[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 147 (Tuesday, November 8, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H10030-H10036]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE 30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP: DEMOCRATIC PROPOSALS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gohmert). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri
(Mr. Carnahan) to continue his coherent and intelligent argument on
behalf of research and development for alternative energy sources and
alternative technologies to reduce our dependence on oil.
Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
We have that technology right here in our country. It is here today.
So with the effort and the funding that we have put into some of these
technologies that are hurting our environment; that have made us
dependent and weaker as a country; that we are depending on resources
for the Middle East instead of from the Midwest, that is the future.
That is the direction. People are hungry to be led, to be able to get
into that technology for their families. It is the right thing to do
for the environment. It is the right thing to do not just for our
economic security but for our national security interests. So that is
the direction we have got to get to in this country.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think the
gentleman makes a tremendous point that we try to present here. The way
our friends on the other side run the government is not with an
understanding of, really, what day and age it is. It is 2005. We are an
information technology age. Government needs to be integrated, and our
policy on alternative energy sources will strengthen our position in
foreign policy. They are not two separate smokestacks. They are one
coherent policy that we are trying to integrate here and say they are
all connected.
And I think this brings up a tremendous point about leadership, about
the corruption and the cronyism, but directly to the incompetence. Here
we have, directly after 9/11, a terrorist attack on the United States
of America; and everyone in the country was looking to the President
for leadership, and no one really knew what to do. It was this great
moment in history, but every American citizen wanted to give something.
They wanted to be a part of the solution.
And many people will remember, Mr. Speaker, that the American people
were going to blood banks. They wanted to give blood. They wanted to do
whatever they needed to do. They were donating money to organizations.
And the Red Cross had to say, We have enough blood. Thank you, but we
have enough blood for now. But the American people still wanted to
give. And there were nonprofits and foundations and all kinds of
organizations opening up so that the American people could donate money
to help the families and the victims of 9/11 and the policemen and the
firemen and the emergency responders.
The American people wanted to give. And the best challenge this
administration can come up with, not walk to work or get a bike so we
can reduce our dependence on foreign oil so we can reduce the chances
of this happening again. Do my colleagues know what this administration
asked the American people to do? The great challenge after September 11
from this administration was go shopping. If that is not incompetent
executive leadership at its best, I do not know what is.
And I get upset because I think that tragic situations like that, as
painful as they are, there is a glimmer of possibility within that. And
we could have made it a national commitment to search for and get to a
point where we are no longer dependent on foreign oil. The American
people could have been rallied to that cause, to conserve. And to have
the Vice President say that conservation is just a personal virtue, but
has no place in the public discourse is an outrage.
So why not, with all the political capital that this President had,
why not say this country is going to have an Apollo project for
alternative energy sources, for hybrid engines, for biodiesel, for wind
and solar and everything else? We know we cannot do it today, but
America is not about what we can do today. America is about what we can
do tomorrow and next year and 10 years from now. And we could have laid
out a long-term strategy of all the great possibilities that this
country is so good at throwing out as a goal and then going after it.
And it is a shame. It really is incompetent leadership.
And that is one of the reasons that we come here every night. We
could be sitting in our offices. We could be going out to dinner. But
we choose to come here because we want to ask, Mr. Speaker, the
American people to give us an opportunity to take this country in a new
direction, to change what we are doing, to get this Congress and make
it independent of all the special interests, and to end this
incompetence, this inability to govern.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, my
good friend from Ohio and my good friend from Missouri, the ``Show Me''
State, they say, we are in a situation right now where we should not be
acting like what we call here in Congress under regular order as though
it is just another day in Congress, another day at the office, no big
deal, everything is fine.
Mr. Speaker, I can tell my colleagues that we should be very alarmed.
We should be very alarmed at the fiscal situation we are in. The
highest deficit of the history of the Republic. We are borrowing more
from foreign countries, breaking records. One administration breaks the
record of 42 administrations before it. We have CIA agents being outed.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are not setting good records.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. We have CIA agents being pointed out by people
in the White House who have the highest national security clearance to
know what is going on throughout the world, getting daily briefings. We
have a situation where we had Hurricane Katrina, which we have asked
for an independent commission, not just for the affected area where
Hurricane Katrina and Rita hit, and if we want to add
[[Page H10031]]
Wilma, it is not just to deal with that. It is to make sure that we
have a 9/11-like commission outside of the partisan commission that we
have here in this House to look at the way FEMA and the State and local
governments respond to natural disasters, or disasters, period.
