[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 147 (Tuesday, November 8, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H10023-H10030]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Westmoreland). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Meek) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to address the House
once again, and we would like to thank the Democratic leadership for
allowing us to have one more hour on the 30-something Working Group
tonight. We have been coming to the floor daily and mainly speaking
recently about the budget and what effects it is going to have on the
American people throughout this country.
We have asked our colleagues within the working group to come to the
floor, share some of their concerns, talk about our Democratic
alternative, which failed in committee, not because it was not an
alternative of merit and of commitment and making sure that we place
ourselves in heading in the direction towards the balanced budget by
2012, but it failed because we were in the minority. One Republican on
the opposite side of the aisle did vote against the proposal that will
be coming to the floor in the coming days, seeing it in a way that
fiscal responsibility is important but making sure that we do not leave
Americans behind who sent us up here to represent them.
I am honored tonight to be joined by the gentlewoman from Florida
(Ms.
[[Page H10024]]
Wasserman Schultz) and also my good friend, the gentleman from Alabama
(Mr. Davis), who has been a part of this in making sure that we put
American priorities forward. But I must say that there is a lot of work
that needs to be done.
Tonight we are going to make sure that the Members know and also the
American people know exactly what they are going to be voting on coming
the next couple of days. There will be a bill in the Committee on
Rules, and we will have debate here on the floor; but Members need to
know exactly what they are voting for because as we, Mr. Speaker, look
at this bill as written, veterans are going to have longer lines, they
are going to pay higher co-payments, they are going to pay higher
premiums. And those individuals that are coming out of theater, some
130,000, now we have 150-something thousand in theater of war, when
they come back and they find themselves waiting in longer lines for
what we promised them as it relates to health care, as it relates to
benefits and not leaving out their families and children, I think it is
something we need to pay very close attention to.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman
Schultz).
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, it is again a pleasure to be here
with you to talk about the issues that are important to the American
people. I think the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) and the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) would both agree that this week
really everything is going to come to a head. The choices that Members
in this Chamber are going to be asked to make, more than any other week
that I have been here, I think, are going to be emblematic of where our
priorities are.
The choices that we are going to have to make on this budget
reconciliation bill, which is Washington-speak for budget cuts, is
going to show who is for the American people in making sure that they
can sustain a decent quality of life and who is against that concept
and is more supportive of making sure that the wealthy can stay
wealthy. That is really what it boils down to.
Just to give you, Mr. Speaker, an idea, as well as anyone who can
hear our conversation, of exactly what we are going to be asked to
choose between this week, the Republican leadership and the Republican
Members have been making a lot of hay about the spending cuts that they
are going to ask us to vote for, that they are needed reductions
because we have to do something about this deficit. And we agree. We
agree that there needs to be something done about the deficit.
But the difference between our approach and the Republican approach
is that our approach would actually reduce the deficit, and their
approach actually adds to it. If you have a little less than $55
billion in budget cuts, yet still have 70-some-odd-billion dollars in
tax cuts, the difference between that is $20 billion more added on to
the deficit.
Now, I can tell you honestly that I was not very good at math when I
was younger and struggled with it a little bit, but that is pretty
simple math. That is not complex. It is not calculus. It does not
require an advanced degree. Seventy minus 50 is 20. And it is not a
negative number. It is a positive number added on to the deficit.
Let us demonstrate that while we are still providing $70 billion to
tax cuts for the wealthy we are cutting the following things: for the
sake of more tax cuts in this budget reconciliation bill, students can
expect to pay as much as $5,800 more for college. For the sake of more
tax cuts, 300,000 of America's neediest will be left without food
stamps. For the sake of more tax cuts, we will fail in our obligation
to bring hurricane victims lasting relief. For the sake of more tax
cuts, $10 billion, $10 billion with a B, will be slashed from Medicaid.
One in four children in America get their health care from Medicaid.
For the sake of more tax cuts, we will ensure that the deficit
remains high and the burden of creating more debt and paying that debt
by our selfishness in choosing to help the wealthy at the expense of
the people who are the most in need and the people who are just working
every day to make ends meet, that is the debt we are passing on to our
children and our children's children. And it is just mind-boggling to
me. I know I am a freshman. The two gentlemen have been here longer
than me. Maybe I am naive. Maybe the gentleman can provide some clarity
because to me it is simple math.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis).
Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from
Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) for yielding.
I am honored as always to be here with my colleague from Florida and
my colleague from Ohio to talk about what is an enormously important
vote on the floor of the House this week. I thank the gentlewoman from
Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) at the outset for exposing one of the
great myths behind this vote. As you know, there is a requirement that
when we introduce bills in the House that we label the legislation,
that we give it a title that is supposed to be roughly descriptive of
the purpose of the bill. So we are told, well, this is a deficit
reduction act, and I thank the gentlewoman for laying bare that myth.
