[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 22 (Tuesday, March 5, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H676-H680]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   SOCIAL SECURITY, THE SHADOW GOVERNMENT, AND THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, there are a number of different issues that 
I would like to address this evening; but I find myself, having 
listened to the last hour of comments, in need of a little rebuttal to 
some of these comments, especially those comments that were directed to 
us by the minority leader, which of course went unrebutted.
  First of all, the minority leader talks about some kind of secret 
Republican plan for Social Security. Where does he get that? What gives 
him the liberty to make those kinds of remarks? That speech that the 
minority leader gave, in my opinion, was one of the most partisan 
speeches I have heard on this floor.
  I challenge the minority leader to show me one Republican or show me 
one Democrat on the House floor, one in office in either our House or 
at any elected level, that is against Social Security. Show me one 
elected official in this country that wants to devastate Social 
Security. Show me one Congressman, Mr. Minority Leader, that meets the 
standards that he put out there: because they are Republican, they must 
be against Social Security.
  What really justifies some of those remarks, I would guess, is the 
fact that it is an election year, and now is the time to begin to 
position oneself as the savior of Social Security. The minority leader 
talks about, we should not talk about numbers, we should talk about 
values. He is right, the minority leader, we should talk about values. 
Part of those values are the preservation of that system.
  All of us on this floor, Republicans and Democrats, want to preserve 
the

[[Page H677]]

system; but in order to meet that value of preservation of the system, 
we need to talk about numbers. Let us talk about a few numbers.
  When that system was created 67 years ago, we had, what, 12 workers 
for every retired person? Today that statistic is three workers for 
every retired person, and in a few short years it is going to be that 
there are two people working for every retired person. Take a look at 
the math on that, Mr. Minority Leader, and take a calculation of what 
that means.
  Furthermore, take a look 67 years ago what the average age was, the 
average life expectancy for a male and a female, and compare it to 
today.

                              {time}  1930

  I would suggest that the difference between 67 years ago and the life 
expectancy today is at least a minimum of 14, perhaps 15 or 16 years. 
And what will it be when the generations of my children grow, another 
10 years, when people are living longer?
  And that is the good news. The fact is that our system is getting 
more and more weight put against it. We have got to come up with more 
and more dollars to continue the same kind of benefits. One, if we have 
less people putting in and more people taking out, we better talk about 
numbers, Mr. Minority Leader. And because of the fact that some of us 
who are fiscally conservative want to talk about numbers does not mean 
we are against Social Security.
  Mr. Minority Leader, there are a number of Democrats on your side of 
the aisle who are fiscally conservative. There are a number of 
Democrats who worry about those numbers. There are a number of 
Democrats who put the emotion aside, the rhetoric aside and try and sit 
down with us and those who are interested in trying to figure out how 
do we work with these numbers so that, one, we can meet the demands of 
the future.
  Any elected official that tells you that any other elected official 
wants to do away with Social Security, frankly, is not telling you the 
truth. I have yet in my years of service in the United States Congress, 
I have yet to find one Congressman, and we have gone through hundreds 
of Congressmen in the years that I have been in service, I have yet to 
find one Congressman who has told me to my face or I have heard it 
through an indirect conversation that has said what the minority leader 
said, and that is that the Republicans want to get rid of Social 
Security; that they have a secret plan out there for Social Security to 
slash the benefits of all of these people.
  Mr. Minority Leader, I think your approach would be better phrased if 
you said, hey, look, we better sit down, both sides of this thing. We 
better talk numbers. Obviously, the value is preservation of the 
system. I think everybody agrees with that. So there should not be any 
argument about who wants to preserve the system.
  Again, everybody that I know of in the United States Congress, and I 
defy the minority leader to show me somebody who does not, but 
everybody I know, every Congressperson wants to preserve the system. So 
put that argument aside. It is not an argument of preservation. It is a 
discussion of numbers.
  How do we work with these numbers? How do we figure it out? Take a 
look at 67 years ago, the benefits that Social Security paid out, and 
take a look at the expansion of benefits that have occurred in the last 
67 years without a reflective expansion of revenue coming in.
  In other words, the Congresses through the years and the people of 
the country through the years have appropriated and approved more 
benefits than they have revenue coming in. Come on. You have got to 
deal with your family budget and you have a responsibility to deal with 
the budget of this country.
  The best way to preserve Social Security for the future, which we all 
want to do, is to act with some economic sensibility. Do not mislead 
the people by pretending to promise them things that you know several 
years after you leave office, several years after you accomplish what 
you want to accomplish politically, somebody else gets stuck with the 
bill. That is what happened years ago when 40 years of rule here 
stacked up deficit after deficit.
  Now we are back into a deficit this year, but it is not because of 
some kind of slight of hand. It is because we are engaged in a war and 
we are watching our revenue drop. We have to sit down and discuss that, 
just the same as Social Security. So those remarks at the beginning of 
this evening by the minority leader, again, some of the most partisan 
remarks I have seen on this floor, are clearly devised for election 
strategy.
  It is an election year, and as we proceed closer to November, you 
will see, unfortunately, more and more people using the strategy of 
this microphone to enhance their own political self-serving interest. 
And I hope we can avoid that, especially when it comes to Social 
Security. Many of us, many Democrats that I know do not take part, do 
not participate in those kind of partisan discussions. They instead sit 
together in groups of people and say, how do we figure out, how do we 
work the numbers?
  We have a problem. We have a lot more going out in Social Security 
over time than we have coming in. On a cash flow basis we are okay, but 
on an actuarial basis over time Social Security needs to have some 
adjustments.
  I do not condemn the President of the United States. I commend the 
President of the United States for stepping forward and saying, get 
some expert help. Let me reach out to a commission, a commission made 
up of Republicans and Democrats, a commission made up of experts and of 
people who understand the needs of that generation and the needs of 
future generations, people that know, that are experts in accounting 
and economics.
  That is the kind of panel that this President, President Bush, put 
together. Instead of condemning it and saying it is some kind of secret 
society out there which, of course, is obviously nothing but 
politically-charged language, the fact is they have come up with some 
suggestions, that the commission has worked long and hard to try to 
come up with something that is constructive towards preservation of the 
Social Security system.
  So I would hope that the minority leader would tone down these kind 
of partisan remarks; and instead of showing up at the microphone and 
firing out with this negotiation as an election year strategy, in my 
opinion, I think he would be much better served if he would join us and 
sit down and maybe go over to the commission and sit down in person 
with that commission and talk about what their ideas are and what we 
can do to preserve the system.


