Providing for Consideration of H. Con. Res. 312, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2009

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H. CON. RES. 312, CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009 -- (House of Representatives - March 12, 2008)

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Mr. DOGGETT. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, some folks think that President Bush's term ends on January 20, 2009. Many Americans have a big red circle or a happy face on their calendar already on that date, or perhaps on their key chains, and their watches that tick down ever so slowly, backwards toward that happy time.

But while President Bush may be gone from the White House in 314 days, this administration and its congressional enablers have done so much damage that generations of American families will be footing the bill for their fiscal recklessness, with compounded interest, long, long after President Bush retires to Texas. This administration has consistently chosen to sacrifice long-term fiscal stability on the altar of political expediency. They have offered the ``free lunch'' plan, the ``pain-free'' solution to almost every challenge that our country has encountered. And the greatest sacrifice that they have demanded at a time of national peril for most Americans is to tell them to ``go shopping''.

Well, this administration has now created a record $3 trillion of additional national debt on its own during the Bush years. What would even just one of those trillions of dollars of debt have accomplished had it been expended in a more appropriate manner?

One trillion, that's millions of public school teachers; that's health care for hundreds of million children; that's university scholarships for millions of students. And in Iraq, this administration this week, every week, week after week, month after month, year after year, $3 billion. With the cost of the war in Iraq in 2 weeks, we could pay for the entire cancer budget of the National Institutes of Health for a year. Showering tax breaks on the richest, the most privileged few, while hemorrhaging $12 billion every month in Iraq, this administration has created more than a Federal deficit; it has created deficits, opportunity deficits, for millions of American families.

The administration's failure to address our educational needs means that there's an opportunity deficit, that millions of young people are not able to achieve their full God-given potential because of the lack of support at both the public education level and for student financial assistance.

The failure of the Bush administration to address our health care problems means a health care deficit for millions of American families, the largest single cause of personal bankruptcy in America today, the health care crisis.

And the failure of the Bush administration to address our energy deficit, that is a deficit that every American feels at the pump when they get all their money taken out of their pocket and shifted over to some tyrant in an oil-producing area. The cost of the Bush administration's budget approach, their fiscal failure, is felt the most by those, who are least able to bear it: our students, our uninsured, our minimum wage workers, the elderly, and small business owners.

This Democratic budget attempts to bail out, to bail us all out. But it's mighty hard to keep this country afloat and keep our families afloat when the administration is still so busy drilling holes in the bottom of the boat.

I urge support for the rule and support for the Democratic budget as the best hope we have to do that in this difficult time.

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