Today's national debt is $9,169,206,830,867 and some change. For every man, woman and child in America, their share of the national debt, $30,205.

   As you walk the halls of Congress, Madam Speaker, as you walk the halls of the Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn House Office Buildings, you will easily know when you're walking by the door of a fellow Blue Dog member because you will see this poster that reminds us of the national debt, as well as your share.

   This evening we want to talk about PAYGO. It's an acronym for pay-as-you-go, and basically there was a lot made to do about the first 100 legislative hours in this new Democratic majority. Well, the 47 of us in the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition were proud of what we were able to accomplish in this first legislative hour under this new Democratic majority, and that was reinstating the PAYGO rules, which means pay-as-you-go. If you have got a new program you want to fund, you've got to show us how you're going to pay for it. If you want to cut a tax, you've got to show us how you're going to pay for it.

   The business of borrowing money from China to fund programs and tax cuts in this country are over, and we want to thank the new Democratic leadership for their commitment, their commitment not to bring a bill to this floor that's not paid for.

   At this time to talk more about this issue and a lot of talk about AMT, the alternative minimum tax is going to touch a lot more people this year. We want to protect those people. We want to make sure they're not taxed, but we also want to make sure that that bill that comes to this floor is paid for. It doesn't make sense to protect people from taxes if we're simply borrowing the money from China and then asking our children and grandchildren to foot the bill.

   That's why I was very disappointed last week when the Senate voted 88-5 to fix the AMT. They took the easy way out. It wasn't paid for. The Senate's plan borrows $50 billion just for this year, $50 billion from China to pay for a fix to the alternative minimum tax. We have a plan in the House not only to fix it but to pay for it, and we voted for that a couple of weeks ago on the House floor and we're going to vote on it again this week.