mr. speaker , i rise today to talk about the republicans ' budget that was just passed in this house a little while ago , h. con . 
res. 95 . 
principally i think it fails to address the crucial and central issue which this congress should address , and that is fixing our national budget . 
somebody in my area the other day asked me the question , what keeps me awake at night ? 
and my answer was pretty simple . 
being an investment banker by profession before i came to this house , i said our deficit and our debt . 
we have a serious problem , mr. speaker , our treasury is over $ 7 trillion in debt . 
we continue to borrow every year under this administration at something over $ 500 billion a year . 
and how does this congress react ? 
we signed up for another credit card . 
interest rates are low . 
we can afford it . 
and when we max out our new credit card , we will just go and get another credit card . 
free money . 
that is what this congress is doing . 
but even if the money is cheap , it is not free . 
and while it may be cheap now , at some point what went down must come up . 
interest rates will rise . 
that is the history when you look at the markets . 
they always do . 
i wonder if the american public fully appreciates that this congress and this president continue to borrow on their credit cards the way we do . 
do they know , for example , that our deficits are being financed by the chinese ? 
as of last year , $ 1.9 trillion of our debt , or 40 percent of it , was owned by foreign investors . 
the chinese own about $ 217 billion of that , the japanese cover about $ 668 billion , the oil-rich opec countries own about $ 48 billion , and the list goes on and on . 
so we keep cutting our taxes so we are not sending that money to washington , d.c. , but we keep spending as if we had that revenue , as long as our friends the chinese and the japanese and other foreign investors continue to prop up our debt . 
how long will that last ? 
we need to protect our financial security . 
carrying around this much debt is making us incredibly vulnerable . 
we are essentially being held hostage by our own financial obligations . 
as long as we continue down this road , we weaken our position as a world leader because our financial stability is in the hands of other nations . 
this is not just a national security problem . 
running a big deficit and debt is also a problem for the economic health of this country . 
as a nation , personal savings has dropped from almost 11 percent in 1984 to about 1 percent in 2004 . 
we are not saving . 
we are also weak in investment , despite historically low interest rates . 
in fact , if you look at this budget , you will see that we are spending about $ 1.5 billion a week in the war in iraq and afghanistan , $ 1.5 billion a week . 
but we are cutting education , and we are cutting the health care system . 
we are cutting our national parks budget ; we are cutting transportation . 
we are not investing and reinvesting in our water and sewage systems . 
all the investment that we need to be a productive country , we are not investing . 
do you think the chinese are investing $ 1.5 billion a week in iraq in a war ? 
no . 
they are building their water systems , they are educating their people , they are building their transportation systems , their telecommunications systems . 
they are investing . 
we are just spending . 
it is poor fiscal judgment ; and this congress , led by this side , is guilty of putting that on a credit card that all americans will end up paying . 
my background is in finance . 
i used to do that . 
i used to finance for companies , for people . 
i used to tell them how to do things . 
i have never seen this kind of disregard , this structural problem that we are creating . 
so i hope , mr. speaker , that this congress begins to make the tough choices , and that is the reason i opposed h. con . 
res. 95 today . 
