Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2005

TRANSPORTATION, TREASURY, AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005 -- (House of Representatives - September 21, 2004)

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Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for offering this amendment. I thank him for his extraordinary leadership on the issue of fiscal responsibility in this country.

My presumption is that every conservative in the House of Representatives will vote for this. The President talked about who is conservative and who is liberal. It is conservative to be fiscally responsible.

Like the gentleman from Texas, I have supported a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. I am for investing in programs that I think help America, but I am for spending money that we have, and I am not for spending money that we do not have.

Quite simply, his amendment would force our Republican friends to come to grips with their irresponsible fiscal policies. They talk about balancing the budget, but they have not had a bill vetoed by this President that spent more money than we had, period; not one, not ever. And they are going to spend all of Social Security funds, they are going to spend all of the money that they borrow.

Just two months after taking office, President Bush promised the American people, "We will pay off $2 trillion of debt over the next decade." He explained, quoting again, "Future generations should not be forced to pay back money that we have borrowed."

Amen, Mr. President. Why do you not practice what you preach?

Well, Mr. Chairman, the President and Congressional Republicans have run rough-shod over that rhetoric. They did not pay down the debt in 2002; they increased the debt limit by $450 billion. They did not pay down the debt in 2003; they increased the debt limit without a straight up or down vote, which they always demanded when they were in the minority, they increased it by $984 billion.

When I came to Congress, the entire debt from 1789 to 1981 was $985 billion, just $1 billion more than we raised it last year alone. Now the Treasury Secretary is back for more. He warns that the national debt will exceed the statutory debt limit, now $7.384 trillion, later this month or in October. As a result, our Republican friends desperately want the Treasury Department to temporarily dip into the retirement funds of Federal employees to avoid breaching the debt limit, for which they wanted to impeach Bob Rubin. What short memories they have.

Very simply, Mr. Chairman, the Stenholm amendment would prohibit the Secretary from doing that.

Mr. Chairman, the Republican party can run, but it cannot hide, from the debt disaster that its economic policies have caused. None of us will allow the United States to default on its obligations; none of us. But let us show some courage. If the debt limit must be increased, we should vote on it in the open, up or down.

I urge my colleagues to vote for the Stenholm amendment.