Where is Oversight & Accountability? Transcript: Congressional Record July 11, 2006

Mr. DAVIS of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to be here today to talk about our wonderful country. I have traveled some recently, and as I have traveled to other areas, basically in the war zone in Afghanistan and Iraq, I realize one of the greatest blessings I have had was at birth. I was born in America, and to be an American citizen as a result of that, with all the hopes and all the opportunities and options of life any human being could expect to be given in this country. Some of those opportunities are, for folks like me, who live in a rural area, in a very small area, lowly populated, that one could also have an opportunity to run for Congress; and I took that opportunity in 2002 and ran and was elected.

I came to Washington knowing what the challenges were. I came to Washington realizing that a lot of times we see and hear a lot of smoke and mirrors, that transparency seems to be something that doesn't exist a whole lot, but I didn't really think we were going to hear of some of the things that have happened in this Congress.

The lack of oversight, the lack of hearings on how we spend our money, the lack of hearings on the war in Iraq, and the lack of hearings on virtually anything. We are almost shut down unless it happens to be the idea of the majority in this Congress. Debate is limited to just what they choose to talk about.

That is not the America I knew growing up. That is not the America I want us to have today. So I want to talk some about fiscal irresponsibility.

For years I heard Democrats being called tax and spend liberal Democrats. It became a buzzword, something that most folks didn't like, including me. But after I got here, I realized we needed to change that phrase. It needed to be changed to borrow and spend liberals, borrow and spend liberals, and mismanagement and spend liberals. Those are Republicans that I am talking about folks, not Democrats. Because during the Clinton administration when President Clinton left office in 2001, the deficit of this Nation was a little over $5 trillion. Today it is $8.4 trillion.

Also the Clinton administration gave this President over $230 billion in surplus that could be used to start paying down the debt. Let's take $200 billion in surplus. Over the last 5 years, that is a trillion dollars we could have paid down on our debts. Instead, what have we done? We have gone from $5.3 trillion to $8.4 trillion. That is a $3.1 trillion increase.

Just think, if we had managed government as it was managed during the 1990s, with budget restraints in place, similar to the ones that the Blue Dogs are trying to get passed, those 12-point items, think of where we would be today if we continued with $230 billion in surplus. We would be $1.25 trillion less in debt. We would now owe a little over $4 trillion instead of $8.4 trillion.

Whose fault is it? It is the mismanagement of this group. How is that the case? Because during the Clinton administration, during the last years it was 18.4 percent in gross domestic product that was being spent at that time under the budget restraints that we lived under, pay as you go. Today it is 20.1 percent, the gross domestic product.

Let me repeat those figures. The last year of the Clinton administration, it was 18.4 percent of the gross domestic product that America was spending on government. In this administration for the last 5 years, it has grown, the gross domestic product, numbers have increased obviously because we have seen the gross domestic product increase, but the number is 20.1 percent.

Does that tell you that somebody is fiscally conservative? It doesn't to me. Folks talk about commonsense approaches. Commonsense to me is the application of knowledge based upon your experiences of life.

We have too many blue blood trust fund owners in this Chamber that don't understand how to manage money. If you have that trust fund, you don't need to worry about where your next dollar is coming from. It is coming from the labors and fruits of your parents or grandparents and the blue blood trust fund boys and girls in here don't know how to figure out how to balance the budget. Some of us have had to work all of our lives, and we know when you spend that hard-earned tax dollar of those that we are extracting it from, that it is a sacrifice from them.

It is my hope that this Congress wises up and stops being as partisan as they quite frankly have been and start addressing the issues in a transparent way with oversight and accountability.

Ms. BEAN of Illinois...

Mr. DAVIS of Tennessee. So what you are saying is that we need an audit of America, just like we would our businesses.

Ms. BEAN...

Mr. DAVIS of Tennessee. I agree with Congressman Tanner on that. Just audit America and we will figure out what the problems are.

Mr. BOYD of Florida...

Mr. DAVIS of Tennessee. When you talk about our national defense, I want to talk about Iraq. In Iraq, the maximum petroleum that was being produced in Iraq was 3.5 million barrels a day. That is over a billion barrels a year. At $70 a barrel, it has been running $60 to $70 a barrel for the last year almost, you are talking about $60 billion to $70 billion. Where is that money going, Mr. President? Where is that money going, Mr. Secretary of Defense? Where is that money being spent? Are we producing that as we told the American public we would be?

I understand it is down to a million and a half barrels; but even at that, we are still talking in terms of $30 billion to $40 billion. Why are we still sending money to help rebuild Iraq?

I think there are many things that we need oversight on, and the mismanagement that we are seeing of this administration and of this Congress is something that every American ought to be screaming about today.

Mr. ROSS of Arkansas...

Mr. DAVIS of Tennessee. We call this the Blue Dog Coalition, not Blue Dog Democrats. We are all Democrats, but we invite the Republicans to join us so we can bring some sense to this fiscal irresponsibility. I hope some Republicans will join this coalition because it is not limited just to Democrats. Most Blue Dogs are conservative Democrats, at least when it comes to fiscal matters. And we are also hawks on defense spending, so we invite Republicans to join us.