[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 74 (Monday, June 12, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H3772-H3777]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[[Page H3772]]
IMPORTANT ISSUES FACING AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is recognized for
60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be
here again with the authorization and approval of our leader, Ms.
Pelosi; Steny Hoyer, our whip; Mr. Clyburn, our caucus chair; and our
vice chair Mr. Larsen from Connecticut. We would like to thank them
also for giving the 30-something Working Group an opportunity to come
to the floor as often as possible to talk about the issues that are
facing this country.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we once again find ourselves in a
scenario where there is a major disconnect between what the feelings
are of the average American citizen sitting in Ohio or Florida or in
the Midwest or any other State with what their issues are, what their
challenges are, the problems they face sitting at the kitchen table,
and what is going on here in the United States Congress and around the
Potomac River.
Mr. Speaker, we have heard now how we have all these new issues that
have been dusted off the shelf, brought back out front, back on the
talk shows, back on the media circuits, back on radio talking about
priorities that only belong to a small fringe group of people in
America when the real problems that American citizens face look a
little something like this: College tuition costs, up 40 percent; gas
prices, up 47 percent; health care costs up 55 percent; and median
household income down 4 percent.
The American people are crying out to State capitals all over the
country, to Washington, DC, please, please, somebody listen to what our
needs are. Please, somebody help us with an alternative energy plan.
Please, someone help us reduce the cost of college tuition. Please,
someone help us rein in the cost of health care. Please, someone help
us lift our wages up, someone invested in the country. That is what the
American people want. Yet time and time and time again we continue to
get issues of amending the Constitution for any reason we see fit and
divisive debates in the United States of America.
So I have a question, Mr. Speaker, that I would like to propose to
the American people. What do we believe in as a country? What do we
believe in, Mr. Speaker? What kind of America do we believe in? Do we
believe in an America that will give the very, very few a tax break,
the people who make more than $1 million a year a tax break, while we
are increasing the cost of college tuition, while we have high gas
prices? And with the top leadership in the United States of America
saying conservation is a good personal virtue, but it has no room in
the personal policy debate that this country has. Is that what we
believe?
See, I believe that the American people want leadership in this
country and they want us to take on these issues. These are difficult
issues, and it may be hard to go to a millionaire for some people and
ask them to pay a little more in taxes, that may be difficult, but the
country demands that kind of leadership because we need to invest it
into lowering college tuition costs so we can get more people educated
in this country.
Now, I agree it is not just money. We need reform. We need to do
things differently. We need to figure out how a 21st century college or
university should work or a K through 12 should work. We need to do all
those things. Just throwing money is not the solution. But to give
millionaires a tax break at the expense of the kinds of reforms that
the Democratic Party wants to do in college tuition, in alternative
energy sources, I think is very, very important.
We have in the United States a lot of untapped human potential. And a
lot of times, Mr. Speaker, we get caught up in policy debates about
what our resources are, and conservation, and making sure we tap into
all the resources of the country, but one of the great untapped
resources that we have in the United States of America are our kids. We
cannot continue down the road we are going down now, not investing into
the arts, not investing into the team sports, not investing into
business incubators at the rate we should be, not making sure that
every school has a nurse or a clinic so our kids are healthy, not
making sure that we reach out with SCHIPs, so that all our kids are
covered and have health care so that they can be productive citizens.
These are investments we make into our kids, into our parents to make
sure they are healthy so that they can be productive and learn in
school. Because the other option is to say, the heck with the kid, he
doesn't have the money. He or she doesn't have the money, they can't
afford to go to the doctor, well, lose another one and move on. That is
not what America believes in, Mr. Speaker.
So the real issue is this: Here is the world we are competing in: 1.3
billion Chinese citizens, 1 billion Indian citizens, and the European
Union. They all want to clean our clock, Mr. Speaker. They want to
knock off America. They are not scared. They are coming after us. They
are barreling down. You go to Shanghai, you are riding a magnetic
levitation train, one of the only ones in the world. They are investing
in engineers like crazy, schools and education like crazy, knocking
over buildings. They do not have property rights, environmental rights,
human rights. They do not respect religion. They are not really playing
fair, but they are playing to win.
Now, how do we combat that with only 300 million citizens? We combat
that by investing into our people, making surely our people are
healthy, educated, and have opportunity. And you know what? Some people
may not take advantage of the opportunity. We understand that. But we
need to begin to provide opportunity again for Americans.
The article today in USA Today about college debt, how can we expect
kids to go out and take risks and take chances and start new businesses
when they leave college with, last year, averaging $19,000 in debt?
Nineteen thousand dollars. You think these kids are going to want to go
to an inner city school and teach kids when you leave them with, if
they have a Master's Degree or Ph.D. or something, over $100,000 debt
if you're a doctor. We need to invest back into the United States of
America. We need to have an infrastructure program.
Back home 2 weeks ago people in Ohio were talking about sewer lines
and water lines and septic tanks and fees. Look what is happening to
our country. We are letting it rot from within.
