[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 2 (Wednesday, January 21, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H67-H74]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                RESPONDING TO STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Pallone) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I, too, like many of my Democratic 
colleagues this afternoon, would like to respond, if you will, to the 
President's State of the Union address, which, of course, he gave to 
the Nation last night from the House podium just right behind me here.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, thanks to what I consider extremist 
policies of President Bush and the Republican leadership here in 
Congress, the priorities of the American people, priorities of good 
jobs, better access to healthcare and the best education for our 
children, are not being addressed, either at the White House or here by 
the House Republican majority, and certainly the President's speech 
last night did nothing to convince me that any of these priorities will 
be addressed in the forthcoming year.
  The problem, as I see it, Mr. Speaker, is that President Bush and 
Congressional Republicans continue to cater to

[[Page H68]]

America's elite, to the wealthy. There is no doubt our Nation's 
millionaires have fared well over the past 3 years under President Bush 
and the elite have seen their taxes dramatically cut. But the hard-
pressed middle-class face a weak job market that, thanks to President 
Bush's economic priorities, show no signs of improving in the immediate 
future.
  So even though the President talks about economic recovery, it may be 
economic recovery when you look at the stock market quotations, but it 
is not when you look at jobs and the possibility for real job creation 
that would actually help the average American.
  The President's efforts to provide billions of dollars in tax breaks 
to our Nation's millionaires will saddle our children and my children 
with massive deficits. So not only is his policy not creating jobs, but 
his policy is creating more and more debt.
  President Bush and the Congressional Republicans have squandered 
historic budget surpluses. When President Bush took office, we had a 
surplus for the first time under President Clinton. But because of the 
collapse of fiscal discipline, now we are faced with a $5 trillion 
national debt over the next decade, which has been brought about, in my 
opinion, by President Bush and the Republican policies here in the 
Congress.
  One only has to revisit the President's last two State of the Union 
addresses to realize how out of touch the President is with what 
policies will really jump-start our Nation's economy. I would like to 
spend a little time this afternoon trying to compare some of the 
statements that President Bush made in the last couple of State of the 
Unions before last night to try to point out how really out of touch he 
is, and how what he mentioned last night is not going to get us to 
where he says we are going to go.
  Two years ago, President Bush touted his second round of tax cuts by 
declaring in his State of the Union address, ``My economic security 
plan can be summed up with one word: Jobs.''
  Instead of creating jobs, on President Bush's watch, our Nation has 
witnessed the greatest job loss in a recovery since the Great 
Depression of the 1930s. A few months of modest job creation that we 
have had over the past few months cannot hide the abysmal performance 
of the labor market over the past 3 years.
  According to a State of the Union report from the Center for American 
Progress, long-term unemployment is close to a 20-year high because the 
labor market is so weak. The labor force participation rate in December 
2003, just this past December, was at its lowest level since December 
1991, a dozen years ago.
  At every turn, the President has passed up opportunities to pass what 
I call high-bang-for-the-buck stimulus to jump-start job creation, and 
instead favors inefficient, ineffective, long-term tax cuts for the 
most well-off.
  If you really want to create jobs, then you use the Federal budget 
and the power of the Federal Government to stimulate and jump-start 
jobs, job creation. Instead, we have this inefficient, long-term tax 
cut proposal which, as you heard last night, the President wants to 
continue, and, according to the Center for American Progress again, the 
report, in 2002, with our economy in desperate need of a jump-start, 
the administration pushed to retroactively eliminate the corporate 
alternative minimum tax, a provision which would have provided a $254 
million tax break to Enron. But what did it do for job creation here in 
the U.S. for the average guy? Nothing.
  Let us consider the words that President Bush spoke last year during 
his 2003 State of the Union address. Again, we are going to go back one 
year. He said, ``We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass 
along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents and other 
generations.''
  That is what he said a year prior to last night. But, despite this 
promise, President Bush's policies over the last 3 years led our Nation 
to a record $450 billion deficit. This deficit is a major problem in 
terms of job growth, job creation, and even the long-term stability of 
the economy. Everyone recognizes that the President and the Republicans 
pushed up the debt to unheard of heights.
  Again, I want to put this deficit problem in perspective, to go back 
to this report from the Center for American Progress. It found in the 
report that 5 years from now the average family's share of the national 
debt will be more than $84,000, compared to a projected $500 per family 
when Bush took office.
  So when the President took office, the national debt, if you look at 
it per capita, was very low. We were actually in a surplus. We just had 
a national debt that had been inherited from before, but we were 
actually in a surplus. Now that national debt has grown to more than 
$84,000 for the average family's share. It is an incredible figure when 
you think about it, and it makes it really impossible for us to talk 
about the Federal Government playing any kind of role to create jobs or 
to improve the economy when we have such a huge deficit.
  Our Nation's fiscal situation is so dire that the International 
Monetary Fund issued an unusually strong and stark warning about the 
threat that rising fiscal and trade deficits in the U.S. pose to the 
financial stability of the world economy. This was just a couple weeks 
ago when the International Monetary Fund issued this warning.
  In a departure from what he previously had said, the President last 
night, if you took notice, actually did say that the deficit was a 
problem. I think he finally came around to the point where he cannot 
just ignore it, because if you think about it, prior to last night he 
was saying, ``Oh, it doesn't matter. We can continue to have larger 
deficits, growing deficits. It doesn't make any difference.''
  But last night he finally acknowledged the fact that the deficit was 
a problem, and he did express concern over the size of the deficit and 
he basically reasserted his commitment to cut the deficit in half in 
the next 5 years.
  But that is, again, his rhetoric. He is saying that, he is 
acknowledging for the first time in the last 3 years that the deficit 
is a problem, and he is saying he wants to cut it in half over the next 
5 years, but if you look at the policies that President Bush put 
forward last night, the reality is they are only going to increase the 
deficit. They are not going to cut the deficit, they are going to 
increase the deficit.
  Again if you go back to this report from the Center for American 
Progress, the President proposed at least $3 trillion in new tax cuts 
last night and spending over the next few months. So between the tax 
cuts that he talked about last night and the new spending he talked 
about last night, we are talking about a huge increase in the deficit, 
not a decrease.
  I can say that, and I would like to detail a little more this 
afternoon why I say that what he is proposing last night in terms of 
tax cuts and new spending is going to increase the deficit rather than 
cut it in half over the next 5 years.
  First let us talk about the $1 trillion proposal to privatize Social 
Security which the President mentioned. I have to tell you that I do 
not like the idea of privatizing Social Security in any way. I do not 
think the whole idea of privatizing Social Security is a good thing, 
but the President mentioned it, and I want to give you the fiscal 
consequences.
  Partial Social Security privatization under the President's proposal 
last night would, all by itself, require at least $1 trillion in extra 
funds over the next decade. That is from the New York Times yesterday, 
January 20.
  What about the new tax cuts? The Congressional Budget Office 
estimates that the cost of President Bush's proposals last night to 
make his tax cuts permanent at roughly $1 trillion. That is from the 
Washington Times, September of this year.
  What about the mission to Mars? He did not mention in his speech last 
night the mission to Mars, but he has, over the last week, talked about 
how he wants to propose this mission to Mars. While the White House has 
tried to fudge the total cost of the Mars proposal, a similar proposal 
was floated way back in 1989, over 20 years ago, and at that time the 
cost was projected at $400 billion to $500 billion. With inflation, 
that is about $600 to $700 billion today. Again, where is that money 
going to come from, without us going further and further into debt?
  He also proposed a missile defense system. Despite a GAO report 
advising against moving forward with an untested missile defense 
system, the Bush

