Lynn Westmoreland

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for his hard work that he has put forth in this budget. And hopefully one day soon we will have an opportunity to vote on the budget that the gentleman has put forward in a clear way. I want to talk a little bit about what my friend from North Carolina talked about, about Debt Day. You know, it is pretty interesting. I think we need to make this, Madam Speaker, so the American people can understand exactly what we are talking about when we are talking about tripling the debt over a 10-year period, doubling our deficit. I think we need to understand that in 1998, after 365 days we had a surplus, and this was during the Clinton administration. In 2002, it was not until the second of September that we actually started borrowing money. And if you can imagine, we were coming out of the 9/ 11. In 2003, it was the 29th of July before we started borrowing money. In 2004, it was the 27th of July before we actually started borrowing money. Madam Speaker, the people will realize this, we had spent by that date all the money we had, and then we started putting it on our credit card. In 2005, it was August 14. In 2006, it was August 27. In 2007, it was September 9. In 2008, it was the 5th of August. This year it is the 26th of April. So the 26th of April, we will be finished spending the revenues that we have in, and now we are going to start putting everything on our credit card. So understand this, that with just that short of a period of time, we are out of cash. We are spending way too much money. And I think that that is what the American people need to understand, that we are spending money that we don't have. We are spending money that is our children's. And I used to always say this, that we were putting our children in debt, the next generation. Now I have to include our grandchildren. We are putting our grandchildren in deep debt. And so what are we doing? I keep listening to the opposition, the majority party talk about that this is something that we've got to do. And they keep talking about the Bush administration and the deficit spending. Two wrongs don't make a right. Let's do something for the American people. Let's have some fair, open, honest debate and make this to where we can have some amendments. I represent approximately 750,000 people in Georgia's Third Congressional District, yet I am not able to offer any ideas that the people from my district may have about the budget and too much spending. Madam Speaker, this is not the way to run a railroad. We need to do things to open up the process rather than to close the process. And we need to make sure that the people understand that we are spending our future.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Well, I want to thank my friend from Missouri for yielding some time, and I just wanted to ask one question to the gentleman about the chart that he just had up, and that was the fact that the chart that he just had up, you are telling me that what the President has asked of his cabinet members, if I am hearing you correctly, is that they are to cut, in the next 90 days, they are to cut $100 million.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. So the other thing you are pointing out there with your chart is that would be like calling in a family that had a budget of $100,000, and they had a $34,000 shortfall--

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to make sure we understand this. They had $100,000 annual spending, they have got a $34,000 shortfall. If from what I am hearing you say, they would only have to cut $3?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. That's what I would call a drop in the bucket or a spit in the ocean or something. I mean, I can barely see the little dot from here. But that's interesting, and I wanted to show one thing, because I think that's something that everybody can get their head around is the amount of money that the President has asked his Cabinet members to save over next 90 days is equal to $3 of a family that had $100,000 spending that had a $34,000 shortfall. But to the gentleman from Missouri, this is a debt day, and debt day is when we actually start ringing things up on the charge card that we can't pay for. And so in 2002, and after we went through the 9/11, on September 2 is when we actually started charging things. We had run out of the money, and we had to start putting it on a charge card.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Yes, I am. And what I am saying, too, is that then the minority party, the Democrat party, was hollering at the loudest point saying we would have deficit spending, that we did not need to have deficit spending, we did not need to increase the debt. They were hollering about that. And then in 2003 it went to July 29 to when we actually started having to borrow money; 2004 it was July 27; 2005, August 14; 2006, August 27; 2007, September 9; 2008, August 5th, and then we come to this year.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Yes.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Absolutely. Remember we were funding the military and the war on terror or now, as it is called, the human catastrophe or something. But in 2009, this year, 2009, debt day comes next week on April 26. So imagine this, after April 26th, everything that this government does is going to be put on a charge card. After April 26th almost 160 days----

Mr. WESTMORELAND. That's next week.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Absolutely.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Well, I don't know they haven't pulled our credit card, and I think that could happen, because we are charging this on a credit card to China, to the Middle East, to foreign nations. This is not something that we are borrowing it from ourself. This is money that we are borrowing from foreign countries. So at the end of next week, all the money, all the revenues, all the revenues that's going to come into our Treasury are going to be spent, and we are going to be ringing it up on a charge card. How many families or small businesses could survive on that? There is not any. We can't do that, and that's the reason that we have given an alternative to this budget that has been proposed by the current administration. That's the reason today that we----

