mr. wolf, mr. 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

mr. 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