[[Page H69]]

administration is moving forward and they talk about a missile defense 
system that would cost as much as $273 billion. That is from a GAO 
report of June earlier this year, the Center for Arms Control and 
Nonproliferation.
  Also the war. Again, the President made his presentation about the 
war in Iraq and the war against terrorism and linked it to it. But on 
top of the $166 billion already spent on the war in Iraq, the President 
is expected to propose a $50 billion supplemental bill to pay for Iraqi 
war costs. The bill probably will not come up maybe until after the 
November election, but that is another $50 billion for the war in Iraq, 
which, again, is costing us a tremendous amount of money and driving us 
further into debt.
  Lastly, and I know in the scheme of things you might say this does 
not add up to much, it is only $1.5 billion, but the President's 
proposal to promote marriage, Bush administration officials have been 
working with various conservative groups on this proposal, and it would 
provide at least $1.5 billion for training to help couples develop 
interpersonal skills that sustain healthy marriages. That is from The 
New York Times last week.
  Well, again, maybe $1.5 billion does not sound like much in the 
scheme of things, but $1.5 billion to promote marriage? Promotion of 
marriage is certainly a good thing, but do we have to spend $1.5 
billion and go further into deficit to promote marriage? I do not think 
so. I do not think that is a good expenditure of Federal funds.
  So my point is, the President addressed the issue of the deficit last 
night. He said he is going to cut it in half over the next 5 years, but 
everything he proposed last night, tax cuts, spend in various areas, 
all adds up to a significant increase in the deficit. So the rhetoric 
does not go along with the reality.
  How can the President say he plans to cut the deficit in half at the 
same time he proposes $3 trillion in new tax cuts and spending? I think 
he has got to level with the American people. The only way he can 
really address the skyrocketing deficit is to roll back the components 
of his tax cuts that, again, as I said earlier, in my opinion, 
disproportionately benefit the very wealthiest.
  The President's suggestion that his tax cuts have been only a minor 
factor in the fiscal deterioration, actually he said the opposite, that 
the tax cuts have been a factor in turning the economy around, I would 
say they have been actually a major factor in our fiscal deterioration 
and certainly in the deficit creation. They are the largest single 
contributor to the deterioration of our budget outlook.
  Mr. Speaker, when you look at the President's speech, keep these 
statements in mind about what he said in the past in his State of the 
Union versus what he is saying now, and I think he has a long way to go 
to prove to the American people that his economic proposals will not 
only benefit the wealthy, but also middle-class Americans.
  I wanted to spend a little time, I know some of my colleagues earlier 
this afternoon talked about the ill-fated Republican Medicare 
prescription drug bill, and, again, the President touted that last 
night and said how great a thing that was. I have to be honest and say 
that I think it was pretty obvious if you looked around the room last 
night, around the House Chambers, that his Medicare prescription drug 
bill fell on deaf ears.
  Obviously since it was passed back in November and the President took 
it to the people, and our colleagues on both the Republican and 
Democratic side went home, they found, to no surprise of mine or most 
of the Democrats, that this was not a proposal that people felt was 
accomplishing anything, and, in fact, might actually hurt Medicare 
because of the effort to privatize.

