[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 51 (Tuesday, April 20, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H2174-H2175]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           MISLEADING AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to express my concern that 
the administration has misled Congress and the American public on the 
most pressing issues we are facing here at home and abroad. It is time 
that the administration was truthful to the American public about the 
cost of the war in Iraq.
  Last week President Bush said in his address to the Nation that the 
administration is constantly reviewing the needs of our troops and will 
provide whatever additional resources are needed. Yet this is the same 
administration that sent our troops to war without adequate body armor, 
antijamming devices or armored Humvees. Our troops in the theater did 
not even have enough body armor and protective SAPI plates until 
January of 2004.
  As of today less than 50 percent of the 12,800 armored Humvees that 
we need in Iraq and Afghanistan are equipped with reinforced doors and 
windows. This is in part because the $87 billion supplemental for the 
Iraq war that Congress passed last November included only $239 million 
to up-armor Humvees, far short of what is needed.
  I supported a substitute version proposed by the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) that would have provided $3 billion to reinforce 
Humvees and other unarmored vehicles used by our forces. Unfortunately, 
the Republican leadership refused to allow the House a vote to consider 
the Obey proposal. Is it not ironic that anyone who did not vote for 
this $87 billion package, they say, you are against anything for the 
troops, when it truth they orchestrated the vote so those of us who 
want to provide more funding for the troops to provide them with the 
up-armored Humvees were not allowed a vote. Clearly the funding for 
upgrades to the Humvees and other force protection initiatives have 
been inadequate.
  On March 18, 2004, the Defense Department formally requested Congress 
to shift $190 million previously allocated to other uses to cover the 
cost of armoring Humvees for fiscal year 2004. According to the defense 
expert Michael O'Hanlon at the Brookings Institution, simply 
maintaining current troops levels beyond June could add nearly $4 
billion in unfunded costs through the end of this year. Yet President 
Bush's $521 billion defense budget for fiscal year 2005 includes no 
money, no money for military operations in Iraq or Afghanistan.

[[Page H2175]]

  In fact, there are $12 billion worth of unfunded requirements for the 
military, including nearly $2 billion of important force protection 
initiatives. And the administration says it will wait until next year 
to request a new supplemental, which could amount to over $50 billion. 
The question is, why did not they not include this in their regular 
fiscal 2005 defense budget?
  I think the American people deserve answers. The American people also 
deserve answers about urgent health problems here at home, health care 
and the rising costs of prescription drugs. The American people deserve 
to know the truth about the new Medicare prescription bill law. I have 
been having town meetings throughout my district with seniors, and they 
are outraged at the new Medicare law because it falls far short of what 
they expected, of what they need, and what they deserve.
  The new law does nothing to reduce the cost of drugs, and it actually 
raises costs for seniors with less than $5,000 a year in prescriptions.

                              {time}  2015

  It jeopardizes existing health benefits for retirees. The new 
Medicare prescription drug law was a huge victory for the 
pharmaceutical industry because it fails to require the government to 
negotiate drug prices on behalf of seniors, and it continues to make 
reimportation illegal.
  Seniors are still prohibited from ordering prescription drugs from 
Canada at a fraction of the cost for those same drugs here in the 
United States. In the last 9 months, Springfield, Massachusetts, has 
already saved $2 million by buying prescription drugs from Canada for 
their city's employees and retirees.
  So instead of working to improve the Medicare prescription drug bill, 
we recently learned that the administration has chosen to hide the 
truth that the Medicare law would cost $139 billion more than the 
Congressional Budget Office's prediction. We need to work together to 
pass a prescription drug law that will allow Medicare to negotiate 
lower drug costs on behalf of America's seniors, that will allow 
Americans to pay lower costs for drugs in Canada.
  I have to tell my colleagues, whether I am talking to seniors who are 
Republicans, seniors who are Democrats, or seniors who are 
Independents, they do not get it. They understand that if you do not 
buy prescription drugs for all the 40 million recipients of Medicare, 
then it is probably not going to be a good deal for seniors; and they 
want this bill changed.

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