[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 36 (Tuesday, March 28, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H1183-H1187]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THIRTY-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Foxx). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Ms. BEAN. Madam Speaker, I yield to Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to be here
once again with the 30-Something Working Group, and I want to thank the
Democratic leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), for
giving us the opportunity to spend some time talking tonight about the
priorities of the American people.
I am thrilled this evening to be joined, as we come to the end of
Women's History Month, to be joined by my fellow freshman colleague and
also my roommate while here in Washington, D.C., the gentlewoman from
Illinois (Ms. Bean).
Ms. BEAN. Madam Speaker, it is an honor to join the gentlewoman.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, we spend a great deal of time
at the end of the day talking about some of the frustrations about this
job. The gentlewoman from Illinois and I, two of the few women Members,
particularly in the freshman class that we were elected to, as were
you, Madam Speaker, in 2004, who are moms with young kids that are
trying to balance work and family. We find ourselves at home talking
about that a lot.
Ms. Bean, when you and I are sharing frustrations and stories about
concerns that we have and that our constituents have, I find that we
often end up talking about it in the context of our kids and the
children of our constituents. I know you have a story that you talk to
your constituents about, and you were telling me about the seventh
graders in your district that you were talking to. I think that is a
really neat story you should share.
Ms. BEAN. I mentioned it on the floor briefly that I had been with
some kids several weeks back. More recently I mentioned to my colleague
we were talking about Internet safety. I am the parent of teenagers, my
daughters are 13 and 15, so the issue of Internet safety has been an
important issue. I have been visiting middle schools to talk about some
of the challenges that they face.
So we went to talk about Internet safety with the middle schoolers;
and whenever I talk with middle schoolers, we also have a little bit of
a civics lesson.
Many seventh graders I know in Illinois, as well as around the
Nation, are studying the Constitution. I was pretty impressed with the
quality of education our children are receiving because they had not
expected me to ask them about it. They thought we were just going to
talk about Internet safety, and I asked them about the Constitution and
the Preamble, and if any of them had the Preamble to the Constitution
memorized, and they did.
{time} 2215
And they did. And I asked them to come on up. All the hands went up
to be part of our little civics class. And they came up, and we took
that preamble apart.
We talked about in order to form a more perfect union, you know, what
does that really mean and they understood that that meant trying to
make our Nation better. We talked about providing for the common
defense, and how that meant that we not only needed strong national
security, but we also needed to protect our citizens when natural
disasters could come as well. And we talked about the general welfare
and the economy and how their parents and their neighbors and their
community needed a strong economic environment so that they could
provide for themselves.
We also talked about domestic tranquility. Some of them admittedly
did think that that meant, don't hit your sister, so we went through
that.
But we also talked about fiscal responsibility. And one of the things
that was alarming to them, and it was intended to be and to create a
discussion with them, was to talk about the national debt, which is now
over $8 trillion. And I shared with these seventh graders that their
share of our national debt is now over $27,000 each. And they were very
displeased to hear that that was their share of national debt and said,
Well, why aren't you guys spending less?
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I think you need to stress that again. How
much is every American's share of the deficit?
Ms. BEAN. Every American's share of the deficit is over $27,000 of
our over-$8 trillion of national debt; and as you now know, we are
raising the debt ceiling so we can bring that up to $9 trillion. And it
was really frightening to these kids.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We talk about the deficit quite a bit in our
30-something hour, and one of the ways that I sort of try to boil it
down, because, you know, when you think about the number 8 trillion,
especially, I mean, I imagine you were talking to seventh graders, and
8 trillion is a really big number. Even $27,000 is a big number.
Ms. BEAN. It is a big number when you are talking to 12-year-olds.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. So when we are on the floor here, I often try
to boil down what those numbers mean in more simplistic terms. I can
tell you that we, what we do is we talk about how it relates to
someone's household budget. And you know, of course, families, millions
and millions of families across this country struggle every day to
balance their budgets to make sure that they are not spending more than
they take in. And they are hoping that they are not racking up credit
card debt and trying to balance all the needs that their family has,
plus, you know, hopefully buying a few things that maybe aren't
necessarily a need, but are just a want. I mean, that is something that
in America we all strive to be able to accomplish.