                              {time}  1400

  So when the President talked about his prescription drug proposal 
last night, I noticed there was very few applause, even from the 
Republican side of the aisle; and I do not think anybody stood up. I 
think it is testimony of the fact that both sides of the aisle think it 
is not a good proposal and that the public does not like it.
  Now, what is the reason? If we think about it, what they did was to 
suggest they were somehow giving people a prescription drug benefit 
when in reality what they were really doing was changing the Medicare 
program for the worse. If we look at the actual coverage for 
prescription drugs for seniors under that bill that was signed into law 
a month or so ago, it provides woefully inadequate prescription drug 
coverage.
  There is a giant gap in coverage in which seniors receive no 
assistance with costs between $2,200 and $5,100 annually. About half of 
all seniors will not have any drug coverage for part of the year. It 
does nothing, the Republican Medicare bill does nothing to reduce the 
cost of prescription drugs. The bill prohibits Medicare from using the 
bargaining power of 40 million seniors to negotiate lower drug prices, 
which we are going to see as the drug companies continuing to reach 
huge profits, and yet seniors will continue to get the major price 
increases which at times have amounted to 18 percent annually on the 
drugs that they need just to remain healthy.
  In addition, the Medicare bill forces seniors into private plans 
through either HMOs or PPOs. The other day the President announced he 
was going to give the HMOs and these private health plans a huge influx 
of money to try to entice them back into the Medicare program. But I 
have to tell my colleagues that in my own State of New Jersey, we have 
had 200,000 seniors in New Jersey that were dropped by HMOs pursuant to 
Medicare in the time since the HMOs were allowed to participate in the 
Medicare program.
  Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on. I think the bottom line is that we 
lost a tremendous opportunity last year to pass a prescription drug 
bill that would actually be meaningful for seniors. We as Democrats 
simply proposed expanding Medicare to include prescription drugs. One 
would stay in their traditional Medicare, one did not have to join an 
HMO, and we would expand Medicare in the same way that we provide 
coverage now under part B for doctor bills. One would simply pay $25 a 
month. One would have a $100 deductible. Twenty percent of the cost of 
drugs there would be a copay, and the other 80 percent would be paid 
for by the government. And the Democratic proposal would have 
specifically mandated that the administrator of the Medicare program 
bargain to reduce costs for prescription drugs to the average senior.
  But we tried that. The Republicans rejected it. We are now faced with 
this essentially worthless Medicare bill that does not really do 
anything to help seniors with their drug bills.
  The last thing I wanted to do today, and I see one of my colleagues 
is here and I would like to have him join me, but the last thing I 
wanted to say is in the time when we were back in our districts in 
December over the Christmas holiday and New Year's, the one issue that 
continued to rise to be brought to my attention, to be raised by my 
constituents was the increased cost of health insurance. We know that 
more and more Americans do not have health insurance; but even for 
those who do have coverage, because they get it on the job or if they 
have to buy it on their own, are very concerned about the rising costs 
and the fact that they may not be able to afford health insurance or 
their employer might not provide it in the future.
  So that is why the President last night mentioned the crisis and said 
that there was a problem out there, but what he failed to mention is 
that the situation has gotten worse. There are about 4 million 
Americans that have lost their insurance coverage in the last 3 years 
since President Bush has been in office. If we think of what he 
proposed last night, a $1,000 tax credit is really going to be 
meaningless for most of those who do not have insurance now. We know 
that if you do not have health insurance and you want to try to go out 
and buy it on the private market, a $1,000 tax credit is not going to 
be any significant help to you.
  So the President's proposals last night, whether they were the 
affiliated health plans or the tax credit, is basically the same old 
proposals that he has been shuffling around for the last 3 years or so; 
and they are not going to do the job of providing Americans with health 
coverage, neither those who do not have health insurance or those who 
are afraid of losing it.

[[Page H70]]

  Again, I worry, because I see the President talking about the 
problems that are out there, suggesting that somehow he is going to do 
something about it; but when we look at the specifics about what he is 
going to do or what he is proposing, it does not add up to any 
meaningful effort to provide health insurance, to increase the number 
of jobs, to reduce the deficit, all the things that are so much of a 
priority right now.
  Mr. Speaker, I see my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan, is 
here; and I would like to yield to him.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, we are talking about the President's State 
of the Union address last night. From where I was sitting, my 
perspective, I am from Michigan, from the northern half, and I was 
really surprised that the President never mentioned the urban areas of 
this country. About 60 percent of the people in this country live in 
cities. He did not articulate any type of a plan or approach to help 
those areas that are dealing with many, many problems. Especially since 
the National Conference of Mayors is in town this week, I thought at 
least there would be some mention about urban areas: what can we do to 
help them with their urban sprawl, with infrastructure needs, green 
space, or even just helping them cope with these homeland securities 
which cost these cities millions of dollars. When we get elevated from 
yellow to orange or orange to red, whatever system they are using now, 
it costs them a lot of money. The cities, like the States right now, 
are financially strapped for cash. How do they pay for this? If it is a 
requirement of the Federal Government, should we not just help 
them out? I was surprised that he did not touch on the cities.

