[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 29 (Tuesday, March 9, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H922-H924]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bonner). The Chair wishes to inform the 
Chamber that under the Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, 
the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) 
for the remainder of the hour, which at this point is approximately 21 
minutes.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman just spoke about the 
deficit. We had some colleagues here earlier in an effort to defend the 
so-called prescription drug benefit that was passed

[[Page H923]]

on this floor back in December. Does my colleague recall that back in 
the course of this debate, and I know this is a digression from our 
focus of the issue of Iraq, but it does go to the credibility of this 
President, President Bush, does the gentleman remember the discussion 
and the debate that went on into the wee hours when there was not a 
single Member of Congress on both sides that did not accept the number 
$400 billion as the cost of that proposal? And then weeks later, weeks 
later it was announced by this White House, the Bush White House, that 
their estimate was some $537 billion? More than 35 percent.
  What we discovered subsequently is that this administration, this 
President, had his Secretary of Health and Human Services over here 
lobbying, advocating right on the floor of the House, cajoling Members 
for some 3 hours. And he knew at that point in time that the real 
number was some $537 billion, and not what we were told. This goes to 
credibility. This goes to exactly what David Kay told that British 
newspaper when he called on the Bush administration to come clean with 
the American people and admit it was wrong about the evidence of 
weapons of mass destruction. It is about coming clean and it is about 
credibility and it is about the truth.
  Mr. INSLEE. If the gentleman will continue to yield, just for a 
moment. I would suggest, too, that this is for the administration's own 
benefit. It is certainly for our citizens' benefit, but it is also for 
the administration's own benefit. When Lee Iacocca, CEO of Chrysler, 
found out they were putting rebuilt engines in their Mustangs instead 
of new ones, he admitted that his organization had made a massive 
mistake and requested forgiveness of the American people. Frankly, it 
was granted. But it is difficult for the father of the Marine I had 
lunch with, whose son is now in harm's way in Baghdad, to grant 
forgiveness when even yet the President will not shoot straight about, 
number one, the cost of the Iraq war; or, two, not help us find out why 
we were given such massively inaccurate information. That just 
continues to fester a wound in the body public of this democracy. It 
would be to this administration's benefit to come clean about this 
information.
  And another thing that we want our conservative friends across the 
aisle to share a belief in is accountability. We hear a lot about 
accountability and personal responsibility on this floor, but when a 
war is started based on a false premise, as in this case and only one 
person has lost his job as a result of that, and that is a radio 
personality, nobody in this administration has lost their job, nobody 
has had their hand slapped, nobody has had their pay docked, nobody has 
had a single word from the President of the United States castigating 
them for sending our people, many of whom are not coming home from a 
war based on a falsity, this President needs to demand accountability 
from this government. As of today, he has given us zero accountability 
and only marginal help at finding the truth.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, that is 
precisely what a dialogue and discussion of a political nature is about 
in the United States of America. We will get accountability, and that 
accountability will be taking place. There is both the request for it 
and the demand for it. And, in fact, we will have an accounting and 
that accounting will be taking place in November. That is how we settle 
things in this country.
  Not the way things are going to be settled in Iraq, I am sorry to 
say. Here is a headline from the Monday Washington Post: ``The Iraq 
council signs interim constitution. Powerful Shiite cleric criticizes 
new law.''
  Without going into all the details of the signing of this document by 
a hand-picked group of people by the United States of America, the 
observation made in the course of a discussion of what the Shiite 
council members would seek by way of amendment or an addendum to the 
interim constitution when that government assumes its sovereignty on 
June 30, quoting from the article in The Washington Post, ``Although 
the U.S.-led occupation's authority is set to transfer political power 
that day, i.e. June 30, it is likely to maintain a military presence in 
Iraq for years to come.''
  That is what we have to face. This is a question of deliberate 
policy. This is a question of judgment. And the judgment that is made 
by the American people in the voting booth is their sentence, is what 
they pass on that judgment. This is the conclusion that they come to.
  Our obligation, it seems to me, here in the House of Representatives, 
in the time allotted to us and in the arena given to us by these 
special orders, is to try to lay before the American people what the 
consequences are of these policies, these judgments that were made, and 
the consequences of the action taken as a result of those judgments.

