Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, we had in the past decade the fiscal discipline to continue paying down the national debt of this country. Although there is much debate about what credit the previous administration ought to have for the incredible economic successes of the last decade, I think it is plain that one of the most significant things that that administration did was get our fiscal house in order; was continue paying down our national debt; was maintaining the discipline that kept interest rates low; that made homeownership possible for hundreds and thousands of families across this country that had never enjoyed the benefits of homeownership, by allowing them to have mortgage payments that they could make by keeping their families together under one roof.
Our successes I think over this last decade are owing in some strong measure to that discipline. Now that discipline is never easy to maintain. It is not easy to maintain when times are difficult when we would rather spend the money on programs that will help people that are hurting in this country. It is not easy to maintain that discipline in the good times.
One of the things that I admire about the Blue Dogs and the reason that I joined, as a new Member of this Congress, the Blue Dogs is that they have consistently fought in good times and hard times not to lose sight of the need to pay down this debt in this country.
The surplus that we are enjoying is our surplus, the American people's surplus. The debt that hangs over our heads is the American people's debt. More accurately, much of the surplus that we enjoy is owing to the people that went before us, to our parents' generation who made the sacrifices, who built the universities, the roadways, the waterways, the infrastructure in this country that made this period of prosperity possible.
It is their money as much as our generation's. It is their Social Security and their Medicare that are underfunded.
We talk about a surplus in Social Security. Well, I suppose if we look at today, we can call it that. But if we look at the 75-year life of Social Security, what at the moment looks like a surplus over 30 years or over 75 years looks like a $30 trillion deficit.
Maybe we should be talking about the Social Security deficit. What are we going to do about that? The only plan we have for dealing with Social Security solvency is the abstract idea that we will come together on some reform in the future. We do not know what that reform is going to look like. We do not know what the reform of Medicare is going to look like. We do not know, as we stand here today, what the budget looks like.
Yet, here we are making plans for tax expenditures over the next decade and beyond based on projections of the surplus that may or may not materialize, that even the people who gave us those projections say are at best informed guesses about the future; and we are ready to bet the farm on those guesses when we have no plan for Social Security and Medicare.
So I became a member of the Blue Dogs because they are committed to making sure we maintain the discipline in good times and in bad times to pay down that debt, that we consider that we are, not only talking about our parents' generation, the people who made this prosperity possible, but we are talking about our children as well and their future. Because, while it is the American people's surplus and the American people's debt, it is our children's future that we are talking about. If that debt goes on, if that debt grows, it is not you and I who will pay it. It is our children and their children.
So here today we have to talk about those that will come after and think about those who come after while we stand so ready to take credit for surpluses that will not materialize for 5 or 10 years.
Now, we have a tax plan; and we will have a major tax cut this year, and we should. And we should. The question is how large should that tax cut be? How large prudently can it be?
What I think we ought to be debating just as vigorously, though, that I hear so little about in this Congress and this administration is what is our economic plan. Tax policy is simply one part of an economic plan and the economists say not even the most significant part. There are limitations to what we can do with fiscal policy in terms of our economy.
Now we lost massive, multitrillion dollar equity in the stock market this week. There are a lot of Americans very concerned about the downturn in this economy and what it means to their families. Many thousands of Americans have already lost their jobs.
What is the economic plan of the administration and the Congress? How does this tax proposal fit into that plan? The reality is there is no plan. There is no plan.
It is far more important that we focus here and now on what we can do to turn around these recent downturn signs, that we can put ourselves back on the road of incredible prosperity which we have traveled down for the last 8 years. We have to start focusing on the economy and what is our economic plan.
So I urge the Congress and all Americans, let us turn our attention together in a bipartisan way, in a bipartisan tradition that the Blue Dogs represent to finding a tax cut that works for all of the American people that is the size that we can afford that does not squander the investment that our parents made, and their Social Security and Medicare and does not squander the investment that we owe our children in good schools and in their future and in low mortgages and giving them the American dream of homeownership.
Let us work together across party lines and do what is right for this country over the long term.
(break)
Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me a little time at the end of the afternoon.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to condemn a deplorable act that has taken place halfway around the world with repercussions on our ability to protect the world's heritage and to preserve world history for future generations.
On February 26 of this year, the Taliban ordered the destruction of pre-Islamic statues in Afghanistan, among them a pair of massive Buddhas carved out of a mountainside and towering over 100 feet. Two days ago, on March 12, UNESCO's special envoy to Afghanistan confirmed what the international community feared most, the complete destruction of the 1,600-year-old statues in the Bamiyan province.
In the words of UNESCO chief Koichiro Matsuura, "It is abominable to witness the cold and calculated destruction of cultural properties which were the heritage of the Afghan people and, indeed, of the whole of humanity.''
I have introduced a resolution condemning the Taliban's destruction of pre-Islamic statues in Afghanistan and calling for the immediate access for UNESCO representatives to survey the damage. House Concurrent Resolution 52 sends a strong message that religious intolerance of any kind is unacceptable and must immediately be stopped.
One of the most cosmopolitan regions in the world at one time and host to merchants, travelers, and artists from China, Central Asia and the Roman Empire, today Afghanistan is one of the most repressive and intolerant countries in the world as a result of the actions of its ruling Taliban faction. The destruction was ordered and carried out for fear that those ancient statues may be used for idol worship. Destroying those unique creations which had withstood the test of time and the elements of nature on the basis of an irrational fear motivated by intolerance of other cultures and religions is simply unacceptable.
The destruction of the pre-Islamic statues also contradicts the basic tenet of Islam that requires tolerance of other religions. People of all faiths and nationalities, including Muslim communities around the world, condemn the destruction of these statues which were part of the common heritage of mankind. It is imperative we join the people and governments around the world in condemning the senseless act of destruction of our joint cultural heritage and call on the Taliban regime to immediately cease and desist any further destruction of other pre-Islamic relics.