                           Shadow Government

  Let me move on to a couple of other things that I think are very, 
very important.
  First of all, in the last few days I have seen a media barrage, a 
media barrage across this country, about how aghast some people are 
that President Bush, the Vice President and the administration have put 
into place a back-up government in case a terrorist attack took out the 
sitting government in Washington, D.C.
  Why would anybody be surprised about that? You better have a back-up 
plan in place. You know what happened at this U.S. Capitol on September 
11? I was here. You know what kind of back-up plan we had? Zip. Zero. 
We were fortunate that a few brave souls, a few brave souls took a 
plane into the ground in Pennsylvania, because my guess is this plane 
would have been right here, coming through this dome in this Capitol 
and would have very easily wiped out the congressional leadership. That 
plane that hit the Pentagon very easily may have been intended to hit 
the White House and take out the leadership there.
  Sure, we have a line of succession; but what happens to that line of 
succession, as occurred on September 11, when in one central location 
are your Cabinet secretaries and your different agencies, and they have 
no direction from the selected government on how to run? Of course you 
better make up back-up plans.
  In fact, some of the people, some of my colleagues here have 
different bills they have introduced, for example, the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Baird) on succession. I think it is a very legitimate 
and, frankly, is a responsibility of this administration, after 
September 11 especially, to say, hey, what if this happens again? What 
if they would have wiped out the

[[Page H678]]

United States Congress? What if they would have wiped out the White 
House? Who gives direction to our government? What kind of safeguards 
do we have?
  So I commend the administration, not condemn it. I commend the 
administration for thinking forward into the future, for having some 
kind of foresight as to what we ought to do in case this scenario 
repeats itself again.
  We all know that there are people out there who hate the United 
States and would love nothing more than to destroy this great building 
and the people that work in it and to disable our government. So now is 
the time to prepare.
  So my opinion is people that have criticized this surprise me. 
Criticizing the President for, in effect, buying a back-up fire truck 
in case the fire station burns down. You ought to say, good job. Keep 
it up. That is the kind of forward thinking that we need to prepare 
against this ongoing battle against terrorism and this ongoing battle 
against people who wish evil against the United States of America.


