Speaking The Truth: Opposing Untrue Statements About The Budget

Floor Speech

SPEAKING THE TRUTH: OPPOSING UNTRUE STATEMENTS ABOUT THE BUDGET -- (House of Representatives - July 16, 2007)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, this weekend I noticed one of my colleagues in the majority on the Senate side on Fox News Sunday discussing our Nation's Iraq policy. In his conversation with Brit Hume he asserted that our Iraq policy was a failure because of limited progress on the political front in Iraq.

Mr. Hume challenged him on this point by pointing out that progress has been made recently in other areas of Iraq. Mr. Hume noted that if a lack of political progress in Iraq was the only thing that mattered, then couldn't people call the Democrats a failure because of their dismal record on enacting their priorities this session of Congress? The Senator from Michigan responded by drumming up a list of Democrat success, the first of which I find to be entirely dubious.

He attempted to prove that the majority party has not been a complete failure by first saying the Democrats have adopted a budget for the first time in years.

Mr. Hume had asked him, ``My understanding is that you got the minimum wage increase, but nothing else passed. Does that make you a failure?''

The Senator responded, ``Well, no, because it is not true. There is a lot of things that have passed. For the first time in years we have adopted a budget.''

I am not sure if he has been in the same Congress that I have been serving in. He makes it look like it has been years since we passed a budget, and that is simply not true. In 2005, a budget resolution passed the House and the Senate as well as a conference report. In 2006 a budget resolution also passed the House and the Senate without an accompanying conference report.

So I am a little confused as to where the Senator is getting his facts. Unfortunately, Mr. Hume did not catch the untrue statement. As a result, the millions of Americans watching the popular Sunday news program were led to believe that somehow the fact that the majority has adopted a budget resolution was an unusual feat, unseen for years in Congress. I wish to set the record straight.

Some people might wonder why I call attention to this. My reasoning is simple: The truth matters. When we allow untrue statements to enter the public record, we have allowed the public to be led astray. Those to whom we are accountable deserve so much better. The American people deserve the whole truth, the whole picture, not half truths or dodgy statements intended to cloud a less than stellar record of accomplishment.

I will give the Senator from Michigan the benefit the doubt. Maybe he really thought that it has been years since Congress adopted a budget. But if that is the case we have an equally large problem; he can't keep his facts straight. Both problems serve to mislead the American people.

Fortunately, at this point I don't think the American people have been too misled. They know that this majority has quickly established itself as the party of broken promises. Recent polls tell the whole story. Since taking office, the majority's job approval ratings have taken a nosedive. It is not a temporary dip either. Ever since January, their approval ratings have consistently trended negative, dropping from 37 percent to a low of 23 percent. These sorts of ratings are so low that they have even turned heads in Washington, where unpopularity in the polls seems to be a way of life. I will submit for the Record a chart showing the plummeting of the Democrat job approval.

But I am concerned about the public dialogue at stake. If Congressional leaders can't be trusted with the basic facts and insist on creating a track record of truth distortion and promise breaking, I see it as my duty to voice opposition. Even if I am the only one raising the alarm, I will continue to call for integrity in all aspects of public life, and especially in that most important of arenas, communicating with the American people.

The facts are important. The American people deserve the respect that comes with not taking liberties with the facts.

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