  I was also very, very surprised, and maybe it is the record of this 
administration, that he did not even mention veterans. Why would he not 
mention veterans? We are creating veterans every day in this country 
with the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he never even mentioned them. 
Probably because we saw proposed $20 billion cuts in veterans health 
over the next 10 years; that is what his budget proposal shows. It 
would really eliminate and cap the number of veterans who can access 
the VA system. We have a cap on it right now because there is not 
enough money in the system. So maybe the President did not want to talk 
about veterans because his record in that area has not been very good.
  So I would hope that we in this upcoming Congress can put a little 
more attention on the veterans issues. The Democratic Party and the 
Democrats in their response, and others, I saw coming up with bold new 
ideas on how to move this country forward. As the gentleman from New 
Jersey was saying, some of the stuff we have heard over the last 3 
years was just warmed over and put in the State of the Union; but we 
have different ideas, bold ideas, new ideas that I think are important. 
It would be my hope that in this session of Congress, Democrats and 
Republicans can work together to move forward some of these 
initiatives.
  Some of the initiatives that the President did bring up did tweak my 
interest, let us say, like the health insurance. The gentleman and I 
both sit on the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy and 
Commerce, and we have both spent a lot of time on that. Homeland 
security, I thought we would hear more about that, like fully equipping 
the first responders, the police, the fire, the emergency medical 
people.
  Increased protection on the border. I come from northern Michigan, 
right there at Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, crossing back and forth to 
Canada. Before September 11, most of our stations were not manned 24 
hours a day. We have made some increases. We have more immigration 
officers, more Customs officials, more border patrols, they are all now 
under Homeland Security. But what happened was we put money out there 
to increase the number of people there; but last Labor Day, the first 
part of September, they were laying people off. They were supposed to 
be protecting our borders.
  So I wish the President would have spent a little more time saying, 
look, there are some things we should do in homeland security, 
especially those of us who have a northern or southern border. It is 
critically important to us. We know all the cargo ships and containers 
that come into this country by ship or plane or trucks, we are only 
inspecting 2 to 3 percent of that cargo. We can do better than that 
with all of the modern technology and equipment we have. It does not 
cost that much.
  There is no reason why we cannot implement a program. We have the 
technology. We sat through those hearings where they have shown us the 
technology to look for biological, radiological weapons and 
environmental weapons that may be in these containers. Why are we not 
doing it? If we want to talk about really being safe, that is one area 
we could improve. I mean, a 2 to 3 percent inspection, that means 97 to 
98 are going through uninspected, really makes us susceptible to any 
kind of an attack, bioterrorist, chemical, or nuclear in this country.
  So the Democrats have also put forth a proposal to do this, to 
increase that. That is not asking that much. We even know the cost of 
these machines, like big x-ray machines that can scan cargo holds and 
cargo containers. Why are we not talking about that if we want to 
really be secure here at home?
  Taking a look at the economy and jobs, with all due respect to the 
President, more tax cuts is not going to solve this problem. In the 
last 3 years, if we take a look at the total package of the tax cuts 
that have been passed by this Congress, it is about $2 trillion. And if 
they really created jobs, our economy would not be in the slump we 
have.
  Take my State of Michigan, we are a manufacturing State, and we have 
been hit terribly under these Bush economic policies. Since the 
President took office, and I am going back now to August of last year 
when they claimed we had this big increase in the third quarter of last 
year, well, in my State of Michigan we lost over 130 manufacturing 
jobs. They are not coming back. Those jobs like Electrolux in 
Greenville, Michigan, they are going south. They are going south of us. 
They are taking their tax cuts, and they are going to Mexico and other 
areas; and it is going to take out about 2,700 jobs in the little town 
of Greenville, Michigan. Throughout my district, there has been a 
number of them who have lost jobs. They go south. We have lost 130 
manufacturing jobs. Let us face it, they are not coming back.
  The President said, well, this tax increase would create these jobs. 
If we take a look at it, going back to my State of Michigan, 46 percent 
of the people received less than $100 with the last Bush tax cut. How 
does that help anyone, and how does that create new jobs?
  Mr. Speaker, we have so many needs in this country, and the Democrats 
have come up with a proposal to stimulate this economy, to get jobs 
moving. We actually put forth a proposal, never were we allowed to 
bring it to the floor for a vote, because the Democratic proposal was a 
good one. We supported targeted tax cuts. There should be some for 
middle class and working families, you bet you. We are there and 
willing to do it. But our economic and tax cut plan would have created 
1 million jobs immediately. How were we going to do that? Invest back 
in our infrastructure, our port security that I spoke of; and we would 
have done this by taking money out of the trust funds and not add one 
penny to the deficit, not one penny to the deficit, but create a 
million jobs, invest here at home, invest in our airports, our water 
ports, to protect them from terrorism; and we could create jobs doing 
that; and, again, we would not have added anything to this deficit 
which is exploding out of sight.
  Democrats do have a better way.
  There are a number of things that we can and should be doing. We are 
willing to work with the President, but they also have to be willing to 
work with us. By that I mean the gentleman from New Jersey spoke a lot 
about the Medicare bill with the prescription drug plan. We notice when 
we had those hearings and we had, they call it the conference 
committee, no Democrats were ever invited to it; we were not even told 
when they were. So it was not like we got together; we were not even 
invited to the table to discuss it. In the House here, the person who 
probably knows more about Medicare and prescription drugs is the 
gentleman from my home State of Michigan (Mr. Dingell). He has been 
here

[[Page H71]]

and been involved in every Medicare bill since Medicare was created in 
1965; he was not even included in the discussions or even asked his 
ideas.
  So these proposals, we are willing to work with them, but they have 
to include us. The tax cut bills, we were not included on that. The 
Medicare bill, the energy bill which failed in the Senate, we were not 
included on that. We need better understanding, and we need a better 
working relationship with this White House and with the majority party 
in this Congress.
  The gentleman from New Jersey mentioned prescription drugs and the 
Medicare plan. Just getting access to prescription drugs is a battle 
for many of us. If we take a look at it, our plan, the Democrat plan 
basically said, use the purchasing power of the Federal Government to 
help lower these costs; in fact, the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services, Mr. Thompson, negotiate a lower drug price for us so we can 
pass it on to the 40 million recipients in Medicare so it does not cost 
them so much. The bill passed by Republicans expressly prohibited it. 
The bill also expressly prohibits the Secretary or average Americans 
from going to Canada or Europe to get lower cost prescription drugs.

