[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 91 (Thursday, June 19, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H5654-H5660]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                ALL POLITICS ARE INEXTRICABLY INTERWOVEN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, most of us returning to our districts have 
had an inordinate amount of inquiries and complaints, I am sure, from 
constituents about local developments and problems. Local hardships are 
the first things on the minds of my constituents, and I am sure many of 
my colleagues have experienced the same problem.
  People are concerned about the budget cuts at the city and State 
level, they are concerned about layoffs of people, they are concerned 
about the fact that there are property tax increases as a result of 
trying to make up for shortfalls in the budget of a State or of a city. 
So local hardships are on folks' minds.
  I try to get them to understand that, okay, let us talk about it. You 
have your city councilman, you have your State officials. I certainly 
am concerned about the local hardships also. But I think it is 
important for them to understand that it is all interwoven. All 
politics inextricably are interwoven, and what is happening down here 
in Washington has an impact on what is happening at the local level, 
and the sooner we understand that, the better.
  What we do in Washington generates a lot of local hardships and 
suffering. National and international blunders create pain and 
suffering in our neighborhoods. That is where the troops come from. 
That is where the soldiers who are on the frontline come from. They 
come out of our neighborhoods, and those blunders and things that we 
do, like the war in Iraq, which I consider a blunder, and the fact that 
the combat was successful has not made me a believer that that war was 
necessary. It is a blunder. Every life that was lost was lost 
unnecessarily, in my opinion. It will suck vitally-needed resources 
from the war against terrorism. We are in for a much more serious 
situation developing in Iraq, which I will talk about later.
  The poor will bear the burden of the war in Iraq. They will bear the 
burden. They have already borne the burden of the combat. A study by 
the New York Times showed that the people who are the soldiers in our 
military forces now are folks from the neighborhood. Members of working 
families make up more than 90 percent of the forces.
  We are proud of them. When there is a war that is really necessary, 
we are proud of the fact that they are there to fight the war. We do 
not want their lives to be lost unnecessarily. We do not want them to 
find themselves sitting in Iraq for the next 5 years. We do not want 
the terrible conditions to be foisted upon those who happen to be 
there, and there is no rotation out because we do not have troops to 
replace them with.
  There are a number of problems which place the burden of the war on 
Iraq on the backs of the poor. Those are my constituents, and those of 
many of my colleagues. We want them to understand we are concerned and 
are working to relieve those burdens here in Washington.
  There is a scenario shaping up for bloody guerilla warfare in Iraq. I 
am not a military expert, I am not on the committee, but I think there 
is some sophomoric knowledge, some examples of immediate history, not 
too far in the past, Vietnam, Chechnya, the Russian occupation of 
Afghanistan, the suicide bombers in Israel. There are a number of items 
there which should lead us to understand that we are in for serious 
trouble as things are developing in Iraq, and, if we do not do 
something quickly in Iraq more decisively, we are going to have many 
more unnecessary lives lost, we are going to have to spend a tremendous 
amount of resources. Dollars that ought to be going to make up these 
budget gaps in the cities and the States, those dollars will be going 
to fight a guerilla war in Iraq.
  There is a way out of this. I was not for the war, but I certainly 
would like to see a successful occupation. We are there now, and we 
should pull out all stops and make certain we bring justice to the 
ordinary people of Iraq. That is the way to avoid guerrilla warfare.
  Guerrilla warfare will never succeed unless it has a base in the 
population which is going to help hide it and nurture it and make it 
difficult for an occupying force to deal with. We did not have guerilla 
warfare to any great extent in Germany after the Second World War. We 
did not have it to a great extent in Japan. Yes, there was some 
guerilla warfare, and it is not talked about much, some holdouts, et 
cetera, but their efforts were quickly undercut by the way the 
population of Germany and Japan was treated by the occupying forces.
  The same thing is true here, and we are in the process of failing in 
our slowness in responding to the needs of the general population in 
Iraq.
  There is a formula for success, and I would like to see that formula 
carried out, because I do not want more of my constituents stuck in 
Iraq as an occupying power. It destroys their mental capacity after 
being there under such tremendous strain for a long time. The weather 
is 140 degrees. All kinds of things are taking place that impact on a 
human being, and I do not want a situation where we are stuck there 
with the poorest of the poor in the Armed Services having to carry out 
unnecessary duties.
  Let us go now into a situation which will correct the situation 
properly and lead us to a point where we can declare success in Iraq 
and leave.
  The Marshall Plan model is there, the Marshall Plan model we used in 
Europe. Why was it possible to overcome all the difficulties in Europe? 
Why did the Soviet Union, who at that time was given an opportunity to 
participate in the Marshall Plan, why did they refuse? It was because 
they knew that the general population would benefit in a way which 
would undercut their communist schemes and their own schemes for world 
domination, and they did not want the population to be satisfied in any 
way, a part of a partnership for progress and a partnership which took 
care of meeting the needs of ordinary people.
  So the Marshall Plan model to spend money, to use our resources, our 
technical know-how, to improve the state of the lives of the people 
there, is very much necessary. We could rebuild the infrastructure of 
Iraq in one year. It may cost a great deal, but it will cost far less 
to go in to rebuild the infrastructure of the water systems and the 
electricity systems than it will cost us if the population becomes 
alienated and supportive of guerilla warfare. We have what it takes to 
do it.
  I will come back and talk about the formula for success in the 
occupation of Iraq in greater detail.
  There is a formula for success to relieve the suffering and the 
hardships in our States and our cities also, but it is all interwoven 
with the kinds of resources we put into places like Iraq. We do not 
have the money. We voted to appropriate $79 billion for the war in Iraq 
and related matters, and there is no money to deal with the problem of 
economic recession here at home. So we have to stop the blunders 
internationally in order to be able to deal with our problems closer to 
home.
  All politics are inextricably interwoven. We must understand that 
clearly ourselves, and we should also make sure that our constituents 
understand.
  In New York, I hear repeatedly complaints about, Congressman, why do 
you not do something about the fact that we just got an 18 percent 
property tax increase, an 18 percent property tax increase? On top of 
that, there is a ticket blitz. The cops are being encouraged to write 
tickets for everything. You drop a gum wrapper on the sidewalk, a candy 
wrapper, and they rush to write a ticket because they need the money. 
The citizens become the victims of the government to raise revenue.