           Honoring Chief Warrant Officer Stanley L. Harriman

  I want to move on from this and visit just for a moment about the 
horrible causalities that we have taken as far as in the last 48 hours 
or so. The deaths that were suffered were terrible, but I want to read, 
in fact, about the gentleman who was mentioned here, Chief Warrant 
Officer Stanley Harriman who lost his life in the last few hours in 
Afghanistan. I wanted to read a few comments out of today's New York 
Times from the families.
  This is a card last month that the Chief Warrant Officer sent his 
wife, an e-mail message rejoicing that he had been sent to Afghanistan. 
``Honey, I am so excited about going to Afghanistan. I will be doing 
what I have trained for 16 years to do.''
  His survivors, which include his wife, a 6-year-old daughter and a 3-
year-old son, his father, who is retired military, and he has a 
brother; and of this family, the commitment of this family towards the 
duty of their father, towards the duty of their husband, towards the 
duty of their son, towards the duty of their brother, it is an amazing 
family, that the duty and the preservation and the great things that we 
have in this country called for him to be in Afghanistan.
  Let me share that card. Let me repeat a card that the Chief Warrant 
Officer sent to his wife, another card. He mailed a card to his wife 
from Kuwait which she received about one week ago. Mrs. Harriman, the 
wife, read from it during an interview. ``I know that it is not always 
easy with me gone so much, but we have so much to be thankful for. We 
are truly blessed by God, and these trials and tribulations will only 
make us stronger.''
  Then let me say to you what his brother said, after learning of his 
brother's death. This is the Chief Warrant Officer's brother, Steve. He 
said that ``he hoped the military would not flinch at pursuing military 
operations to their conclusion.
  ``Stan would not have changed it if he could. He would do it the same 
way,'' Steve said. ``I hope they continue to do what they say they are 
going to do, to complete the mission.''
  And the key words here are ``to complete the mission.'' We cannot 
allow the enemy to kill seven or nine or any number of our American 
soldiers over there and cut and run from our mission.
  Some of you may have had the opportunity to see the movie Black Hawk 
Down. Those are the results, that is the kind of results where the 
sight of a body bag convinces many of our enemies across this world, 
the al Qaeda and some of the other people, that all you have to do is 
show the American citizens a body bag and they will cut and run. If you 
want to break America's resolve, kill a few of their soldiers.
  As Steve said about his brother, his brother would want the military 
to complete its mission. And we have a very heavy mission on our 
shoulders, this country does, for the world, for the future of the 
world, not just for our generations and future generations of America, 
but for generations of all countries of this world. And that is to rid 
this world to the extent that we possibly can of the cancer that we 
discovered that had gone a lot further than we had ever imagined. That 
cancer had spread, and we discovered it on September 11.
  Now, we have been able to locate some of that cancer, and we have got 
to cut that cancer out. You cannot ignore it. You cannot love it off 
your body. You cannot pray it off your body. All of these things help. 
Do not get me wrong. That all helps. But the reality is you have to go 
in with chemotherapy. You may have to go in with surgery. You may have 
to go in with radiation. You have got to get that cancer. You cannot 
turn your face the other way. You have got to complete your mission.
  You cannot go in and get a few cells of the cancer. You cannot go in 
and nip the little end off of it. You cannot even go in a take a big 
chunk of it but still leave some vital cells of cancer still in your 
body. You have got to complete the mission.
  This country has taken a loss in the last few days of some very young 
and very brave American soldiers. But I would guess that the families 
of those soldiers and every one of those soldiers if they could say it 
today would say to the United States of America, complete your mission. 
Take out the enemy. Destroy those who would destroy this country. 
Destroy those who would destroy democracy in this world. Destroy those 
who, without any regard to nationality, any regard to sex, any regard 
to age would kill thousands of people in an act of terrorist attack.
  So I think that our resolve should be hardened. I do not think we 
should give any kind of message because I do not think it is true with 
the American citizens. I think our resolve should be hardened to 
complete this mission.
  We have learned from the past. In Somalia, it was a disgrace, 
frankly, our brave soldiers that fought and gave their lives. Vietnam 
was another example. We did not complete the mission. And you know 
what? We have trained people out there, we have convinced our enemies 
that the United States, again, all they have to do is have a death of 
their soldiers or torture some of their soldiers or drag them through 
the street like they did in Somalia, and within a couple of weeks after 
seeing their soldiers dragged through Somalia the president of the 
country will order their troops out and we will have beat the American 
giant.