Mr. WESTMORELAND. In 10 years, it balances out in 10 years.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. And that's the point that we have been trying to make. It spends too much, it borrows too much, and it taxes too much.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I don't know much about the European Union, but I think that's a real wakeup call for the American people if they understand that. But I guess the whole thing that gets me is that we heard from the Blue Dogs today that the reason this budget was okay and the reason this debt was okay and the reason this deficit spending was okay was because it was the total picture. It was all put out there. And their complaint was in the past that with the deficit spending and the reason they criticized it so badly is because it was not an open process. It wasn't open, that this money had been some kind of sleight of hand. Well, I would like to ask the gentleman from Missouri or my friend from Texas, are you aware that they are including in the revenue the alternative minimum tax, $50 billion of this alternative minimum tax that we have patched that we are not even going to get? So this is revenue that they are using and spending that we're not even going to get in.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. No, they are rolling it back. But they are claiming the revenue to use in the spending as if they were going to collect the tax.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I would like to point out to my friend from Missouri and to, Mr. Speaker, anybody that, if we could talk to them, ask the people that might be watching to understand that that is deficit spending, and that's what I was talking about on this chart. That's the deficit spending that we are doing. We are borrowing the money. After April 26 we are going to be going into debt, and that's what that long line is. But what we don't realize and what's not on that chart is the amount of debt that we are accumulating. Not just the deficit spending but the amount of debt. And I believe the gentleman has got a chart there that shows the amount of debt. When I would speak to groups at home or have a townhall meeting, I used to talk about the amount of debt that our children were inheriting. I'm having to include grandchildren now and may very soon have to pick up with great grandchildren. But I think what we need to look at is what this budget does is not just look at the deficit spending but look at the amount of debt. This thing increases our debt to $14.5 trillion. And I will let the gentleman explain the chart, but as this chart points out, we are almost doubling the amount of debt that it took us 232 years to accumulate in 1 year.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. To the gentleman from Missouri, now, that is not just spending; that is accumulated debt. This is debt. This is not spending. The spending's going to be way more than that. We're doing 3.6 trillion next year. That is the amount of debt that he's adding to our national debt. And I'm not sure and I don't want to quote it, but it's a good percentage of our GDP that we are going to be in debt.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Georgia National Guard's 48th Infantry Brigade Bravo Company Second Battalion, which will soon deploy for a yearlong mission to train and mentor members of the Afghan National Army. The Bravo Company Second Battalion, based out of Newnan in Georgia's 3rd Congressional District, has trained intensely at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Fort Polk in Louisiana and Fort Stewart in southeast Georgia leading up to its deployment. These 130 U.S. soldiers will do a great job serving their nation and assisting the Afghans in building their own proud military. They bring with them to Afghanistan a wealth of expertise and battle-tested experience. Half of the soldiers deployed to Iraq in 2005-2006, a time of intense fighting with insurgents, and the unit suffered heavy losses. As today's unit carries on the fight, they remember and honor their fallen comrades. On April 13, the unit will ship off to Camp Shelby, MS, before heading to their overseas destination. I look forward to taking part in community events to see them off and give them the honor and gratitude they and their families so richly deserve. Georgians in the 3rd District are proud to have these patriots as neighbors. The soldiers of the 48th Infantry Brigade put themselves on the front lines to defend our nation and protect our freedom. The families they leave behind sacrifice just as much. We pray that God blesses their mission and watches over them until their safe return to Georgia and their loving families.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank my friend from Texas for yielding. Judge, I think what we have to look at is connecting the dots. We see in a lot of these children's puzzle books and stuff, you connect the dots to see the big picture. I think if we could see the picture of all of these dots connected, it would be hypocrisy that has come down from the Democratic leadership and we could go back to even when they first became the majority in January of 2007, because prior to that they talked about they had a way of lowering gas prices. Judge, you will remember gas prices went to over $4 a gallon in some areas. They never told us how they were going to get that down. The only way that came down was what we did in August of that year, and really exposed the energy situation for what it was. And I think the speculators finally realized that we were serious about doing something for our own energy policy. Then if you look at the problems that Mr. Rangel has had. Just to list a few, the loan-subsidized apartments that he had, the fact that he was using letterhead to solicit some of these campaign contributions, the fact that he received the money from AIG and the other people who received some of this bailout, the fact that he didn't pay his taxes, if you look at