[[Page H5655]]

  Some of that is happening right here in Washington, D.C. also and 
some other big cities. The citizens are the targets for the people who 
are governing them in order to raise more revenue.
  It is not funny at all. I had a lady come into my office crying 
because she was in an intersection and happened to be caught in the 
intersection when the light changed, and the policeman pulled her over 
and gave her a ticket for a moving violation. Under normal 
circumstances, that would not happen.
  Layoffs are taking place in New York City and New York State, 
certainly New York City. People who get laid off are the last hired, so 
they get laid off, and inevitably they are the poorest people.
  They laid off 1,200 paraprofessionals in the schools, the people who 
are in the classrooms with the teachers and who help to monitor the 
hallways and the lunchrooms. They are the people living in the 
neighborhood, they are the people that know the families, they are the 
people that know the children best. How are we going forward in our 
education reform and education improvement if we are going to take away 
that vital part as a result of budget cuts?
  Budget cuts are reversing the progress that we were making in 
education reform. ``No Child Left Behind'' is just an empty slogan now 
because of the fact that the Federal Government is not following 
through on its promises.
  Even worse, what we had going at the State and local level is being 
cut. You cannot talk about improving education if the budget cuts force 
you to lay off teachers. Therefore, the ratio of children to each 
teacher in the classroom inevitably gets higher.
  One of the clear principles of reform that we have established is in 
the lower grades, you need fewer children per teacher. That reform goes 
out the window because of the fact you have no money to hire teachers, 
quality teachers.
  There is an acceptance of teachers who are not certified and hiring 
teachers who are substitute teachers, because in many cases they are 
cheaper. The budget can take them, but it cannot pay for quality 
teachers. Quality teachers in some instances are being encouraged to 
retire because they are at the end of the scale in terms of salary 
payments and they drain more of the budget. Never mind the fact they 
are the ones who know how to teach the children, that they must mentor 
new teachers coming in, they are the ones that hold the system 
together. No, let us get them out, because we want to lower the cost of 
personnel.
  So, these local hardships and cutbacks and raids on education 
progress doom any forward motion. We can forget about it.
  Then promises, of course, are being broken for education here in 
Washington.
  Local level problems are, in some ways, insoluble in terms of the 
financing. At the local level, the State level, there are 
constitutions, State constitutions, city charters, which say you cannot 
spend more money than you anticipate taking in, in revenue. They are 
bound by that and must operate within that stricture.
  The Federal Government does not have to operate within that 
stricture. In fact, several speakers today, and one in particular 
tonight, pointed out the fact we are borrowing money on a wholesale 
basis. We may be borrowing about $1 trillion over the next few months. 
We are not bound by the revenue coming in. We are borrowing money, we 
are using Social Security funds.
  The things that are important to the powers, the majority powers in 
Washington, the Republican majority, the things that are important to 
them are being funded. They are funding the tax cut, they are funding 
the war in Iraq, they are funding farm subsidies, which are far too 
high and unjust, they are funding the things that are important, and 
education happens to be one of the things not important enough.

                              {time}  1900

  I suppose most of our colleagues are like me. They were anticipating 
that if we follow the usual pattern, the Health and Human Services 
markup would be taking place after we come back from the July 4th 
recess and, in some cases, it would be one of the last of the markups. 
But to my surprise and shock, I have received information which states 
that we had the markup today, that the Health and Human Services markup 
has taken place, and it is over, and the education portion of the 
budget has been gutted in terms of promises made that are not being 
kept. There has been a broken promise in terms of overall education 
funding.
  The majority party Republicans loudly proclaimed that they would 
provide a $3 billion increase from the previous year, over the previous 
year for the Department of Education. That $3 billion was cut down to 
$2.3 billion, or a 4.3 percent increase in education, which is the 
smallest dollar increase in 5 years and the smallest percentage 
increase of money for education in 8 years.
  Let us just stop for a moment and think about the fact that education 
started way behind as a Federal expenditure, and over the last 8 years 
we have had steady increases, as the American people have made it quite 
clear to all of us. In every district I think it has been made clear by 
the constituents that they want the Federal Government to do more for 
education, even when ideologically, the majority of Republicans, the 
Republican majority did not care for the Department of Education and 
they tried to dismantle it, and they had to retreat. Not only did they 
retreat on the effort to dismantle the Department of Education, but 
they began to appropriate large amounts of funds for education in 
response to their own constituency. Everybody sees the commonsense 
wisdom of more support for education.
  To go back to the war in Iraq for a moment, since the President 
declared victory in Iraq, we have lost more than 50 lives. I think 14 
of those lives have been lost as a result of hostile activities, but 
the others have been lost as a result of accidents. What are accidents? 
Why are accidents killing so many of our soldiers? What is the problem? 
The problem is, I think, that we have a high-tech operation with 
respect to our military, and too few of our soldiers really know how to 
operate all of the equipment and the weaponry that we have. Helicopters 
in particular need to be investigated because a large number of 
accidents happen there. But just the rapid movement of vehicles and 
collisions on the ground seem to be a major problem. So education in 
our military to produce a better-equipped military is as important as 
education anywhere else.
  Returning to our education appropriations process, the No Child Left 
Behind Act, which had great fanfare when the President signed it, he 
promised America's school would now be on a path of reform and a new 
path of results. Our schools now would have greater resources to meet 
those goals. That is what the President promised. He stated that we 
have accountability from all 50 States now. But the problem is, where 
are the resources? This bill provides, the markup today provides an 
increase of only $381 million, or 1.6 percent over the current funding 
level for the No Child Left Behind Act. That is a freeze in real terms. 
We can provide $1 trillion in tax cuts but, at the same time, this bill 
does not even come close to meeting the funding levels authorizing the 
No Child Left Behind Act, which would require another $8 billion in 
fiscal year 2004.
  In the case of special education, we have made promises and have a 
$1.2 billion shortfall. I think it is important for all of our 
colleagues to wake up to the fact that this is on the table right now, 
it has been done, decided in the markup in the Committee on 
Appropriations responsible for Health and Human Services; and we should 
move now if we are going to have any effective counterattack before 
this appropriations bill hits the floor.
  Title I funding, we have a shortfall there. We are $334 million 
short, since it provides only a $666 million increase requested by the 
President instead of the overall amount originally contemplated. 
College education, the increase there is another broken promise.
  In the agencies under the Health and Human Services appropriation 
subcommittee, the Institutes of Health have received a great decrease 
after having 15 percent annual increases over the last 5 years. We 
recognize the need to deal with the use of science, the best

