[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 14 (Monday, January 27, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H161-H165]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE ECONOMY
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). Under the Speaker's
guidelines, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) may control the
time.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy. I
do think the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) has sketched an
interesting conundrum.
I mentioned the concern I have over what happened in the last year,
but he raises an interesting dimension if we reflect back at what
happened with previous administrations and previous Congresses 10 years
ago.
Ten years ago, men and women in both parties, both the Republican and
a Democratic administration, made hard choices to control spending, to
not cut taxes even though it is fun, but the first President Bush
worked with Congress, put forward a balanced program of some modest tax
increase, some fiscal discipline in cutting. It was followed later by
both Republicans and Democrats with the Clinton administration, so we
got a balanced budget. We were able to turn things around. The economy
was booming. Today we are turning our back on that story.
At the same time, the first President Bush, when he was involved in
the Middle East with Iraq, painfully, arduously, worked and put
together an international coalition of almost 40 countries of allies
and some unlikely supporters dealing with that activity; and today, we
are looking at a situation where the United States is not anywhere near
that position and, instead, is relying on some rather aggressive
rhetoric rather than the hard work in the trenches that characterized
what happened with the first President Bush and the first Gulf War.
[[Page H162]]
Let me, if I could, I would like to begin by recognizing some of my
colleagues that are here. I know the gentlewoman from California (Ms.
Woolsey) has had a special interest dealing with the effects on young
people and education. We appreciate her leadership and would welcome
comments that she would care to give at this point.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for including me in
this, my friend from Oregon, and I would like to remind Americans that
one way that we as Americans define ourselves as a Nation is through
the Federal budget, and right now, we have to make decisions about our
values and our priorities, and we have choices: on the one hand, an
unjustified war with Iraq that could cost more than $200 billion, and I
am sure it will, on top of an additional $670 billion tax cut that
primarily benefits the wealthiest Americans, or an investment in our
children, an investment in their future.
We have to make these decisions. We cannot do it all because there is
not enough money to cover both agendas without plunging the United
States and those very same children deep into debt.
As President Bush puts forward his plans in the State of the Union
address tomorrow night, I urge him, I urge him to remember that our
country's future depends on today's children. Of course, since
September 11 we have had to reevaluate some of our spending priorities,
but without investing in our children, we risk ills far worse than
those from terrorists.
That is why the wisest investment we can make in our Nation's
security is strengthening our children's lives and those of their
families, and we can do this. We can do this by preventing war, first
off. We must provide for real international security that has
alternatives to war as its cornerstone, and we can invest in renewable
energies. This will not only make for a cleaner environment. It will
also help us achieve independence from fossil fuels, particularly from
foreign oil.
Fossil fuels must become a source of the past. We must invest in
sources of energy that will provide for the prosperity of our children,
the protection of their environment and the security of their future.
We must change our national energy policy by supporting conservation
and renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass and fuel
cells.
We can invest in our future by increasing the child care option, and
we must do that by ensuring that working families have access to
quality child care.
{time} 2015
Children must not be the first to suffer when budgets tighten. If
children were our number one priority in this country, then programs to
provide for their welfare would be the last programs to be slashed.
Instead, we would be clamoring to help working parents by expanding
child care and after-school programs. We would be creating a world-
class public education system.
We can provide quality education. We can make sure that teachers are
adequately compensated for their important role in our children's
lives, because we have a responsibility to do that. And we have a
responsibility to fully fund programs for disadvantaged children. We
can invest in our future by making health care universally available.
The United States is the only industrialized country in this world in
which all citizens do not have access to medical coverage. Until we
have universal coverage, more than 40 million Americans, nearly 15
percent of the population, will go without. If we choose to make health
care a priority, we will provide children, their parents, and America's
seniors with universal coverage, including affordable prescription
drugs.
While putting a universal health care plan together, we can do
something immediately, and that is to increase the number of children
in the Medicaid and State Children's Insurance Program, to expand
SCHIPs also to include parents of eligible children and low-income
pregnant families. We must also seek to provide a prescription drug
benefit under Medicare. But these priorities and others that help
fulfill our commitment to our families, our seniors, our veterans will
only happen when we demand that they take precedence.
