mr. chairman , it is a pleasure to be here on the floor speaking on this subject since some may know i left this place for 16 years , and coming back to the floor of the house and having an opportunity to serve on the budget committee has given me a perspective that i did not have before .  being away from this place for 16 years gave me a little bit of a bird 's eye view of how the rest of the public views what we do here .  and i just must say that during the several years that i was embarking on my endeavor to return to this house , i was constantly reminded by the people that i came into contact with in my district as to the spending spree they believe the congress has gone on and been involved in over the last number of years .  the amount of discretionary spending that we have had in terms of its increase is remarkable .  i wish they could go back 16 years from when i left this wonderful institution back in 1989 to show what we are talking about .  this chart merely goes back to 1994 , but it shows us spending $ 513 billion in 1994 , and we are talking about now stretching our way to $ 900 billion .  i was in my office watching some of this debate , and i heard what appeared to me to be crocodile tears expressed by some on the other side about how much we are cutting .  and i guess only in this institution is a little restraint in the amount that we are spending in addition to what we have spent in the past considered a cut .  where i come from , cut is not a four letter word .  most american citizens , most of the people in my district believe that if you spent too much , maybe you ought to look on the side of spending restraint .  the response we got in committee time and time again from the other side was , why do we not just raise taxes ?  and i can not even calculate the increase in taxes they suggested to cover all the programs they want .  as part of the requirements under the budget act , the budget committee gives an opportunity for any member in the house to appear for 10 minutes to talk about any particular matter within the province of the budget committee .  and i was privileged to accept that duty for perhaps the last hour .  and i remember those coming up to talk about the community development block grant program .  they even were effective in citing a quotation from the mayor of the town in which i was born , someone whom i know .  and in response to that , i said , i think it is a worthy program , but could you please tell me , if we do not cut this , where we should find the money to fund it ?  and the response i received was , that is not our job ; that is somebody else 's job .  and that is the problem with the congress , at least as i see it .  it is always somebody else 's job .  but the job of the budget committee is to bring us , i think , some fiscal sanity by suggesting with some enforcement mechanisms , numbers within which we will live , which is no different than what we do in our daily lives and our family lives .  and all i can say is , having been gone from this place for 16 years , the image that i obtained from people on the outside looking in is , frankly , not that we have been very restraining in terms of our spending .  the average person would , i think , stand with their mouth agape at some of the conversation that has been on this floor .  we are not really restraining ourselves very badly when you look at the numbers that we have seen here .  only in washington , d.c .  could a restraint on increased spending be considered a cut .  that may be very simplistic , mr. chairman .  i am sorry for being simplistic ; but i have been away from this place for a long time , and where i come from , again , cut is not a four letter word .  and i would just ask , if people could understand , if other members could have the chance i had to leave this place for 16 years and come back and see the change , people coming to us asking for spending , no longer requesting it , but coming with the expectation that it is an entitlement in the area of discretionary spending .  it is so different than what it was 16 years ago .  it is , as we used to say , the difference between night and day .  i want to thank the gentleman , the chairman of this committee , for leading our committee and bringing forward a product which will put us on the path towards restraint , the type of restraint that not only is necessary but is expected by the folks back home .  