                              {time}  1415

  One are forbidden from doing it. If one are really interested in 
lowering the cost for the American people and for our seniors, these 
two common sense approaches, why is not that part of the Medicare bill 
to keep the cost down?
  And I bring up this Medicare and prescription drugs because the 
President said last night he will give tax incentives to help people to 
afford health insurance. Well, that is wonderful, but we need some 
incentives to keep those costs down. If he did not allow us to come 
together to lower the cost, negotiate lower prices for prescription 
drugs, is he really going to allow in the bill the associated health 
plans to allow businesses to come together to negotiate lower prices 
down? If we look at the track record, the answer is no. If we are not 
going to do it on prescription drugs, why would we suddenly want to do 
it on these associated health plans.
  If one really takes a look at the associated health plans, why are 
they somewhat popular? Well, because underneath the associated health 
plans, there are two major problems. They do not necessarily come and 
band together. Each small business in that plan is its own entity and 
can lead it or drop it whenever they want. So we cannot guarantee that 
unity, the cohesiveness would stay there.
  The second big problem with these associated health plans that the 
President brought up is that small employers, besides cut and run for a 
better deal, they do not have to follow state mandates. Every State 
says, look, if you offer health insurance in our State, here are some 
basic rules you have to follow, basic things we want you to do: 
Prenatal coverage, mental health coverage, immunization coverage, 
emergency room access, things like that.
  These associated health plans that the President brought up last 
night they do not have to do that. They work outside the State 
requirements. So they can pick and choose in this State we do not want 
to offer this or maybe we do not want to do a prenatal care. Maybe we 
do not want the mental health part of it.
  So one is paying a lot of money for half a plan as dictated by the 
insurance industry and not the needs of the people in that State in 
which one is selling that insurance.
  I like the ideas that the President brought up. If they are willing 
to work with us, I am sure we can work out some ideas. Democrats 
believe that a health care coverage plan should include all Americans. 
We believe the health care coverage should be continuous, that one is 
not wondering from year to year am I going to have the coverage, but 
there should be a continuation of coverage.
  We believe health care coverage has to be affordable for families and 
individuals. We believe that health insurance should also be something 
as a society we all can afford.
  And last, but not least, we should also make sure that health 
insurance actually promotes health and well-being like prevention 
programs, prenatal care, and access to high quality care that is 
effective, efficient, safe, timely, and patient-centered and is 
equitable, people are getting a reasonable return for the money they 
are spending on health insurance. I do not think that is asking too 
much.
  These are some old ideas that are Democrats are willing to put forth: 
Accessible health insurance, affordable health insurance, make sure it 
is adequate to meet the needs of the society one is trying to serve and 
will always be there in the future so someone is not cut as soon as 
they have a claim.
  So, again, we are willing to work with the President, but he has to 
reach out to include us.
  It was interesting, we talked some more about it when the President 
was talking about the energy bill and how we should do this. And I 
think he said, if I quote him right, he said something like ``I urge 
you to pass legislation to promote conservation.'' I notice he did not 
say, ``I urge you to pass an energy bill that is also concerned about 
our environment.'' That was left out. I did not find the environment 
anywhere in the President's nine pages, this little book that we 
received with his remarks in there. Probably because in the last couple 
years, we have been fighting on the floor to keep a strong Clean Air 
Act, keep a Clean Water Act, protect our national forests and oppose 
drilling in ANWR and some of these other areas, and fully fund 
Superfund, which cleans up and reinstates the polluter-pay principle, 
one of the things we all believe in.
  But that Superfund, unfortunately, we used to get a royalty off the 
oil and gas drilling in this country and a percentage of that would go 
and fund Superfund. Well, since the new party took over, the majority 
took over in 1995, we have not put any money in the Superfund. And 
there are many Superfund sites in the Great Lake State of Michigan. We 
have many Superfund sites around the State, around our Great Lakes that 
should be cleaned up.
  So if one is going to talk about energy policy, let us restore enough 
money for that energy policy. At least fund the Superfund to clean up 
Superfund sites and reinstate the polluter-pay principle. I think that 
is something we should all be able to agree with at least in principle.
  I was disappointed also when the President said the No Child Left 
Behind Act is opening doors to opportunity to all of America's 
children. But as we know too often, and ask any school administrator, 
the Federal Government with the Leave No Child Behind did not fully 
fund it. For instance, Title I has a shortfall of billions of dollars.
  If one takes a look at this last budget, to meet the requirements of 
this new testing that the President spoke of and all these other 
requirements that Leave No Child Behind Act, we should fund these 
programs. We are putting regulations on these schools. They are 
expected to perform, but yet they are not receiving Federal money to do 
this. While he may have increased funding for education, it has not 
kept pace with requirements that the Leave No Child Behind Act is 
requiring our schools to do. So we would like to see it fully funded.
  And I also believe the other thing we should do if we are going to 
fully fund education from K through 12 is IDEA, Individual Disabilities 
Education Act. IDEA, the Federal Government passed that before this 
President was in office, and it was also a promise the Federal 
Government would fund it at 40 percent. At best, we are funding it at 
18 to 19 percent. We are not even funding half of what we promised to 
fund when it came to K through 12 education. So, again, I think the 
ideas are there, but one has to put the funding there.
  If one is going to do education, if we don't want to leave a child 
behind, if we want to test them to see if they are meeting the skills, 
give the schools the resources to adequately do it and not short change 
them. Unfortunately, that is what has happened in the last few years. 
In the last fiscal year we are short $8 billion nationwide to fund 
education.
  I do not disagree with what the President says but let us fully fund 
the education. So I really think that the President put forth some 
ideas. I think they fall short in some areas. We are willing to work 
with him, the Republican party, the majority party in this

[[Page H72]]