                              {time}  2340

  Mr. Speaker, the sad part about it for me is that the vehicle we have 
for this, once you are outside of the political arena per se, is 
journalism, is the various media, electronic, written and otherwise. 
They are the ones that are falling down. They are the ones not asking 
the hard questions and allowing this kind of situation to develop 
without any kind of adequate inquiry. So it remains for us to do it 
here.
  We have to have an understanding here that what is taking place in 
Iraq today is the direct result of decisions taken based on judgments 
made and responsibility that has to be taken for those judgments. The 
fact that no one has been fired, the fact that no one has been brought 
to account is something that should not be a shock to anyone. Nobody is 
going to take responsibility for this unless the American people demand 
it in the voting booth.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I think the American people realize who 
ultimately has to be accountable. Harry Truman said it: ``The buck 
stops here.'' The Oval Office is where the responsibility lies.
  I can understand why the American people can be confused. We have 
talked about several things tonight. We have talked about the body 
armor and the ill-equipped troops. We have talked about the Medicare 
bill and the fact it is going to cost more than we were told and will 
provide an inadequate benefit. I noticed the other side earlier was 
saying it is not a perfect bill. You can bet your life it is not a 
perfect bill; it is a terrible bill. It is going to cost much more than 
we were told it was going to cost. The deficit is going to be well over 
$500 billion this year, with no end in sight.
  If I can mention education, we had a primary in Ohio with well over 
200 education ballots that people were called to vote upon. More than 
half failed. People are wondering why are we not funding the No Child 
Left Behind bill at an adequate level. And then, we all understand that 
the President, as the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) said, did 
not ask for a single dime for the Iraq war in the budget he sent us; 
but we all know as soon as the election is over, the President is going 
to come to this House and ask for at least an additional $50 billion 
for Iraq.
  I think people are wondering why can we not have affordable drugs for 
our senior citizens, why can we not adequately fund our schools, why 
can we not provide the kind of health care that our veterans have been 
promised and deserve, why can we not adequately equip our troops and 
start paying down this deficit rather than pushing this burden into the 
outyears onto the backs of our children. The answer is the President 
has set out an agenda which is to give massive tax cuts to the richest 
people in this country, to spend on the building of Iraq and the 
rebuilding of Iraq.
  My people are not selfish along the Ohio River in eastern and 
southeastern Ohio. They are good, hardworking, honest American 
citizens. They are wondering why our schools cannot be built and 
rehabbed and modernized, and we are spending that money in Iraq. We are 
not going to get a transportation bill unless something happens and 
there is some kind of an agreement. We are told the President may even 
veto the transportation funding at the Senate-passed level. My 
constituents are asking, What about our infrastructure? What about our 
roads and bridges? What about our sewer and water needs? And yet we are 
pouring our national resources into Iraq, and as the gentleman from 
Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) said, we have no idea what is going to happen 
with that government over there.

[[Page H924]]

  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, we do know one thing, we have 
competition in Ohio for who is going to build those highways; but in 
Iraq we know it is going to be Halliburton and the rest of the hand-
picked construction companies which will be pocketing the profits.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, we understand and I continue to hear the 
word ``recovery.'' We know it is a jobless recovery, but it is not a 
jobless recovery for those who live in Iraq. It is a lot of no-show 
jobs going on over in Iraq. And as we discussed in our last session, 
certain individuals are doing very well by the American taxpayers. 
There is a budget for Iraq, and there is a budget for the United 
States; and they are both being paid for by the American taxpayer.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I was 
watching television over the weekend, and I saw Mr. Richard Pearl being 
interviewed about why we are trying to provide universal health care 
for Iraq. He was trying to give the reasons why that was justified. He 
was asked, What about the American citizen? He said Well, it is a 
different situation. The problems of health care in Iraq are so 
terrible, and this is something we ought to pursue.
  Mr. Speaker, my constituents are kind, caring, gracious people; but 
they have a hard time understanding why the steelworkers losing their 
jobs along the Ohio River, and as a result of bankruptcy of the steel 
industry, losing their health benefits as retirees, many of them in 
their mid-fifties with health problems, no insurance company wants 
them; and even if they could get an insurance company that would sell 
them a policy, they could not possibly afford it because they have no 
job, and these people are wondering why we have a double standard when 
it comes to our willingness to do what this administration, this 
President says he wants to do for Iraq when the people who built this 
country worked hard, played by the rules, many of them fought in our 
wars, are wondering why they are considered to be second priorities 
instead of first priorities. I think that is a legitimate issue. I wish 
I was in Cleveland tomorrow and had an opportunity to talk to the 
President while he was there. I would like to ask him those questions 
on behalf of my constituents.

