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Today Congressman David Scott (D-GA) chaired the Blue Dog Special Order in support of the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health and Iraq Accountability Act.  Below are his remarks:

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Again, it is a great privilege to address this House in the Special Order for the Blue Dog Democratic Coalition, and we are delighted to do so.

This is a very critical time in the juncture of our Nation. We are faced with a ballooning debt. We have an overextended military. We are in the midst of a very controversial war. It is paramount that Congress not just weigh in, but weigh in heavily as due our constitutional obligations.

As we all know, the Constitution speaks very clearly on this matter. In Article I, Section 8, it speaks very clearly that it is exclusively Congress' responsibility when it comes to military action and foreign policy.

And that is this: it says that only Congress has the exclusive right to determine the purse strings. In other words, the exact verbiage in the Constitution is ``to raise and support the military.'' And then, secondly, to legislate. And quite naturally, it gave the executive branch comparative duties in a time of war.

You know, Madam Speaker, in preparation for this time on the floor, I went back into the Constitution because I wanted to examine how this came about. And if you go back in the Constitution around 1787, if I am not mistaken, there was a great debate on how to handle the question of war and foreign policy facing our Nation. And it was handled by two of our greatest Founding Fathers, one was Alexander Hamilton and the other was James Madison.

But you know, Madam Speaker, it was a peculiar circumstance that neither Hamilton nor Madison used their names. That struck me as very strange. Hamilton wrote under the name of Pacificus, and Madison wrote under the name of Helvidius. And I wondered about that. Why? But it was only on this profound question. Because it was so heavily debated, it was so heavily controversial that neither party wanted the public to know exactly who was saying what. But it was very important that they agree on the substance to leave this issue very flexible.

But the one important point that they made was it would be the Congress, and expressly the House of Representatives of the Congress, that would have the final say so on the money end and on the legislative end, and that is what we are here to do today. For the American people are looking to this Congress to indeed weigh in. And Hamilton and Madison will smile kindly on us today.