{time} 1800
When we finish with the tax cuts that are still being contemplated,
dividend tax cuts, for example, in the next several weeks, and we do
the simple math, our deficit will be worse than it is today.
This is not a Deficit Reduction Act. Something very different is at
stake. This is not about cutting spending, it is not about saving the
government money; it is about a different set of values being in the
saddle.
All of us who are here have been in the Congress fairly recently. Mr.
Ryan, Mr. Meek and I came here in 2003, and you joined us this year. We
all came with this notion that we stood for a particular set of values
about government. One of the values that we most deeply believe in is
the idea of obligation, of strong people to weak people, of people who
are in one place in society, being related and connected to people in a
very different place in society.
A lot of us ran on that, a lot of us talked about that. As strongly
as we believe in our party, we hope that those just aren't partisan
values. We hope that those are values that are shared all across this
aisle, in the center, left and the right, the Democratic and the
Republican side.
But what is sad about this week is that a very different set of
values are now in the saddle. You touched on some of them, but they are
very much worth underscoring: 300,000 families in this country who are
getting food stamps. If the majority has its way, those 300,000 people
will lose their food stamps, not because they have committed fraud, not
because their income status has changed in the last several years, not
because they have been shown to not need food stamps but simply because
a different set of values are in the saddle.
You talked about, or you touched upon the question of child support.
If the majority has its way, the Federal Government will walk away from
a bipartisan commitment to help States go out and find deadbeat dads
and enforce the laws that require people who have children to be
responsible for them. We will see a party that styles itself as the
party of family values walk away from that commitment. Again, it is not
because of saving money, it is because a different set of values are in
the saddle.
You talked about Medicaid. For the first time, if the majority has
its way, working-class and poor families will have to pay a premium and
a copay for their children, who are very poor, to go to the doctor.
When we came here, both parties believed that if you are very poor in
this society, then your kids are entitled to health care, and, yes,
that is a social obligation that we owe to people who are struggling.
Now a different set of values are in the saddle, and we are told they
have to make a copay.
You touched on another basic matter. People who are legal immigrants,
not illegal, not people who violate some immigration law to come here,
but all those people who come here, played by the rules and have been
naturalized as U.S. citizens, but have not yet shared in the bounty and
prosperity of this country. Right now, most of them are allowed to
receive food stamps.
[[Page H10025]]
If the majority has its way, 20- to 30,000 of those people who are
eligible will lose that eligibility, again, not to save money, but
because a different set of values are in the saddle.
To make a basic point about the food stamps provision in this
reconciliation bill, $800,000, the 300,000 families will be shaved off
the food stamp rolls, that adds up to about $844 million. $840 million
in a $3.7 trillion discretionary budget is about one-sixteenth of 1
percent. That is worth almost nothing to the U.S. Treasury, but it is
the margin of survival that means almost everything to these families.
We could go on, issue after issue. The value of the money that will
be saved will be offset by tax cuts or is altogether insignificant. But
the impact of those cuts is devastating to people who are watching us
right now.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, this is the moral argument of our
generation. I agree with you 100 percent, but I think there is an
economic component of this, too. If we are going to be a great nation
economically, we need to have healthy children, who are going to be
able to go to school and learn so that they can become scientists and
engineers, so that we can drive this economy through the 21st century.
As much as it is a moral imperative, it is an economic imperative
that will continue to make the United States of America a strong
country economically and militarily.
Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I absolutely concur with that
point. There are two points that we will have to make constantly over
the next 48 hours. This is not just about altruism. I wish that we
could convince our friends and colleagues on the other side of the
aisle just by saying it is wrong to single out the children of poor
people for sacrifice. I wish we could convince them that this budget
just has the wrong set of priorities on moral grounds.
The reality is there is another equally compelling set of arguments
we will have to appeal to, and it is the notion of our own economic
self-interest. We already are a country where the gap between skilled
and unskilled workers is a high one. We are already a country where the
gap between children who are successful and children who are
underperforming is a high one.
We are already a country that builds all kinds of walls between our
own people, and that is not good for our economy. It makes us less
productive than we ought to be. It makes us less prosperous than we
ought to be as a nation. But we can only close these gaps if we empower
more of our people.
That is very much what is at stake as we contemplate this vote in the
next several days, two different visions.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I wonder, and we have asked this
question before here, I wonder where the religious right organizations
are that during the election were so engaged and involved in the
Christian Coalition and promoting Christian values on a couple of
issues. I cannot think of any more pronounced Christian values than
taking care of those among you who cannot take care of themselves, for
whatever reason.
It is stunning to me, growing up Catholic and spending 12 years in
Catholic schools with nuns and priests and brothers, that the issue of
poverty that you see more in the Bible than probably any other social
issue, that somehow the silence is deafening here on these issues of us
trying to help poor people and the majority actually causing harm to
them. All these organizations that help put these folks in office are
lost and cannot find their way.
