speaker, in the past couple of weeks, two of our colleagues, frank wolf of virginia, a republican and jim cooper of tennessee, a democrat, sent this booklet around to all of the members. and we get a lot of correspondence and books and leaflets, but i would like to say, i hope you read this. it doesn't take long, but it's extremely important, because it deals with not only with today but with our future and kids' future and our posterity. what it talks about is the debt that we have in this country and where we're going. in the last 10 years, we have gone from 5.5 trillion in debt to over $11 trillion in debt and the debt is escalating at a rapid rate. in fact right now, the projected deficit in the future is up to $56 trillion. and the reason these are expected expenditures is for what programs that have been proposed and have been passed into law by this body and the other body. right now, explicit liabilities include publicly held debt, military and civilian pensions and retiree health benefits, plus other things. that's $12.2 trillion. $1.23 trillion is for leases and so forth and

frank wolf of virginia was chairman of this committee for a number of years. served on it for a great number of years. we served on it together. he brings to this bill an awful lot of experience and knowledge about it. and that is really helpful as you work up an appropriation bill. and frank, i appreciate your help and assistance on the bill and the credibility and knowledge you bring to it. i also want to thank publicly and personally the chairman of the full committee, mr. obey, for his assistance in developing this bill. mr. obey's courtesy and assistance in the front office has been appreciated and we also appreciate, mr. chairman, the allocation that you have given us for this bill that has allowed us to do what we have to do, however short the allocation may be. i also would like to recognize the staff, the excellent work of the clerk, john and leadership he has provided to the rest of the staff and all of them have done excellent work, which i appreciate. adrian, dixon, diana, derek, tracy, scott, all with the subcommittee. mike and john on the minorit

we have frank wolf with education daily. go ahead. >> i wonder if you can talk about education funded by the states a little bit, what in fact we are seeing and what they can do to sort of protect the bennett programs -- [inaudible] >> well, they were beginning to do some cuts in education and then when the recovery package came i think they sort of backed off. governors generally like to protect that but i think unfortunately going forward when to be hard to continue to protect it in spite of the funding because it is such a significant portion in other words if you look at health care and education you've got about 70% of your total budget and i think so far what they've done is cut the rest but now i think going forward unfortunately they are going higher and elementary and secondary. >> our next question is from kevin from associated press. please go ahead. >> given the economic environment should the federal government consider guaranteeing short-term loans and bond issues from the state's? [laughter] >> i will let you

we have a question from frank wolf from education daily, please go ahead. >> i wondered if you could discuss education funding by the states were in a little bit, one impact we are seen and what they can do to sort of protect programs? >> well, they were beginning to do some cuts in education and then when the recovery package came i think they sort of backed off a somewhat. governors generally like to protected, but on for some lovely going forward is going to be hard to continue to protect them in spite of a recovery package binding because it is such a significant portion and, in other words, if you look at health care and education you have 70 percent of your total budget and i think so far when they have done is they have cut the rest of that, but now i think going forward and, of course, they're probably going to have to look more both at hiring secondary and elementary. >> write thank-you. >> our next question is from kevin from associated press, please go ahead. >> given the economic environment and should the federal government consider guaranteeing short-term loans and bond

this was sent to us by our colleagues, frank wolf, republican of virginia, and jim cooper, democrat of tennessee. i just want to read to you a little bit about the situation that america faces. americans right now i don't think are aware of the fiscal problems that we are facing. as of 2008, in the fall of 2008, we had $12.2 trillion in explicit liabilities, that's public held debt, military and civilian pensions, and retiree health benefits, and other things related to that. we had $1.3 trillion in debt for federal insurance and loan guarantees and leases and so forth. and we had a $42.9 trillion debt for medicare hospital insurance, medicare outpatient services, medicare prescription drugs, and social security. that's a total of $56.4 trillion in debt that we have right now today. and that amounts to, my colleagues, $184,000 debt for every man, woman, and child in this country. a family of four, $435,000. $435,000 for a full-time worker, rather. and for each household, $483,000 in debt. that's the national debt today. george washington said, we should avoid ungenerously throwing upon

. >> we have a question from frank wolf from education daily. please go ahead. >> i just wanted to make sure, these are estimated fy 2009, the tubers-- 2.2% decline in state spending is projected? i guess most states in their year in may or june. >> has come of 46 states and at the end of this month on june 30 if so you are correct. those are estimates and minelli to this report in december we will have actuals. >> okay, great, thank you. >> at this time we have no further questions. >> okay. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> thank you ladies and gentlemen. this concludes the conference carper code you may old disconnect at this time. >> the joint economic committee holds a hearing tomorrow morning on the latest monthly employment report from the bureau of labor statistics. previous reports showed 16 straight months of job losses. live coverage is on c-span2 at 9:30 eastern. >> our party needs obviously a lot of work. >> sunday on c-span's q&a, indiana republican governor mitch daniels on a revitalizing the g.o.p.. >> it needs to look in ri