[[Page H1184]]
But unfortunately, in Washington, when we got here, we found that
there seems to be, between the two sides here, an ongoing struggle over
whether or not it makes sense, amazingly, to not spend more than you
take in.
Ms. BEAN. Well it is interesting how these seventh graders
demonstrated greater fiscal sense than this Congress has been able to
demonstrate, because we talked to them about debt and how essentially
what we have been doing, to your point, to put it in their terms, would
be like me, as a mom, getting a credit card in my daughters' names,
okay, and going out and buying things for myself and then saying to
them as soon as they are old enough to work, now you get to pay for all
the things I bought myself.
That is essentially what we are doing to future generations. And they
said, Well, that is just not right. And they were right in
understanding that.
I also asked them, What would you do to not have debt; and they said,
Well, spend less than you have. Pretty simple answer, but one that
without PAYGO budget rules, which we once on a bipartisan basis adhered
to in this body and were able to get ourselves to the largest surplus
in the history of this Congress, we have now gone, since we have thrown
out PAYGO rules and we are not requiring ourselves as a body of
Congress to be more fiscally responsible, we now have the largest
deficit in the history of the Nation, and that is pretty
unconscionable.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Just to further explain the concept of PAYGO,
we, as Democrats, have repeatedly introduced amendments and other
proposals that would reestablish those PAYGO rules, the pay-as-you-go
rules, and we have supported them. We have put all of our votes up on
the board here that shows where we are versus where our colleagues on
the other side of the aisle are, and Democrats have consistently
supported returning to pay as you go, returning to the time when we
didn't have to talk about a deficit, where we had a surplus, which was
just before this, the beginning of this administration's tenure. And it
would be wonderful if we could get back to talking about how we were
going to spend the surplus, which we wish we had, when now,
unfortunately, we are mired in debt and mired in deficit
Ms. BEAN. Very much so. I mean, what PAYGO really did is, it forced
tougher decisions. It forced a greater degree of transparency and
honesty with the public because it forced us to say, if we are going to
spend more on a particular program, where was that money going to come
from. And that has really gone away. And with the lack of that, there
are a lot of false promises to the public about the reality of our
false accounting.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You just can't have it all. I mean, the other
story that I share with people when we are here on the floor during
this 30-something hour is it is like when we talk to our kids. You
know, sometimes my 6-year-old twins will say, Mom, you know, I really
want, we will be in the toy store and they want everything in every
aisle. And, you know, gosh, I would love to buy them everything in
every aisle. But often, I have to say ``no,'' and then I try to explain
to them, you know, our budget, the money that mom and dad earn really
only enables us to afford to buy you some of these things. You can't
have everything you want.
Ms. BEAN. Exactly. It is so fun to be here with you because this is
my first time joining you in your 30-something colloquy, because at 44
I am a little outside of the age span, so I appreciate you inviting me
today. But it is fun for us to be able to talk about our children on
the House floor where we haven't done that before.
But I think there are some very strong parallels in what you are
saying, in that oftentimes I think in our roles in Congress with the
public, with our constituents, we have to bring a little bit of tough
love to the equation the way we do with our children. We can't just
tell people what they want to hear, but what they need to hear, which
is the reality of our fiscal challenges.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And, boy, as moms, we certainly have a lot of
practice at that.
Ms. BEAN. At the tough love.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Tough love is something that unfortunately the
word ``no'' gets thrown around a lot more than I would like, than my
kids would like to hear. ``No'' doesn't seem to exist in this body, at
least under this leadership in the Congress.
Ms. BEAN. Well, that is why PAYGO is an important thing, because it
creates an environment that forces those kind of tough decisions and
forces a more honest dialogue with the public about what is affordable
and what is not. Absolutely.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I want to go back if you don't mind. I want to
go back to the chart that I was referring to earlier.