I do not want to say that their membership is lost, because the
people I go to church with, the people who represent Christian social
organizations in my community, are very, very, very concerned about
this.
I would hope that in the course of the next 48 hours we are able to
bring this to their attention so that maybe we can put a stop to this
before it actually harms young children.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The gentleman's bringing up faith as it
relates to this budget document is incredibly important, because our
friends on the other side of the aisle throw around family values as a
term and as part of their make-up and try to contrast us, as if that is
not part of ours.
Let us just look at what the faith community is saying about this
budget, and what they have been saying about this budget. This week,
this past week, we had a number of members of the organized religious
community come to Washington and urge the Republican leadership not to
pursue this budget reconciliation document.
You had Reverend Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners and Convener
of Call to Renewal. You had Rabbi David Saperstein, who is the director
of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism. You had Reverend
Elenora Giddings Ivory, who is the Director of the Washington Office of
the Presbyterian Church.
What Reverend Ivory said when she was here, she said, ``I am here
today to express concern for the Federal budget reconciliation packages
under consideration in the House and the Senate. Our Nation is about to
balance its budget on the backs of the poor. Is that a moral thing to
do? The Federal budget is a reflection of what we see as important and
primary. Does the spending package under consideration reflect a caring
and a compassionate society? Does it reflect you as a citizen of
faith?''
I think that each of us, if we ask and look inside our own hearts,
Republicans and Democrats alike, would have to answer each of those
questions, absolutely not.
Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, let me touch on the point the
gentlewoman just made about faith. All of us were told different things
and were given dictates by our faith. But one very universal view
across all denominations that we know is this idea that you do not
start sacrifices with the most vulnerable of our people. You do not ask
the weakest of our people to be the first to give. You try to bring
some moral foundation of equity to all that you do.
Those are notions that ring across every denomination, and indeed
nondenominations that still have ethical values in this world. What is
striking about this budget reconciliation is that it is the first major
government document that I have seen that says, let us ask the first
people to sacrifice to be what Matthew would call ``the least of
these.'' Let us ask the first people to sacrifice to be the weakest of
our people.
This is something that is fundamentally wrong and, again, it is at
the heart of this debate. A lot of us in this Chamber would be open to
a discussion about fiscal discipline. We would be open to a discussion
about budget cuts. We would be open to a discussion about shared
responsibility, but only if it ran across all lines. This is as
powerful a point as I think we can make in the next several days.
We are not asking our children to sacrifice. We are not asking the
children of the people who go to our fund-raisers to sacrifice. We are
asking the children of the people who cannot get in our fund-raisers
because they cannot give $250 or $1,000 a head. We are asking the
children of people who will never walk inside this Chamber or be able
to spend a million dollars every 2 years to find a way to get here.
We are asking the people who are doing the work in our country, the
people who are waiting on the tables, the people who are driving the
trucks, the people who are bearing a lot of the labor. We are saying to
them, yes, your children may be on Medicaid, but we can save some money
if we pare back our responsibility to them. Yes, your kid may need a
student loan, but we can pare back some money. We can save some money
if we cut and limit our responsibility to them.
I think that this is wrong.
The final point that I will make before I yield is this one. We have
an obligation to talk about this debate in terms of right and wrong
this week. This is not simply a matter of different political theories.
It is not a matter of different economic theories. It is about a
different value set. Some of us who have heard the word ``value'' used
so freely in this Chamber, some of us who have heard the word ``value''
used so freely to label and to exclude and to stigmatize, well, this is
about values. Even Abraham sacrificed his own children, not the
children of others. So that is front and center for this vote.
Mr. Speaker, I will certainly yield to the gentleman from Ohio to
discuss something that is on our minds this
[[Page H10026]]
week. How can we make this case to our colleagues, because I believe,
as all of you believe that our colleagues that are in this Chamber are
not hard-hearted, mean or evil people who just want to hurt folks? How
do we find some way to make the case to them that what we are on the
verge of doing violates every value that we have as Americans and
violates every sense of connection that we have?
{time} 1815
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think we are not alone here, and I think there
are some conservatives who are out there who agree with what we are
saying here. We say it all the time during our Special Orders. This is
not a Democrat or Republican thing. This is about putting the interests
of the country before your own particular party. That is what we are
trying to do here.
This is a quote from Cal Thomas, who is one of the most conservative
columnists in the country, who says, ``Here is a suggestion to the
Republican majority. Don't start with the poor, start with the rich.''
That is Cal Thomas talking.
And let me just put this up here. This is the tax cut, my friends.