Excessive military spending in the past has not made us more secure.
American political leaders must acknowledge the truth, that peace and
security cannot be achieved through violence. We must never lose sight
that real security is an educated, healthy society where everyone
benefits from our Nation's abundant resources. And that is what I will
remind President Bush as he outlines his agenda Tuesday night. The
future of our Nation belongs to our children.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman again for including me in this
Special Order.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's tireless
efforts on behalf of children in our society, and focusing our
attention and making sure that people on this floor have this
constantly brought to their attention. It is really deeply appreciated.
Ms. WOOLSEY. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn to my colleague,
the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), a gentleman who has been
involved with some tough budget times as a local official and has been
involved with a series of schemes here in Congress, and who has never
been shy about sharing his opinions about what the appropriate approach
should be from his perspective.
I appreciate the gentleman being here this evening, and I am pleased
to yield to him now.
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Oregon for
leading us in this Special Order tonight to discuss the real problems
confronting our Nation, which will get, we all fear, short shrift
tomorrow night.
The State of the Union is not sound. Millions of Americans and their
families are not secure in their homes, not because of some huge new
crime wave, not because of the threat of Saddam Hussein or any external
threat to our Nation, but because of the deep recession into which our
country is falling.
My State has the highest unemployment rate in the Union. We have been
dueling with Washington State to be number one or number two for more
than a year. There is chronic unemployment, but it is not isolated to
our States, it is all across the Nation. We have the highest
unemployment rate in more than a decade. We have the most chronic
unemployment we have seen in a quarter of a century in terms of the
length of time people are out of work before they can find gainful
employment.
Tens of thousands of Americans have already extended their so-called
extended Federal benefits, and the President has refused to give an
additional extension, although there is a huge surplus of taxes that
have been paid by businesses and workers sitting in the Unemployment
Trust Fund. The President wants to hold onto it to spend for other
things, like tax breaks for the wealthy.
Most folks may not have noticed, but the United States Government's
Pension Benefit Guaranty Fund is broke. It spent its entire reserves in
the last year, and there is a whole huge new wave of corporate
bankruptcy coming, with people's pensions at risk, and there is no more
money in that fund. But what does the President have to say about this?
Well, precious little. He is going to spend the entire Social Security
surplus this year on tax breaks and other functions that do not relate
to Social Security.
Our States are going bankrupt. They are cutting services; slashing
services. Now, the President, I think, will give some nod tomorrow
night with his purported economic stimulus plan, but if we look at the
plan, the centerpiece is taking away that horrible burden of taxes on
dividends on a select group of stocks that pay dividends with the idea
of doing away with double taxation. Well, many of the corporations that
pay dividends do not pay any Federal income taxes. They have found the
loopholes; they are incorporated in Bermuda. All those things the
President supports and will not do anything about. So there is no
double taxation issue.
Who does the money go to? For the average Oregonian, at $32,000 a
year, they will get $40. Thank you, Mr. President. Now, the average
millionaire will get $45,000. Now, there are no credible economists who
say that this has anything to do with an economic stimulus,
[[Page H163]]
but this is the most expensive part of and the centerpiece of the
President's so-called economic stimulus plan to try to put people back
to work. Even Alan Greenspan, who is perpetually apologizing for these
types of policies, says he really does not think it will do anything to
put people back to work or stimulate the economy, and it would be just
as good to not do it at all.
When the President was a candidate and we had a booming economy and a
surplus, his answer as a candidate was tax cuts. Then when we had a
slowing economy and a surplus, his answer was tax cuts. Now we have a
devastated economy falling deeper and deeper into recession, and his
answer is tax cuts, for a select few.
There are better alternatives. Some of those will be discussed here
on the floor tonight. I have discussed those at other times, and I do
not have time to go into it now, but there are better alternatives to
really invest in this country and its people and put people back to
work.