I just want to tell one story, Mr. Speaker. I went to China last
summer for about 2 weeks, and as we toured the country and we went to
different high-tech shops and chip manufacturers and Intel and all the
fancy new high-tech companies that were there, we had a conversation, a
kind of an ongoing conversation about their engineers in China versus
the American engineers. And after hearing how many engineers they had
and how well they were doing and how cheap they were, but yet very
educated and very motivated and knew that they wanted to provide a lot
of headaches for the United States, I started asking, well, what are
the advantages of the U.S. engineers? And time and time again you would
hear that the U.S. engineers are more creative, and they work in teams
better than any other engineers in the entire world, all over the
planet.
So the question is: Why is that? Partly it is because we promote and
had promoted and have promoted in the United States athletics and
sports and speech and debate. Team concepts. Teamwork. And we also, for
some years, promoted the arts and taught these kids at a young age how
to be creative and how to learn how to draw and paint and dance and
sing and just to be creative and think outside the box. Those are the
two advantages we have.
So I came back to the United States after 2 weeks and all you hear is
pay to play. If you want to play sports in high school in Ohio: Pay to
play. Some kids it may cost $500. Two kids, maybe we will give you a
break, $750. Average families don't have that. But these kids are not
going to develop the kinds of skills they need to be competitive in a
world economy. Period, dot.
Are we okay with that? Is that something we believe in? Do we believe
it is okay if kids have to pay an extra $500 or $1,000 to play sports
when we know
[[Page H3773]]
it gives us a competitive advantage in the marketplace? Are we okay
with that, America? I am not okay with that. I think it stinks. And
then you come back and what is the first thing that gets cuts in the
school districts? The art programs. First to go.
I had a woman last night from Liberty High School talk to me about
how they had cut art programs for their kids in the grade schools
because of budget constraints. We are cutting off our noses to spite
our faces. We have to make these investments.
And then I come to Washington, DC, and we have a lot of tourists
here, now is the tourist season in June and July, we get a lot of
students down here, and what are we talking about? We are talking about
gay marriage. Wait a minute, Mr. Speaker. We have got college tuition
up 40 percent, gas prices up 40 percent, health care costs up 55
percent, and we are talking about gay marriage? Give me a break. Who
are they bothering?
People don't come up to me at the Giant Eagle in Niles when I go down
to get a pound of coffee and some honey, Mr. Delahunt, because I like
to put honey in my coffee to sweeten it, because my Aunt Rosie taught
me to put the honey in. It is good. It prevents colds. Nobody grabs me
and says, can you please stop the gay people from getting married up in
Massachusetts? They are killing me. No one has ever said that to me,
and I am from a conservative district in Ohio.
People want to know what you're going to do about gas prices. What
are you going to do about college tuition costs? What are you going to
do about health care costs, Mr. Delahunt? These are the real issues in
our country.
I yield to my friend.
{time} 2015
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if I can just interrupt for a minute, I
think the question you are posing is, what are our national priorities
in a time like this where people are pressed and there is a tremendous
degree of economic uncertainty? One only has to take a look at the Dow
Jones today. The Dow Jones went down another 100 points today. Last
week it was around 300 points. The week before that it was 200 points.
Most Americans are looking at their 401(k), Mr. Speaker, and they are
noticing that they are slipping behind. I dare say, Mr. Speaker, if you
compared the Dow Jones Index today with the Dow Jones Index in the last
several months of the Clinton administration, you would discover that
after 6 years, after some 6 years of economic policies that only favor
not just the middle class and the upper middle class, but the super-
rich, you will discover that the Dow Jones hasn't moved.
All of those people who were planning on the customary growth in the
Dow Jones so they could retire are now finding themselves compelled to
work more years so that they can sustain themselves, so they simply can
sustain themselves. Our friend from Ohio, Ms. Kaptur, she can tell you
that in terms of the old-time pensions when somebody worked for years
for a company and then they retired, they got a pension every month
that they could count on, plus their savings, those pensions are gone.
They no longer exist. They are gone.
And then we hear our friends on the other side of the aisle talk
about privatizing Social Security, you know, PSAs, private accounts.
Well, I guess if you looked at it from that perspective and you had no
growth for 6 years, you would be beside yourself. You would be
devastated emotionally. But that is what has happened.
And you know what we are doing with our money? We are not spending it
on the priorities that everyday people have. The war in Iraq, for
example, is closing in one-half a trillion dollars, Mr. Speaker. One-
half a trillion dollars. That is trillion with a T.
And one only has to review the reports by the special inspector
general for Iraq reconstruction, and what you see is a record not just
of incompetence and mismanagement but abuse and fraud. You know what,
Mr. Speaker, this is the only country that is really at the plate in
Iraq. We are not loaning this money, we are not loaning this money to
the Iraqi people, we are just giving it away. It is the greatest
welfare program in the history of humankind.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I am sure you remember the debate, Mr. Delahunt,
because you were probably leading it at the time, the debate when we
are talking about let's loan the money to the Iraqis. Everybody said
they are going to be able to use the oil for reconstruction. Another
urban myth. It never happened.
