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 .  