Now, we do not even have the ice and water situation down yet when we
start talking about FEMA and the response to Americans in need, and I
am going to take from Mr. Ryan, taxpayers when they are in need. We do
not have that down. Not if, but when a terrorist attack happens in
another city here in the United States, what will be the response from
the Federal, State, and local governments? I am on the Homeland
Security Committee, and I have come to the conclusion that we are not
ready, regardless of what the Secretary says, regardless of whatever
podium the President wants to get on in the situation room and say that
we are ready. We are not ready.
Even if someone had an alcohol problem, the first sign of recovery is
saying first we have a problem so that we can work on the problem and
start cutting through the egos, cutting through the bureaucracy,
because people need help, and we need to be there for them. So we
should be alarmed. We should be alarmed about what is going on and what
is not going on in this country, and it should be something that
Americans should be very concerned about.
The majority side beats their chests. They give floor speeches,
tearing up and voice cracking, talking about how they love the troops;
but meanwhile here in Congress less than 48 hours from now, many of
them are going to put their voting card in the machine that I took out
earlier in the last hour and they are going to vote against making sure
that veterans are able to get health care in a timely manner, making
sure that individuals that are financially challenged in our country
have some level of health care, making sure that students pay more and
their parents pay more and their grandparents pay more.
So we have a scenario where we have a family that is financially
challenged trying to make sure the first person, whether it be black,
white, Hispanic, or Asian, is trying to better their bloodline by
saying we make sure we send the first member of our family to college.
{time} 1900
We want to make sure that my daughter can become an engineer, as we
have very few female engineers in this country. I want to help. We are
going to ask our family to pool in. If grandma is on Medicaid and she
wants to go into a nursing home, the bean counter is going to come and
say, well, you wrote a check to Warren County Community College for
your grandson, so that means you do have some disposable income. And
this is from the AARP letter, this is not the Kendrick Meek report.
Then she will be denied the opportunity to go into a nursing home. This
is callous, and it is un-American.
So I want to make sure that the Members know exactly on the other
side what they are doing, when they are doing it, because I am going to
tell you something. It is not going to be a well-kept secret here in
Washington, D.C., and it will not go away. We will continue to remind
not only them, but the American people, Mr. Speaker, of the fact that
they took their card and they voted against those very things, and
other things.
They are asking Floridians to vote for drilling off the coast of
Florida, I mean, the place where the Everglades is located. People
travel across the world to come to Florida, across the world to come to
the beaches and to the Everglades. We want to drill there; that is what
this budget is saying. So many of the members of the Florida
delegation, when I say the majority are Republican, they are going to
have to make a real hard decision, and it is something that we must
encourage those Members to vote for our alternatives.
So should we be alarmed? We should be alarmed. There should be a line
of Democrats and Republicans outside the door of this Chamber. I will
tell my colleagues this: there still has not been a mumbling word from
the said committees that have oversight and something to say about who
has a national security clearance and who does not. I think it is
pretty evident from reading the indictment that there are some
questionable issues there as it relates to folks in the White House
maintaining their national security clearance.
The President's response to it? Do not take it from me; take it from
his own lips of what he said in The Washington Post and other
publications that are out there. The President has ordered the White
House staff to attend a mandatory briefing beginning next week on
ethical behavior and the handling of classified material.
Mr. DELAHUNT. I would suggest, I say to the gentleman, that it is a
little late.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Missouri, I
yield to him.
Mr. CARNAHAN. In Missouri they have a saying that the cow is already
out of the barn, I say to my colleagues, and that certainly applies to
this situation here.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, again, I am pleased to join the younger
Members, both in age, I want to be very clear about that, as well as
time and service, if you will, in this House. I was back in my office,
and I apologize for being somewhat late, but I had business to attend
to.
I heard my colleagues talking and having this conversation relative
to Medicaid. But being, if you will, the senior Member, and I would
acknowledge honorary member of the 30-something Group, I really felt
compelled to leave my office and come here and address the issue of
Medicare, since shortly I will be receiving my Medicare card. It is a
year or so away, but I am really getting close. I think it is important
to remind senior citizens that they are at risk in this budget process.
Now, we do not know what is going to happen, but we know that there
have been a variety of proposals out there.
Now, it is my understanding that the other branch of Congress has
concluded the budget process and has made cuts in regards to Medicare.
Can any of my colleagues help me in terms of what the order of
magnitude of those cuts are to Medicare and what does it portend, what
does it mean in terms of services and health care for senior citizens
in this country, if the Senate cuts should prevail?