This is the tax cut. This is what people who make over $440,000 a year
get, and this is what our brothers and sisters get who make $20,000,
$35,000, and $40,000. Why can we not ask these people? Why do our
leaders not have the courage to ask these people? We know they
contribute to their campaigns. We know they get corporate welfare. I
bet many of these people are executives in the oil companies who got
$16 billion in corporate subsidies. We know that. We are sure that some
of these people who make all this money and are getting the big tax cut
represent the pharmaceutical industry that are getting $100 million in
corporate subsidies. We are confident that the executives of the big
agribusinesses are receiving some of this tax cut, and they are also
getting corporate subsidies for that.
Why can the Republican leadership in this Chamber, in the Senate, and
in the White House not ask these folks to give up just a small little
wee bit of this, just a little bit of this so that we can make sure
that Medicaid, Medicare, which is on the table in the Senate version,
$80 billion over the next 10 years is proposed to be cut out of that.
The Republican Study Committee wants to cut even more and push the
prescription drug benefit back, not do anything to reduce the cost.
We are making decisions that are hurting these people because we do
not have the courage to ask those people who have benefited most from
society to give just a little bit back.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If the gentleman will yield, there is a way we
can make changes which take us in a new direction: it is election day.
We do not have to continue down this road. We do not have to continue
to prop up and add to the bottom line of the wealthy. We can send the
Republican leadership home, and we can start today.
What I think we would all like to see happen in the next couple of
hours in Virginia, in Ohio, in New Jersey, in New York, in California,
and anywhere else there is an election of significance, of course, all
elections are significant, but where the more significant offices and
contests are being held, we would like to urge all voters to go out to
the polls tonight in those communities.
And just to help people know, there is still time left in Virginia.
The polls close at 7 p.m. So there is about 45 minutes left. In Ohio,
and these are all local times, in Ohio, the polls close at 7:30. In New
Jersey, the polls close at 8:00 p.m. In New York, the polls close at 9
p.m. And in California, the polls close at 8 p.m. So we would urge all
people who have an opportunity to make change in their State to cast
their ballots today on election day. Make sure you get to your polling
place and cast your vote to move this country in a new direction so we
can continue to fight to make these changes.
Now, Mr. Speaker, just to transition our conversation from the tax
cuts to the whole issue of where we are going in terms of the budget
cuts, in addition to cuts that affect children, in addition to child
support payments, in addition to Medicaid cuts, this budget will do
more damage than we have ever done to people who are trying to expand
their horizons and get access to higher education. What is unbelievable
about these budget cuts is that in terms of higher education, this is
the most significant cut in history being made in this budget document
to financial aid than we have ever seen before.
Mr. Speaker, we are joined tonight by my good friend and colleague,
the gentleman from the great State of Missouri (Mr. Carnahan), and he
has been a champion on this issue in trying to raise people's awareness
of just exactly what this Republican budget document would do to people
who are struggling to get access to higher education. I yield to the
gentleman from Missouri.
Mr. CARNAHAN. I thank my colleague, Mr. Speaker, for yielding to me.
It is great to join the gentlewoman from Florida and the gentleman from
Florida and the gentleman from Ohio and this 30-Something Group that
has really done a fantastic job to help educate Americans about the
many challenges that are being faced here and the things we can do
about it, the things my colleagues are taking the lead on in this
Congress.
I wish I could join you in age, I am a 40-something, but I am not far
away; and like many people, I had an opportunity to really benefit from
the student loan program, as did my wife. Even though I worked my way
through college and my family was able to help me some, I still could
not have done it without the student loan program.
What I am sad to see and really concerned about is these Republican
proposals in this budget reconciliation, which is, for those listening,
the equivalent of us balancing our checkbook at home to figure out what
we can afford and what we cannot. They have proposed the largest cuts
to the student loan program in history, in history, of $14 billion. It
is a big number. So to really bring it down to the individual student
and family, already, even before those cuts, the average student
typically has about $17,500 in debt. That is already. Now, on top of
that, these proposals would add an additional almost $6,000.
Mr. Speaker, this comes at a time when we really need to be expanding
opportunity and at a time when we really need to be opening up access
to higher education. We all know in our country that is the road to
opportunity.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Absolutely. And if we look at the number of
engineers and scientists that a lot of these other countries are
graduating, last year alone China graduated 600,000 engineers. We
graduated 70,000, with most of them foreign born. So to put additional
barriers up, an additional burden or two on someone who is trying to
construct financially a way to go to school, it makes absolutely zero
sense economically for our country.
Look at what the GI Bill did for this country, because we had
educated people going out into the work force as doctors and lawyers
and scientists and engineers. Look what the space program did. The goal
of sending people to the Moon was to motivate and organize a country in
math and science and physics and a variety of other areas that led to
tremendous developments and discoveries that otherwise would not have
been, and that led to great economic growth.
So the gentleman is exactly right.
