[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 144 (Wednesday, October 15, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H9450-H9452]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS BILL, 2004

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
Tuesday, October 14, 2003, the Chair declares the House in the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for further 
debate on the subject of a bill making emergency supplemental 
appropriations for defense and the reconstruction of Iraq and 
Afghanistan

[[Page H9451]]

for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004.

                              {time}  2035


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for further debate on the subject 
of a bill making emergency supplemental appropriations for defense and 
the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan for the fiscal year ending 
September 30, 2004, with Mr. Shimkus (Chairman pro tempore) in the 
chair.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. When the Committee of the Whole House rose 
earlier today, 3 hours and 27\1/2\ minutes remained in debate. The 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has 1 hour and 36 minutes remaining, 
and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 1 hour and 51\1/2\ 
minutes remaining.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes).
  Mr. REYES. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Chairman, tomorrow we will vote on spending $86.9 billion of 
America's taxpayers' hard-earned money on our on-going military 
operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. This massive 
request for supplemental funds brings home, to the pocketbooks of every 
American taxpayer, the cost of this administration's foreign policy. 
This administration has gotten us into a situation in Iraq that is both 
dangerous to our troops and critically important to our worldwide 
leadership. This situation is now so serious that it is less important 
that we arrived at this point by serious miscalculations, perhaps 
manipulations and half truths, than to understand that for us in this 
country ``failure is not an option.''
  As Commander in Chief, the President committed our soldiers to this 
war, and now we must provide them with all the resources and support 
that they need. Our soldiers represent the best that this country has 
to offer, and their sacrifices should never be taken lightly or taken 
for granted. But the administration is also asking us to support 
reconstructing Iraq to the tune of $18.6 billion, and this is only the 
beginning of what could be as much as $70 billion in investments.
  Mr. Chairman, if it is our responsibility to provide these services 
to rebuild Iraq, why are we along the southwestern border constantly 
told that there is not enough money to develop these services here at 
home? What about the responsibility to our own citizens? This bill 
includes $4.3 billion to expand access to safe drinking water and 
improve sanitation while hundreds of thousands of our own people along 
our Nation's border do not have these services themselves.
  This bill also includes $793 million for health care programs and 
upgrades to hospitals and clinics while cities like El Paso are in 
desperate need of these same services. And this bill includes $5.7 
billion to rebuild Iraq's electrical power infrastructure while 
hundreds of thousands of our own citizens here at home do not have 
electricity. If we can find the funds to support these projects in 
Iraq, the American people demand that we find the funds for their needs 
here at home.
  Mr. Chairman, I intend to support this supplemental request, but 
only, only because the safety of our brave men and women in uniform 
depends on it.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), a member of the Committee on 
Appropriations.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 
this time.
  I want to say I certainly appreciate the concern of our friends 
across the aisle about spending on this bill and spending on all bills. 
I think it is a great day when Democrats are worried about fiscal 
responsibility. Having said that, I have one of my good Blue Dog 
friends there who is always concerned about it, but I am glad now we 
have some other people who are.
  I wanted to point out one of the arguments that we are hearing is we 
should be spending that money domestically. And this chart shows what 
our budget calls for in Medicare spending under the Republican budget, 
which is traditionally passed without a single Democrat vote.
  Medicare takes care of our elderly population. Essentially everybody 
over the age of 65 is on Medicare; and under a Republican budget, as we 
can see, from the year 2004 on, it is going up. And yet this is 
happening without a single Democrat vote of support. Education, which 
again is one of those bills that is important to another population, 
the young population in our society, and again under Republican 
leadership and a Republican budget, it has gone up every year 12 
percent. So when people are saying do not vote for this, that we ought 
to be spending it domestically, we are doing that.
  What happens if we do not spend this money? What happens if we do 
like Howard Dean says and pull out? He said that yesterday. Tomorrow he 
will say something else. I cannot remember who was for the war today, 
Wesley Clark or Howard Dean. It switches back and forth on a regular 
basis. But the reality is what happens if we do pull out and stop right 
now? Will there be safety and security in the Middle East? We have to 
ask ourselves a very serious question: Will there be safety and 
security not just in Iraq but in the Middle East? If we pull out, will 
there be safety and security in the United States of America? What kind 
of signal does that send to the terrorist networks across the globe?
  This is where the money goes. It supports our troops. I have the 
honor of representing the Third Infantry Division. We have had nearly 
18,000 constituents from the first district of Georgia who have been in 
Iraq. They need the support. This bill gives them that additional 
support. Last week I had the opportunity to go to Walter Reed and say 
thanks to a number of our troops, brave men who were wounded who are 
now in hospital beds who will be going through physical therapy and 
suffering from wounds perhaps the rest of their lives. Every single one 
of them was very gung-ho on the mission, very proud that he had served, 
and had no regrets. Obviously, everybody regrets getting hurt, but no 
regrets making the decision to go that they did. This bill gives our 
troops $60 billion in support. They need it.
  In addition, this bill supports the people of Iraq. It gives us an 
opportunity to have another democracy in the Middle East that we can 
work with along with Turkey, along with Israel. Another democracy in 
the Middle East. Can my colleagues think of that being in the grasp of 
the hands of this Congress and this government at this time and this 
generation, and how would our future generations look at us if we 
turned our backs and cut and run at this point? Mr. Chairman, we have 
got to finish the job. We cannot abandon them.
  If we do not do this important construction, what will happen? We 
have got an example already. Some of this money goes to Afghanistan. 
Let us think about what happened in Afghanistan. The United States 
pulled out in 1989. We closed down our embassy, and I went with the 
gentleman from Arizona (Chairman Kolbe) to Afghanistan about 3 years 
ago, and one of the things we heard over and over again in Afghanistan 
is, We are glad you are here, but are you here to stay? Because we have 
had this invasion from the Russians, we have had this internal civil 
war, we have had the groups like the Taliban and al Qaeda come in here 
and corrupt our government. Will America commit to Afghanistan for the 
long term? And the answer is yes. We also have to commit to Iraq for 
the long term.
  Think about this: we are spending $200 million on health care in 
Iraq. Saddam Hussein only spent $13 million. That is support. Think 
about this: there are 150 newspapers that are already up and operating 
in Iraq, extremely important for an emerging democracy.
  Think about this: electricity in 70 to 80 percent of the towns, water 
in 70 to 80 percent of the towns, and police forces and governing local 
municipalities springing up all over the place. These are positive 
developments, and we cannot abandon that right now. This construction 
money, a little over $18 billion, though, is not enough. We need to do 
it in a grant form. Why do we need to do that as opposed to a loan? 
Number one, there is not a lending authority to give the money to;

[[Page H9452]]

but, number two, it is going to take not 18 to $20 billion to rebuild 
Iraq. It is going to take about $150 billion. We do not want to foot 
that bill. We believe the United States of America, being a leader in 
the world as a benevolent Nation, needs to step forward and set an 
example for all our friends who are in the U.N. or who are in NATO or 
wherever they may be to step forward and pull out their checkbooks.

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