[[Page H5656]]

science in the world to come to grips with the more rapid-reaching of 
ways to contain diseases and to provide cures for the incurable items 
that are still on the agenda, but that 15 percent increase has now been 
cut to a mere 2.5 percent increase.
  The health care safety net is not taken care of. Bioterrorism, a 
concern that the Department of Homeland Security has talked about quite 
a bit; bioterrorism preparedness under the Republican bill received $94 
million less than they received this year.
  The Department of Health and Human Services asked for $100 million to 
get the Nation better prepared for an influenza pandemic, and the bill 
provides only half of that amount.
  The nursing shortage is not dealt with properly and, of course, when 
it comes to unemployment insurance to deal with the most important 
factor in our recession, a the fact that people have no money to spend, 
that is underfunded too.
  Low-income heating assistance was greatly cut also. Promises have 
been broken. Why? Because when it comes to the domestic budget, we 
plead bankruptcy. We do not have the money. We have enough money in the 
domestic budget, of course, to provide the biggest tax cuts in history. 
We have enough money in the overall budget to provide a $79 billion 
special allocation for the war in Iraq and related matters. What we 
want to do, really, we can find the money for.
  So the local hardships and the immediate problems faced by education 
are not unrelated to our blunders at a national and international 
level. The tax cut is a national blunder. It is a great economic 
disaster that we are going to suffer for, not only nationally, but 
it is going to create pain and suffering in our neighborhoods.

  The war in Iraq is a blunder because it will suck a large number of 
vitally needed resources. Human life is sacred, and every human life 
lost in the war in Iraq is the first problem that I have, the first 
problem that anybody who believes in the sacredness of human life has. 
Soldiers have to die; military activities are necessary. But only when 
they are necessary should they be conducted, only when they are 
necessary. Only when they are necessary should we place the life of a 
soldier at risk. Only when it is necessary should soldiers have to die.
  I am not a pacifist. I was in favor of immediately going to stop the 
Taliban in Afghanistan and to extract from them al Qaeda and Osama bin 
Laden. They were immediate enemies. They made no effort to hide the 
fact that they were there in Afghanistan. So it is not a pacifist 
sentiment that drives me; it is a reverence for human life that only 
when it is necessary, as it was in that case, and as military action is 
in many other cases, should it happen.
  Was it necessary to lose lives in Iraq? And we have lost relatively 
few, and we like to boast about that; but there will be more lives 
lost, I assure my colleagues, in Iraq. And it is not necessary.
  A lot of focus has been turned in the direction of the weapons of 
mass destruction. Weapons of mass destruction are thoroughly being 
analyzed, and the case for that, whether they exist or whether we 
deliberately oversold the existence of weapons of mass destruction or 
not, all that is being very well aired in the press. I think in many 
cases the media got in bed with the war; and ``embeddedness'' had 
really a double meaning. The media that got in bed with the war and 
praised it and covered up certain kinds of things are feeling guilty 
now, and they are going to extremes to examine the whole question of 
weapons of mass destruction. When did we know what we know, who 
exaggerated, how incompetent is our military intelligence? Was it the 
incompetence of our military intelligence, or was it the White House 
insisting that the facts be twisted?
  I am confident that we are going to come out with some real answers 
there, but we are focusing so much on that, we are losing sight of the 
fact that there is a situation developing in Iraq which is dangerous 
and will engulf us in a war that is going to take a lot more lives, a 
lot more resources.
  The war in Iraq already has pinned down, we say 150,000, of our 
troops; but we never give the correct figure. I am sure we have at 
least 200,000 there already, but we are going to need more. We cannot 
occupy a country of 24 million people with 150,000 or 200,000 troops if 
that population is hostile. We are making that population more hostile 
because, of course, we are zeroing in now on the neighboring nation of 
Iran.
  Why is activity in Iran going to impact on what happens in Iraq? 
Because the majority of the people in Iraq are Shiite Muslims. Shiite 
Muslims are the predominant group in Iran. And one of the alliances 
that we expected to form was, with our liberating troops, was the 
Shiite population that had been exploited, oppressed under Saddam 
Hussein, because Saddam Hussein is Sunni. The Sunnis had oppressed the 
Shiites. Well, the Shiites, we say, did welcome us in places where 
there were large Shiite populations. We had the least amount of trouble 
in the heated combat and even now in the occupation.
  But if we are going to go into a situation now where a great deal of 
pressure is being brought on Iran, and it may be necessary, Iran may be 
the real problem, and we should not be in Iraq; if we are looking for 
nuclear weapons, it may be that Iran is far closer to building a 
nuclear weapon, buying parts maybe from North Korea than is acceptable. 
But the Shiite population in Iraq will not be an ally. So we are going 
to have to worry about the guerilla warfare problem even more if we 
lose the loyalty and the support of the Shiites.
  We are neglecting some other things, as I said before, while we pour 
our resources and our troops into Iraq. We are neglecting Pakistan. I 
have said many times that I know a little bit more about Pakistan than 
I do most of the Muslim nations because I have a Pakistan population in 
my congressional district. They are major allies of the United States. 
They were in the Cold War; they were in the war against the Soviets in 
Afghanistan. Pakistan has always been with the U.S.
  But in my opinion, we have always given Pakistan very second-class, 
shabby treatment. The amount of aid presently going to Pakistan from 
the United States is less than $500 million at this point. Yet Pakistan 
is a major ally of ours. Pakistan, its government, put itself on the 
line from the very beginning in the war against terrorism. They allowed 
our troops in, they have cooperated in many ways, but we still are 
neglecting Pakistan. We are so preoccupied with focusing on Iraq that 
we are ignoring a major ally.
  What is the danger of this? The danger is that Pakistan's government 
is on our side, but Pakistan is still a Muslim nation. Pakistan is 
still the home of the Taliban. The Taliban were created in the 
religious schools of Pakistan before they marched into Afghanistan and 
united to take over that country. This is not a great secret. One does 
not need the CIA to tell us this; it is well-known. So the pressure on 
the Pakistan Government is enormous, and there were parts of the 
Pakistan military that helped to train the Taliban, the parts of the 
Pakistan military that is very sympathetic to al Qaeda and the final 
situation is Pakistan already has nuclear weapons.

