[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 145 (Thursday, October 16, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H9606-H9607]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 CONCERNS ABOUT EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I had hoped to be in the well this evening 
to offer an amendment to the pending legislation, the legislation under 
which the House of Representatives has been asked by the President of 
the United States to borrow $87 billion to continue to pursue the 
conflict in Iraq and nearly $20 billion of that will be used to build 
Iraq. This is not an issue of rebuilding Iraq; it is building Iraq. 
Many of the things that are included in this legislation will provide 
Iraq with infrastructure that they could not even have dreamed of 
before this war: wireless Internet network, a 911 cellular system, new 
sewer systems, combined cycle turbines for their electricity. These are 
not things that were destroyed in the war; they are things that were 
neglected through 30 years of dictatorial rule by Saddam Hussein.

                              {time}  2340

  And now we are being told that somehow it is the responsibility of 
the American people to borrow money to construct these projects 
generally in an exorbitant price.
  I had hoped to offer an amendment to the American Parity Act that the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) and I introduced early in the 
year, that would require that we match dollar for dollar the 
expenditures in Iraq with similar expenditures in the United States. 
For instance, under this legislation we are going to invest, the United 
States of America is going to borrow on behalf of the American people 
and send $50 million more to Iraq to further improve their port, which 
is already a fully functioning port in which the American people have 
already invested $50 million since the war. But I have ports in my 
district that cannot get a penny for dredging.
  Under this legislation, the United States Congress is going to 
borrow, at the request of the President, on behalf of the American 
people, and send to Iraq tens of millions of dollars to pay Iraqis for 
no-show jobs, former members of the regime, former members of the 
military. They will be paid not to work. Yet the President tells us 
that we cannot afford to draw down the $20 billion unemployment trust 
fund here in the United States of America and give extended 
unemployment benefits to Oregonians and others who have exhausted their 
benefits and cannot find a job through no fault of their own.
  We are going to give them a state-of-the-art energy infrastructure 
despite the fact that the lights blinked out here in the eastern U.S. 
this summer, in my part of the country two summers ago. Our whole 
system is underinvested in, unstable, but the Iraqis have 1960s 
boilers, and Mr. Bremer is appalled so we are going to purchase them 
brand new combined-cycle turbines at exorbitant prices to be installed 
by Halliburton and others to give them a state-of-the-art energy 
infrastructure with money borrowed from the American people.
  The American people are going to borrow money and spend tens of 
millions of dollars to buy new AK-47s for

[[Page H9607]]

the police force of Iraq. We could not even have a buy America 
provision and give them M-16s or something made in the United States of 
America. These things are not going to benefit the American people. I 
do not believe they are going to protect our troops. Our troops need 
the flak vests, they needed armored Humvees. They need rides all the 
way home. They need some basic things they are not getting. And none of 
the billions in this bill are going to that either.
  But this amendment that I would have offered, I went to the Committee 
on Rules, and I asked to have it made in order. I said just allow us a 
vote. All we want is a simple vote up or down, do the Members of this 
House think it is at least as important to invest in the economic 
reconstruction and stimulation of this country, putting people to work, 
unemployment benefits, roads, bridges, highways, hospitals, schools, 
health care. That would have been a statement from this Congress where 
we would have put more than a million people back to work by matching 
the investment in Iraq.
  But I have been shut down by the Republican majority, the majority 
Committee on Rules. I am not being allowed to offer that amendment. And 
that is too bad because I think a majority, a large majority of the 
American people would support such an amendment.
  There has been a lot of hypocrisy here tonight. People who said they 
supported loans instead of grants, but then when they were given 
finally an opportunity to vote for a loan instead of a grant, those who 
stood bravely here and said they would support a loan instead of a 
grant and were denied a vote by the Republican majority, their own 
party, when they were given a chance to vote on a Democratic amendment 
for loans versus grants, they voted no. And I hope they are held to 
account by their constituents.
  I hope people are held to account by their constituents for the fact 
that this House, the people's House, the Republican majority, are 
refusing to allow us to vote on matching investments, investing in our 
country, in our people, in our infrastructure, in our economy, at least 
comparable to that which we are borrowing to invest in Iraq.

                          ____________________