Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, just a few minutes ago the House passed a budget that puts this body on record as effectively turning our back on future generations, saddling our children and grandchildren with mounting deficits and debt, with no end in sight.
The majority's management of this Nation's finances has resulted in more than $2.2 trillion in additional debt since 2001. With this budget, the majority party has made a bad problem worse.
Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency are in total command of our economy. The majority continues to talk about fiscal responsibility, about waste, about fraud, and about the abuse of the American people's money. Yet they have proposed a budget that is fundamentally dishonest, a budget that omits the cost of the war in Iraq and masks the costs that we will incur down the road as the deficit continues to explode.
Our men and women in uniform sacrifice each day. They leave behind their jobs and their families, often on very short notice, and at great personal and financial cost. Unfortunately, too many of them have made the ultimate sacrifice for this Nation. Yet this Congress continues to demonstrate a complete lack of fortitude to ask the American people to also make a sacrifice during this time of war; and it has the indignity to ask our children to bear the burden alone.
For years, members of the Blue Dog Coalition have warned that we were spending money we did not have; that the administration had no economic plan; and that tax cuts were not a substitute for an economic program for our country's future; but the majority in Congress continue to reject our budget reform proposals, efforts to budget in the same way that your family and mine do, by paying as you go.
This year the Blue Dog Coalition developed a clear 12-step plan to put our fiscal house back in order by restoring discipline and accountability to the budget process. A few days ago, a proposal to include 11 of these 12 steps in the budget resolution was wholly rejected by the majority in the House Committee on Rules.
By rejecting consideration of the Blue Dog reforms, the majority turned its back on the call to return to some measure of fiscal discipline. Since no debate was permitted, I would like to take this opportunity to share some of the key features of this plan with the American people.
The Blue Dog 12-point reform plan embraces the first rule of holes: when you find yourself in one, stop digging. Our plan takes the shovel away from Congress by imposing tough new rules to restrain congressional spending. The plan also stops Congress from buying on credit and restores PAYGO, strongly supported by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
The Blue Dog plan also puts a lid on spending by holding down discretionary spending to the levels proposed by the President in this year's budget. It closes a giant loophole that allows almost any spending to be designated an emergency by requiring Congress to have a separate vote on items designated as such.
Every day, I hear from my constituents who ask me where are their tax dollars going. The Blue Dog plan nswers this call with a number of commonsense reforms to keep the taxpayers better educated about where their hard-earned dollars go.
The plan says that if Congress wants to increase the national debt we should do it completely out in the open with a separate vote. The plan says that if Congress wants to call for more than $50 million in new spending, that bill gets a roll call vote. It says if Congress wants to push through earmarks for pet projects we should require clear written justification for those projects.
Madam Speaker, this year's deficit is projected to be at much as $589 billion, not counting the Social Security surplus, almost 5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. By 2009 interest payments alone on our national debt will exceed what we spend on discretionary spending on national parks, public schools, fire fighters, law enforcement and our veterans.
We owe it to the American people to stop imperiling the Nation's economic future by borrowing money to pay for irresponsible policies.
Yesterday the Judiciary Committee on which I sit spent an entire day working on the massive bankruptcy bill. During the debate revolving around issues of debt and finances, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle often talked about the importance of personal responsibility.
If your family or mine budgeted in the same way this House demonstrated today, we would all go bankrupt. Our constituents know exactly what it is like to balance a checkbook at the end of each month and at the end of the year. It is now time for the majority to exercise some of the personal responsibility they are so fond of and balance our Nation's books.