Mr. CARNAHAN. We even heard in the Committee on Science, on which I
serve, many leading CEOs from around the country came to testify before
our committee talking about the need for innovation if we are going to
be able to compete in this new global economy.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. There it is. That is not Kendrick Meek saying that
or Ms. Wasserman Schultz. These are CEOs.
Mr. CARNAHAN. Exactly. They are saying we have to really start to win
the battle of young minds to get them into science and math education
so that we can compete and innovate in this new global economy. This
just takes us backwards.
The statistics are alarming. Studies have shown that financial
barriers alone prevent 4\1/2\ million high school students from
attending a 4-year public university.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We actually have a chart that outlines some of
the things my colleague is about to go over so we can make sure that
people have it very clearly in front of them
Mr. CARNAHAN. I would really appreciate my colleagues trying to get
[[Page H10027]]
that information out. Again, I think it is important as this debate
proceeds over the next few days and weeks ahead, some believe a vote
could come as early as Thursday, that people back home, families,
students, leaders in education, contact their Members to let them know
this is not the way to address the financial needs in our country.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If my colleague wishes to go over the details
he was beginning to talk about on the bottom of the chart.
Mr. CARNAHAN. Certainly.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. What we try to do in this 30-something time,
we do a lot of talking, but we also want to show people with third-
party validators and with the specifics blown up in poster-size form so
that they have it both in graphical depiction as well as in description
from us individually. So that was just showing my colleague that while
he goes through just exactly what these cuts in student aid do, we have
that up for the folks at home.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We will also post this on our Web site and make it
available.
Mr. CARNAHAN. And I have just been handed a copy so I can read along
as well.
But as we mentioned, already, even before these cuts, the average
student has $17,500 in debt. Over the last 5 years, as if the debt were
not bad enough, tuition is up 57 percent at public colleges, up 32
percent at private colleges and universities, and 41 percent of college
grads average over $3,000 in credit card debt. So, again, the
statistics paint a very clear picture that this is not the way to go.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The gentleman is exactly correct. This is great to
have the gentleman here because, obviously, he brings in a new
perspective from the Science Committee, which reinforces a lot of the
things we have been saying. So we appreciate the gentleman being here.
One of the things we have to add onto this, as if this is not enough
for a 22-year-old to have to overcome, $17,500 of debt, $3,000 in
credit card debt, so you are already over $20,000 in debt before you
even get out of school, let alone if you want to get a law degree, a
master's or a Ph.D., or whatever it may be, would be an additional
burden. In a weak economy that is not growing the kinds of jobs
necessary to move our country forward and to maintain our economic
superiority, add to that the $27,000 that every single citizen owes to
pay the $8 trillion in debt that we have in the United States of
America.
Our friends on the other side, the Republican majority, had to raise
the debt ceiling to over $8 trillion, and each citizen owes $27,000. So
we try to put this in perspective for people who are having babies
today, and our generation who have young kids, 2 or 3 years old. Run
this number out 20 years. If you have a 2-year-old, run that number out
20 years at a 57 percent increase every 5 years.
What does that number look like 22 years from now and what does the
debt look like 22 years from now if we keep running these huge
structural deficits, paying interest on the loan?
Pull it out. Get it. Get it right now. Let us get this thing up here.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Please.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Please. Show them. Go ahead. I yield to my friend.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, I want to thank my colleague from Ohio for
yielding. The gentleman must have read it on my forehead when he
started talking about how this Republican majority has led us into an
area we have never been before as a country. And I am not talking about
leading in a way that Americans will be proud of the situation we are
in now or how other countries are now looking at the opportunity of
owning a piece of the United States, which is basically what is
happening financially.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Let us lay this out real quick before my colleague
puts the cherry on top.
So we have $17,500 in student loan debt and $3,000 in credit card
debt. Run that out 20-some years. A child born today owes $27,000 to
the debt that we have in the United States of America, the $8 trillion.
Every citizen owes $27,000.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. And change.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And some change. And we are continually running
these structural deficits at over $400 billion to $500 billion, with a
war and natural disasters. So we are borrowing money to pay for this.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. If the gentleman will yield, this feeds into the
incompetence that we talk about. We talk about it, and we do not use
the term loosely. We use it because it is well founded.
{time} 1830
We take this chart out every night, and every time we get an
opportunity to share with not only the Members on what they are doing.
Members need to realize what they are voting on. I am not saying that
some do not, but they have to realize what they are voting on.
Here is basically what President Bush has done in 4 years that other
Presidents have managed not to do in 224 years, as it relates to
foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury debt. This statistic is from the
United States Department of Treasury, a third-party validator. This is
not from me or Mr. Ryan or Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
Let me say this, $1 trillion in debt that was accumulated over 224
years, from 1776, borrowing money from foreign governments, President
Bush, who did not do it by himself, and I have said this before, and I
can guarantee he could not do it by himself, $1.05 trillion in a period
of 4 years. In a period of 4 years, he has accomplished something with
the Republican majority that has not been accomplished by 42 other
Presidents, 224 years in this country of having the Democrats,
Republicans, Whig Party; and this President and this administration and
this majority have done the job that 42 other Presidents did not do as
relates to putting this country in the posture it is in right now.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, all of what we are saying here
tonight has caused me to look at the view of our generation and how we
feel about the future and the direction that this leadership, this
Republican leadership, is taking this country.