                              {time}  1915

  Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and we know that. Everybody knows that. 
They are right there, available. If al Qaeda, the Taliban, the forces 
inside Pakistan were to pull a coup and take over the government of 
Pakistan, I think we would be forced to react militarily immediately. 
We would be forced into a situation which is very dangerous for a long, 
long time to come, with the bomb in the hands of terrorists for sure. 
No speculation.
  So why are we so reluctant to maximize our resources in Pakistan? If 
ever there was a nation that deserved to have a massive Marshall Plan 
model, it is Pakistan. We should go in to help the economy of Pakistan, 
to help the education structure of Pakistan. We should see that 
expenditure as being far more worthwhile and productive in the fight 
against terrorism than many of the expenditures we are making in Iraq. 
In Iraq, the poor will bear the burden of the war. As I said before, 
people from my district, the working families, produce the soldiers.
  The winds of war are blowing and we are ignoring them. We do not seem 
to talk very much about the fact that guerilla warfare is a 
possibility, because every day there are more incidents taking place of 
attacks on American soldiers in Iraq. More incidents

[[Page H5657]]

take place every day. We have decided to have some counteroperations, 
to sweep through certain areas and intimidate certain folks, and even 
round up certain operatives who probably are getting ready to launch 
guerilla warfare, if they are not already involved.
  All of that is necessary, but I do not see any overall plan that 
says, look, we do not want to have guerilla warfare break out in Iraq; 
we do not want a guerilla warfare situation. And the worst element in a 
guerilla warfare situation is a population that is friendly to the 
guerrillas; the population that hates the liberators. That plan is not 
there. The understanding is not there.
  I think that it is not required that you have a great deal of 
military experience in order to understand what is going on. A group of 
sophomores huddled around a table at lunch time could see the unfolding 
of the situation, it seems to me, and understand where it is going. A 
group of sophomores could say, look at the situation that took place in 
Afghanistan, when the Soviets tried to occupy Afghanistan. They won the 
comeback, then they tried to occupy the territory, and their losses 
were so great until they finally just gave up and pulled out because 
the guerilla warfare was unbearable.
  Now, I mentioned to an expert 2 weeks ago, I said, do we not have to 
worry about the escalating guerilla activities? These incidents that 
are spontaneous right now, but they are probing and they are 
experimenting and they are finding out certain kinds of weaknesses. Do 
we not have to worry about something like a Tet offensive that took 
place in Vietnam in the City of Saigon?
  For those of you too long to remember the Vietnam War, the war in 
Vietnam was declared a success and was moving along at a jolly pace 
when suddenly there was a big offensive launched by the Viet Cong. The 
Viet Cong are a guerilla operation, of course. And this primarily took 
place in the City of Saigon. From the destruction that was wrought on 
the day of the Tet offensive, from that day on, we know now that our 
military understood that the war was lost. They would not give up. They 
would not admit certain things. But that Tet offensive of guerilla 
warfare sort of sent the signal of how powerful the forces were.
  I raised that issue with this expert at a meeting a couple of weeks 
ago and he said to me, well, the Vietnamese had jungles to hide in. The 
Iraqis do not have any jungles. It is wide open desert. So we do not 
have to worry about that kind of guerilla warfare. I did not press the 
point, but the Tet offensive took place mostly in the City of Saigon. 
In the city. And it is in the city, in urban warfare, where our high-
tech weaponry and equipment has the least advantage. We are at a great 
disadvantage with high-tech warfare in urban warfare, in house-to-house 
warfare. You are so close to the enemy that blockbuster bombs do not do 
you any good because they will kill you as well as the enemy.
  We are in a situation where the enemy knows the terrain better than 
we do. We are in a situation where the enemy will have the support of 
the local population, unless we take steps to end that. So we ought to 
fear and we ought to be very worried about a massive, bloody war, a 
guerilla war, developing in the next 6 months in Iraq. And when that 
develops, great amounts of human lives are going to be lost. And to 
restore and get back to where we should be is going to be very costly. 
We ought to look at it now and look for solutions now.
  I believe in peace because I think human life is sacred, but I take 