Finally, to the war. Osama bin Laden, who was going to be brought
back dead or alive, is alive and is plotting further attacks on the
United States. Afghanistan, which was going to be made into a country
that would recover and not be made a safe haven for terrorists, has now
begun to set up terrorist training camps again. The Axis of Evil,
Korea, is building more nuclear weapons, they already have them, and
more long-range missiles that can hit the United States. Iran is close
to having nuclear weapons. And yet the President and his staff are
focused on Saddam Hussein and the horrible threat he poses.
Actually, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and all those people came into
office with President Bush II wanting to refight the first war. This
has nothing to do with 9-11 or any purported ties to terrorists. This
is old business, an old agenda by old men, none of whom has ever fought
in a war or ever worn a uniform and fought in anger.
So I would hope that the President's State of the Union will not
fulfill all of these dire predictions that I have mentioned, but I fear
it will. Tax cuts for the wealthy and a war are a nostrum for what
fails our Nation and the problems that are confronting us.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's passion and
insights.
Another colleague from the Pacific Northwest, the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. McDermott), has served on the Committee on Ways and
Means arm-wrestling with these proposals for a number of years and has
particular expertise dealing with health care and the economic
revitalization through tax policy.
If the gentleman would be interested in sharing a little of his
insights with us in terms of what we can look forward to and what we
should look forward to instead.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Well, I want to thank the gentleman from Oregon for
yielding to me.
I wish that tomorrow night we were going to have a speech like John
Kennedy gave in 1961, when he came and said, we are going to go to the
moon. He gave the American people a goal. He gave them hope. He gave
them a vision of what they could be as a country. Unfortunately, I am
sitting here preparing myself to come tomorrow and not hear any of
that.
I wish that the President were going to say tomorrow, when he stands
up here behind me, that in 10 years the United States is going to be
off their oil addiction; that they are going to break the oil addiction
that is killing us. They are going to do the things necessary to get
off an addiction. The United States is just like somebody who is on
heroin or cocaine in terms of oil. We use oil in tremendous amounts,
although we have scarcely any of it left in our own country. The
President wants to drill everywhere in sight, but we still are not
going to get enough oil from the United States. So we are forced to get
our oil from Venezuela and from Nigeria and from the Middle East, and
it is not necessary for this addiction to continue.
If the President of the United States would set a goal tomorrow night
for us to move to oil independence in the world and begin to push solar
and wind and hydrogen cells as a way of solving our transportation
problems and the energy needs of this society, we could do it. San
Francisco has already started to move. They got burned by Enron, so San
Francisco said, this is never going to happen again to us, and they
passed a $100 million bond issue, and they are putting solar panels on
every public building in San Francisco.
Now, if the President of the United States said that we are going to
do it all over the country, we would absolutely change our relationship
to the Middle East. This misbegotten proposal to go to war to get 20
percent of the world's oil reserves from Iraq would be irrelevant. They
could do it in San Francisco, yet our President cannot say let us do it
in the whole country.
California, every single day, has fallout of the sky seven times the
energy they use in California. All they have to do is catch it and turn
it into electrical energy, and they can do what needs to be done. Now,
that is true in many parts of the United States. Even in my State of
Washington there are areas where this makes good sense.
Now, let us talk about hydrogen cells. People say we are talking
about something that is way, way, way out there somewhere. Most people
do not realize Honda and Toyota delivered to the Los Angeles mayor
hydrogen cell cars within the last 2 months and said, we want you to
use these over here and see how they work and what the problems are.
The Japanese are, once again, miles ahead of us. They did it with
little cars, then they did it with hybrids, and now they are doing it
with hydrogen cells. But our President says, no, we have to stick with
that oil, and we have to put it in the gasoline engines, and we have to
do the same old thing.
Now, as a psychiatrist, one of the things I learned was that people
who do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result,
that is really a sign of sickness. We have been doing this for 100
years. We have been putting gasoline in cars and sending up clouds of
pollution, which is the second thing the President could be dealing
with. If he gave us this goal of energy independence, he would stop the
process of us polluting the air and destroying the ozone and global
warming.
