[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 19 (Wednesday, February 15, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H315-H318]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Jindal). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is 
recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I accept the time, Mr. Speaker.
  I wanted to, first of all, thank Mr. Miller for his leadership. I am 
able to sit on the committee with him, on the Education Committee, and 
we go through these struggles all the time. But before we get to our 
friend, Mr. Inslee from out west, who is very familiar with technology 
because of the mass amounts in his district, I want to put forth before 
I do that the 30-Something Group is pretty consistent. We do not want 
this to be about Bill Delahunt or Rush Holt or Kendrick Meek or George 
Miller saying something.

                              {time}  2100

  We want to have a third-party validator, and so before we kick it 
over to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), I just want to say 
what some high-tech CEOs are talking about when they refer to our 
innovation agenda, the Democratic Innovation Agenda.
  John Chambers, president and CEO of Cisco Systems, Incorporated: 
``The innovation agenda focuses on the right issues for building on our 
Nation's competitiveness, from investing in basic R&D, expanding 
science and math education and broadband infrastructure, to creating a 
globally competitive business environment . . . I look forward to 
working with both sides of the aisle to implement these laudable 
goals.'' That is the CEO of Cisco Systems.
  How about the Federal Government affairs managing director of 
Microsoft: ``The policy agenda announced today by Democratic Leader 
Pelosi and her colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus to promote 
investment in education, research and development and innovation marks 
a positive step forward in the struggle to maintain our Nation's 
competitive edge in the global marketplace . . . At Microsoft, we are 
committed to changing the world through innovative technology and, in 
order to fulfill that commitment, we need a pool of well-educated, 
skilled workers. We ask Congress to give these issues serious 
consideration and support.''
  This is the CEO of Cisco Systems. This is the Federal Government 
affairs director at Microsoft. This is not Tim Ryan from Ohio who is 
toeing the line for the Democratic Party. This is the CEOs, many of 
them Republicans, saying this is the kind of investment we need to 
make. Go to our Web site and you can see the whole packetful of quotes 
that will be up there from CEOs from around the world.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. They are begging.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. They are begging for the leadership that we should 
be providing in this Chamber.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. They deserve it.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Inslee), my good friend.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate you mentioning this little 
small business that has had a little success, it is called Microsoft, 
in my district that has been one area that has recognized the power of 
innovation. There are many others in my district.
  I will just tell you, I want to mention a couple of my favorite 
constituents, about why they believe this Democratic Innovation Agenda 
makes sense, that we should seize the creative powers of Americans and 
put it in harness.
  One of my favorite constituents, my mother, I talked to her today, 
and she was brimming with laughter. We had a great talk, and it was 
great to hear her laughing because she went through a tough patch with 
some health problems about 6 months ago, and it was a tough time for 
her.
  Since then, she has got on a medical technology that was developed in 
Seattle by some brilliant doctors doing research in basic and applied 
research; and because of their work now done over a decade ago, my 
mother was laughing today and probably is alive today. The reason that 
she was laughing today is that someone had the wherewithal and the 
foresight to make an investment in basic research medical technology 
involving the blood system over 10 years ago.
  We have rolled out this idea to increase and accelerate research in 
medical technology because we belief there

[[Page H316]]