off my hat and I salute our men and women in our Armed Forces. I think 
every soldier is a hero. I take exception to some people who would make 
these gradations and degrees. This veteran did not see combat, 
therefore he does not deserve the same benefits as the guy who saw 
combat. This veteran did not even go overseas or this veteran went 
overseas but he spent all his time behind the lines, he was in a unit 
that buried soldiers.
  Anybody who puts on a uniform is a hero, because once you put the 
uniform on and you take the oath, your life does not belong to you. You 
go where you are sent. And it is only by the grace of God or by 
accident or whatever that you do not end up in a place where your life 
is more at risk than another. Nobody chooses where they go once they 
become a soldier. So every soldier, every person in the military ought 
to be saluted as a hero from the time they put the uniform on.
  Let us not degrade them by saying, you did not see enough combat, or 
some guys saw a whole year of combat so they deserve more benefits than 
the guy who saw one week of combat. Everybody is a hero and ought to be 
treated that way. Certainly the people who see combat deserve to be 
treated as heroes.
  I like the model established by the Vietnam Memorial Wall. For the 
first time, the Vietnam Memorial Wall made us look at every soldier who 
got killed as a hero. Their names are on the wall. I think that is a 
great monument, one of the greatest war monuments ever created, and I 
think it is a peace monument. Because when you have to look at human 
beings individually, then you know the horror of war. I have gone to 
that wall with people looking for their relatives or friends. I went 
with my young brother, who not so long ago was a sergeant major in the 
Army, 20-some years. I went with him to look for a friend of his that 
he went to high school with. And I saw the tears in his eyes when he 
found the friend's name on the wall. Just a friend.
  Think of all the mothers and the fathers and the relatives who go to 
that wall and cry over lost loved ones, 58,000 now. But I think it is a 
monument that lets us know that war is hell, war is horrible, and not a 
single life should be put at risk and lost unnecessarily.
  They used to have tombs of unknown soldiers. They still have them. 
All over the world you will find these tombs of unknown soldiers. Well, 
I hope that there will be no new tombs of unknown soldiers. Soldiers 
should be known. The names of all the soldiers who died should be 
known. All the soldiers who put on a uniform and were available to die 
should be known.
  All human life is sacred, and until we recognize how sacred it is, we 
will not have the national policies or international policies which are 
worthy of the people who make up the Nation. The people who make up the 
Armed Forces, as I said before, 90 percent are from working families. 
Everybody should realize the importance of working families to America. 
If you did not realize it before, realize it now. It should have an 
impact on our policies.
  We should look at the minimum wage that is $5.15 an hour for the last 
3 or 4 years. Working families are not given an opportunity to earn a 
decent living. We should look at OSHA, at health and safety 
requirements in the workplace. There are a number of programs for poor 
children that we should look at.
  We have been struggling this week in the Committee on Education and 
the Workforce with Head Start. Head Start is a successful program. They 
have not been able to malign Head Start or discredit Head Start. 
Despite the great success of Head Start, there are people who still 
only want to nickel and dime Head Start. They do not want to raise the 
amount of money we appropriate for Head Start so that Head Start can 
hire decent teachers and keep them.
  One of the biggest problems with Head Start is they cannot keep any 
teachers. Because the teachers are paid so poorly, they are always 
moving on to some other school or education arena. So we get only new 
teachers in Head Start, teachers who cannot teach anywhere else. Same 
thing is true in poor schools.
  We have had two bills in the last 10 days in the Committee on 
Education and the Workforce where we have tried to raise the amount of 
forgiveness on student loans so that people who teach in poor areas 
would have their loans forgiven if they teach for 5 years. We tried to 
raise the amount of loan forgiveness for Head Start teachers. We tried 
to have some Federal incentive and this would show that we have placed 
our priorities in the right place. But we lost. The only budging that 
we got, the only movement we got from the majority of Republicans was a 
forgiveness of the loans for math and science teachers, which is a 
victory still, but not nearly enough.
  Math and science teachers have their loans forgiven if they teach for 
a 5-year period, up to $17,500. That is in the bill that will be coming 
to the floor, and we

[[Page H5658]]