House, but they have to include us in some of these programs.
  Democrats do have a better way. We do want to see a number of things 
happen. We want to see, like, homeland security. We talked a little bit 
about that. But let us fully fund our first response people. Let us 
improve our domestic nuclear security and protect our communities 
against a terrorist attack. We can do this by doing inspection of 
cargo. It is something so simple that we could do, the technology is 
there. We even know the cost.
  We have sat on the Committee on Energy and Commerce and we have laid 
out the cost and how much every one of these machines are, how many 
port of entries we have. We have close to 400 in this country where 
cargo comes in through ships from other countries. We know where. We 
know what the cargo is. Let us detect and make sure there is nothing 
coming in here. I think that is of even greater importance now as we 
have increased activity around this world in terrorism. And it is 
something we should be able to do. There is no reason why we cannot.
  There are so many other things we could do. Like I said, I was really 
surprised that the President did not even mention them in the State of 
the Union address. Democrats we believe that we should ensure full 
payment of both retirement and a disability compensation to a half a 
million disabled American veteran retirees. We should do that 
immediately. Right now the way the law is if one has a military 
disability pension and a retirement from them, they deduct dollar for 
dollar if one is receiving disability from their retirement pay. They 
have earned both of them. They should be fully funded. Why could not we 
do that for them?
  We should fully fund the veterans health care. We should permit an 
increase in bonuses for soldiers in combat. This is interesting. We had 
the motion on the Floor here during our debate on the $87 billion for 
Iraq to provide a $1,500 bonus for every man and woman who fought in 
Iraq or Afghanistan. $1,500 out of $87 billion. That tied 213-213 and 
the amendment did not pass. I could not believe it.
  And here we are talking about the great job our men and women in the 
armed services are doing for us. And they do. But give them a little 
bonus. Most, and I should say a large number of people in Iraq are from 
the Reserves and the National Guard, they left their good paying 
civilian jobs when their country called upon them to go fight in Iraq. 
So we want to give them a $1,500 bonus to help ease that financial 
concern at home. And it ended up in a tie in the U.S. House of 
Representatives. I cannot believe it. That was basically a party line 
vote. The President and the administration and Republican party will 
not support us so it ended up in a tie.

  There are so many more things we could do. Democrats do have bold new 
ideas. We would like to be part of the process. We urge the majority 
party and the President to work with us. We have a new year here, a new 
session just starting. We look forward to working with them. But as I 
said earlier, when we have these conferences and these ideas coming 
through Congress, all we ask is for an opportunity to have our 
amendments put forth before this floor, put together a substitute that 
we would be allowed to vote on. But, unfortunately, as we have seen on 
these major issues like Medicare, energy bill, the appropriations 
bills, we are just completely excluded.
  That is almost unheard of in a country of this stature which is a 
true democracy that the minority party, in this case Democrats, 
representing 49 percent of the country, are not even allowed to put 
forth the proposals or amendments on the House floor. I know that 
upsets a lot of people and certainly upsets all of us.
  Even if we do not have the votes to pass it, at least let our new 
ideas come forth on this Floor and be argued and debated and let the 
American people make up their mind on this legislation.
  So I pleased to come down here and join my colleague. I look forward 
to doing that throughout the year as we have in the past working on 
this. There are other issues, and I look forward to working with him on 
them.
  We have an opportunity, and I hope the President and his party will 
work with us, so we can move this country forward because the economy 
is not where we want it to be. We are struggling. As I said, Michigan 
alone lost the most manufacturing jobs of any State. We are hurting 
back in Michigan. We need some help.
  There are some things we can do, but another tax cut is not going to 
jump-start our economy in Michigan. It may be good for Wall Street, but 
it is not very good for Main Street where we do create the jobs. We 
have heard it so many times in the media that this is a jobless 
recovery. Well, the economy seems to be looking good on Wall Street. 
And IRAs and even 401(k)s and other things may look a little better, 
but for folks back home they are not employed, they are not working, it 
is not helping them.
  In Michigan, at the last tax cut we got less than $100. 46 percent of 
the people in Michigan got less than a $100 in the last Bush tax cut. 
It is not going to help us out. Let us put some people back to work 
immediately. Adopt the Democratic plan which says we can put a million 
people back to work immediately by working in infrastructure, roads, 
bridges, port security, airport security, without adding to the 
deficit. We can do it by taking money out of the trust funds.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Michigan 
not only because of what he said today, but also because of all the 
work he does, particularly on the committee that we are both on, the 
Committee on Energy and Commerce. But I was listening to what he said. 
He was talking about mostly in the context of his State, Michigan. But 
everything that he said applies to my State as well, and probably to 
the rest of the country.
  One of the things he mentioned that I wanted to comment on was this 
whole effort to exclude the Democrats. He mentioned that, for example, 
with the Medicare prescription drug bill we were not invited to the 
conference to discuss the bill. Even the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Dingell), the senior Member of the House, the ranking member on our 
committee, was excluded.
  And when I talk to my constituents, and obviously my colleagues have 
the same reaction, they are shocked to find out that they elect 
somebody to come down here and just because they are of a particular 
party, that is, in the majority, that they have so little say. And we 
witnessed it earlier.
  At the end of the day, when we have the little colloquy between the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and usually it is the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) on our side about the schedule, today a couple of 
our Democratic colleagues brought up the fact that the Republicans have 
refused to even consider a debate on the issue of extending 
unemployment compensation. And the Republican Majority Leader, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) made it quite clear that he was 
opposed to extending unemployment compensation. But it was not enough 
that he said that he was opposed to it, he had to go further and say 
that he was not going to allow a debate on it.
  And the reason he said, sort of in a sarcastic way, he said something 
about the fact, ``Well, I think the Democrats said we have 208 members 
on a discharge petition to bring this bill up.'' And the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. DeLay) said, ``Well, last I heard, 218 is the majority.'' So 
what he essentially was saying well there may be 208 Democrats out 
there that are signed on and want to debate this issue, but since they 
are in the minority, even only by 10 votes, we are not debating it. 
That is the kind of thing we get.
  I do not want to disparage him, but this is what we get all the time. 
The Democrats are not in the majority so there will be no debate. The 
Democrats are not in the majority so they will not be a party to the 
conference. The Democrats are not in the majority, so we are not really 
interested in their point of view.
  Particularly last night, listening to the President's State of the 
Union Address, I noticed that many of the commentators said it was a 
very divisive speech, that there was no effort to reach out and say 
maybe we do not agree on this issue whether it is health care or job 
creation or whatever, but even though we do not agree, let us get 
together and try to work it out in a unified way.

