. Chairman, there are 4 million cargo containers a year that come into this country, 40-foot container equivalents. There are also between 20 and 30 nations that possess either nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. While the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon], and the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter], in particular have done a great job of making the Nation aware of our Nation's vulnerability to the two nations that possess ballistic missiles that can strike our Nation, there are at least 5 rogue nations--including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Cuba and North Korea--that possess chemical weapons, biological weapons and, some fear, nuclear weapons, that could smuggle them into our country. The purpose of this amendment is to make the commander in chief, the Department of Defense, and this administration aware of that threat to our Nation, and hopefully in next year's defense bill that is presented to the Congress, they will take some steps to address that threat to the people of this country. In my opinion, it is a bigger threat to this country than the threat of ballistic attack.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, I rise in defense of what they are trying to do. I would say to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady], I would feel a lot better if in speaking to the Senate the gentleman would try to amend this to also call for a two-thirds vote to raise the debt limit for this country. You see, there is something equally as evil as tax and spend, in fact something even more evil, and it is called borrow and spend. Tax and spend, you at least ask this generation to pay for something. Borrow and spend, we ask the next generation to pay for something. Just 2 weeks ago this body by a fairly large margin voted to raise the debt limit by $600 billion. And for those of you who are not following this, we now spend 30 times more money on interest on the national debt than we do on foreign aid, more money on interest on the national debt than Medicade and Medicare combined, more money on the interest on the national debt than we do on defending this Nation. I will vote for the bill of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] but I sure as heck hope he would use this learning experience to turn right around and call for a constitutional amendment that calls for a two-thirds vote to raise the debt limit. And then turn right around and let us pressure the other body to pass the constitutional amendment to require the balanced budget that this House passed about a year ago today.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, gentlemen and ladies, last year, during the welfare debate, I heard speaker after speaker come to this floor and say that we had to end the practice of paying people to do nothing, that we should no longer pay people not to work. Something remarkable happened that day. Every single Member of this body voted to no longer pay people for not working. Many of us supported the coalition plan, the rest of the folks supported the Republican plan, but everyone supported at least one plan that would stop paying people for doing nothing. And it was remarkable, and it was a good thing. Unfortunately, in this bill there is a plan to pay people up to $80,000 a year per individual for 7 years to do nothing. You do not have to plant a crop, you do not have to work a field, you do not have to work fences, you do not have to start the tractor, you do not have to do anything. You do not even have to try to farm, and you get $80,000 a year. Earlier today this body by a majority voted to raise the debt limit up to $5.5 trillion. We are spending $2 million every 4 minutes on interest on the national debt. Where do we stop? I am not going to criticize the whole bill, but I can tell you, freedom to farm is a bad idea, because you can never wean people off Government dependence by paying them to do nothing, whether they are a welfare mother or whether they are a father who happens to be a farmer. It does not work. It does not work with welfare, and it will not work with farming. Please vote against this bill.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the new majority came to town promising to balance the budget, and yet this year's budget according to the Congressional Budget Office, will spend $270 billion more than we collect in taxes. If we can cut out anything, let us start with a program that pays people up to $80,000 a year not to go to work. Please vote against this bill.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank one of the heroes of D-day for the opportunity, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Gibbons]. When the new majority came to power 1 year ago, they promised the American people that Congress would change its ways, that we would live by all the laws of the land. Obviously one of the laws that we are not going to live by is the law of regulating false advertising. The very name of this bill is false advertising. It has nothing to do with the Contract With America. It has everything to do with raising the debt limit by $600 billion. The American people have consistently said that the biggest threat to this Nation is our horrible debt. It is a vulnerability greater than any other thing because it is eating up so much of our taxes. Just the interest on the national debt eats up more of our taxes than Medicare, than Medicaid, twice as much as Medicaid, the national defense, 10 times more than food stamps, and 12 times more than welfare. In the 2 minutes that I have spoken to my colleagues, this Nation has spent $1 million on interest on the national debt, just in the past 2 minutes. So what is their solution? We will borrow more money. We will pay more interest. That is crazy. Mr. Speaker, what do they do? Do they come to the floor and be honest with the American people and say we want to borrow some more money? No, they hide it. They hide it behind three bills that have already passed this body on their own merit, three bills that were just waiting for the U.S. Senate to agree to so they can become law. There is only one purpose for this bill. It is to borrow more money and to waste more money on interest on the national debt. Instead of the balanced budget that the American people were promised, this is just more borrow and spend. But it is not the first time since I have come to Congress that this has happened. Around November 7, 1989, I got a call from then-President Bush's White House. I was very new to this body. It said, can you do us a favor? Can you help us just one time temporarily raise the national debt? Just a temporary thing. Mr. Speaker, I had only been here a couple of weeks, and, my goodness, the President of the United States called. I was flabbergasted