  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I listened to the President's remarks this 
evening. They were transmitted on CNN. He described those who are 
concerned about the outsourcing of American jobs, with an implication 
that somehow those who have a concern about jobs in America are 
something less than free and fair traders, and that is T-R-A-D-E-R-S, 
and should be called economic isolationists.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think it is 
important in this discussion to say we are as hopeful as credibility 
can allow for the ultimate outcome in Iraq. We are hopeful that this 
constitution in Iraq will bear benefits, that a stable government will 
develop in Iraq, that the Kurds will enter a federation and not end up 
in a civil war. We are hopeful that will happen.
  But what we are saying is we need the administration to be honest 
with us and the American people so we can deal with challenges at home, 
one of which is this jobs issue. We could be creating thousands of 
good-paying jobs by creating new infrastructure, but we cannot do that 
because this administration has not been forthright with us about the 
true cost of the Iraq war. One of the reasons that we are not growing 
jobs in this country in transportation infrastructure is because the 
President has refused to be honest with us about the cost of the Iraq 
war.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And be honest with us about the cost of the 
prescription drug benefit proposal put forth by his party and his White 
House.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. And be honest with us about the true cost of the No 
Child Left Behind education bill. It starts adding up.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, it comes down to the question posed here 
on the cover of Time magazine, Does Bush have a credibility gap? And 
clearly there is substantial evidence that would lead to the conclusion 
that there is a profound credibility gap.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, with respect to the trenchant 
commentary that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) just 
presented to us, I too am aware of the designation by Mr. Bush by those 
who are protesting or are concerned about the outsourcing of jobs 
overseas, the loss of jobs, the jobless recovery as being economic 
isolationists.

                              {time}  2350

  I would suggest to Mr. Bush that if you want to see someone who is 
isolated economically, just take a look at somebody who is unemployed. 
Then you are going to understand what true isolation is, where you are 
bereft of any capacity to pay your bills, to meet your obligations, to 
know that you will have healthcare, to be able to take care of your 
elderly parents, to have some semblance of dignity. The true economic 
isolate in this country is the person who is unemployed.
  Mr. INSLEE. If the gentleman will yield, I would offer a theory 
perhaps as to why the administration has in numerous ways expressed 
kind of a tone deafness to the economic outcry to people going on 
concerned about their jobs.
  You saw the administrative report basically saying that outsourcing 
was not a problem at all, which the White House then tried to disavow, 
even though the President signed the report which said that, which I 
saw in the Washington Post today. You saw various efforts by the 
administration to teach businesses how not to pay overtime to American 
employees, which I thought was a little bit not what most people would 
expect of our government to do and use our taxpayer dollars, to teach 
people not to pay legally-owed overtime. That is distressing.
  So there is a lack of understanding, and I am not sure the 
administration understands the huge black cloud of doubt and worry out 
there, because the American people understand that even though there 
might be some good numbers out there in various economic indicators, 
the fact of the matter is, for the first time since Herbert Hoover was 
President, this President has not created one single net job in 
America, not one single net job in America.
  We have lost over 2.5 million jobs. We have got to get 2.5 million 
jobs back before we can even claim that one new job has been created on 
a net basis in this country. This has created enormous anxiety, as it 
should, in our Nation, that then affects the people.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. That is only half of the story. I think it is very 
important that those that are watching us tonight in our hour ``hour of 
conversation'' understand that not only have we lost millions of jobs, 
but, as the gentleman indicated, we create and we lose, and it is 
netted out to some 2.5 million jobs we have lost. He will be the next 
Herbert Hoover. But, do you know what is happening? It is not just a 
jobless recovery, it is a wage recession. That is really important, 
that those that are unaware be given that information. The jobs that 
are replacing the jobs that are lost are coming in at a wage level some 
22 percent less than the jobs that they replace.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. If the gentleman will yield, I am from Ohio, and Ohio 
probably as much or more than most States has suffered and is 
continuing to suffer from job loss. 286,000 jobs have been lost in 
Ohio, 160,000 manufacturing jobs, and the replacement jobs are 
estimated to pay on average 34 percent less than the jobs that have 
been lost. That is the cold, hard facts about Ohio.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. As we conclude then, I might add, however, there are 
plenty of jobs for those who want to take them up over in Iraq working 
for Halliburton or working for one of the other companies that got the 
preferential treatment. So I think when we come to our next ``Iraq 
Watch,'' we should have well in mind what the consequences have been 
for the American people, the American taxpayer, the American soldier.

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