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I can say that it is within the
billions, and some may say it deals with HMO administrative costs, but
they will affect the delivery of services, managed care services to
many of the people that are in the managed care area.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Maybe the gentleman can help confirm what I just heard
when I was in the cloakroom, and that is over 10 years, it is $40
billion that is reduced from Medicare. Obviously, we are not consulted,
and it is not something that we would support. But what does it mean in
terms of actual delivery of health care services to seniors? What does
it mean? Has anyone explained this to older Americans who need
Medicare?
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I will tell my colleague right now,
higher copayments, higher premiums, and benefits are going to be
reduced. That is the bottom line. It does not get better for the
seniors; it gets worse. It gets better for those who are on the side of
the Republican majority, because I am going to tell you right now, if
you are a special interest group, you do not even have to grab the mike
and come to committee. Do not worry. The leadership on the opposite
side of the aisle, they have your back. Do not worry, do not say
anything, oil industry. Billionaires, do not say anything; we have you.
We are going to make sure you are okay. Do not worry about it; you do
not have to fight.
They were talking about a group within the Republican Conference, or
I should say it is the entire Republican Conference, that has come up
with a budget that is making cuts across the board for everyday
Americans. Not a mumbling word, not a mumbling word about billionaires.
The gentleman from Ohio just had a chart up of Americans making over
half a million dollars. Not a mumbling word to just say, you know, we
need 3 percent of what we have given you to not only balance the
budget, but soften the cuts on everyday Americans.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The gentleman is talking about the Medicare cuts to
our seniors.
[[Page H10032]]
Mr. DELAHUNT. Not Medicaid, but Medicare.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Medicare, the health care program for our senior
citizens, our grandparents, our parents. And the gentleman is talking
about the Senate making $40 billion in cuts.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Over 10 years.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Over 10 years. This is the same time that the
Republican Conference wants to pass $70 billion in tax cuts; and we
know when they give tax cuts, who they give them to. But I think it is
important, because I forget the number of what the Republican
Conference here in the House wants to cut Medicare to, and what that
number may be.
Mr. DELAHUNT. I am confused. Again, maybe one of my colleagues or
somebody could contact my office or contact the Web site and explain to
us what it will mean in terms of the delivery of health care to older
Americans if that $40 billion cut is accepted.
Let us remember, by the way, and I think we really should acknowledge
our respect for a group of Republicans that comprise the Republican
Study Committee, there are in excess, I understand, of 100 Republican
Members who belong to this particular group who have the political
courage, and I think we should acknowledge that, to stand up and say,
if they had their way, they would really cut Medicare.
This is their proposal: they would increase Medicare part B premiums
from 25 to 30 percent. What that translates into, my friends, is a cut
over 10 years of $85 billion to Medicare, imposing a huge burden on
seniors.
But that is not the end of what the Republican Study Committee budget
would do. They would restructure Medicare's cost-sharing requirement
over a 10-year period; that would be an $87 billion cut. They would go
further by imposing a home health care copayment of 10 percent, and
that translates into almost a $32 billion cut.
Now, if my math is correct, that amounts to, or that is a cut over 10
years, that this particular group would embrace, in excess of $200
billion to Medicare.
{time} 1915
Now, maybe you can help me. I keep hearing how health care costs are
continuing to rise and are escalating. And yet, this particular group,
the Republican Study Committee budget, if their plan was adopted while
health care costs are increasing, they would reduce Medicare funding by
$200 billion according to the budget that they announced several months
ago in terms of what they were calling Operation Offset.
Now, obviously, we would never, I cannot imagine a single Democrat
supporting that particular approach, but I think, Mr. Speaker, we
should acknowledge the courage that they have, or not courage, but at
least their willingness to be open and transparent and provide us with
their blueprint for America, despite the fact that I do not think there
is a Democrat, I know there is not a Democrat that would support it.
But what do all these cuts mean?
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I wonder, I wonder why they would cut Medicare to
the tune of $200 billion.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Over 10 years
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Over 10 years. I wonder why they would not go to
the oil companies and ask them to give back their billions and billions
and billions in subsidies. I wonder why they would not go and ask the
pharmaceutical companies.
But what really strikes me as odd as you talked about the premium
going up and the copay going up. I wonder if the health care we have
given to Iraqis, I wonder if they are asking them for a copay. I wonder
if they are asking the Iraqi citizens who are getting free universal
health care in Iraq for a copay. Does anyone know? Because I do not
know.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. I believe the Iraqis have universal health care.