We did a little research in my office. President John F. Kennedy once
implored Americans to ask not what their country could do for them, but
what they could do for their country. Another important question that
all of these issues raises is how all of this budget cutting and
pulling the rug out from under college students' future leaves them
feeling in terms of public service and what their government can do for
people and whether they would want to be a part of that.
So we found some research that showed just exactly how our generation
feels about this. A 2004 Hart Research Study for the Council of
Excellence in Government found that 34 percent of young Americans said
the idea of a government service career did not appeal to them.
What does that say about the confidence that this leadership is
inspiring in our generation? Mr. Speaker, that is 34 percent. That is a
huge number. It means they have no confidence in government's ability
to improve people's lives.
After 9/11, we were starting to change those statistics. You saw
after 9/11 the incredible response of first responders and of
volunteers. All of our hearts in America swelled after the response
from 9/11. The polling that was done then showed that young people felt
that the response to 9/11 made them more likely to pursue careers in
government and the public sector. But recent events, the culture of
corruption, cronyism, the lack of competence that has been evident
since the inception of this administration has absolutely, in 3 years
from 9/11, 2001, to 2004, totally turned that belief in government's
ability to improve our lives on its head.
Just by way of example, some things that most likely did cause that,
let us go under the category of corruption. When young people see
politicians, leaders of our Nation, deliberately deceiving the American
people, an example would be the recent indictment of Mr. Libby and the
deceptive actions of Mr. Rove. You have people who spend their lives
serving their country; and what happens, people in the administration,
a person for the first time indicted in 130 years that served in the
White House, people in the administration repay them that service by
revealing a CIA's agent covert status, jeopardizing the lives of
countless numbers
[[Page H10028]]
of government employees who are trying to do good work on behalf of the
United States of America.
Example number two of corruption: We went to Iraq under questionable
circumstances, under false pretenses, no question about it. We send
American men and women into the battlefield, and more than 2,000 have
given their lives. If you ask the average person, particularly in our
generation, if they know for what those lives were given, I do not
think that they feel confident that they would give an answer that
anyone would be happy about.
Let us look at the cronyism that might have caused this shift in
confidence in our generation. This generation of young people is
extremely independent. They have a spirit of self-determination. They
are less likely to identify with a political party. Most young people
today are identifying themselves as Independents. They see political
appointments based on friendships. The appointment of Michael Brown,
``Brownie,'' because he was a college roommate with someone in the
administration, with a friend of the President, being put in charge of
one of the most important agencies in the country in terms of making
sure that people's lives are protected as a disaster approaches and we
can help them afterwards, we put someone in charge of that agency whose
sum total of his experience was he was president of the Arabian Horse
Association.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, that is what our generation is going
to change when we take the country in another direction. It is time for
us to start saying that we want the best and the brightest to come and
work for our government. There used to be a day and age when government
service, assisting your country, coming from the private sector for a
few years and helping out and giving your time and talents to the
government was a respected endeavor.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The bottom line is we can do better. Together
we can lock arms. Our generation can say to the generation in front of
us that has been leading this country, give us the baton. It is our
turn. We are not going there any more. We want to turn this country
around. We want to make sure our children have health care, that
mothers and fathers when their kids get sick do not have to wait until
their kid is so sick they have to take them to the emergency room for
their health care.
We do not want to cut the budget for abused and neglected children.
We are going to continue to pursue deadbeat dads. State legislators
have fought tooth and nail to ensure that we can continue to go after
deadbeat dads; yet in this budget we will consider this week, that
opportunity would be lost. We would be preventing that opportunity. The
list goes on and on. It adds insult to injury. It cuts the school lunch
program, which is a program that makes it so that some kids, the only
place they can get a meal, a decent meal, is from that free and reduced
lunch, and the Republican leadership would cut that program.
Our generation can take the country in a new direction, and we are
ready to.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we are ready, and we have a game plan
to find the money.
Why can we not go to the oil companies that we just gave $16 billion
in corporate welfare to, why can we not have the courage, why can the
Republican leadership here not have the courage to ask the oil
companies to give back their $16 billion in corporate subsidies to help
pay for some of these priorities?
Why can the President of the United States and the Republican
leadership in the Senate and the Republican leadership in the House,
why can they not go to the pharmaceutical companies and ask for
reimportation for the Medicare program to help save our country
billions of dollars?