One of the things that we do try to do, and I am pleased to see that
our colleagues from Florida and Ohio have joined us now. But when we
talk about $8 trillion, and when we talk about what a billion means, we
have come up with a chart that kind of tries to boil that down. This
chart will help people; it has helped people understand the notion of
how much a billion is.
A billion hours ago, humans were making the first tools in the Stone
Age. A billion seconds ago, it was 1975 and the last American troops
had pulled out of Vietnam. A billion minutes ago, it was 104 A.D., and
the Chinese first invented paper. And then, of course, under the
leadership of this Congress, and this administration, a billion dollars
ago was only 3 hours and 32 minutes at the rate that the government
spends money today. That is a startling contrast, and I have some
excellent staff work that went into developing that, that figured that
out and boiled down what a billion is.
But when you think about it that way, that means that we are spending
money at a startling clip and that given how much in other definitions
it took to get, it takes to get to a billion, it is really amazing when
you look at it in these terms.
Ms. BEAN. I think you have another chart, if I am correct, that talks
about what that means in terms of our spending priorities and that
while we are spending so much on interest--you do have it--it
essentially shows that we are spending more on interest on the debt
that we have created than we are on education, on homeland security and
on veterans' benefits. And I don't think the American public fully
appreciate what those opportunity costs are, that that lack of fiscal
discipline has consequences.
And, sadly, we are not moving in the right direction as we look at
the 2006 budget, which only projects a $423 billion spending deficit,
but it is considerably more than that when we factor in AMT fixes, and
when we factor in the cost of the war, which we stopped counting in
October, even though that is running at $6 billion a week, that we are
not even projecting the real deficits, that this chart is going to look
worse if we continue down this path.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You are absolutely right. And I would like to
welcome my colleague, the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Ryan
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. As you are talking about the interest on the debt,
we have got to get the money from somewhere; and as we show, night in
and night out, here on the 30-something group, we are borrowing a good
deal of this money from China. And this is what has happened since
President Bush took over, Madam Speaker.
In 2000, we borrowed $62 billion from China, and in 2005 it grew
exponentially to $257 billion that we borrowed from China. So this is
significant in so many ways, as the gentlewoman from Chicago, from
Illinois stated, that we are paying the interest on the debt. And that
is money that is not going to education. That is money that is not
going to homeland security. That is money that is not going for health
care, veterans, whatever the case may be.
So that is bad enough, but we are borrowing it from China, so now we
are paying them interest on money and they are taking that and putting
it into their state-owned companies and hurting American manufacturing
and a lot of American small businesses that I am sure are in your
district, as they are in mine. And all we are saying is, this is a
competitive global economy. We can't have this disadvantage here of
where we are going to borrow the money and they are going to take the
interest out of the American economy and pump it back in, so they are
winning twice.
[[Page H1185]]
Ms. BEAN. I think you make a valid point. Americans are very
uncomfortable with that foreign debt, particularly that ratio, because
it minimizes our leverage in other areas and I think even has national
security implications over the long term that make us all
uncomfortable.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Absolutely.
We have another chart that we talk about. The amount of debt that has
been racked up in just the last few years, just in the last 4 or 5
years is actually greater than all of the 42 administrations before
this one. I mean, that is a truly astonishing statistic. I was really
incredibly surprised about that.
We also try to boil down the difference between the debt and the
deficit. The deficit is related to the fact that we spend more than we
take in.
Ms. BEAN. More than we are bringing in, absolutely.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Right. The debt is the amount of money we
borrow from other countries in order to remain fiscally solvent. I
mean, that is truly amazing that we have so much debt that is owned by
foreign nations.
And I don't know if the gentleman from Florida is ready to jump in
yet, but he has an amazing chart, as well, that shows the United States
of America and the percentage of the debt that is owned by other
nations.