They have universal health care.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I do not think there is a copay or anything
Mr. MEEK of Florida. No, it is universal health care. It is something
that we talked about here, and it just did not happen
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. So we are cutting health care, we are increasing
the copays, increasing the premiums, but yet giving, we have created a
welfare state in Iraq, in which we are not even asking the Iraqis to
pay a copay or pay their premium.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, if I can ask a question, who is paying for the
creation or the establishment of all of those primary health care
centers in Iraq? Who is paying for that?
Mr. MEEK of Florida. The American taxpayer, Mr. Delahunt. The
American taxpayer is paying for it.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, if I can, when will that money be paid back to
the American taxpayer?
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yeah, because I thought they said that we could,
did they not say something about loaning them? Well, we wanted to loan
them the money, right?
Mr. MEEK of Florida. The American people have been told a lot of
things as it relates to what is going to happen and what is not going
to happen in Iraq. They have been told a lot of things. We have been
told that the oil will pay for reconstruction, the oil will pay for
military costs; and I can tell you right now what is very unfortunate.
We have men and women, I have 21 military installations in my State
alone, three combined, three unified commands in my State. We have a
number of Guard and Reserve troops. We have 80,000 active duty
individuals in my State, servicemen and women, including their
families, and a number of them are deployed at this time.
Some of them are engineers that are working in Sadr City and, you
know, doing infrastructure work and fresh drinking water and building
schools and doing all of that. We had them before the Armed Services
Committee the other day. But as it relates to the incompetence and the
cronyism of contracting, and the abuse and the awarding of incompetence
and cronyism, that is overshadowing the work that these men and women
are doing on the ground.
They are saying, No one is paying attention to what we are doing. And
I said, Yes, there are some people that are paying attention to what
you are doing, and you are doing a fine job.
One thing I can say about the military, they do what they are told.
If their country tells them to do something, they do it. It is not,
well, you know, I do not know. Maybe I will do it. No, that is not the
case. No, they do it. And that is the reason why, regardless of how you
may feel, you know, about the reasoning behind why we are in Iraq or
not, we have got to respect those individuals. I do not see anyone that
does not.
But when you have the incompetence and the cronyism from the top,
from the folks that are wearing the suits and ties and being driven
around here in motorcades making the decisions, it squashes the
goodwill that those men and women are doing. And so it is important for
us to really pay attention to these secret areas of torture that our
taxpayer dollars are involved in.
Someone may say, well, those are potential terrorists or they are
identified terrorists. Why would we care about how they are treated or
if they are tortured? This is the reason why you care. And I want to
make sure the Members understand this. You care when a U.S. soldier is
caught or detained by an insurgent, that they will not be treated in a
way that is inhumane, that they will not be tortured and that we do not
have to see on the 6 o'clock news a family crying because they fear
that they will go through some of the acts that have taken place in
secrecy under this administration.
It goes to the incompetence. It goes towards making sure that you
carry out your leadership acts. And there have been cries, fortunately,
out of this Congress denouncing that kind of activity.
When we talk about what the American people have been told, that is a
big part of the problem. The American people are not being leveled
with. What we are saying on this end, on this side of the aisle, is
that we can do better together and we are stronger together when we
work together; and we are willing, and the record has shown, in a
bipartisan way.
And we talked about Social Security. We talked about how Tip O'Neill
and Ronald Reagan came together to save Social Security in a bipartisan
way, not, you know, Tip O'Neill going off in his corner and saying, We
will let you in on it when we feel like it, after we have it written,
okay? Or President
[[Page H10033]]
Reagan at the same time saying, Well, I do not have the authority of
the legislative branch but through an executive way I am going to make
you do it the way I want you to do it. Conversations went on not just
over coffee, but over U.S. policy, and that is not what is happening
right now, gentlemen.
When this budget, if it passes this House and they go into what we
call a conference committee with the Senate budget and the House
budget, I guarantee you, I guarantee you $20, and I am not too much of
a betting man, but I am going to tell you this. I guarantee you that
the Democratic conferees that are supposed to be at the table will not
be invited. It will not be a conference.
You can talk to Mr. Rangel, the ranking member of Ways and Means. He
is walking around here, they are saying they are meeting in conference.
What? No one told me about the meeting; I did not get a notice.
We talk about the spirit of the House. We have to make sure that we
move in a way that the American people want us to move. This is truth,
not fiction.
When the gentleman from Massachusetts talks about what we are being
told, there are a lot of things we are being told. It is just not true.
We were told that the White House had nothing to do with the outing of
the CIA agent. Then later we find out that they had everything to do
with outing a CIA agent.