are a lot of people that can use this; but unfortunately, the budget 
the President has submitted to Congress today, we had Mr. Leavitt, 
Secretary of Health and Human Services today, he let us know that they 
are proposing to cut blood research by $20 million. At this time of the 
most rapid time of potential scientific growth, when we have mapped the 
human genome, when we could be looking at the dawn of medical 
technology, that we could make penicillin look like a small investment, 
they want to cut medical research.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, just on that 
subject very quickly, the budget that the administration that President 
Bush presented to us a week or so ago cuts the funding in 18 out of 19 
institutes at the National Institutes of Health, including the National 
Cancer Institute by $40 million and the National Heart, Lung and Blood 
Institute by $21 million.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I will just mention my other constituent who 
is a friend of mine. I will just call him Bill. He is a 55-year-old 
guy, great guy, plays basketball. He had prostate cancer. He is being 
treated now with new technology developed, again, in Seattle, bragging 
about the hometown team a little bit here, about three or 4 years ago. 
We hope things are going to go well.
  We have rolled out saying we should accelerate our budget for 
research into cancer because we are on the cusp of some major 
breakthroughs, principally because of our genetic development to map 
predisposition and risk factors to this regard. But what does the 
President's budget want to do? They want to cut $40 million out of the 
cancer budget for research this year, $40 million. They want to cancel 
634 grant programs now existing for research in some of these emerging 
fields.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield for just 10 
seconds. This is at the same time that this President and this 
Republican House and the Republican Senate have the political gumption 
to give $16 billion in corporate subsidies to the energy companies and 
billions upon billions of dollars in corporate welfare to the health 
care industry and the pharmaceutical companies, at the same time they 
are cutting these programs.
  I just want the American people, Mr. Speaker, to be aware of what is 
happening here. They are not just cutting this stuff because we are in 
tight fiscal times. They are cutting it, and at the same time giving 
corporate welfare to the tune of billions upon billions upon billions 
of dollars to the wealthiest industries in the country, to the most 
profitable industries in the country.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I just want 10 seconds, too.
  The Republican side says, trust me. I guarantee you that the 
President cannot do it by himself. He needs this Republican Congress to 
do it, and they have given him everything that he has asked for. This 
President, who is so-called conservative, oh, we want to watch 
spending, has not vetoed one spending bill. This is the biggest borrow-
and-spend administration almost in the history of this country. Here is 
the chart to prove it. It is. The President, not by himself, his 
picture is here. We should have the Republican Conference here because 
they helped him make this history. Unfortunately, it is bad for 
Americans.
  There was $1.05 trillion borrowed from foreign countries, $1.05 
trillion that he has done and accomplished in 4 years. Forty-two 
Presidents, including his father, were not able to accomplish that 
goal.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Combined.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. They borrowed $1.01 trillion, World War I, World 
War II, Korean War, Great Depression, and every other issue that we had 
facing the country, economic slowdowns, what have you, gas prices, what 
have you, were unable to borrow from China, Saudi Arabia and other 
countries.
  So when we talk about the will of this administration and what they 
are doing and what the President says and they do another thing, he 
cannot do it by himself. He needs this Republican majority, and that is 
the reason why the American people, Mr. Speaker, have to make a change 
in providing the kind of leadership that they need in this Congress to 
make sure that they are represented.
  So I am so glad that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is 