                              {time}  1945

  If we want to protect democracy in this world, if we want to stop 
terrorism before it stops us, and a better word, instead of stopped, is 
destroy us, we have to complete the mission. That is exactly what the 
Harriman family has relayed through the tragic death of Chief Warrant 
Officer Harriman, and that is ``complete your mission.''
  I want to visit a little about the President and his dedication to 
the completion of this mission. I noticed some criticism in the last 
few days of some individuals who say, number one, the President ought 
to inform us of the operational details of what is going on over there. 
Listen, we are not military experts. We are Members of the United 
States Congress. We have some oversight authority and so on, and we 
work with the administration, but what do my colleagues want done? 
What, do they want the President to come over to Congress every day and 
say, all right, here is how many helicopters we have dispatched in this 
portion of Afghanistan, here is where this ship is, this is what we are 
doing? Let the President and the military administration do their job.
  I heard a complaint over the weekend on some of the news stories that 
we do not seem to really have a plan of where this is going. Well, I 
think the Vice President, Dick Cheney, did a very good job of 
responding to that. I think it was last evening, when he said, look, 
the people we are dealing with are terrorists. They are not going to 
meet us in some country and have a summit for peace or sign a peace 
treaty with us. There is not going to be some kind of long-term peace 
plan that they want to execute or cooperate in with the United States 
of America. There is no deterrent out there against these kind of 
people. They have one mission in mind: they want to destroy the United 
States, and they want to destroy anybody that is affiliated with the 
United States, and they want to destroy people that do not agree with 
them in any regard.

[[Page H679]]

  These are not the kind of people we can draw out some kind of peace 
plan or conclusion with short of taking them into custody or destroying 
them. And we cannot just stop with the al Qaeda. We have to call people 
what they are; we have to call it what it is.
  I was amazed that after the President's speech, where he talked about 
North Korea, that all of a sudden some of my colleagues or some of the 
commentators across the country were starting to act like North Korea 
is a very amicable country; that the leadership, and not the people of 
North Korea, but the leadership of North Korea is not as evil as we 
portray them to be. What a misconception.
  Take a look what North Korea is all about. In fact, if I was a 
wealthy man, I would spend my money and I would take every high school 
graduate in this country, if they wanted to go, and I would fly them to 
Korea and I would take them up to the DMZ and I would show them that 
line that separates two societies, the society of democracy and freedom 
against the society of communism and dictatorship and ruthlessness.
  But all of a sudden, because our President and his administration, 
and a very able administration, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and 
Donald Rumsfeld, because they say it so, we all of a sudden see them 
draw criticism. It was interesting that Colin Powell had to say the 
other day to even some of our allies in NATO, hey, every time you pound 
on the United States, why not pound on Iraq.
  And when the President talks about Iraq as part of the axis of evil 
and the evilness of Iran, do not forget the leader of Iraq, Saddam 
Hussein, who has poisoned his own people. He has not used chemical 
warfare or other kinds of poison against an enemy, but used it against 
his own people who disagreed with his policies. Look at the mass 
executions in that country. Look at the oppression against women in 
that country. Look at the oppression against scholars.
  And let me remind my colleagues that they are not content to keep it 
within their own borders. North Korea is not content to stay within its 
own borders. Iraq is not content to stay within its own borders. They 
want to reach outside their borders, and they want to destroy the signs 
of freedom, and they want to destroy the evidence of democracy. And we 
had better stand up to it.
  Frankly, most of the people in America have given their support to 
the President and his leadership. We have got to draw the line in the 
sand. That is what the President has said, and he is willing to commit 
the American forces to complete the mission. That is what all of us 
need to do. But some of my colleagues stand up to the American people 
and say, well, where is this going and to start criticizing the 
administration at this point in time on our war against terrorism, when 
they have not sat 10 minutes as the commanding officer of the United 
States, our chief military officer; they have not sat for 10 minutes in 
a lieutenant's chair in this mission. We need to give these people 
confidence. We need to give them our confidence that the job they are 
doing is what needs to be done.
  The cancer that is the al Qaeda, the acts of these terrorists, must 
be stopped. And thank goodness we finally have an administration that, 
despite the fact that we have taken some casualties, understands that 
if we are going to clear out the rats, if we are going to get in there 
and get those cancer cells, we are going to take casualties. There is a 
lot of dirty work ahead for us to get rid of this threat. But if we do 
not get rid of it now, the casualties we take today will be nothing, 
nothing compared to the many casualties we will take in the future and 
the regrets we will have in the future because we did not support this 
administration and take out the al Qaeda while we had the opportunity 
to take out the al Qaeda; while we had the opportunity to do something 
to restrain the expansionist mode of Iraq and the ideals of Iraq to use 
nuclear weapons, or biological weapons, or any kind of weapon of mass 
destruction against the rest of the free world.
  So I would urge my colleagues to be a little slower in their 
criticism; study the facts a little more and do not pretend to be some 
kind of tank captain out there who knows how to run the battlefield. We 
have experts out there that do that.
  Now, I am not saying that Congress should forgive or forget or 
release our oversight responsibilities and our budgetary 
responsibilities, et cetera. I am not saying that. I am just saying 
that I am beginning to sense that Congress and some Members of Congress 
are beginning to run interference on their own team. As our quarterback 
is getting ready to throw the ball, it is not a member of the enemy 
team that has broken through the line, it is some of our own people, 
kind of confused and running back there and asking the quarterback if 
he ought to be throwing the ball, right in the middle of the play. That 
does not work.
  This country, I think, has shown very admirable dedication to what 
this country is all about, and that is freedom and the protection of 
people throughout this world. Clearly, it has been reflected by our 
military, which has done an outstanding job. It has done such a good 
job that up to this point we have been able to limit casualties. But 
now when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, which is a necessary part, 
now when it comes to digging in real deep to get those cancer cells, we 
are going to have casualties.
  I wish we would not have casualties. Everyone in this Chamber wishes 
we would not have casualties. These poor families who have suffered the 
worst loss a family can suffer wishes they had not suffered that. But 
it is my opinion that almost everybody, almost everybody comes to the 
same conclusion, and that is that sometimes we have to fight. We cannot 
run. Sometimes we have to do what is right. Sometimes we have to draw 
that line in the sand; and when the other person steps over it, we have 
to stop them. Because if we do not, we will pay a very, very heavy 
price in the future.
  Let me talk very briefly about NATO. As my colleagues know, NATO is 
our North Atlantic defense council or European council treaty 
organization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is very 
important. They have played an important part in our war in 
Afghanistan. Within hours after the September 11 attack against the 
United States of America, NATO, for the first time in its history, for 
the first time in its history, invoked what is called article 5.
  Article 5 in the NATO agreement says, simplified, an attack against 
one is an attack against all. Within hours after that, NATO agreed to 
give the United States of America whatever was necessary, whatever the 
United States requested to assist them going after the people who 
committed that atrocious act of war against us. And the United States 
took advantage of that offer and took advantage of our membership in 
NATO.
  We called upon our friends to help us track down the financial 
network that supported this from a financial point of view. We called 
upon our friends to help us with intelligence and to help us break up 
those cells, those terrorist cells, located throughout the world, 
including some located in the United States of America. We requested, 
and it was supplied, NATO AWAC aircraft. For the first time in the 
history of the United States, we had nine U.S. aircraft patrolling our 
skyways while we sent our AWAC aircraft over to the theater of 
operations.
  I just recently returned from NATO meetings; and when I listened to 
the British, it was like listening to your own brother. The British are 
there. They are there 100 percent. And the British people, the 
ambassador over in London, told me what it was like hours after 
September 11. Tens of thousands of Britons came to the embassy to sign 
the condolence books. They could not get a phone call out because there 
were so many condolence phone calls from the British people to the 
American people. Tony Blair's resolve was instant and has only 
strengthened. It has not weakened. He came to the assistance of the 
United States.
  And so I want to commend NATO, but at the same time that I commend 
our partners in NATO, I want to remind some of our fair weather friends 
in NATO that this is not going to be an easy battle. Do not let these 
casualties of the last few hours scare you off. This, clearly, is a 
battle for this next century. This is a battle that determines the 
safety and the freedom and