Not one member of the administration subpoenaed, not one person
called from The White House to this House of Representatives and the
said committees to answer the question, how could this happen? Why has
it happened? Not one individual, outside of Mr. Libby, who I would
assume that his national security clearance has been taken by now, has
been called on the carpet on other information that has leaked out of
the White House that has jeopardized national security.
This is serious stuff.
So when we talk about what people are saying, or what we are being
told, the real issue and the reason why the American people sees the
President at a 37 percent approval rating and this Republican-
controlled House is between 35 and 31, that is the reason why, because
they don't believe what we tell them, especially on the majority side,
because it ends up not being the truth once it is all ironed out.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, there are some things that we do know. We know
this, that there was a debate on this floor several years ago where
billions of dollars were appropriated to rebuild Iraq. And those of us
on the Democratic side supported that funding, if, if it were going to
be provided in the form of a loan because we were concerned about
American taxpayers being repaid their money. But the Republican
leadership, at the insistence of the White House, said, No way; we are
going to give this money to Iraq.
So what we have done, and I think there is an irony here, we have
provided free of charge, no interest, no money to be returned, we have
provided good health care for Iraqis. We have built 110 primary health
care centers. We have educated 2,000 health care professionals. We have
vaccinated 3.2 million children. And I think we all applaud that and
support that.
We have rehabilitated 2,700 schools. We have paid the salaries and
trained 36,000 teachers in Iraq. We have provided $1 billion for safe
drinking water and we have marshland restoration initiatives going on
in Iraq.
We have built, or we have completed some 3,100 community action
programs. We have provided millions for the construction of housing and
public buildings for Iraqi citizens. We have rebuilt railways for
Iraqis.
And you know what else we did? We rehabilitated a canal system. We
built a dam, a beautiful dam, a dam that will hopefully serve well the
Iraqi people. We built this dam in Mosul. At the same time, we are
cutting millions from the Army Corps of Engineers, including funding
for levee construction in Louisiana, Mr. Speaker, in Louisiana. We did
that free of charge.
Now, we support it. But you know what? We would hope, given the
abundance of energy reserves that the Iraqis have that they would pay
us back once they get on their feet. But, no, you know, here is the
President that said he didn't believe in nation building. I did not
know he was talking about America. But he must believe it when it comes
to Iraq. How about doing it for our fellow citizens in Louisiana and
Mississippi and Texas that have been devastated by natural disaster?
{time} 1930
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am just so sorry. I know we have
two other colleagues here who are very respectful Members of this body,
but I just cannot let this moment pass. The fact that we are forgiving
from the beginning, we forgave the money that we gave to Iraq and the
money that we continue to spend in Iraq, which we have appropriated the
largest U.S. embassy in the world in Iraq; but let me just make this
point here.
Katrina, Rita, Wilma. Those Americans that were identified to receive
individual assistance when they called that 1-800 number, FEMA,
something FEMA, you know what they get back when they say when they
filed for FEMA assistance? They do not get a check back immediately.
They get an application from the Small Business Administration to fill
out for a loan when they are on their knees. You fill out that loan
application first. And if, and this is a big if, if you do not qualify
for that Small Business Administration loan, then FEMA comes and they
actually try to figure out how much money they can grant--you what they
call ``mitigation''--to put your house back together.
So for billions of dollars, 87 billion-plus continuing to give and
there will be another supplemental soon for not only the troops but
also to pay for other operations in Iraq with companies like
Halliburton and other companies that are under investigation that are
enjoying Katrina contracts right now, we are asking Americans when they
are on their knees to fill out a loan application.
Mr. DELAHUNT. It is worse than that. You know what is happening in
Louisiana, Mr. Speaker? You know what is happening? They have got a
bill for $4 billion. That is the estimate. If they want help from the
Federal Government they have got to come up with some $4 billion. I
think it was the State treasurer there that requested the estimate, and
he said we asked for a grant. We asked for a grant, and they gave us a
loan. And yet we are doing the opposite in Iraq.
As a Nation, a government, your primary obligation or responsibility
goes to your own people. That is what we should be doing. And the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is so right.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we do not swear to the Iraqi
Constitution. We do not come here to represent the Iraqi people. First
and foremost it is the United States. So you are telling me that we are
giving money to the Iraqis, grant money; but if we have a natural
disaster in the United States, we ask the American citizens to fill out
a form so they can maybe get a loan. And if an American citizen wants
to go to college, they got to take out a loan.
So we are loaning money to the American people so our kids end up
with $17,500 in college debts because we loan them the money; but when
it comes to Iraq, we have created a welfare state.