here because you represent the very people, they are in your district, 
that are talking about innovation. Mr. Ryan read it off. These are 
statements that these CEOs have made. They are literally begging. They 
are saying we hope y'all work together. We had the creator of ``Star 
Wars'' here the other day. He said I hope y'all get together; you are 
talking about the same thing.
  The difference between what the Republicans are saying and what we 
are saying, we actually mean it. We will do it if given the 
opportunity. They are in control. They have the majority. They agenda 
the bills before committee.
  I am sorry, but we both asked for 10 seconds and we took 20.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I only took 15 or 20 seconds. You took a minute and 
a half.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I will admit to that.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. For the record.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, just on that note about the difference 
between rhetoric and reality, it can be pretty stunning here in 
Washington, D.C.
  The President said something that was a profound shift from his 
policies of the last 5 years when he said that the Nation had to break 
our addiction to oil during his State of the Union speech, which was 
amazing for him to say because every policy that he has championed up 
to now has continued that addiction to oil. Nonetheless, we welcomed 
it. We always welcome him to take lines from our speeches, and we hope 
that it could be mean a real shift in policy.
  Unfortunately, the very week that the President said we needed to 
break our addiction to oil and said we needed to do more research into 
new energy technology, the same week he said that, his administration 
gave the pink slip to 100 researchers at the Renewable Energy Lab in 
Colorado, the very sort of warriors that we expect to help us develop 
these new clean energy sources. In his budget, he laid off I think it 
is something like 20 percent of the researchers at the very lab that we 
want, as Democrats, in our proposal to beef up. The reason we want to 
beef it up is we have seen the incredible productivity gains that have 
been obtained already.
  Eighty percent decreases in the cost of solar cell technology in the 
last 12 years, 80 percent. While gas and oil have gone through the 
roof, solar cell technology has gone down 80 percent.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman care to answer a question 
for me: How does the President propose to broke our, as he calls it, 
addiction to oil, and indeed, we do need to be weaned from our 
dependence on oil, if his budget, presented a few days after the State 
of the Union here in the House, provides funding for renewable energy 
and energy efficiency below the level at which it existed when he took 
office 6 years ago?
  Mr. INSLEE. Well, that is what we call in the business a rhetorical 
question, and we were just optimistic. We all walked down the steps 6 
inches in the air when the President said this the other day; but the 
next morning reading the budget, it was just a slap in the face. It was 
a slap in the face to anyone in America who believes that we truly do 
need to have new technological advances.
  What we are proposing is that we should grab a hold, as we did in the 
new Apollo energy project or the original Apollo energy project, we 
need a new Apollo energy project that will have the same type of 
creativity and challenge to the American people that Kennedy had in his 
State of the Union speech on May 9, 1961. He said we are going to the 
Moon in 10 years. We did it. We now need a budget that will say we have 
the same degree of aggression and optimism that we had in that to wean 
ourselves off of foreign oil. Nothing else will do.
  We Democrats are proposing to take a major step forward in that 
regard with flex fuel vehicles, which are on the street today. We just 
need to get more of them by using cellulosic ethanol which increases 
the return per acre of biofuels by a factor of three to four above 
existing ethanol levels. That is what we need to do.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If I may, you sum it up so well and yet you have to 
make an investment; and the reality, as we have discussed, is that 
investment is not forthcoming. It just is not because, as