that, that is not anything in itself, but if you connect the dots with all of the other things that are going on, I think that shows a picture that they did what it took to get elected. We can look at that with what President Obama's campaign promise was, that he would drive the lobbyists out of the White House. And now he is writing waivers. It seems like every time he does an appointment, he has to write a waiver because they are a lobbyist. We have Mr. Geithner who was approved by the Senate as the Treasury Secretary who has similar tax problems. So you connect all of the dots, and what seems to be happening is we see a chain of events that may seem separate, but they are really kind of all tied together. And then if you look at what President Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said, and I can't remember the exact words, but he said never let a crisis pass without taking advantage of it. And so if you look at this financial crisis and what has happened and what has taken place, look at how they are taking advantage of it with this $3.6 trillion budget that they are proposing, with a cap-and- trade, which is another tax that is going to be on the 95 percent that he promised would never have a tax. If you look at the bonuses for AIG, well, the reason that they are getting the bonuses is because the government intervened into that business. If the government had not intervened and saved AIG, I don't know what kind of financial calamity would have been out there, but I promise you these guys wouldn't have gotten a bonus. So we enabled them to do that. So now what's the government going to do? Everybody is in an uproar over these bonuses being paid to these executives, as well they should. But now is the government going to say we have a crisis, we need to step in and intervene in contracts between employers and employees? And so this is another one of these crises, for the government to take one more step into our lives and into our businesses. So this is a connect-the-dot picture that we have got to keep in mind. This is a lot bigger than what we ever anticipated or that the American people would think that they were getting. Mr. Daschle was another one. Ron Kirk. We could go on. Ms. Waters, and others. Judge, has the Ethics Committee met, because if I remember correctly back in November, Speaker Pelosi said that she was going to have this Rangel problem resolved by the end of December of 2008. I guess she did that for the elections, but it is not resolved yet, and I have not even heard of them having a hearing.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Can I interrupt the gentleman? It's not the last 60 days, this is his first 60 days.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I thank my friend from Texas. You were talking about Wall Street, the large banks that got the bulk of this TARP money. Our local community banks and some of the smaller banks did not get this. And the whole reason that this Congress--and I didn't vote for it, but I think a reason that the people that did were sold a bill of goods by then Secretary Paulson that this was going to unfreeze the credit market, but it has not done that. And what has happened to the FDIC--and I'm not sure if the gentleman has heard this yet, but I had some of my local bankers call me, going from $100,000 to $250,000, their premiums are going up. That is the way the FDIC is funded is through premiums on this deposit guarantee. And so they are going up on the premium. And so now they are not only having to pay a high premium on $100,000, but the high premium on $250,000. But here's the kicker; they are going to be charged a one- time fee from the FDIC on their deposits--I think it is, or their assets. To my friend from Texas, I was told today by somebody in our Georgia banking community that if you took all the profits of all the banks in Georgia and added it together, the fees that these banks were going to be charged would be more than the money that they made all last year. Now, that is a double whammy on the small community banks that have been basically responsible for funding our small businesses in our communities that have not had access to this TARP money. So what has happened is the big banks and the FDIC and the others who have let this situation get way out of hand are here again sticking their money down and getting the investors and the shareholders from these local banks their money. And these banks are owned by local people. I know we're getting short on time, but I want to thank you for doing this. And I think we need to remember that we need to continue not only with some of these ethics that you brought up, but we need to connect all these dots and get the clear picture of where this new administration and this larger majority is trying to take this country.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank my friend from Louisiana for hosting this hour tonight and giving us a time to come talk to each other and the American people to give them an idea and maybe be able to connect some of the dots of what has been going on in this Chamber for the last 50-plus days of the new administration that we have. What we have seen in the gentleman's chart where it talks about small business and investors, $636 billion in tax increases on small business. And with that, a small business, a Subchapter S, if they make over $250,000--and if you're in business, you need to make that so you can reinvest in your company--they are taxed as individuals. So, this is a big tax increase. And the interesting part is that yesterday, President Obama came out with a $15 billion small business loan program which, if my figures are correct, is about 2.5 percent of the amount that he is going to increase the taxes on small business. Then the other startling thing when we started looking at this $15 billion--and I want to commend the President for doing the $15 billion and trying to help small businesses after he is burying them in this additional tax burden--but only 5 percent of the small businesses, only 5 percent of the small businesses get their loans from the SBA. So it means the other 95 percent get their loans from