and honored, and, of course, Mr. President, you made perfect sense. We have got to do that. So the debt was raised from 2.87 trillion to 3.1 trillion. That was not the end of it. In October 26, 1990, this House came back, and H.R. 5838 permanently raised the debt ceiling from 3.1 to 4.1 trillion, just a couple years later. And then again on August 5, 1993, the House raised the debt ceiling from 4.1 to 4.9. It is like saying, I am going to pay off my Visa card but first I am going to raise my debt limit on my visa card from 5,000 to 10,000. You do not ever get there. Today they are being asked to raise it from 4.9 to 5.5 trillion. Voting to raise the debt limit is a lot like an alcoholic saying, I am just going to have one more drink. A very good friend of mine from Pascagoula, MS, just came out of alcoholic rehab. He said, I would wake up every morning and I could always find an excuse for just one more drink. It is Thanksgiving. It is the week before Christmas. It is Mardi Gras. It is spring break. There is always one more excuse, one more drink. But until he work up and said, I am not going to have any more excuses, no more drinks, did he cure his problem. Mr. Speaker, America has to run out of excuses. We have got to quit borrowing. We cannot be for a balanced budget and then turn around and borrow $600 billion more. Let us draw the line today. Let us quit fooling the American people. Let us do what is right for this country. I thank the chairman and the great hero of D-Day. This gentleman, in case Members do not know, paratrooped into Normandy the night before the D-Day invasion. He is going to end his congressional career this year. He is a great American, and we are going to miss him.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I thought the whole purpose of this bill was to cut down people coming into this country. I voted against NAFTA because I did not want to send American jobs to Mexico. Unfortunately, the majority voted to send American jobs to Mexico. But the only thing worse than NAFTA is bringing in a bunch of Mexicans to take American jobs. Now, that is what this is all about. If you are for your folks, vote against it. If you are for those folks, vote for the Pombo amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I do not even know what the gentleman's lapel button reads, but there is a House rule against speaking while wearing a button other than a Member's button.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I hope my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy], will listen, because the Department of Defense budget is the only budget out of the entire U.S. budget that has been cut in real terms by over 10 percent in the past 5 years. When I first got to Congress, it was $300 billion a year. This year it is about $275 billion. There are hundreds of thousands of young men and women who want to serve their country who have been involuntarily discharged or not had their contracts renewed because of downsizing. The point of the matter is the Department of Defense is smaller, and they are doing a better job with what they have. I want to compliment the chairman and ranking member for doing the best job that we could with the funds that we have. I want to encourage my colleagues to vote for this bill. It is our job to decide where that money should be spent, and without this bill, the President will make that decision, not us.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Well, again, the American people, and I do not think the press explains this very well, there are two things we are dealing with. No. 1 is the accumulated debt over many years, where the Nation spent more money than it collected in taxes. That is $5 trillion. Until we will get to the balanced budget, every year they are spending more money than they are collecting in taxes, and that is the annual operating deficit. The annual operating deficit under the Kasich budget, as approved by the majority of the Republicans in the House, will borrow $270 billion for this fiscal year.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the staff, who I know I am keeping late. I hope what I say is worth hearing to the American people. If you have been listening to the budget debate, you have heard Member after Member talk about reducing the deficit, and it is not so, folks, and the Congressional Budget Office has scored the plan put forward by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] for next year, the only year that this Congress could really vote on, because we are only elected for 2 years at a time. The truth of the matter is that the budget by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich], as introduced, would increase the annual operating deficit of this Nation from $236 to $270 billion, and hidden in there is the theft of about $100 billion from the trust funds that people pay into when you pay your FICA taxes, your social security taxes. That is not a plan to balance the budget. You do not balance the budget by taking your first step backwards. There is a plan to balance the budget. It was put together by a group of people, mostly conservative Democrats, but some of them are now Republicans. It is called the Coalition budget. When compared to the Kasich budget, it would save this Nation $33 billion in the first 2 years and $53 billion in the first 3 years, the years that really count, the years where you can presume Members of Congress who are now Members of Congress will be around to live by it to make sure it works rather than saying someone 7 years from now is going to do what this Congress would not do. Unfortunately, Speaker Gingrich has now twice ruled that the Members of this body cannot even vote on this measure. But there is something that can be done about it. There is a discharge petition where Members of this body, if 218 Members of this body will go down and sign it, then we can vote on the Coalition budget. We can get to a balanced budget quicker. We can do it with less pain and less borrowing, and to tell you the effect of the borrowing is every 2 minutes in this Nation we have to go out and borrow a million dollars just to pay the interest on the national debt, every 2 minutes, $1 million in interest payments on the national debt.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to my friend and colleague from my neighboring district that as scored in real numbers by the CBO, the budget introduced by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] increases the annual operating deficit of this country to $270 billion. If we are really serious about reducing the annual operating deficit, bring the coalition budget, which would save this Nation $33 billion over your budget in the first 2 years, and $53 billion over your budget in the first 3 years, to the floor for a vote.