Ms. BEAN. I have some of those figures in the meantime, while you get
the chart. It is actually, four lenders currently hold a total of
$2.174 trillion of our public debt. Compare this to only 23 billion in
foreign holdings in 1993. The top 10 current lenders are Japan at $682
billion; China at $249 billion; the UK at $223 billion; Caribbean
banking centers, $115 billion; Taiwan, 71 billion; and it goes on and
on.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It is just, we have got to get a handle on
this. We have to restore some fiscal sanity. We have to put on some
brakes and we need a little tough mother love. Maybe it is just that we
need to bring a few more moms into this Chamber and we will have a
little more tough love, because apparently the folks here are either
out of practice, or I don't know, maybe the discipline around their
homes isn't, you know, is not so strong.
Ms. BEAN. That is absolutely true. When I talk to the seventh graders
and the middle schoolers and I say to them, Well, what would happen if
your parents spend more money than they have? And they said, We will
get debt. And I said, Then what would happen? And they said, Well, then
people would start taking our stuff and then we might even go bankrupt.
{time} 2230
And, again, they understand that we have not demonstrated more
responsibility as a Congress, which, as I know, is frustrating for the
American people.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Actually this is a little bit of a leap, but
you and I sit on the Financial Services Committee together, and I know
that you have been very involved in the data security issue because, in
addition to the concern that Americans have over our debt and our
deficit, they are also very concerned, and I know my constituents talk
to me about this all the time, about the financial information that is
out there about them personally is being compromised on a regular
basis. And I know that you have really been a leader in that effort,
and it would good for you to talk about it.
Ms. BEAN. It has been a big issue for constituents of all ages. We
initially focused pretty much on seniors in the suburban districts that
I represent because they have very much been a target; so what was done
was we tried to introduce the legislation that is now moving through
from our Financial Services Committee that we both serve on which will
require, in addition to financial institutions, those database brokers
that hold that personal financial data to have to let consumers know if
there is a breach of that security information. But what we have found
is there are other Internet challenges beyond data security in that
regard. And I mentioned the Internet safety issue, and that has been a
big issue that I have also been focusing on with both parents with some
evening forums that we have done in our district and also with students
themselves.
As I mentioned, when I was with those middle schoolers and I asked
them, How many of you communicate on the Internet, not only with
friends but with strangers on sites like the myspace.com and others out
there, 75 percent of the hands go up, and we are talking 12-year-olds.
And then you ask them, Do you appreciate the dangers? Only half of
those hands went back up. So we were there to remind them of the things
they have to be careful about.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That is something that, with my 6-year-olds
and 2-year-old coming up behind them, my husband and I are already
talking about how to safeguard the information that they have access to
and make sure we are aware and keep them and their computer in close
proximity to us because there is so much out there. The Internet is an
amazing thing, but there is so much out there. And whether it is data
security or the security of our kids, we really have to make sure that
we strike a balance, which is what you have been fighting for, and I
have as well and other Democratic members on our committee. We have to
strike a balance between making sure that business has the ability to
operate and function and that we not unnecessarily restrict commerce on
the Internet.
Ms. BEAN. That we inform families how to protect themselves and their
communities. So I know we are not the only ones doing forums. I know
many communities and schools on their own are beginning to roll out
those kinds of educational awareness programs, and we want to continue
to support that, absolutely.
We should talk briefly about, since it is the end of Women's History
Month, whom we just had dinner with.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You are absolutely right. One of the most
amazing things about having the privilege that we have to represent our
communities in Washington is the people that we get to meet and
interact with. And you and I, along with the other members of the
bipartisan Women's Caucus, had an opportunity tonight to have dinner
with former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman ever to serve
on the United States Supreme Court.
Ms. BEAN. It was such an honor.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It was incredible. And I mentioned to her that
I was 13 when she was first nominated by then-President Reagan and that
my parents raised me to believe that young women, young girls could
grow up and truly be anything they wanted to be and that was my first
memory that that was the most clear example of that being true. And it
was just a thrill to be able to share that with her tonight.
Ms. BEAN. It was so inspiring to hear you talk about how it affected
you and how it affected all of us, regardless of all our ages, all
these women Members of Congress who were so inspired by Sandra Day
O'Connor and her leadership, her professionalism, and her dignity with
which she served on the Supreme Court and what an inspiration to women
she was. I was excited too that my daughters, who you know are here,
not in the House Chamber at the moment, but who are here during their
spring break vacation to join Mom out here in Washington and get a
chance to meet her as well. I know for them that is going to be
something they will remember for the rest of their lives. It was so
exciting.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Absolutely. And I think it is only 70 women
that serve with us in the House of Representatives out of 435 Members.
