Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida and those of you who are watching back home for the opportunity to talk about the President's desire to raise the debt limit.

One of the most moving books I ever read was called ``The Winds of War.'' It is a novel, but it talks about the events leading up to World War II, the American participation in it.

One of the many things that is going on in this book is a family member of the participants who is in a concentration camp, and he is thinking to himself, how can it be that the Americans do not know that this is going on? We have smuggled information to America showing the Jews and Gypsies and other people that the Nazi regime wanted to get rid of, that these horrible things are happening, and somehow the Americans are not responding.

The author called it ``the will not to believe,'' and I guess, to a certain extent, it hits all of us, whether it is finding out that a family member has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, or maybe your favorite football team lost to a team you did not think they could possibly lose to.

I bring these numbers to the floor tonight that have been updated as of the end of this month to show the American people what I keep in my congressional office. It is a constant reminder sitting right by my desk as folks come to me and say can you help us with this tax break or can you help us with this additional spending.

It is a constant reminder that I point to as different constituents come to visit me of just how far in debt our Nation is, how much farther in debt we have gotten in the past 12 months, because it really is within all of us.

I see it in my town meetings, when I walk the Wal-Marts and the KMarts and the hardware stores in my district, when I visit with shrimpers, or people at the other end of the economic scale.

It is just hard to believe that our Nation is now $6 trillion in debt. In fact, last year at this very time the President of the United States and a lot of folks in the media were running around saying Washington is awash in money. There are surpluses as far as the eye can see.

Well, apparently the people who said that, both inside and outside of government, never took the time to look at this, because one year ago right now, our Nation was $5,735,859,380,573 in debt.

Unlike the previous speaker, I voted against most of those proposals that came up last year, because none of them paid for themselves and almost all of them would add to the debt. That was my gut conclusion. It turns out my gut conclusion was better than whatever economists the President and some others were calling on, because the amount of debt increase in just one year, in the past 12 months, is $267,593,636,009.87.

Now, most of this is because of the tax breaks that were passed last year by Congress. Some of it is because of the war in Afghanistan, but that is $1 billion a month. Mr. Speaker, $1 billion a month would be, since September about 6, $6 billion of this. The rest of it was increases in spending in the President's budget.

And let us remember, the President got his budget. At the time it was proposed, Republicans controlled the House, Republicans controlled the other body; he got his budget. So please do not come back and tell this Member that, well, the reason we have this big debt is because you guys spent money that I did not want to spend.

Mr. President, you got your budget. You got your tax breaks, you got your budget, and that is what you have added to the debt with your numbers.

What really troubles me about that is, I am the father of three kids and they are going to get stuck with that bill and until then, our Nation is going to squander more money every day on interest on the national debt than we spend pursuing the war in Afghanistan. It costs us about $1 billion a month to pursue the war in Afghanistan. It costs us $1 billion a day to pay interest on that debt and much of it is a direct result of the budget from last year. That is the President's part.

Now, what is particularly troubling about this, if I were to bring these numbers up from the 1st of January 1980, that would be a ``1'' and most of these would be zeroes. The first of January, 1980, our Nation was $1 trillion in debt. Now, that is a heck of a lot of money for a guy from Mississippi, but that is $5 trillion less than it is now.

One of the reasons this has been allowed is that on a regular basis, Congress has come to this floor, different Presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, and have said, I need to borrow just a little bit more, I need a little temporary fix to get this monkey off of my back. Those are the temporary fixes, the accumulated problem that that has caused.

Mr. President, I am not going to vote to raise the debt limit.

I also want to point out that one of the reported stories that is coming from this is that your Treasury chairman is considering taking that money from the trust funds. Let me remind the American people that for all of the rhetoric, Democrats and Republicans, people inside the media and outside of the media, with this so-called lockbox for Social Security, and that is a line item on your taxes, that is taken out of your taxes with the promise that it is going to be put aside for your Social Security benefits, there is no lockbox.

What there is, is somewhere an IOU that says that the United States of America owes the Social Security trust fund $1.23 trillion. There is nothing there.

If you look on your pay stub, you also pay Medicare taxes. Again, that is supposed to be set aside for your Medicare benefits when you reach the proper age to receive them. It is supposed to be in a lockbox. The truth of the matter is, if you were to open up that lockbox, you will find an IOU from the United States for $256.3 billion.

Then there is the Civil Servants Retirement Fund. Civil servants, contrary to popular belief, do pay into their own retirement. That money is supposed to be set aside to do nothing but pay for their benefits when they retire. If you found that box and opened it up, you would find an IOU for $532 billion.

Now, the reason I mention that one in particular is that the Treasury Secretary now says, Well, maybe we do not have to raise the debt limit if we just steal it from the Civil Service Retirement System. It is just temporary.

The problem, Mr. O'Neill, with that is, you have already taken $500 billion out of that account. Where do you stop taking it? At what point does the President come to this Congress with a budget that is balanced? At what time does this Congress pass a balanced budget?

About 6 years ago we passed a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It went to the other body and failed by one vote. You would think a body that on a weekly basis is finding new ways to spend money and driving up the debt would try at least one more time in the past 6 years to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

I have recently signed on to the recent attempt by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Berry) to do that, and I hope that we will have a speedy vote on this, Mr. Speaker, because I think this body should pass it. I think that the American people should know that that is how much we are in debt, that we are squandering over $1 billion a day on interest on that debt, and until then, we are continuing to rob from their Social Security trust fund, their Medicare trust fund, the Civil Service Retirement trust fund and the Military Retirees' trust fund.

Mr. Speaker, that is why I am going to vote against raising the debt limit.

The other thing I am going to ask the American people to do is check my facts. Last year when all of these people were talking about the big surpluses, did anyone ever tell you to check the facts? I would encourage, and I hope the camera can get this, because this is where the Treasury reports on a monthly basis just how broke our Nation is:http//www.publicdebt.treas.gov.

Look it up for yourselves. I have been encouraging the American people to do this for the past year and not one of them has ever written me back and said, Taylor, you are wrong, because I am right on this one. I am not right on everything, but I am sure as heck right on this one.

So I want to thank the gentleman for the opportunity to speak on this. If my colleagues would like a copy of this for their offices, when folks come to see you and tell you that we have all kinds of money and we have a project that we just cannot live without, maybe my colleagues here this evening can say, maybe we can live without it for just a little while until we find the money to pay for it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd) for this opportunity.

Robert Matsui (D-CA) Associated Press, March 30, 2002: "It means that ordinary working Americans, like teachers, police officers and firefighters, who believe their payroll taxes are going toward their Social Security retirement are in for a surprise...Instead of going to the Social Security trust fund, their payroll contributions are being funneled directly into tax breaks for individuals and corporations who need them least."