[[Page H317]]

Mr. Ryan indicated, it is going elsewhere, and it is going to feed that 
corporate welfare that is eating the budget, along with tax cuts for 
the most affluent of America.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, could you say that again just in 
case a Member might have walked into his office and walked away?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, there is only so much money. The pie is not 
infinite, and the pie gets bigger around here because this 
administration and this Congress authorize the borrowing of money that 
we will have to pay back in the future with interest to China, to 
India, to the OPEC nations, and to other investors.
  So there is nothing left, other than the rhetoric that we hear, to 
invest in the priorities that we believe the American people would 
embrace such as innovation. Let me just cite one example, if I can.
  This is a report by The Washington Post less than a month ago, and 
remember, Democrats have had nothing to do with this because we are 
barred by Republicans from participating in the behind-closed-door 
negotiations to establish those priorities. Think of what a democratic 
process that is. Let me read to you:
  ``House and Senate GOP negotiators, meeting behind closed doors last 
month to complete a major budget-cutting bill,'' this was their effort 
to save money, ``agreed on a change . . . that would save the health 
insurance industry $22 billion over the next decade, according to the 
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.''

                              {time}  2115

  One version would have targeted private HMOs participating in 
Medicare by changing the formula that governs reimbursement, lowering 
the payments to those insurance companies by $26 billion over the next 
decade. But after lobbying by the health insurance industry, the final 
version made a critical change that had the effect of eliminating all 
but $4 billion, according to CBO.
  In other words, they turned around and said we apologize to those 
HMOs, those insurance companies, and we will give you back $22 billion 
of the $26 billion, and we will not let it happen again. Think of what 
we could do with that $26 billion in terms of innovation.
  Mr. HOLT. My colleague from Florida mentioned George Lucas, the 
writer, director, producer of Star Wars, who was here yesterday to talk 
about this Democratic innovation agenda. The point I wanted to 
emphasize is we are not just talking about government spending, we are 
talking about investing so that innovators like George Lucas, and you 
might say that is just entertainment. Well, that is innovation. It 
makes money for the United States. In fact, he probably has done more 
for our balance of trade than any other single individual you can name.
  But he was asking us to train the bright kids, the scientists and 
engineers that he needs. He was asking us, as we lay out in our 
innovation proposal, to reward risk takers and entrepreneurs, to 
protect intellectual property, to do those things that make it possible 
for innovators to succeed in the United States.
  So it is not just about spending. The innovation creates the agenda, 
it creates the atmosphere as well as the pipeline for that innovative 
economy that we are talking about. That is what George Lucas was saying 
when he was here yesterday.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. He was not asking, he was literally begging for 
the Congress to work together in a bipartisan way to make it happen. 
Just the day before he was with us, the President gave him the National 
Technology Award. We are talking about walking the walk, not just 
talking. The bottom line is he came and he understood. We were 
committed prior to the technology award being awarded.
  We have a chart before Mr. Delahunt, and it is one thing for us to 
let the Republican majority know what they can do if they really want 
to do it. It is another thing for us to break it down. I want to make 
sure that the American people understand that we are about making 
something happen. Regardless of who gets the credit, we are working on 
behalf of the American people and the American spirit, taking from Mr. 
Holt and what he says all the time. That is what took us to the moon. 
That is what brought us up front as it relates to innovation and 
inventions, being the first.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Delahunt.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Let me refer to this chart. I think it is very telling. 
How can we afford those tax cuts that are trillions of dollars at this 
point in time, particularly if they ever became permanent.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of the people 
in the whole, entire country.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Do not leave out the oil industry.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I will not leave out the oil industry or the 
pharmaceutical industry. We just heard what happened behind closed 
doors. But how are we affording to do that and at the same time 
ignoring the kind of initiatives that are embraced in this project for 
innovation that we have been discussing and that the President speaks 
about but does not fund.
  Let me tell you how we take care of the corporate welfare program and 
how we take care of those tax cuts. We borrow or they borrow. The 
Republican majority borrows the money. I think it is particularly 
dangerous to do that not just because it will create deficits that 
could very well implode our economy and reduce the United States in 
terms of its economic capacity and future, but in addition it is 
dangerous because from whom do we borrow this money?
  As of November, 2005, this is what the chart reveals: $682 billion 
from Japan; $249.8 billion from China; and yesterday we had a hearing 
in the International Relations Committee that discussed, and the 
Republican chairman and others that were clearly from the right of the 
political spectrum were describing China as a potential enemy and 
adversary, and yet we are borrowing money from the Chinese to support 
tax cuts for wealthy Americans.
  Mr. HOLT. Could the gentleman tell us, if the Republican budget is 
carried out this year, how much more we will have to borrow in the next 
year? I can tell you it is going to be about $400 billion, added to 
various columns on your chart there. Some of it will be borrowed here 
in the United States, but a large number of dollars will be borrowed 
from Japan, China, U.K., Caribbean countries, Taiwan, OPEC, and Korea, 
as you show here.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I find it particularly interesting that we are 
borrowing money from OPEC. Not only are we purchasing oil from OPEC, 
but we are borrowing money from OPEC. And yet to hear the rhetoric in 
this Chamber and our committee rooms about OPEC, one would consider 
them, well, to use George Lucas, the Darth Vader of the international 
order in terms of its impact on America. Mr. Speaker, we have borrowed, 
we owe them almost $70 billion. What are we doing?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman would yield, I want to make a 
point that we have kind of left out when talking about technology. We 
talk about the $682 billion from Japan and the $249 billion from China 
that we are borrowing.
  Earlier in the evening, we talked about the 600,000 engineers that 
are going to graduate in China. They are taking, they are basically 
lending us money, we are paying them back with interest, and they are 
investing that money right here to train engineers to the tune of 
600,000 a year.
  Do you think these engineers are working just in private industry in 
a communist country? No, they are working for the Chinese military. 
They are working on the next-best technology that the Chinese military, 
their communist government, could maybe put up possibly in the 
international community. We are funding our own enemy's military 
because we are fiscally reckless here at home.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for 
pointing that out.
  I have a picture here of Secretary Snow, appointed by the President 
and confirmed by the Republican Senate. I think it is important to 
understand, when you start talking about what is going on, how we are 
borrowing and how they are out of control on the Republican side. Here 
is a blown-up letter dated December 29, 2005, literally the Secretary 
of the Treasury begging that we need to raise the debt limit because we 
will be able to continue to finance government operations. This is not