[[Page H73]]

                              {time}  1430

  Never was that suggested. It was almost as if this was my way or the 
highway. It is a very bad development in the way that we operate around 
here, and I think it is important that the gentleman mention it. I 
appreciate that the gentleman mentioned it.
  The other thing I wanted to say just in terms of comparing what the 
gentleman said about Michigan versus New Jersey, so many soft things 
you mentioned are true for my State as well. I thought it was very 
glaring that there was absolutely no mention in the President's speech 
about any environmental concerns, as if the environment did not even 
exist as an issue. In the past he has always tried to touch upon it a 
little. Even though he has a terrible record, in my opinion, and has 
been cutting back on environmental regulation and enforcement, he would 
at least mention it. It was not even mentioned.
  As the gentleman said, my State of New Jersey has more Superfund 
sites than any other State, and my congressional district has the most 
Superfund sites in the State of New Jersey. And it is very upsetting to 
my municipalities because many of these Superfund sites that are 
terribly toxic, we have one in Edison, New Jersey, that was the site 
where they produced agent orange, the herbicide, during the Vietnam 
War. It is in the stage now where they are gradually cleaning it up. 
But because they are told there is no money left in the Superfund, that 
may have to stop, actually has stopped on occasion, and then started up 
again when the money was available.
  That is what we are facing, the crisis with the hazardous waste 
clean-ups because there is no money left from the Superfund because the 
President did not want to renew the tax on the oil and chemical 
industry that would pay for the clean-up.
  The gentleman talked about the ports. Obviously, one way that is very 
effective in terms of creating jobs is to spend money on 
infrastructure, on homeland security. New Jersey, like Michigan, is a 
State that has a lot of port activity. Most of the cargo that comes 
into the port of New York actually comes into New Jersey, the majority 
of it. I have heard from so many of the inspectors about how so little 
of the cargo is inspected.
  We had a situation in December while we were not here in Congress 
where our governor had to announce that he could not, there was a 
proposal because of the bad state of the roads in New Jersey to 
increase the gasoline tax, and he decided not to do it because he knew 
that a tax increase would probably not pass and there would be a lot of 
political opposition to it, so he decided not to increase the gas tax. 
But we face a crisis in our transportation infrastructure.
  If we can get an infusion of funds from the Federal Government to 
help with our bridges and our highways, not only would we be able to 
fix them up and make transportation easier; but it would create a lot 
of jobs, and we do not get this. All we get is more tax cuts and there 
is no way that, either in the short or the long run, that that is going 
to be job creation.
  The thing that really surprised me, and I do not know where the 
gentleman stands on this issue, last night the only thing that I 
thought the President mentioned about job creation was the need for 
more free-trade agreements. He signed all these free-trade agreements 
over the last couple of years, and that is a major reason why so many 
of the jobs have gone south, not only to Mexico but to China and other 
countries.
  Here he is again saying, okay, we need more of these free-trade 
agreements. Free trade is all right, but we have got to have some kind 
of a program to enhance our manufacturing base before we just sign all 
these agreements and let everybody take away all our manufacturing 
jobs. It is just amazing to me.
  We could keep going on, and I do not want to necessarily keep 
repeating what the gentleman said, but I just want to say that so many 
of the things that the gentleman mentioned have direct application to 
my State, and all we keep getting is more tax cuts for the wealthy, 
more debt. And somehow the suggestion on the part of the President is 
that that is helping with the economy, when I think it is doing the 
opposite.
  I do not know if the gentleman wanted to add anything else.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman spoke a little bit about the 
trade agreements. Now they are trying to push the Free Trade Agreement 
of the Americas. In the past year we have done the Chilean Trade 
Agreement, Singapore. We have done a number of them, but yet we still 
see jobs leaving this country.
  When we talk about it, everybody says, well, we will enforce the laws 
that are on the books, but look at what just happened with steel. The 
International Trade Commission found unanimously, six-nothing, that 
there was illegal dumping of steel goods in this country. By illegal 
dumping I mean they are selling it in this country at less than what it 
cost to produce it in China or Brazil or the Ukraine or wherever it 
was, and they dumped it here. And the President said, all right, since 
you have harmed our industry, we will help our steel industry and the 
iron ore miners that I represent in Northern Michigan. We will put a 
tariff on it.
  That lasted 18 months and the President pulled out of the agreement. 
Now we no longer have these tariffs again, and you will see steel 
starting to get dumped once again in this country.
  So when the President says, I need more trade agreements to open up 
the global market and we will enforce the laws, the first one we have 
seen where he has actually taken a high-profile case, the steel 
industry, he is going to hold it for 3 years, 3 years at 30 percent. 
Three years those tariffs would be on. It would be a 30 percent tariff.
  And then what happened half way through it because of pressure from 
some of our trading partners, the President decides to abandon the 
tariffs. He promised the steel industry 3 years to get back on its 
feet. There has been consolidation. There has been more efficiency in 
the steel industry. Our mines, and I had a couple mines up there, they 
have consolidated to cut costs to be more competitive. We make the best 
steel in the world. And we have all worked together.
  He said 3 years. We have laid out a 3-year plan to revitalize the 
steel industry in this country. That lasted 18 months. So when the 
President says that, with all due respect, he sort of loses a little 
credibility in my mind when he wants to bring out further trade 
agreements, not just a Free Trade Agreement with the America which 
would be all the way down to South America; but he is also talking 
about a Middle East trade agreement which would include the Middle 
East, including Iraq. We have had a trade agreement this last year with 
Jordan.
  There are trade agreements all the time. And no matter where you fall 
on it, you decide for or against them, but when you find clear-cut 
violations like in the steel industry where the International Trade 
Commission by a six-zero vote unanimously says, they have dumped 
illegal steel in this country and hurt our industry, we have a right 
now to bring in to remedy the situation. The President does it for 3 
years, and he pulls out after 18 months.
  So I have little faith that any future trade agreements, when there 
are violations, they will say, oh, we are getting pressure from our 
trade partners, therefore, too bad. I talked about Michigan. We lost 
the most manufacturing jobs of any State under this President. Those 
jobs are gone. Those were good-paying jobs. What do you replace them 
with? Service industry jobs, minimum wage, jobs with no benefits.
  While we are losing these jobs and have record unemployment in 
Michigan, we are at 7 percent unemployment, what did they do on 
overtime in the budget bill that we passed here? The reason why many of 
us did not vote for it, they have a clause in there that you do not 
have to pay overtime anymore.
  One of the hallmarks of employee rights in this, if you work more 
than 40 hours you get overtime. Under the President's proposal, they 
will overhaul the overtime rules that would cause in Michigan alone 
over 300,000 workers to lose access to their overtime pay.
  The President says, it does not affect those who have a collective 
bargaining agreement. Guess what? As soon as that collective bargaining 
agreement expires, what is the employer going to