Why can they not allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to
negotiate down drug prices with Merck and Pfizer on behalf of the
Medicare recipients who are going to now be eligible for Medicare part
B?
The Democratic Party has a plan to get that money back from the
corporations instead of giving it to corporate welfare and investing it
in the United States of America so we can have more scientists, more
engineers, more investment in research and development.
Mr. Speaker, the average taxpayer gives us money and they trust us
with it. They work hard. We see the top number at the top of the check
and you see the number that you actually get to take home. There is a
big difference whether you are on the bottom or top scale. You give us
your money; and we need to honor that by making sure that when we spend
it, we give that taxpayer the best value they could ever get. We need
to assure them we are running an efficient, effective government here,
not just wasting money and giving to our political friends, like the
oil companies. Can you imagine with gas prices what they are now, we
are giving oil companies $16 billion in subsidies.
Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I have to jump in on that point and talk
about the tale of two different numbers here. We mentioned earlier the
number of $14 billion that was being cut, proposed to be cut out of the
student loan program where over $14 billion has been given away in
subsidies in these recent energy bills to the oil companies who have
not just made record profits; they have made the largest profits in the
history of the world.
To me, that is such a glaring and sad example of the priorities here
in Washington. We can do better.
I think the American people are hungry for leaders that can inspire
us and not divide us and talk about a future that lifts us all up. The
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) talked about the
attitudes of young people and how they did not have a good attitude
about public service. I hate to see that.
There are also studies out there that for the first time in the
history of these studies being done people believe that the generation
after them will be worse off than they are now. To me that is just
contrary to everything in our American values. We always want our kids
and the next generation to be better off. So I think it is a matter of
priorities. It is a matter of attitude, inspiration; and I think people
are hungry for that. I think what you all are doing here in getting the
word out is really important to give people hope that they can make a
difference and that there are leaders here in Washington fighting for
them.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is what we are all doing, making
sure that not only the Members know exactly what they are doing when we
come in and push the red and green button, and endorsing or not
endorsing an idea or a plan. I think it is important for us to not only
highlight the $14 billion in cuts which mean higher fees for students
because the States have to balance. When we make those cuts, they have
to make cuts. This is not the end of the cuts to the average student.
When you look at higher education, college education, preparing the
next generation, that is not just on that 20-something or 18-year-old.
That is on the parents of that 18- or 19- or 20-year-old. That is
another burden on their backs.
I just wanted to mention quickly, I was reading this letter as both
of you were sharing good information with the Members and the American
people.
Mr. Speaker, I am holding a letter dated November 8. It is from the
president of AARP. AARP is the largest retirement organization here in
the United States and also on the face of the Earth. This is from the
CEO. What he is saying here, basically, is that they oppose the
Medicaid cuts that are in the House bill. They are for reform, but they
oppose the cuts.
I just want to make sure that the Members, and one Member came from
the opposite side, the Republican side, and said I wish my friends on
the Democratic side would join me in voting for this budget that we
have put forth.
I said first you have to work on some of your own Members who have
not come to grips on how they can vote for something that AARP is
against.
Basically, this letter says that AARP opposes the 2006 reconciliation
bill now awaiting consideration before the House.
{time} 1845
``We strongly oppose the changes.'' Not that they oppose the changes.
They strongly oppose it because they know what it will do. Basically,
it goes on further. For example, they say: ``The House package, in
effect, would
[[Page H10029]]
prevent a stroke victim from entering a nursing home, even if there
were no other alternatives, simply because she has helped a grandson
with college tuition costs.'' This is basically where a bean counter
would go in and evaluate the financial situation of the person that
wants to go into a nursing home under Medicaid. They would go in and
say, You wrote a $500 check for your grandson to go to college. You can
afford to pay for this nursing home. We will not.
This is not what I am saying. This is what the AARP is saying, which
has thousands of members and is the largest retirement organization on
the face of the Earth. It goes on to say that a private nursing home
could evict a person, force a person out of a nursing home for a period
of time, even after the assets were all exhausted, if they contributed
to a hurricane recovery victim. Once again, the bean counters would go
in under this budget. This is not fiction. This is fact. Under this
budget, and then say they are denying them assistance in a nursing
home. This is the reality of what is in the House budget right now.
We talk about Veterans Day, and I am going to mention this as many
times as I can because I think it is important, many of us, Mr.
Speaker, are going to leave here on Thursday and go do the things that
we need to do. Some Members have already entered into the Congressional
Record recognizing Veterans Day observances throughout the country, the
past contributions of our veterans. But at the same time, on the
Democratic side what we have called for is we provided $1.6 billion
more than the Republican budget for veterans programs for 2006 and $17
billion over the next 5 years.
The Democratic budget reverses what the Republican budget has put
forth on the $798 million over the next 5 years in Republican cuts that
they have asked the Veterans' Affairs Committee to do, not even talking
about what they have done as it relates to cutting $14 billion over the
next 5 years.