Mr. DELAHUNT. But they want $4 billion from the State of Louisiana,
and the State of Louisiana's annual budget is $8 billion. So half of it
would go to the Federal Government so that Louisiana can get relief
from their Federal Government. That just does not make sense.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And at the same time we are giving money away, and
I know my good friend from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan) wants to make a
point. At the same time we are giving this money away to Iraq, it is
not like we have it. We are borrowing money from other countries. This
President has borrowed more money from other countries in the last 4
years than this country has borrowed from other countries in the last
224 years.
So let us get this straight, the Republican majority in the House,
the Republican majority in the Senate, and the Republican President,
who have all been in charge the last 4 years, have borrowed more money
from foreign countries and then they give it to foreign countries. They
give it to Iraq. That is unbelievable to me when at the same time we
have American citizens who need a little bit of assistance on college
tuition, but they got to go borrow the money.
[[Page H10034]]
Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I have got to jump in here. The point that
I think we all saw in the aftermath of the hurricanes was the
incredible spirit of the American people rising to the occasion when
their government, the people in charge of our government now, frankly,
did not live up to the expectation and that spirit of the rest of the
country.
And the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) was talking about
rebuilding. What about rebuilding the damaged relations all around the
globe that have occurred because of the way we got into Iraq? We are
going to be dealing with that for years and years to come. Not only is
it hurting us economically but hurting us in terms of our relationships
around the world, and that affects us here at home in what we can do.
But it gets back to the issues we have talked about tonight about
priorities in leadership, and there is such a disconnect with this
leadership. They are so out of touch.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This Republican leadership.
Mr. CARNAHAN. Right. This Republican leadership is so out of touch
with the American people. When we all go home and talk to our
constituents, we get an earful. They want to see people connected with
the people back home, and that is our job, especially in this body that
is the closest representative body in the Federal Government.
That is our job. We work for the people back home. And if we are not
speaking out and speaking up to implement that here in these programs,
whether it is Iraq, whether it is rebuilding the gulf, whether it is
this budget reconciliation, it is about priorities and expressing those
people's beliefs here; but that is not getting through with this
leadership.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I am almost afraid to have this outfit
that we have in charge here, Republican majority and the Republican
running the executive branch, I am almost afraid to have them go out
into the international community to try to rehab our relationship
because their solution is to just throw money at the country and just
give them grant money, taxpayer money. That is their only solution. A
stronger America begins right here at home. We need to do this together
because it is only together that America can do better.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. And that is the reason why we are here on this
floor. Many Members have gone home and they are having dinner or
watching some sort of program in prime time, but we opt to be here
letting not only the Members know, Mr. Speaker, but also the American
people know what is happening in this House. We want to bring true
meaning to the fact that this is the people's House. We want the
American electorate and Members to know that the people of the United
States of America elected us to be here to represent them.
We may be from different districts, but we have been federalized by
the fact of our elections to represent all Americans. And the question
that is before us now is what kind of government do you want? Do you
want a government that is going to set the stage, a stage for a
grandmother to make the decision if she is going to contribute to her
grandson's or granddaughter's college education in jeopardy of losing
her Medicaid benefits for nursing home care if she needs it? Are we
going to set the stage for a veteran who wants to see an
ophthalmologist who has to wait 3 months now, maybe 6 months?
Are we going to ask legislators from environmentally sensitive States
to jeopardize the very trademark of their State on behalf of special
interests to drill oil just miles off the coast? Is that the kind of
leadership that we want? Do we want the kind of leadership that is
willing to protect those industries, the industries that make record
profits, not we are just making it or we are just barely holding on and
we need some assistance or an airline bail-out? It is not that. It is
individuals eating lobster and steak and telling the shareholders it
has never been better ever in the history of the world.
But better yet, you are going to come to the people's House, or what
is supposed to be the people's House, take the taxpayers' dollars, put
it in your pocket while you hold on to your profits in this pocket and
for you to expand and continue to prosper, that you are going to do it
on the backs of everyday Americans that are paying taxes, need it be
Democrats or Republicans.
We should be very alarmed. Americans should be very concerned, and we
should every day in this 109th Congress rise up every time we have the
opportunity to give voice to those individuals that have sent us here
or those individuals that wish that their Congressman or Congressperson
would stand up on their behalf.
We challenge those individuals in the majority to make the right
decision. Make the right decision, because history will reflect on what
each and every one of us did in this moment, in this time when you are
cutting school free and reduced lunch for poor children. I mean, I am
not a preacher or anything, but I am here to tell you for poor children
and then walk around chestbeating that we are balancing the budget and
just a couple of weeks from now going to try to pass a tax cut on
behalf of who? Not the people that you have just taken from, but the
people who are receiving benefits on the backs of the people that you
just took from.