All you have to see is pictures of glaciers all over this country and
north of this country that have been melted by the global warming. It
is absolutely without question going on. Yet our President says, no, we
cannot have anything to do with that Kyoto Accord, because that would
mean we would have to stop using our oil. But I wish the President were
coming tomorrow to say to us that we are going to get off that because
we are going to do something about the energy and how we are killing
the environment.
{time} 2030
Mr. Speaker, I heard a story on NPR recently which disturbed me,
having been a child psychiatrist for a number of years. Every child
born in this century has a 100 percent chance of getting skin cancer if
they are not protected because of the destruction of the ozone level;
they are being subjected to rays of the sun that is going to make them
develop skin cancer.
The President of the United States could do all of this if he could
simply say we are not going to go to war to get 20 percent of the
world's oil reserves; we are going to go in another direction. We are
going to change the direction of this country. Unfortunately, the
President of the United States is going to stand up on the podium and
beat the war drum for an hour and tell us we must go after Saddam
Hussein, and he has never made it clear what we are going for, but it
is really about oil.
What makes me sad about what is going to happen tomorrow night is
that the American people are going to listen to the speech and think
that their only solution is to take Saddam Hussein out; and if we do
that, we are going to be really safe. All of the security will be
settled; we will be safe forever.
Mr. Speaker, does anybody really think that the American public is
going to believe that? I do not. I wish the President would come
tomorrow and talk about energy independence.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I think it is interesting to consider
what would have happened if such a challenge had been made last year,
energy independence, for instance, instead of spending up to $230
billion on national missile defense. We have already put
[[Page H164]]
an $8 billion downpayment this year. We are starting work in Alaska
which, ironically, is something that is not going to make this country
safe from terrorist attacks. If people in North Korea actually have a
nuclear device, we are as vulnerable to somebody bringing a motor boat
into the Puget Sound, into San Francisco Bay, into New York Harbor.
Instead of moving forward with a challenge like the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. McDermott) talked about, instead this last year has
been characterized by a systematic assault on the environment.
There was a classic cartoon by Gary Trudeau in ``Doonesbury'' in the
Sunday paper which appeared around the country. The text of it that
builds the momentum is ``For instance, Mr. President, we've produced
new rules to speed up logging in national forests, rolled back
protections of 58 million acres from roads and developments, eased
pollution controls for power plants and factories, rejected new fuel-
efficiency standards, sped up permit-granting for power companies,
lifted a ban on snowmobiles in parks, proposed 51,000 new natural gas
wells, removed limits on coal producers for dumping mountaintop fill in
streams, reduced EPA fines of polluters by 64 percent, opened up Padre
Island to drilling, halted funding for several Superfund sites,
replaced scientists who don't support our views, rejected the Kyoto
Global Warming treaty, and much, much more!'' Gary is not making this
up. This is all part of the environmental legacy of this administration
in the course of the last year.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens), the
only librarian in Congress and a member of the Committee on Education
and the Workforce who has been dealing with questions of poverty,
education, and how we get our communities rolling again.
Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I make an appeal to the President that he
lead us in the most profound and comprehensive way and give us hope in
his State of the Union address.
At the beginning of this 108th Congress, it is important that we take
note of a very important report recently released by the Federal
Reserve. The study focuses on consumer finances, and is issued once
every 3 years. Among the definitive items in this comprehensive
statement is a report that the median net worth for our white
population rose by 20 percent to $120,900 while the median net worth
for minorities fell over the last 3-year period by 4.5 percent to
$17,000. Consider the contrast of $120,900 versus $17,000. It is a
portrait of two economies. It is a portrait of two societies. In the
midst of a period of great prosperity, at least 2 of those years we
were in a period of great prosperity, just before the economic slow
down, minorities were existing with a standard of living close to that
of the third world.
In the year 2003 this is the state of the Union for a population that
can be no less than one-half of the total. I have not been able to
review the report closely and find out what their definition of
minority is, but I will do that. But I am certain if minority means all
of the groupings that I know as minority, we are talking about more
than half the population. I intend to review the report in more detail
and see what this category of minority means.