[[Page H318]]

government operations of Iraq or Afghanistan. This is government 
operations of these United States.
  Secretary Snow, I go back, and repetition is good because I want to 
make sure that folks understand. Gentlemen, I want to say this, and you 
cannot say this enough. They have broken records, borrowing $1.057 
trillion from foreign nations. Like I said before, the President cannot 
just do this by himself, so I am going to put a picture of the 
Republican leadership there to say they are a part of this incompetence 
as it relates to borrowing from foreign nations that we have concern 
about like China.
  So, Mr. Delahunt, you have hit the nail right on the head. Mr. Holt, 
you are 210 percent right. We cannot talk about innovation, but in the 
meantime we have other priorities with the special interest. I think it 
is important. I want to make sure that staff gets a picture of the 
Republican conference because I think it is important. I think we need 
to put the pressure on not only on individual decisions but on 
decisions that the majority has made that has put this country in the 
back seat as it relates to innovation and as it relates to many other 
areas that we should be leading in.
  Mr. HOLT. A little earlier this evening folks on the other side were 
saying that revenues have continued to grow because of the tax cuts. 
No, what has grown because of the tax cuts is this deficit, this 
borrowing. So much of it from China, Japan, even OPEC, as my friend 
from Massachusetts has pointed out.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I think it was interesting to hear our friends and 
colleagues on the other side say we have to hold them accountable in 
Washington. We have to hold those bureaucrats, we have to hold them 
accountable. Let us get on with the job. I find that confusing.
  I thought, now maybe you can give me some guidance here. I thought 
the Republicans were the majority party in this House and in the Senate 
for a substantial period of time, and I am confident that President 
Bush was elected in 2000 and it is 2006 and it has been 6 years. Who is 
in charge? Who is in charge, Mr. Speaker?
  They are the ones that should be held accountable. This is not about 
bureaucrats. I understand it is an election year and all of a sudden 
they are going to position and posture themselves as outsiders. 
Outsiders, that is a bad joke. They run this place. They run this town. 
They know how to exercise power.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. In fact, I thought that was a joke. In fact, I 
wrote it down in a journal, and I laughed about it later in the day 
because I thought it was a joke. Then I find out that they are serious.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Inslee.
  Mr. INSLEE. Under the current control of the Federal Government, if 
China invades Taiwan, we will have to borrow money from China to fight 
the war. That is a very sad irony, if not a joke.
  I wanted to point out one thing before we finish, an aspect of the 
Democratic Innovation Agenda that we have not talked about, and that is 
our efforts to help small businesses innovate because Democrats 
recognize that small businesses are tremendous engines of innovation. 
That is where a lot of our creative genius comes out. I want to point 
out a few things that we have proposed to make sure that small 
businesses are successful in innovating, and one is we have a 
constellation of proposals that will help small businesses across what 
is called the valley of death which is where they cannot get financing 
when they have a good idea but cannot quite get to commercialization. 
We would make sure that the Small Business Innovation Research Program 
is held up and supported. This administration is actually cutting the 
availability of small businesses to use the innovation grant program to 
get their innovations to market. They purport to believe in the power 
of business but will not help them with that.
  Second, we propose that we will help reward risk taking and 
entrepreneurship by promoting broad-based stock options, and not just 
for top dogs in corporations but for the rank and file.
  Third, we want to protect intellectual property by making sure that 
patent fees go to help the patent process so these businesses can get 
their patents.
  Fourth, we want to help specially tailored guidelines for small 
businesses to help with the Sarbanes-Oxley requirement in accounting.
  I point these out because I think it is fair to say that the 
Democrats have put forth four very concrete proposals to make sure 
small businesses can thrive in a challenging environment. That is 
important because we know that government is not the source of all 
great ideas in our society. We want small businesses to achieve, and we 
have good proposals for that to happen.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Holt and thank him for 
his good leadership.
  Mr. HOLT. I thank the Thirty-Something group for allowing us to join 
you. Yesterday with Mr. Lucas, he and I were the only ones there with 
gray hair. I thank you for having us here tonight.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, to get ahold of us, any of the Members 
who are in their offices or anyone else, the Website is 
www.housedemocrats.gov/30Something. All of the charts you saw here 
tonight are available on our Web site, and we will be back in an hour.

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