So it really does not make sense. The only thing that really makes
sense here is the fact that those with financial power not only in this
country but in this city and the special interests that they are going
to get what they want, bottom line. And if you question it, you are in
the line of fire. So when you start looking at this very real
standpoint of what we may call the ``political two step,'' I may say
the political look left, we are going right or look right we are going
left. The bumper sticker theme politics that are there, we have to make
sure that we break this thing down for people who are not voting
politics over principle, but they are voting principle over politics.
And that is Democrat, Republican and Independent. These are the things
we have to focus on.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. So let us see if we can tie this all up. Our
country gives billions of dollars in corporate welfare to the most
profitable industries in the world that are having the most profitable
quarters in the history of mankind. They are then giving tax cuts that
go primarily to the top 1 percent, who are probably executives of the
oil companies and the pharmaceutical companies.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Half a million dollars.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Half a million dollars and up. So you get corporate
welfare from the public taxpayer. Then you get tax cuts for people
making more than half a million dollars. And then the money that does
get sent here, we give it to Iraq and create a welfare state. And then
we do not even have the money to give away; we go and borrow it from a
foreign country. We have borrowed more money in the last 4 years from a
foreign country than we have in the last 224 years.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. China.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. From China, from Saudi Arabia.
Mr. DELAHUNT. What the gentleman is saying in effect is that we are
borrowing money from China so that we can create a welfare state in
Iraq. We have become a conduit. That in very simple terms is what is
happening because we are borrowing our way into bankruptcy to cut taxes
and to support programs, not for American citizens, but for Iraqis who
deserve this help but at least should be required to pay it back. That
is what it comes down to. Meanwhile, our own citizens in the States,
particularly the gulf States, they have to ask the Federal Government
for help; and what they hear is, we will give you help, but it will
come in the form of a loan. You have got to do matching funds.
I think we have got to be friends to our Republican colleagues too,
because there are many Republicans that have spoken out about the
incompetence of what has transpired in Iraq, have spoken out about the
folly of the approach to the war.
Senator Pat Roberts from a neighboring State to Missouri and Kansas,
back in May of 2004, that is a year and a half ago, he made this
observation, now he is a Republican, a respected Republican: ``We need
to restrain our growing U.S. messianic instincts, a sort of global
engineering where the United States feels it is both entitled and
obligated to promote democracy by force if necessary.''
[[Page H10035]]
{time} 1945
That comes from a highly respected Republican, and yet what do we
hear from the White House? We have to stay the course, but please,
please temper can the White House not just stand up and say that we
were wrong? We have heard other individuals say that. They would gain
respect.
Senator Lugar, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, a
highly well-respected Midwestern Republican senator, this is what he
had to say back in September of last year: ``Our committee heard
blindly optimistic people from the administration prior to the war and
people outside the administration, what I call'' and these are his
words, ``the `dancing in the street crowd' that we just simply will be
treated with open arms. The nonsense of all that is apparent. The lack
of planning is apparent.''
You know what? Now, we face another scandal. We have heard about
scandals in the past 6 months to a year. We talk about special
interests on this hill, but there is a scandal brewing out there, and
the American people are going to discover it.
It was reported by two very conservative journalists in the
conservative paper, the Washington Times. Let me quote for just a
minute: ``The Bush administration is facing another scandal that is
quietly bubbling away in the background as most press attention is
focused on the'' Plame affair.
``Defense officials tell us the scandal involves massive corruption
in Iraq related to U.S. and international funds meant for
reconstruction efforts and the failure of the administration to
control'' and monitor ``those funds.
``The officials say conservative estimates put the amount of stolen
money at about $9 billion, and that it could be as high as $15
billion.''
So you know what, many of those projects that we had hoped to do to
build a Nation, to build a Nation in Iraq, that money went into
somebody's pockets. It was the wild West, and you know what, I, as
ranking member, the senior Democrat on the subcommittee in the
Committee on International Relations dealing with oversight and
investigations, have asked repeatedly, let us investigate, let us
conduct oversight hearings into what has happened to that money. And
you know what I hear?
Mr. MEEK of Florida. That is what you get. You are hitting it right
on the head.
Here is the real issue here. In the Armed Services Committee, you
start talking about strategy for success or you start talking about an
exit strategy or what is the strategy, what is the coalition strategy,
it is why are you asking questions? What you are talking about? Cutting
and run? No. We are talking about running responsible government. That
is what we are talking about.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Are you a patriot? Are you hearing that?