You boil that down even further, there is only a handful of us who are
moms with young children. There are only four of us that are younger
than 40 years old. The thing that sticks in my mind from the time that
we were elected 1\1/2\ years ago now is that story that they shared
with us when we were at our orientation initially. If you recall, there
is a statistic that they described there. There have been a little less
than 12,000 people in American history who have served in the United
States House of Representatives in all the 230-year history. And of
that number, only 211 of them have been women and 70 are serving now.
So as we close out Women's History Month, Madam Speaker, and you are
one of those women members in the Women's Caucus, and I remember
talking with you, Madam Speaker, actually about when we heard that
information. It was really astonishing.
[[Page H1186]]
Ms. BEAN. It was a number that reached out and grabbed you. Out of
12,000 total, only 200-plus were women.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. 211 women out of almost 12,000 people.
Ms. BEAN. Even with all that progress, I know it sometimes is
shocking to some of those high school and middle school students that
we do civics classes with. I know you do as I do, and I will say to
them just out of curiosity, What percentage of the Congress do you
think are women? And usually they will say 40 percent or 35 percent,
and they are shocked to find it is still only 14 percent.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It shows you that we have really come a long
way, but it really demonstrates why we need to continue to have Women's
History Month and how it is so important to show young girls who are
coming up behind us that they have the opportunity. They have to reach
out and grab it. And it is our responsibility to pull other young women
up on the platform with us now that we have been able to have an
opportunity like this, not to be discriminatory against our male
colleagues whom we are sharing the Chamber with this evening.
And actually the gentleman from Florida is the dad of a young girl
who is a wonderful young woman and works hard in school, and I know
that especially since you are the son of one of the House of
Representatives' most revered women, former Congresswoman Carrie Meek,
that surely you have something to add at the end of Women's History
Month.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. We definitely appreciate the contributions of
women. If it weren't for women, there would be no men. And the way I
look at it, being a mamma's boy, Madam Speaker, and I will admit to
that even though I am a big rusty Congressman now, we appreciate all
the contributions of women. And it is definitely good having women in
the House, in this House, and in the U.S. Senate.
I think it is also important to reflect on the future, the
opportunities. We talk about innovation here within our caucus. We look
for a bipartisan way of approaching that to make sure that we can have
more engineers. There are very few women engineers that are in higher
education right now, and we have to make sure that they have access and
opportunity. We do not want women or men to go overseas to work when we
should have jobs here in the United States of America. So when I look
at the opportunities and the success that women have had in the past, I
know that in the future we still have to fight and make sure that we
have inclusion, and that is important.
Madam Speaker, I am also proud to say that there are a number of
individuals, younger girls, that are trying to develop themselves right
now educationally, and we need to make sure that we provide them
opportunities for the arts, opportunities in the area of
physical education, and to allow a childhood to be broader than just
taking a standardized test. And that creativity is going to be
important.
But I am so glad you and Congresswoman Bean were really getting
heavy, and I wanted to just jump in a little bit because I grew up in a
household with three women, my mother and my two sisters; and, of
course, you know I have my wife and my daughter and my son. So we look
forward to making this celebration even greater and greater every time,
but also we have to be mindful as policymakers of making sure that we
allow women and young girls to be able to have opportunities greater
than women before them.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. How about the amazing experience we had 2
weeks ago with the President of Liberia, the first woman president of
an African nation who addressed the joint session?
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Words are inadequate to even describe the way
she explained to us her struggle as a woman, and it is hard for Liberia
and the United States to be able to reflect on what her life was all
about. She was sharing with us here, Madam Speaker, that you see the
glory; but let me share the story with you and how she still has one
foot in on the uneducated woman in Liberia and Africa and the Harvard-
educated woman one foot in the United States. And I think it is
important for us to remember that we have to remember when we have the
opportunity to lead. And I think she is grounded in that, and I think
Liberia is going to be better because of it.