While we casually speak of the expenditure of as much as $200 billion
for a possible war against Iraq, a large portion of our population is
sinking deeper into poverty. A war against poverty should be our first
priority because this economy, which is sinking into a recession, will
cause more hardships if we do not address the war against poverty.
In the State of the Union we hope to hear that there is support for
an increase in the minimum wage. We have been hearing about that for
several years, and it is still locked into $5.15. Even if we go to work
every day 40 hours a week, Americans will not get out of poverty on
that kind of minimum wage.
I hope the State of the Union will talk about job training and
employment for mothers being pushed off welfare. It is premature to
claim that we have solved the welfare problem by giving people jobs
with dignity instead of a handout. There are no jobs with dignity that
also pay decent wages out there, otherwise we would not have a 4.5
percent decline among poor people in terms of net worth.
For workers who have never been on welfare, we want to provide jobs
and job training, and we need revenue sharing for cities and States
because large numbers of municipal and State workers who have decent
jobs now are in danger of being laid off and losing their jobs, and
that is a further decline into poverty. We need funding for necessary
capital projects like school construction which provide real jobs, good
jobs, and keep our population working.
We hope and we pray that the vital standard of living issues that we
are talking about here will be addressed in the State of the Union
address. It is not the war against Iraq that should have priority; it
is the war against poverty and the war to maintain a decent standard of
living for all of our population that ought to be given a priority in
the State of the Union address.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments
and focusing on what we could be doing, what we should be doing, as
opposed to what it appears that the President is focusing on, an
economic stimulus package that will create less than 200,000 jobs,
which is only 10 percent of the jobs we have already lost in the last
year, that will provide the top 1 percent of the taxpayers with 40
percent of the benefits, and will increase the deficit by more than
$900 billion.
Mr. Speaker, I yield next to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), who
is an experienced legislator with an impressive victory which brought
him to this Chamber, and a Member who has impressed not only his
constituents in Ohio, but also Members here in Washington with the way
the gentleman has hit the ground running.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be here and honored to
be here with such a fine group of gentlemen who have spoken so
eloquently on the issues that need to be addressed in this country.
Let me touch base on what the gentleman from Washington stated about
having a goal and a vision. That is what we all look for when we listen
to the State of the Union, and I hope tomorrow we have an opportunity
to hear the President share his vision for some energy independence in
this country.
Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise to represent the people of the 17th
Congressional District in Ohio, the good folks back at home, who I
think want solutions, not just rhetoric. Whether it is talking about
prescription drugs and seniors really having a need, where they are
moving in with their children, their grandchildren, they are making the
choice between food and drugs in the 17th District in Ohio, but even
industries in the 17th District of Ohio want a meaningful prescription
drug plan. We can do this, and I believe we should do this.
The gentleman from New York touched upon education and the Leave No
Child Behind Act was supposed to be the answer to all of our problems;
but now it seems that the only thing that has been left behind is the
money to actually fund the program. I think when we are talking about
economic development and salvaging our economy, the best investment we
can make is into education.
American workers all over the country, but especially in the 17th
Congressional District are also suffering, whether it is unemployment
benefits or whatnot, and the President has an economic stimulus package
that really is not going to stimulate the economy. That again has been
touched upon here tonight. A stimulus package, money invested into a
stimulus package, should first stimulate; and second, the money should
be spent in the first year.
The President's proposal spends only 15 percent of the money in the
first year. That is not a stimulus package; that is a tax reform
package. And I think we need to begin to determine if we want to
stimulate the economy, the best thing we can do is if we are going to
give tax cuts, give them to low- and middle-income people who are
actually going to go out and spend the money. The wealthy people will
save their money. And with all of the talk of war, we can give them all
of the money back they want, they are not going to invest it in an
environment where we keep talking about war.
Another investment which I think would stimulate the economy, which
[[Page H165]]
economists have said time and time again, is investments in the
infrastructure. For every billion dollars we invest in infrastructure,
we create 42,000 jobs. That is a real economic stimulus, and I hope the
President will talk a little bit about the Democrats' stimulus package
that we have offered.