So, Mr. Speaker, what this really means is that when the veterans go
to the VA in some rural areas that some of us in this room represent,
there are some VA clinics that are only open once a week, not because
that is all they can do, but because they have been cut so much, they
cannot provide the health care for the veterans, that when they signed
up, they held up their end of the deal. We are not holding up our end
of the deal.
But meanwhile back at the ranch, we are giving breaks and tax cuts
and some may call them incentives for companies that are making record
profits in the history of the world. So when we start talking about
these cuts, it is a reality. They are a true reality. And I just took
the veterans out for a minute because I knew what we were talking
about. But it is an irony that Veterans Day is Friday and Members are
going to come here and they are going to take their voting card out,
and they are going to put it in the machine, and they are going to look
up to see how the leadership is voting, nine times out of 10, and they
are going to vote the way the Republican leadership has asked them to
vote, and that is very unfortunate.
But I want to warn the Members to take this card, and let me tell
them, there are some people who woke up one Tuesday morning at 7 a.m.
to vote for some representation. The people that gave Members of
Congress this card to vote and put into these machines, I mean, it is
not like I have a Miss Mobil in my district or I have a Mister Special
Interest in my district. They do not cast a vote. The people that I
represent cast a vote. So it is important that we keep that in mind,
and I want to make sure that the Members understand, because veterans
will be prepared and the American people will be prepared. Why do I
have to pay more for health care because they want to make room for the
billionaires to receive tax cuts?
Mr. Ryan has that chart there that shows individuals that are making
over $500,000. Let us talk about these individuals just for a minute.
They are Americans. I do not blame them for the tax cut that they are
getting. I blame the individuals that are continuing to build on a tax
cut that is already there for that group of people and there is very
little that is for the individual that is even making $91,000, a
household that is making $91,000 to $179,000 a year. It is not fair.
So when we have people fighting in Iraq, we have three natural
disasters here that we are trying to manage and trying to help
Americans bounce back from, and then at the same time we want to build
on even more incompetence and cronyism as it relates to giving to the
special interests, it is just unconscionable; and I hope that Members
really weigh heavy.
And I am just going to say this: I am from Florida, and what the
Republican majority is asking the Florida delegation to do is to vote
for oil drilling miles off the coast of Florida. Oil drilling miles off
the coast of Florida. Everyone comes to Florida for what? Tourism. What
else? They come to the beaches, from all over the world. It helps our
Florida economy, and it helps our national economy. But yet Members of
the Florida delegation are being asked to vote against one of the very
principles where the Florida Everglades is located, where we have
hundreds and thousands of miles of coastline so that when people come
to Florida now they can step into a patch of oil and they can see a rig
off the coast of Florida.
That is a high order to call a Floridian to do. Both of our Senators
are against this, I must add. We have some Members in the House that
are going to have to go see the wizard, get a little courage and go to
the leadership and say it is not going to happen, bottom line.
I will tell my colleagues what I am prepared to do. As long as that
language is in there and we are talking about drilling in the ANWR, let
us just take our national parks, and let us just start drilling there.
Forget about what we already know, that there is very little oil in
many of these areas, that the oil companies just want to go out, not at
their expense but at taxpayers' expense, and start to drill in those
areas.
So, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we continue to come to
the floor to not only share with the Members but with the American
people by letting them know what is going on in this House and what is
not going on in this House and that there are alternatives and we are
putting forth those alternatives in a fiscally sound way that will
place us on the road to balancing the budget but at the same time not
hurting the very people that some folks come to the floor saying they
want to help.
Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield,
the Florida delegation, and the gentleman makes a great point, has an
obvious perspective on tourism; and they have got such natural beauty
on their coastline that people from around the world come to visit. My
family has been down to visit their great State. But the point beyond
even that we believe it is the wrong thing to do in these pristine
areas, the amount of oil that could potentially be produced is so
small, they have to weigh what is the real cost; what are we really
losing for generations to come in terms of our environment, and look at
what we can do in our immediate future in terms of alternative energy.
Again, I have to mention some of the things we hear before our
Science Committee about the innovation and the science that has brought
this technology. It is not something that is decades away. It is years
away. We have already seen that with the growth of the hybrid vehicles,
hydrogen cars, you name it. That technology is here today. Consumers
want it, and within the decade we could have the goal to become energy
independent, rather than investing in this older technology in pristine
areas.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we have a
little administrative transfer to make here.
I yield to Mr. Ryan so he can give the Web site.
Mr. RYAN. Mr. Speaker, it is [email protected]. People
can send us an e-mail.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for giving
out that Web site. That has been very useful; and we want to thank
Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and even some Members for letting
us know some of their thoughts.
With that, Mr. Speaker, we would like the Democratic leadership for
allowing us to have this honor.
[[Page H10030]]
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