[[Page H74]]

say? I do not have to pay overtime anymore. The Federal law has 
changed; you guys are out of luck.
  That is what we cannot have. So, again, we are willing to work with 
this President. We are willing to work with the majority party. We even 
bang on their door when they do not invite us to the prescription drug 
or budget. We bang on the door. And besides sending the Capitol Police, 
I wish they would ask us to sit down and let us work together. At the 
end of the day, after we have our voice, after we are heard, whether it 
is on the House floor or in committee, if we do not have the votes on 
the proposal so be it. That is the democratic process. But at least 
give us access to this process. We do represent 49 percent of the 
people in this country; and, hopefully, after November it will be more 
than 49 percent.
  We just want access, to have an opportunity to have a fair debate 
with the American people on these proposals, whether it is the 
President's health insurance proposal, his trade agreements, his 
environmental policies. We are happy to debate. But do not stick these 
proposals in these massive omnibus budget bills that no one reads and 
no one has time to look at, and we run it over to the Senate and rubber 
stamp it over there and we come back and the President signs it. 
Because there are many things in there that do affect the well-being of 
the American people in the gentleman's district and mine. We certainly 
have a right to be heard on each and every one of those issues.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I agree and I appreciate the gentleman 
coming down here.
  I wanted to say one last thing. The manufacturing sector is very 
crucial in terms of job creation and job retention, for the gentleman's 
State, for my State, and all over.
  The thing that is amazing about it is when I listened to the 
President last night, when we look at other countries, whether it is 
Canada or Western Europe or certainly true for China and the Asian 
countries, they have a national policy that basically dictates trying 
to create jobs.
  If there is going to be a free-trade agreement with Singapore, for 
example, I am sure that Singapore has figured out how they are going to 
gain and benefit. If they are going to lose jobs, they will retrain 
people to create more jobs in another sector.
  If you listened to the President last night, it is almost like, that 
is not my job, that is not my responsibility. He talked about job 
training, but he did not suggest how job training would be worked in 
such a way to train for a new job.
  We talked about the manufacturing sector. In New Jersey, in my 
district, we consider ourselves sort of like a little Silicon Valley, 
the IT sector; health care is a big sector. And even those jobs are now 
being lost overseas. We have radiologists complaining about how the 
radiology is being done in Asia, or the IT sector where the computer 
jobs are going overseas.
  So we have to have some kind of national policy with regard to job 
retention and job creation. And he does not even mention that. That is 
not our job. Washington, the President, the Congress have nothing to do 
with that. So when he talks about job training, I am like, well, what 
are you training for? You do not give us any details on how somebody is 
going to be trained to go work for a job that is available. It is very 
disconcerting.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned throughout this Special Order 
today, Michigan has lost so many manufacturing jobs, more than any 
other State. We actually got together, the congressional delegation, 
and the Democrats in particular, along with our governor, Governor 
Granholm, and actually put together a proposal, a HELP proposal as we 
called it: Health insurance, employment benefits, liabilities of the 
pension fund so they have a pension when they retire, and then a U.S. 
dollar policy. We laid out a very thoughtful document and sent it up to 
the White House and the President and asked them to at least comment on 
it and join with us because no economy in this world can exist without 
at least a strong manufacturing base; and we are losing it so quickly 
in this country, especially the last few years.
  So we put forth our proposal called HELP. Unfortunately, we have not 
heard anything back from the White House. I know they have been on 
break. Now we have the budget wrapped up, so maybe we will take a look 
at it. But there are, Governor Granholm, some of us in the House and at 
least on the Michigan Democratic congressional delegation, trying to do 
something because we feel strongly that if you do not have a strong 
manufacturing base, service industry is fine, high-tech, all that is 
fine, but you still need a basic manufacturing base to your country. So 
we put forth a proposal. Again, we are willing to work with the 
President on that because we do have to keep good-paying manufacturing 
jobs here in this country. They cannot all go south, and we have to do 
some things to help out pensions, health care, employment benefits and 
the value of the dollar as a big impact on our goods overseas.
  So we hope that we can work with this administration and this 
President in addressing those concerns we have on manufacturing.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I agree. I just want to reiterate in 
closing what the gentleman said again about the need to work with 
Democrats. Really, the hallmark of this administration, and also the 
Republican leadership in this House, has been to exclude the Democrats 
and not have us be part of the debate. That has got to change because 
otherwise I think we will never get to a situation where we can have 
consensus proposals for job creation, for health care, on the 
environment that are really going to be meaningful. I think that 
Congress suffers from the fact that this bipartisanship has essentially 
disappeared under the Republican majority.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman again.

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