And she shared with us that she didn't want our pity, but she wanted
to be able to receive our assistance because they will perform. She
talked about the reforms she has made in her administration, making
sure that she has accountability, making sure that she wipes out and
stamps out cronyism, and to make sure that children can smile again,
and that is important. It is important to build an environment in a
community where children feel safe of where they live and where they go
to school and all of their contributions.
So I was excited about her visit. I got down here a little early so
that I would get a chance to shake her hand; and I look forward, Madam
Speaker, hopefully, that we can help Liberia, one of the true allies of
the United States of America, and has been so for a very long time. As
you know, Liberia is one of the countries where slaves, once they were
freed, went back to Liberia, and many of them have American last names
because they brought them back from slavery. So we do have a connection
with that country.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It was incredibly moving for all of us. And
she didn't mention it during her speech, but it was very fitting that
she spoke during Women's History Month. And I am not certain of this,
but she is certainly one, if not the only, woman leader to ever address
a joint session of Congress, unless Margaret Thatcher had previously
addressed a joint session. I have not found anyone who actually could
recall a woman addressing a joint session. So it was just really
historic in so many different ways.
I really also thought about how we could take several pages from her
lesson book because a lot of things that she talked about, making sure
that you did not only look out for the privileged and making sure that
you thought about the needs of young children and young girls in
particular who needed to get an education and have hope and
opportunity. In this country so often it appears as though the
leadership in this body and in this country now has had a lot of
disregard, quite a bit of disregard, for those things. And I am
certainly hopeful that our colleagues were listening very carefully to
her remarks and took them to heart.
Ms. BEAN. You remind me again of being back in the classroom with
these kids and talking about that Preamble to the Constitution which
talks also about the decisions we make for ourselves and our posterity
and how they even understood that the decisions we make as Americans,
whether in Congress or at home in our communities, affect generations
of future Americans.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Just to shift gears a little bit, recently we
have been talking about homeland security quite a bit, and I am not
sure if you had a chance to talk about that with the seventh graders
when you were in the classroom with them, but since we just came off a
week, and, Mr. Meek, I know that you spent some time talking to your
constituents as well, I was really struck when I was home last week
during our recess by how many more of my constituents appealed to me to
come back to Washington and make sure that I continue to fight to
improve our national security, that their confidence in this
government's ability to keep them safe has really been shaken on so
many levels, not just in terms of protecting them from terrorists and
from outside actors, but just generally had their confidence shaken in
their government's ability to function.
{time} 2245
I mean, the culture of corruption that has been hanging over this
institution, sadly, and this administration, really has shaken the
confidence, I think, of our constituents to their core.
We really need to return to a time when we can restore that
confidence, let them know that not all of the people in this government
are in it for the wrong reasons, and that, in particular, we do put a
very high priority on our national security.
Ms. BEAN. Absolutely.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And that the port deal that was recently
proposed, and, seemingly, not had an
[[Page H1187]]
interest in even a 45-day security review with a country that had been
implicated in some way, in the 9/11 attacks, that is the kind of thing
I heard about when I went home.
I heard about how they are really deeply concerned about the lack of
port security. I mean, we have invested now, we have third-party
validators that we talk about here on this floor.
Mr. Meek, when I went down to the port of Miami after the revelation
came about the DPW port deal, the port personnel there, in our home
port, talked to me about the $18 billion that has been spent since 9/11
improving airport security, which is a good thing, and they are happy
about that, and the less than $700 million that has been spent to
improve our port security, the less than 6 percent of U.S. cargo that
comes through our ports that is physically inspected, 95 percent not
inspected.
The general lack of confidence in our homeland security, in our
government's ability to do the right thing on all fronts, is really, I
think, at least from when I went home, something that is really
disturbing them.