their community banks, their local banks. As the gentleman from Louisiana might remember, one of the reasons that this huge stimulus package or bank bailout bill, there has been so many of them I get confused, but one of the reasons the bank bailout bill was done was to unfreeze the credit market. Well, within 2 days after the bill passed in both Chambers, then-Secretary Paulson took a different track and decided to bail out some of these investment houses on Wall Street. And we can see how that has turned out. But credit was never unfrozen. And so these small businesses are hurting because their community banks can't loan them the money that it takes to make their payroll or do new investment or really just keep their business running. So what we see is that now, all of a sudden, the government is saying, well, we will make this loan available to you through the SBA. What that does is, it says, we will decide who gets the loans. In other words, it gives the government the ability to pick the winners and losers of who is going to be able to get these government- backed small business loans. It takes the ability away from these community banks. They don't have the money to lend as a result of the mark-to-market rules and the other rules that have come down because of the catastrophe that we have had on Wall Street. Their assets, their loanable product and their cash reserves have gone down because of the mark-to-market rules. And so they don't have the money to loan to these small businesses in their own community. If you have a nail shop or a barber shop or an auto repair facility, that community banker knows that community and your ability to repay that loan better than anybody else. But now you're going to have to jump through all the hoops and the red tape that the government has in trying to get an SBA loan. And they will be the ones to pick the winners and losers, rather than the people in the community itself. So I think you have to look at the big picture of what all of this means. We look at the charitable contributions. If you make over $250,000 a year, which these small business guys will, you can only deduct your charitable contributions or your home mortgage up to 28 percent of your taxable income. Well, what does that mean? Well, the government said, well, the reason we are doing that is because we had money for the charities in the stimulus bill. So what happens? Now, the government is picking the winners and the losers in the charity business. They are not wanting us to be able to take our money and do the things that we normally did with it. We gave to the United Way or to our church or to an overseas ministry or wherever it was, where we wanted our money to go. Now the government is saying, ``no, we are going to limit your ability to do that. We will take care of that for you. We will take your tax dollars and we will reward and give to the charities that we want to give to.'' So you can see the gentleman from Louisiana has greatly explained the cap-and-trade which is going to be a tax on everybody that uses energy. I don't think the American people are going to continue to buy that 95 percent of the people are not going to have a tax increase. That is a misrepresentation. Because if we do the cap-and-trade, everybody that uses energy--and as far as I know, everybody in this country uses some sort of energy--is going to pay more for that energy. That is a direct tax increase. So I want to thank the gentleman for hosting this Special Order. And I will sit down now and let some of your other friends and my friends get up and talk and continue the conversation.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, what we have before us is a rule on the Water Quality Investment Act, a rule sent to the floor by a committee the Speaker of the House controls, a Speaker who speaks often about the need for climate change legislation. To that end, the Speaker of the House, Ms. Pelosi, went before the American people in February of 2007 and repeatedly disputed a report that her office requested a larger, fossil fuel burning military plane than has ever been used by a Speaker before. The type of plane which she denied requesting is exactly the type of plane that most certainly has a negative impact on our environment and the quality of water, the bill that is before us today under this structured rule. In fact, the Speaker went so far as to say in her rebuttal, ``We didn't ask for a larger plane, period.'' However, earlier this week, prior to the consideration of this rule we have before us now, new e-mail evidence was revealed that contradicts the Speaker's public statements from 2 years ago. These e- mails between the Speaker's staff and the Department of Defense show that it was the Speaker's office that requested the larger plane, not once but repeatedly. While we are considering legislation today to provide quality water to the American people, I think we should also note for the American people that spending their taxpayer dollars on a luxurious plane for Speaker Pelosi could negatively impact the environment and our quality of water. But even if you disagree with me on that, you should be troubled by these new facts. These newly reported facts contradict the Speaker's prior statement, possibly jeopardizing the faith of the American people, who we are here today representing and trying to help with this water quality bill. Most alarmingly, a member of the Speaker's staff threatened a wartime budget of the Defense Department, implying that unless the Speaker's demands for personal luxuries were met, the defense budget itself would be placed in jeopardy. This is a department that has spent many resources developing and promoting clean water technology, like this bill before us today purports to do. What did the Speaker know and when did she know it? The American people deserve the truth, something that this uncovered e-mail evidence shows the Speaker has not been telling them.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

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

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, is it the Chair's responsibility to call the vote?