[[Page H680]]

the future for all of our countries, whether you are in NATO or not. 
This time around it was the United States of America. It was New York. 
It was Washington, DC. Next time it might be Paris or next time maybe a 
terrorist attack in the country of Luxembourg or, God forbid, some 
other place in this world.
  We need to stick together as a team. This is not the time to pound on 
the United States, as Colin Powell has said. It is time to recognize 
who the enemy is, to acknowledge to the American people and to all 
world people who that enemy is, and to do something about the enemy. It 
is time to get a rope around that wild horse and bring it in. This 
cancer that is spreading throughout the world must be stopped, and it 
is not going to be stopped through weak knees. It is only going to be 
stopped through teamwork, through dedication, and, frankly, through 
sacrifice.
  The sacrifice reflected in the last few hours by the loss of American 
soldiers is exactly the kind of medicine that unfortunately is going to 
be necessary to take that cancer off that body. So let me, in 
conclusion of my remarks, just repeat what I said earlier, and these 
are the remarks of the brother of Chief Warrant Officer Stanley 
Harriman, who was killed in action in the last few hours, here is what 
his brother says; and this is how I conclude my remarks this evening: 
His brother Steve said that he hoped the military, and I add to that 
NATO and all our allies throughout the world, he hoped the military 
would not flinch in pursuing military operations to their conclusion. 
Stan would not have changed it if he could. He would have done it the 
same way. Steve said, I hope they continue to do what they say they are 
going to do, to complete the mission.
  Our military, with our support, and the administration, which is 
doing an outstanding job of leading this effort, must be allowed to 
complete the mission, to protect the freedom of the world and democracy 
as we know it.

                          ____________________