would like to make another try to expand that so that at the very 
bottom in early childhood and Head Start so that we also try to 
encourage teachers with that kind of incentive. We do not have the 
money. Those are poor children. They need a good start in life. We 
forget that they are going to become the soldiers who go off to fight 
the wars. They are going to become the heroes whose names are listed on 
another Vietnam Memorial Wall, or whatever the next wall will be. I 
hope in the future, all our heroes are honored in a similar fashion; 
that somewhere their names are known.
  We have a scenario for a bloody warfare about to happen in Iraq. We 
ought to take a hard look at it. I am concerned because I do not want 
the members of my district telling me that I did not do what is 
necessary, all that I could do to protect their relatives, their 
children who are over there. Many went in the National Guard not 
expecting ever to see combat. National Guard units have been called. 
Many are in the regular service because they wanted to be all that they 
could be and come out and get an education using the benefits promised 
by the services, which is great for a young person who has reached a 
dead end, who cannot afford to go to college, who cannot afford to pay 
tuition.
  There are many motivations. But once they are in the situation, they 
certainly should be treated like the heroes that they are.
  We had a rotation system in Vietnam. It was not passed by Congress, 
it was a matter of common sense which was finally figured out by the 
military in Vietnam so that the system did not leave anybody in combat 
for more than a year. In the last 2 years of the Vietnam War, you did a 
year and you were out. There was a rotation. There is no such rotation 
that has been established in Iraq. So we have 140 degree temperatures 
over there. No beds for them to sleep in.
  My colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson), 
went to visit, and she talked about the horrible situation that both 
men and women have to live in in Iraq. Those soldiers. And the most 
terrible thing is that once you have a hostile population, every time 
you step out on the street, you do not know when a sniper is going to 
be shooting at you or you will confront a group of people you do not 
know is friendly or might be a suicide bomber.
  Can you imagine how nerve-wracking that is, and how many nervous 
basket cases we have if people have to stay there and have no idea when 
they are going to be leaving because we have no rotation system? Why do 
we not have a rotation system? Because the administration is blundering 
again. They are determined not to admit we need more forces there.

                              {time}  1930

  We need more troops there. We need more troops, period. We may have 
to go into a draft to get those troops. That is the last thing that the 
powers that be in Washington want to admit, that we are in a war now 
requiring large amounts of personnel, and they may have to draft 
people. It is better to admit it sooner and have less deaths than to 
wait until later and be forced into it.
  We have scenarios, as I said before. We know what happened in 
Vietnam. The Tet Offensive showed us how effective guerrilla warfare 
can be in the city, not just the jungle. And the Russian attempt to 
occupy Afghanistan is another obvious example of what guerrilla warfare 
is like and how difficult it is to handle it.
  Right now Chechnya, a relatively small province in Russia, will not 
be subdued. Hatred can reach a level, fanaticism can reach a level 
which makes it almost impossible to get back to peace. And the suicide 
bombers in Israel are another example of a level where it is difficult 
to get back to establishing peace.
  But what it says in those situations, great harm can be done and we 
are placing our personnel at great risk. We need to do whatever is 
necessary to establish some new security.
  First, the formula for success in the occupation of Iraq has to begin 
with the establishment of proper security. Proper security means if 
more troops are needed, we need to establish proper security. Before we 
can do anything else, we need to block the escalation toward guerrilla 
warfare with the support of the population. Do I sound like a war 
monger? No. I was against the war in Iraq. I want to save lives. I do 
not want one blunder to lead to the loss of more lives than the 
original blunder took.
  I would like to see us have more troops in Iraq to secure it. Once we 
secure it, let us institute a Marshall Plan. What is the element of the 
Marshall Plan that is the most important? Let us give people 
electricity. Let us give the populous water. They had electricity and 
water before; they do not have it now. Is it so difficult to get 
electricity and water? If the soldiers and the local population cannot 
do it, we should form a corps of plumbers and electricians. We may need 
to pay them double for leaving their families and traveling across the 
ocean and going into an area that is not secure, but pay them whatever 
is necessary. In less than a year, we could reestablish all of the 
electricity that existed before with a corps of plumbers and 
electricians.
  It is not a great undoable task. It requires money. Spend the money 
that way instead of spending it fighting guerrilla warfare that is 
going to be endless. It is a slow period for the sheet metal workers; 
let them form a corps. Let us let the iron workers, the people who tore 
down the wreckage at the World Trade Center, let them go, organize 
them, and do what has to be done to restore the infrastructure in Iraq 
and win the hearts and minds of the civilian population. Let the 
workers go to the aid of their fellow workers. We have the soldiers 
over there; let the working families send the additional heroes to 
restore electricity and restore water and other systems.
  The problem is the way this administration operates, they would spend 
a lot of time figuring who is going to get the contract, who is going 
to profit from it, how much knowledge can you get from your 
contributors, and a lot of other things that come into play. We need to 
do this and do it fast.
  I remember that the earthquake in Oakland devastated a part of 
Oakland; and if the freeway and a number of things had been left that 
way for a year, it would have wrecked the economy of that area of 
California. We appropriated first $6 billion and later $8 billion, and 
they marshaled all of the technology, engineering skills, and in less 
than a year, the damage from that earthquake was restored and its 
impact on the economy was nil. It can be done. We do not need to have 
somebody come down from heaven and wave a magic wand. It is American 
know-how. Let us spend it up front to bring justice to Iraq instead of 
spending it in a bottomless pit, guerrilla warfare.

  Finally, alleviating hardships here in the States does not require 
heavenly intervention. I want to call Members' attention to an article 
that appeared in The New York Times, Tuesday, June 10, issue which is 
very revealing. I find it very inspiring. It is about a colleague of 
ours, Bob Riley, before he ran for governor in Alabama. As a Republican 
Congressman, he had a nearly perfect record of opposing any legislation 
supported by liberal Americans for democratic action, or anything else 
that was considered liberal.
  Why am I going to talk about Bob Riley? Because I think to relieve 
the hardships in our cities and States, to stop the budget cuts, to 
stop the cuts in education which force us to increase the size of 
classrooms, to stop the cuts which force us to push the best teachers 
into retirement, to stop all this, we need to marshal our revenue in a 
different way and change our priorities, and in order to do that you 
need a political base.
  One of the big problems with taxes and tax policies in America is 
that only the majority party, the Republican Party, has ever really 
showed great concern about tax policy. I mean, the kind of concern that 
it merits. I think the Democratic Party deserves to be chastised for 
not really thoroughly exploring what the meaning of tax policy is in 
the context of American politics.
  Bob Riley, forced in a situation where Alabama is starved for 
revenue, and he is now the governor, put aside any right wing ideology 
and has come out with common sense that we all should take a hard look 
at. Governor Riley has stunned many of his conservative supporters and 
enraged the State's powerful farm and lumber lobbies by pushing a tax 
reform plan