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Are you a patriot. Are you with them or are you
with us. It is to assault individuals from asking the questions
constitutionally we are supposed to ask. To say that on the expiration
date we have is a carton of milk is really it is not a question of the
expiration date. It is a question of since we have a coalition of other
countries and single digits, as they may be, of those individuals that
have pulled out, since we have those individuals there, what is our
strategy of being able to exit? Is it to train Iraqi troops? Okay. We
have been doing that now for just under 2 years now. We are still under
the numbers and they are not ready yet, and we still have a lot of work
to do.
Mr. DELAHUNT. How long does it take to train a Marine?
Mr. MEEK of Florida. It does not take 2 years.
Mr. DELAHUNT. That is right.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am going to tell you that it is
important that we do start asking some of the tough questions, that we
do start pressing the card.
Mr. DELAHUNT. The entire country wants to have those questions posed,
and let us be fair. There are Republicans, there are noted
conservatives. We all know William F. Buckley, the founder of the
Nation, a respected conservative journalist. When he heard what he has
heard, he made this statement: If I knew then, meaning around the time
of the debate on the war resolution, what I know now about what kind of
situation we would be in, I, William F. Buckley, would have opposed the
war.
That should resonate among the Republican leadership and particularly
the White House, but they do not want to acknowledge that they have
made mistake after mistake after mistake and are compounding it, are
driving our economy into a structural deficit in an order of magnitude
that we have never seen, that we will never get out of, and most
importantly, the lives that have been lost and the men and women that
are permanently damaged by this war of choice.
Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, that just
reminds me of something that I think really fits right in with this.
One of my favorite figures in history is President Harry Truman who
was from the great State of Missouri. I know that does not surprise you
that he would be my favorite President, but he is a great figure to
learn about responsibility. He had that famous plaque on his desk that
said, ``The buck stops here.'' He was not about blaming somebody else
or hiding things from the American people. He stood up and told it like
it was.
The other thing we learned from Harry Truman was about
accountability. He was kind of an obscure Member of Congress that
started something called the Truman Commission that began to review how
we spent massive amounts of money through the war effort, but to do it
in such a way that was pro-military, to be sure our troops got what
they needed, to be sure that the taxpayers were getting a fair deal
with how we were spending that money and that these moneys were being
accounted for.
This administration does not want that kind of scrutiny but we need
that. Eventually, we are going to get that, but it has been delayed and
put off, but the American people demand that. They deserve that, and I
think leaders in the Democratic party are going to be sure we get to
that point.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Especially when Halliburton stock has doubled. I
mean, all this is going on and Halliburton's stock's doubled.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. No-bid contract.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. No-bid contracts. They just get money thrown at
them.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Taxpayers' money.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the end result is not a good one. It
is not an effective use of the taxpayers money.
Mr. DELAHUNT. They were going to try to pull the same thing in the
gulf States. They were doing the same thing. They were importing the
same practices from Iraq that have resulted in this incredible brewing
scandal. They were going to do the same thing right here in the gulf
States, but you know what, the American people have caught on and they
are backing off.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is why we want the independent Katrina
commission, so we could make sure we figure out what we are doing, but
we fear that when we start pulling off the onion piece by piece by
piece, that we are going to end up finding out what is going on in
Iraq, and it will be a tremendous waste of the taxpayers' money.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, what we need is the Congress to reassert
itself, coming together on a bipartisan basis and demanding oversight
because, you know what, this administration is the most secretive
administration in all of American history.
Let me make one final quote, to take one final quote from another
Republican, from the Midwest, from the farm belt, Senator Hagel from
Nebraska. He had this to say back in 2004. This is not a Democrat. This
is his language. This administration has seen Congress as an enemy and
a constitutional nuisance. The world right now is in trouble, and we
need to have a Congress and a President and an executive branch that is
working together. Amen.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Amen.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, let me just on another note that I
know we all share. Our hearts and prayers go out to those tornado
victims in the Knight Township in Indiana and other victims of that
tornado. Mr. Speaker I know that the whole House, we are in solidarity
with hopefully their fast recovery from this natural disaster, and with
that, I know
[[Page H10036]]
that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) has the honors of the Web site
and closing us out.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yes, sir. [email protected]. Send us
your ideas, your comments, your thoughts. We appreciate them. We do
read what you send in. We are going to be introducing some new
methodology in the next week or so. [email protected]. We
thank our good friend from Missouri for joining us tonight.
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