Ms. BEAN. Across the country, not just in Florida, but I think
homeland security is a big issue across the board. I hear it in my town
hall meetings and in the forums I had in my district as well.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, the way I look at this whole homeland
security issue, and I am concerned, and I was over in the Senate, had
an opportunity to sit down with some reporters, with Democratic Whip
Steny Hoyer and also Senator Schumer from New York and some others, and
I think it is important that we look at this for what it is.
The line is 95 percent of the containers that come into our ports are
not checked. That is the real issue here. We can't really jump up and
down about the 5, some say 6. I think it is important for us to
remember, Madam Speaker, that this bipartisan effort that we should
have as it relates to homeland security, I speak from the standpoint of
being a member of the Homeland Security Committee, having the
opportunity to serve on the oversight subcommittee and management and
integration.
I can tell you right now, for us to go to 100 percent check is not a
hard thing for us to do. But we have to set our priorities on what we
want to do and how we want to do it, and when we want to do it.
I think the American people want to be protected, and I think it is
important that we provide them that opportunity. As you know, we cry
out for bipartisan support in this. I will tell you, Democrat,
Republican, Independent, Green Party, you name it, any individual that
is thinking about voting, I can tell you this right now. They believe
in the security of our country. They don't care who brings about this
security, who appropriates this money, they just want the job done.
We don't need a situation where a container is being shipped from the
port of Mobile, Alabama, or through Illinois, what have you, and end
up, God forbid, some sort of chemical agent is in this container
because it was not checked.
Too many people in the world know that we don't check 95 percent of
our containers, and that is dangerous on both sides of the ball. I
think we are far beyond politics when we start talking about making
sure that we increase our containers, container security and screening
our containers. There are other countries that have 100 percent check.
I think that if other countries can do it, I know that the United
States of America can do it. But it is all about our priorities. It is
about how we set them, and it is about how we work together.
Unfortunately, we have some difficulty in that area right now, but
hopefully we will be able to improve on that through pressure from the
American people.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Meek, the thing that keeps coming to mind
when I think about the comparison between the stress that has been put
on airport security versus port security, if you ask, if you go out
into the country and ask most Americans the difference that they have
seen since 9/11 and in security in general, basically about the only
thing that Americans could say that they could identify is they have to
remove their shoes before they walk through a magnetometer at the
airport.
I think most people really feel today that we should not be resting
the sum total of our national security on taking your shoes off as you
go through a metal detector. American people expect quite a bit more
than that when it comes to homeland security, especially if you live
near a port, like my district includes two, Port Everglades and the
Port of Miami.
We have so many, so many potential openings around this country, and
vulnerabilities. To focus all of our attention on only the ones that
are most visible that provide the leadership here, the ability to say,
see, we did that, we have taken care of that, and just provide surface
reassurance about homeland security, that is the difference between
words and action.
It is the difference between nice commentary in speeches and actually
backing up those words with action.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentlewoman would yield, I think the great
example that we have used here a million times is Katrina.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Exactly.
Mr. RYAN of OHIO. You guys are from Florida. We are from the Midwest,
so we don't have hurricanes.
Ms. BEAN. Absolutely.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We have a ton of snow, but no hurricanes. The fact
that this government had days to prepare for Katrina and couldn't
figure out how to do it. Now, we are talking about something that may
happen that we will not have 5 days' notice to plan for it. It is
difficult for us to understand, but this needs to be addressed, and it
needs to be addressed immediately.
Because the fact of the matter is, the American people were counting
on us. Our first obligation here is to make sure that we are protecting
the American people and to have 95 percent of the cargo not inspected,
I think, is a dereliction of duty on our part. I will be happy to yield
to our friend.
Ms. BEAN. I think I am going to yield back the balance of my time, if
that is okay. But I want to thank you, my colleagues, for letting me
join you during this 30-something hour, my first time joining you even
though you let an older Member join you.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, you have two beautiful young daughters
waiting in the cloakroom for you.
Ms. BEAN. That is exactly right. That is why I am yielding back my
time. I appreciate you letting me join you today, in the interest of
not only my kids, but the seventh graders we talked about today. It has
been very important.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It was wonderful to have you join us. I will
see you at home.
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