[[Page H5659]]

through the Alabama legislature that shifts a significant amount of the 
State's tax burden from the poor to wealthy individuals and 
corporations. And Governor Riley has framed the issue in starkly moral 
terms arguing that the current Alabama tax system violates biblical 
teachings because Christians are prohibited from oppressing the poor. 
That is Governor Bob Riley who used to sit here in this Chamber on the 
other side. I salute Governor Bob Riley.
  If Governor Riley's tax plan becomes law, and it has to be ratified 
in September by the voters, it will be a major victory for the poor 
people of Alabama if it becomes law. But win or lose, Alabama's tax 
reform crusade is posing a pointed question to the Christian Coalition, 
focus on the family and other groups that seek to import Christian 
values into national policy. The question has been asked, if Jesus were 
active in politics today, would he be lobbying for the poor? This is 
from a New York Times article of Tuesday, June 10.
  Alabama's tax system has long been brutally weighted against the less 
fortunate. The State income tax kicks in for families that earn as 
little as $4,600. Even Mississippi does not tax income until it is over 
$19,000. Alabama also relies heavily on sales tax which runs as high as 
11 percent, and their sales tax applies to groceries and infant formula 
as well as everything else.
  The upshot is wildly regressive Alabamians with incomes under $13,000 
pay 10.9 percent of their incomes in State and local taxes while those 
who made over $229,000 pay just 4.1 percent.

                              {time}  1945

  I would like to read that again:
  Alabamians with incomes under $13,000 pay 10.9 percent of their 
incomes in State and local taxes, while those who make over $229,000 
per year pay just 4.1 percent.
  A main reason Alabama's poor pay so much is that large timber 
companies and megafarms pay so little. The State allows big landowners 
to value their land using ``current use'' rules, which significantly 
low-ball its worth.
  Governor Riley's plan, which would bring in $1.2 billion in 
additional desperately needed revenue, takes aim at these inequalities. 
It would raise the income threshold at which families of four start 
paying taxes to more than $17,000. Instead of having to pay taxes, 
those who make $4,600, you would not have to pay State taxes until you 
get to $17,000. It would scrap the Federal income tax deduction and 
increase exemptions for dependent children. And it would sharply roll 
back the current-use exemption, a change that could cost companies in 
the timber industry a great deal of money.
  Alabamians are used to hearing their politicians make religious 
arguments, and Governor Riley thinks he can convince the voters that 
Christian theology calls for a fairer tax system.
  Let us understand what is happening here. This Governor--he must be 
some kind of genius--has gotten this tax package through the 
legislature already, but in Alabama you have to ratify it. The 
ratification will take place in September, which means that the poor 
people of Alabama will have a chance to vote to support what this 
Governor is doing or not. In terms of votes, they certainly outnumber 
the rich. It is something to watch.
  Governor Riley thinks he can convince the voters that Christian 
theology calls for a fairer tax system.
  I repeat: Governor Riley thinks that he can convince the voters that 
Christian theology calls for a fairer tax system.
  Quoting Governor Riley, ``I've spent a lot of time studying the New 
Testament and it has three philosophies: Love God, love each other, and 
take care of the least among you,'' he said. ``I don't think anyone can 
justify putting an income tax on someone who makes $4,600 a year.''
  Religious groups could provide the margin of victory in September. 
Susan Pace Hamill, a University of Alabama tax professor with a 
theological degree from an evangelical divinity school, caused a stir 
recently with a law review article called ``An Argument for Tax Reform 
Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics'' which makes an evangelical case for 
making the tax system fairer. She plans to train speakers this summer 
to take the theological argument to the grassroots. Kimble Forrister, 
the State coordinator of Alabama Arise, a coalition that advocates for 
poor people, expects the 100 church groups that are part of his 
organization to hold church-basement workshops this summer to get the 
word out to their congregations.
  Many theologians argue that it is far easier to find support in the 
Bible for policies that help the poor than for any cut in the dividend 
taxes. If Governor Riley's crusade succeeds this summer, Alabama may 
offer the Nation a model for a new kind of tax system, one where the 
devil is not in the details.
  End of quote from the New York Times article.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit the New York Times article of 
Tuesday, June 10, entitled ``What Would Jesus Do? Sock it to Alabama's 
Corporate Landowners'' for the Record in its entirety.

                [From the New York Times, June 10, 2003]

     What Would Jesus Do? Sock It to Alabama's Corporate Landowners

                            (By Adam Cohen)

