Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, next week the Republicans have discovered that we are awash in a sea of red ink, supposedly. Under the Bush watch, with the Republicans in charge of both Houses of Congress, the national debt has increased by 62 percent, to $8 trillion in 5 short years, quite an accomplishment. We are borrowing $1.3 billion a day to run the government. If we eliminated everything the government does except for homeland security and defense, we would still have a deficit.

They say they are going to make some infinitesimal cuts and little phony baloney and that is fiscal responsibility. Let us talk about what they are proposing to cut.

Well, the biggest whack they are taking is at students. They do not know any students who have to borrow money or get scholarships to go to school. Why, the children of the rich, they just write out a check and pay cash; they are legacy students at the best schools. $14.3 billion of additional costs on students who want to borrow a little money to get a better education and get ahead, doubling the origination fee, costing them as much as $6,000 over the life of their loans.

Kids are graduating with mountains of debt. That is a responsible cut, according to the Republicans. Well then there are those little guys in the elementary and secondary schools who are eating too much. They are eating too much. They are going to cut back on the school nutrition program and the breakfast program and the eligibility of poor kids to eat.

They are just eating too much. They do not know anybody who is hungry in this country. And then the phony baloney. I am on the Resources Committee. They are assuming over $3 billion for leasing the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, 50 times as much per acre as the Naval Petroleum Reserve was just leased for, where there is known oil, in an area where there is no known oil.

So we got phony baloney and mean spirited cuts. Now, why? Are they really fiscally responsible? Well, this would be a big, you know, almost one-tenth of 1 percent of the projected deficit over the next 5 years. I guess that is better than nothing. Except that there are ways to make much bigger cuts. We could roll back the 2001-2003 tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent, those who earn over $350,000 a year. That would bring in $327 billion, six times what they are pretending to save here.

We could do away with some offshore tax shelters, $65 billion more than what they are talking about here. We could cancel the President's mission to Mars. That is $1 trillion over the next 20 years, $100 billion to go back to the Moon again. That would save twice as much money. No, those things go after the powerful special interests or the contributor class, and God forbid they should take them on.

But they can get the little kids in the schools and take the food off their plates. They can go off the students struggling to rise up or stay in the middle class and double their origination fees for their loans.

But they will not make these kinds of real cuts, ones that would hit at those who earn over $300,000 a year or hit at the powerful special interests who are, you know, who are involved in the Federal contracting with NASA.

And then there is waste and abuse. What about the waste and abuse? Apparently, the Bush administration, Brownie is still writing, Brownie, you are doing a heck of a job. He is still on the Federal payroll for $150,000, and he is letting out contracts, such as a contract, put a blue tarp on a roof. A lot of people in Oregon do that when they find out they got a leak when it starts to rain, they go up, climb up on the roof, put up a tarp. The tarp costs $8.

Well, the Federal Government is paying a contractor $2,500 to put blue tarps per roof down there in the Southeast, yet another great job by heck-of-a-job Brownie, who is still pulling down $150,000 a year from the Federal taxpayers.

So there is a little waste, fraud, and abuse that they can go after. No. But these are the big contractors, Fluor and others, who are benefiting and profiting immensely from gouging the Federal taxpayer.

So we should have real fiscal responsibility; but they have no sense of it, because the real money goes to the powerful and the special interests in this country. They are the ones looting the Federal Treasury, and they have the gall to come to the floor of the House and say it is the Democrats. You have been in charge for 5 years. Five years. The Presidency, the House, and the Senate for almost that whole time, and you have increased the debt by 62 percent.

You have done nothing about the waste, fraud and abuse. In fact, it has gotten worse on your watch, and now you want to stick it to the kids who want to get an education and to hungry children and primary and secondary schools and pretend you are going to sell leases for a heck of a lot more than you will.

You should be ashamed. The sea of red ink spreads, and it grows deeper. Most Americans are drowning, but the yachts of the wealthy are floating high.