Finally, I would like to speak about homeland security and how it
fits into a stimulus package. If we really want a secure homeland, we
need to talk about providing police, providing fire protection, and
hazardous material funding to those in the inner cities. Those people
have a right as much as everyone else in this country to have a safe,
secure homeland, and that is what some funding should be spent on.
Mr. Speaker, I hope that the President understands that our Nation
really and truly can only be strong if the poorest and the most
vulnerable and the workers of this country are strong. That is what we
hope to hear tomorrow night.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman joining us
and the gentleman's focus on the plight of prescription drug coverage
for our senior citizens. It continues to be, I think, an outrage and a
shame that poor American senior citizens pay the highest prescription
drug prices in the world. It is in this context that we are moving
forward dealing with the economy, with the weakest economic growth in
50 years, over 2 million private sector jobs eliminated since this
administration started, 2 million more employees out of work, the
median household income being down, and the inequality gaps growing,
and States facing huge deficits and having to cut programs. Then we are
given an economic program on the Federal level which will actually
reduce State revenues for the majority of States and not meaningfully
deal with the problems that our States are facing.
I am hopeful that this Congress at least will respond to the efforts
of the Democratic minority here in the House to make sure that we fully
fund our commitments to State and local governments, local governments
being the first line of defense against terrorist acts here at home.
{time} 2045
Promises to local governments have been left unfulfilled.
I am pleased to turn to the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda), my
colleague who has finished a distinguished career in the California
State Assembly and who is now adding his voice here in our Nation's
Capital dealing with the needs of the people of California and around
the country.
Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding,
and I appreciate the introduction and the work that he is doing today
and this evening.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss the state of our Union, and let
us talk plainly on what is going on today. Today 8.6 million Americans
are looking for work, but unable to find it. In my district of Santa
Clara County alone, over 80,000 Americans are unemployed. Since
President Bush took office, 1.7 million jobs have been lost.
Today too many of our Nation's schools are crumbling and are crowded.
The average public school in America is 42 years old. In California
alone, 87 percent of schools report a need to upgrade their buildings
and other repairs that they need.
Today 40 million Americans do not have health insurance; 7.2 million
of them are children. While these numbers dropped in 1999 and the year
2000, they rose by 1.4 million in 2001.
Today serious crime is up 2.1 percent, the first increase in 10
years.
Today 1.3 million more Americans are below the poverty line, the
first increase since 1993. Requests for emergency shelter have
increased by 19 percent, the largest annual increase in the demand for
homeless shelter since 1990.
Mr. Speaker, it is thus no surprise that 67 percent of Americans are
worried about the economy. While the war against terrorism remains a
major priority, it cannot replace our commitment to meeting our
Nation's other domestic priorities.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration's economic stimulus plan does
little to stimulate the economy now. Instead, it does too much to
weaken our economic future, producing deficits of over $1 trillion. The
centerpiece of the President's plan, the elimination of taxes on
dividend income, will do little to help working families and small
business, which are the backbone of the American economy. In contrast,
Democrats have put forward an effective, fast-acting stimulus plan that
would create 1 million jobs this year.
Mr. Speaker, while the President continues to pitch his flawed
economic plan and continues to downplay the state of our economy,
Democrats will continue to focus on a swift economic recovery and fight
to put education and health care ahead of unfair large, huge tax cuts.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate
his focusing on the program that has been advanced by the Democrats in
the House of Representatives. It is an immediate economic stimulus plan
that will create 1 million jobs this year. It would put money and
purchasing power in the hands of consumers, provide relief to 3 million
laid-off workers. The House Democratic plan proposes a $300 tax rebate
now for every working taxpayer, tax breaks to help small businesses and
encourage business investment, and a 26-week extension of unemployment
insurance. It would provide money to the States to deal with their
fiscal crises, dealing with homeland security, transportation, and
health care costs. All told, this Democratic plan which would put more
on the table this year would cost far less than that of the President.
We look forward to being able to carry this debate forward in the
aftermath of this important week here in Washington, D.C.
I appreciate the courtesy, Mr. Speaker, of being able to be here on
the floor this evening.
____________________