       Montgomery, AL.--If the religious right had called up 
     Central Casting last year to fill the part of governor, it 
     could hardly have done better than the teetotaling, Bible-
     quoting businessman from rural central Alabama who now heads 
     up the state. As a Republican congressman, Bob Riley had a 
     nearly perfect record of opposing any legislation supported 
     by the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.
       But Governor Riley has stunned many of his conservative 
     supporters, and enraged the state's powerful farm and timber 
     lobbies, by pushing a tax reform plan through the Alabama 
     Legislature that shifts a significant amount of the state's 
     tax burden from the poor to wealthy individuals and 
     corporations. And he has framed the issue in starkly moral 
     terms, arguing that the current Alabama tax system violates 
     biblical teachings because Christians are prohibited from 
     oppressing the poor.
       If Governor Riley's tax plan becomes law--the voters still 
     need to ratify it in September--it will be a major victory 
     for poor people, a rare thing in the current political 
     climate. But win or lose, Alabama's tax-reform crusade is 
     posing a pointed question to the Christian Coalition, Focus 
     on the Family and other groups that seek to import Christian 
     values into national policy: If Jesus were active in politics 
     today, wouldn't he be lobbying for the poor?
       Alabama's tax system has long been brutally weighted 
     against the least fortunate. The state income tax kicks in 
     for families that earn as little as $4,600, when even 
     Mississippi starts at over $19,000. Alabama also relies 
     heavily on its sales tax, which runs as high as 11 percent 
     and applies even to groceries and infant formula. The upshot 
     is wildly regressive: Alabamians with incomes under $13,000 
     pay 10.9 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes, 
     while those who make over $229,000 pay just 4.1 percent.
       A main reason Alabama's poor pay so much is that large 
     timber companies and megafarms pay so little. The state 
     allows big landowners to value their land using ``current 
     use'' rules, which significantly low-ball its worth. 
     Individuals are allowed to fully deduct the federal income 
     taxes they pay from their state taxes, something few states 
     allow, a boon for those in the top brackets.
       Governor Riley's plan, which would bring in $1.2 billion in 
     desperately needed revenue, takes aim at these inequalities. 
     It would raise the income threshold at which families of four 
     start paying taxes to more than $17,000. It would scrap the 
     federal income tax deduction and increase exemptions for 
     dependent children. And it would sharply roll back the 
     current-use exemption, a change that could cost companies 
     like Weyerhaeuser and Boise Cascade, which own hundreds of 
     thousands of acres, millions in taxes. Governor Riley says 
     that money is too tight to lift the sales tax on groceries 
     this time, but that he intends to work for that later.
       Church and state are not as separate in Alabama as they are 
     in most places. (The chief justice of the Alabama Supreme 
     Court was in federal court last week defending his decision 
     to install a 2.5-ton rendering of the Ten Commandments in the 
     state's main judicial building.) Alabamians are used to 
     hearing their politicians make religious arguments, and 
     Governor Riley thinks he can convince the voters that 
     Christian theology calls for a fairer tax system. ``I've 
     spent a lot of time studying the New Testament, and it has 
     three philosophies: love God, love each other, and take care 
     of the least among you,'' he said. ``I don't think anyone can 
     justify putting an income tax on someone who makes $4,600 a 
     year.''
       The state's progressive voters, including many in the 
     sizable African-American community, have backed tax-law 
     changes like these for years. And reform-minded business 
     leaders, who see such tax changes and improved schools as 
     crucial to the state's economic development, have promised to 
     spend millions of dollars on television ads in support of the 
     September referendum.
       But religious groups could provide the margin of victory. 
     Susan Pace Hamill, a University of Alabama tax professor with 
     a theological degree from an evangelical divinity school, 
     caused a stir with a law review

[[Page H5660]]

     article called ``An Argument for Tax Reform Based on Judeo-
     Christian Ethics,'' which makes an evangelical case for 
     making the tax system fairer. She plans to train speakers 
     this summer to take the theological argument to the grass 
     roots. Kimble Forrister, the state coordinator of Alabama 
     Arise, a coalition that advocates for poor people, expects 
     the 100 church groups that are part of his organization to 
     hold church-basement workshops this summer to get the word 
     out to their congregations.
       The Christian Coalition of Alabama has not yet taken a 
     position on the September vote, but it has been speaking out 
     against the plan's tax increases. In an interview yesterday, 
     John Giles, the group's president, had trouble pointing to a 
     biblical passage that directly supported his opposition to 
     new taxes, but he referred to Jesus' statement about 
     rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's. The key question, he 
     argued, is, ``How much is Caesar's?''
       As the Bush administration and the religious right fight to 
     put theology more squarely into public policy discussions, 
     they are going to have to be ready for arguments like the 
     ones coming out of Alabama. Many theologians argue that it is 
     far easier to find support in the Bible for policies that 
     help the poor than for, say, a cut in the dividend tax. If 
     Governor Riley's crusade succeeds this summer, Alabama may 
     offer the nation a model for a new kind of tax system: one 
     where the Devil is not in the details.

  Why have I started my closing remarks with that article? Because I 
think if ever there was a formula for success in relieving suffering 
and hardships in the States and cities, it is an adoption of a simple 
Christian ethic that those who have the least deserve the least amount 
of taxes and the most amount of help from their government.
  I have two pieces of legislation that I have introduced: One is 
called the Domestic Budget Protection Act, H.R. 1804. I have discussed 
that previously on the floor. That calls for a situation which would 
relieve the pressure on the domestic budget by forcing the 
consideration of all future military actions, like the war in Iraq, to 
be paid for by corporations. We once had a surcharge. During the war in 
Vietnam, during World War I, World War II, the Korean War, we had a 
surcharge on corporate profits to help pay for the war. We should go 
back to that so that the payment for the war is taken out of the budget 
as a competing factor for domestic programs like education, health 
care, a prescription drug benefit, et cetera.
  I have a second bill, H.R. 2335, which is called the Emergency 
Revenue Sharing Act. The money we save should be spent in relieving the 
burdens that the cities and the States are now forced to deal with 
during this recession period. If we took the $79 billion, or an 
equivalent amount of the amount that we appropriated for the war in 
Iraq and related matters, and sent it to the States and the cities, we 
would end the layoffs of school teachers and personnel in the schools, 
we would end the pressure on our civil servants, and we would end the 
kind of oppression of our taxpayers that has taken place through 
property tax increases and ticket blitzes.
  All politics are inextricably interwoven. What happens at the local 
level is inseparable from what happens down here. What we do here is 
inseparable from the hardships that are created at the local level.

                          ____________________