As you walk the Halls of Congress, Mr. Speaker, it is easy to know when you are walking by the office of a member of the fiscally conservative, Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, because you will see this poster in the hallway as not only a welcome mat to that Blue Dog member's office, but to remind Members of Congress and the American people on a daily basis that our country is in a fiscal mess.

   In fact, today, the U.S. national debt is $8,827,851,749,695, and I ran out of room, Mr. Speaker, but you could add a quarter on to that, 25 cents. You divide that enormous number by every man, woman and child in America, and every one of us, our share of the national debt is $29,262. It is what I commonly refer to as the debt tax, D-E-B-T tax, which is one tax that cannot go away until we get our Nation's fiscal house in order.

   The Federal deficit is something we don't have to have, Mr. Speaker. In fact, from 1998 through 2001 our Nation enjoyed a surplus. We had a balanced budget. We lived within our means. That was under President Clinton. He was the first Democrat or Republican to give us a balanced budget in some 30 or 40 years. And the economy was doing pretty good when there was no deficit and when we had a balanced budget.

   We all remember those days, how the stock market performed. People had good-paying jobs with good benefits. Many of those jobs today have been shifted to places like China and Mexico and India. It is true that most of the folks have gone on and found other work, but if you really research it and look at it, they have found lesser-paying jobs with lesser benefits or, in many cases, no benefits at all.

   In fact, this is Cover the Uninsured Week, Mr. Speaker. Forty-eight million people in America are without health insurance tonight. Who are they? It is not the people that can't work or don't want to work. They qualify for Medicaid, which is health insurance for the poor, disabled, and elderly. It is not our seniors. They are provided coverage through Medicare, which is the only health insurance plan most seniors have to stay healthy and get well.

   So who are these 48 million people? It is the folks in this country, working families, Mr. Speaker, that are trying to do the right thing and stay off welfare, but they are working the jobs with no benefits. Ten million of them are children. One in five children will go to bed tonight in America hungry. Ten million will go to bed tonight without health insurance. This is America, and I believe that we have a duty and an obligation to find a way to ensure that health care is affordable, available and accessible for all of God's children and for all of us here in America.

   As long as we have got this type of debt and this type of deficit, it is going to be difficult to meet that challenge, as well as others.

   The total national debt from 1789 to 2000 was $5.67 trillion; but by 2010, under this administration, the total national debt will have increased to $10.88 trillion. Mr. Speaker, that is a doubling of the 211-year debt in just 10 years. In just one decade.

   Interest payments on this debt are one of the fastest growing parts of the Federal budget. In fact, Mr. Speaker, we will spend more of your tax money this year paying interest on the national debt than we will spend on educating our children, providing health care and other benefits to our veterans, and, yes, we will spend more money paying interest on the national debt this year than we will spend protecting our homeland through the Department of Homeland Security.

   So many of America's priorities are going unmet. Why? Because this town and this Congress and this administration for the past 6 years have given us record deficit after record deficit, record debt after record debt, to the extent that today, today our Nation is borrowing about $1 billion a day. But what is even more alarming than that is before we borrow $1 billion today, we will spend half a billion dollars paying interest on the debt we already have.

I represent a very rural district in south Arkansas, in the western half of Arkansas. Half of the 29 counties I represent, nearly half of them, are located in what is referred to as the Delta region of this country, one of the poorest regions of America.

   We have hope in that area by investing in alternative renewable fuels like ethanol by biodiesel, creating new jobs for our working families and new markets for our farm families and our landowners through cellulosic ethanol, taking the slash, the treetops and the limbs, what is left down in the woods and giving it a value and finding a use for that.

   Another way for us to accomplish those things, our government must invest in research and development for cellulosic ethanol. Our government must invest more in research and development for alternative and renewable fuels. The real tragedy is that we will send the Iraqis more money in the next 8 hours than we will spend on research and development for alternative renewable fuels in the next 365 days. That is one example of why the deficit and the debt do matter.

   A half a billion dollars a day going to pay interest on the national debt. We could build 200 brand-new elementary schools every single day in America just on the interest that we are paying on the national debt. In southeast Arkansas, we have great hope in Interstate 69, an interstate under construction, sort of. It was announced in Indianapolis 5 years before I was born, that was 50 years ago, and with the exception of 40 miles in Kentucky and a stretch just south of Memphis, none of it has been built south of Indianapolis in 50 years, and yet we have great hope that this road can create jobs and economic opportunities for the people in the Delta region. We need $1.5 billion to finish it.

   For a country boy from Prescott and Emmet and Hope, Arkansas, I can tell you that is a staggering amount. But when you look at it this way, we will spend more money paying interest on the national debt in the next 3 days than what it would take to build Interstate 69.

   On the western side of my district, there is great hope for Interstate 49. We need about $2 billion to finish it, again a staggering number until you look at it this way: We will spend more money in the next 4 days paying interest on the national debt than what it would take to complete Interstate 49, which would provide the first and only interstate quarter through the middle of the United States of America.

   So until this Congress starts standing up to this administration and saying ``no'' to these irresponsible budgets, America's priorities will continue to go unmet.

   I am proud to tell you that under this new Democratic majority, they are listening to the 43 of us in the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dogs. For the last 6 years, we reached out to the Republicans on the other side of the aisle and asked to work with them on a budget that made sense for the American people. We were told that they didn't need us.

   Mr. Speaker, I believe the American people are sick and tired of all of the partisan bickering that goes on in our Nation's Capital. For members of the Blue Dog Coalition, we don't care if it is a Republican or Democrat idea, we want to know if it is a commonsense idea, and does it make sense for the people back home who sent us here to be their voice.

   So the Republican leadership turned a deaf ear to us for the past 6 years while they were in power. The American people decided to give the Democrats a chance at being in the majority this past November. I am proud to tell you that we didn't have to offer up a Blue Dog budget this year. Why? Because the new Democratic majority listened to the Blue Dogs and included our key provisions that can restore commonsense fiscal discipline and accountability to our government.

   So we are beginning through the budget that passed on the floor of this House just a few weeks ago, we are beginning to develop a path that over time, in fact by 2012, Mr. Speaker, can get us back to the days we had under President Clinton of a balanced budget in this country.

   Why do deficits matter? They matter because they reduce economic growth, they burden our children and grandchildren with liabilities. Again, the debt tax, D-E-B-T, is $29,262 for every man, woman and child in America, and they increase our reliance on foreign lenders who now own 40 percent of our debt.

   This President, this administration and, for the past 6 years, this Republican-led Congress up until January borrowed more money from foreign central banks and foreign investors than the previous 42 Presidents combined. You want to talk about a risk to a national security, there is one for you.

   We have got a lot of active Members within the Blue Dogs who come to Washington and stand up and proudly proclaim that they are conservative Democrats with a commonsense vision for the United States. I am absolutely delighted to be joined this evening by several of them. At this time I would yield to an active Member within the Blue Dog Coalition, the gentleman from Colorado.