House Proceeding 03-09-09 on Mar 9th, 2009 :: 0:55:30 to 0:59:30
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0:55:26 to 0:55:46( Edit History Discussion )

Robert C. Scott: leading advocate for health care reform. at this time i yield to the distinguished member from the state of virginia, mr. robert bobby scott." mr. scott: thank you, madam speaker. i thank the gentlelady from ohio for organizing this special order.

0:55:30 to 0:59:30( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Robert C. Scott

0:55:47 to 0:56:09( Edit History Discussion )

Robert C. Scott: the budget is an extremely important part of our work. thank you for the opportunity to discuss what's going on with the budget. before we can move forward we ne to understand where we are. sometimes you need charts to adequately describe what the situation is.

0:56:10 to 0:56:31( Edit History Discussion )

Robert C. Scott: this is a chart showing from 19 89, the budget deficit, starting in 1993 we went up to sur plugs, unfortunately in 2001, we had a complete collapse of the budget, 2008, the deficit will be about here, a little over $400 billion. 2009, will literally be off the chart.

0:56:32 to 0:56:54( Edit History Discussion )

Robert C. Scott: so this is what we're dealing with. in 1993, we made the tough choices, eliminated the deficit, went into surplus and had enough in -- in the beginning of 2001, enough of a surplus to pay social security for 75 years without reduce anything benefits or to pay off the entire debt held by the public by last year.

0:56:55 to 0:57:18( Edit History Discussion )

Robert C. Scott: we were in good shape financially in 2001, but we made the wrong choices and the rest is history. the detieroration in the budget from the $5.5 trillion surplus tohe $3 trillion or $4 trillion deficit was a swing of almost $9 trillion.

0:57:19 to 0:57:39( Edit History Discussion )

Robert C. Scott: almost $1 trillion a year detieroration in the budget. this chart shows where the debt held, the public debt has exploded in 2001, we were headed by the budget projections to paying off not only the debt held by the

0:57:40 to 0:58:01( Edit History Discussion )

Robert C. Scott: public, but all of the debt, putting money back in the trust funds and everything instead, the debt has totally exploded. one of the problems with the debt is that more and more of it is coming from foreign countries.

0:58:02 to 0:58:22( Edit History Discussion )

Robert C. Scott: primarily saudi arabia, japan, and china, and thahas foreign policy implications. you can't negotiate a good trade deal when the next thing out of your muth is -- mouth is, can i borrow some money. when you're borrowing money from saudi arabia that has implications on our ability to negotiate gasoline and oil prices.

0:58:23 to 0:58:43( Edit History Discussion )

Robert C. Scott: the debt held in foreign countries was headed toward zero. it has, again, exploded. now we have over $2 trillion held -- of our debt held in foreign countries. now we got in this mess because we had unaffordable tax cuts, primarily for the wealthy. people get mad when you say,

0:58:44 to 0:59:06( Edit History Discussion )

Robert C. Scott: primarily for the wealthy, but it was done, presumably to create jobs this chart shows how, in the last eight years, in terms of job growth, we've experienced the worst job growth since the great depression. herbert hoover is the only president on this chart who has done worse than the last eight

0:59:07 to 0:59:29( Edit History Discussion )

Robert C. Scott: years. ere's very poor economic activity, as measured by the dow jones industrial average this chart shows the dow jones industal average from hoover, franklin roosevelt, truman, eisenhower, kennedy-johnson, nixon-ford, carter, reagan, bush, clinton, the worst since

0:59:30 to 0:59:30( Edit History Discussion )

Robert C. Scott: herbert hoover in terms of dow