I know our friend from the west of me in Toledo, Ohio, who is one of
my mentors down here, has a difficult story to tell us tonight.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I just want
to conclude something. So with this giveaway program, this giveaway
from the American taxpayers, we have not even spent the money well. The
Iraqis have not spent the money well. We were going to build 150
primary health care centers in Iraq. Only six have been built, and they
are running out of money. Great record. A great record. That sounds to
me like the Babe Ruth of mismanagement, waste and absolute pilfering of
American tax dollars.
Why can't we do it here in the United States, Mr. Speaker? Why can't
we build 150 primary health care centers for our own people? Would
somebody please respond. All I know is we are taking this money and we
have brought it over there. And by the way, one of the most incredible
readings that anyone could take on is the special inspector general's
report about the missing $9 billion; $9 billion is simply unaccounted
for.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank Tim Ryan of Ohio, my
neighbor and friend, and also Mr. Delahunt of Massachusetts for getting
the time this evening to talk about the real issues that the American
people care about that don't get enough attention on this floor as we
are designating more honorary days and bills that do not have a lot of
substance attached to them, when the American people actually expect us
to do something here to benefit their lives and their children's lives
today and tomorrow.
On the Iraq issue, as a member of the Appropriations Committee, I
tried to get amendments passed in our committee when Mr. Bremer was
head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, when we saw billions and
billions of dollars being extended to that authority with no
accountability back to this Congress.
Originally, they came to us with a proposal of $20 billion with no
strings attached, with no accounting back to this Congress. Eventually
that was reduced down somewhat. But of the dollars that were expended,
we were not able to get reports back from the administration because
amendments were disallowed in our committee for the billions of dollars
that have gone to who knows where over there. Now they are trying to
get amendments to look at maybe $6 billion that was expended. But let
me tell you, the horses were out of the stalls before there were proper
accounting procedures put into place. The truth will come out. But the
record is clear who sought to get amendments and those who blocked
them. That is in the record in the committee. It is outrageous.
I can remember when Paul Wolfowitz, who is no longer with the
government, the President's big advisor on invading Iraq, when he said
we would have this all paid for by oil sales, and we surely do not see
that as even part of the equation.
As I thank my colleagues for organizing this Special Order tonight, I
wanted to give a very specific example of what is happening in this
country, not in Ohio, not in Massachusetts, but in Iowa and Arkansas
and Illinois. As we do this Special Order, I would like to pay special
tribute to excellence in a top-of-the-line quality company that is
closing its doors, a company called Maytag Corporation that is
headquartered in Newton, IA.
Let me say for the record I own no stock in Maytag Corporation. But
our family, our household, is one of those who has appreciated the
excellence of their products that have served the American people and
the world for over 100 years. Sadly, this legendary American company,
first founded in 1893 by F.L. Maytag, 35 miles east of Des Moines, IA,
is soon to close its doors. And in Iowa, as well as subsidiary plants
in Illinois and Arkansas, over 3,000 Americans will lose their jobs.
The generations of Americans who crafted and built and serviced this
all-
[[Page H3774]]
American product called Maytag deserve recognition in this Congress.
They should be proud of the heritage of which they are a part and of
their commitment to quality. For indeed, their quality and
dependability helped build the America that was self-reliant here at
home.
The gentleman from Ohio was talking about how the United States is
becoming more and more indebted to foreign creditors. Maytag was the
kind of company that built a strong America. It was an America that did
not become overly reliant on imports and imported componentry to
support its operations. It was an America that believed that its own
identity and strength depended on domestic firms dedicated to
excellence, and we led the world.
The company valued its product, its community, and its workers. And
when the gentleman from Massachusetts was talking about pensions being
taken away, it was the kind of company that really did build community
where people could depend on their retirement income.
I feel compelled to discuss for a few minutes, to pay tribute to this
historic company, truly an American icon company, and its workforce. As
America says good-bye to Maytag, we also say good-bye to the type of
firm that shaped our identity as a society.
That identify made the United States a world leader in the 20th
century in manufacturing and agriculture. And that identity has been
clouded by the very issues you are talking about here tonight by our
growing over-dependence on imported products and imported capital from
across the oceans, and Maytag represented that part of our history when
America understood what it had to do to build the best.
The American people will soon witness the pink-slipping of Maytag's
thousands of workers and sadly become part of our history. Of course,
and this goes into a point that Mr. Ryan and Mr. Delahunt mentioned,
the most recent chief executive officer of Maytag who brokered this
closure and sale is reputed to have made over $18 million in a golden
parachute on the deal.
So my remarks tonight are really directed to the workers and
management staff who hoped this day would never come. Wouldn't it be
nice for America's consumers like myself to be able to travel to
Newton, Iowa, and Heron, Illinois, and Searcy, AR, and say ``thank
you'' to these workers and their families and friends who helped build
an American legend company for over a century. Let's say thank you to
them tonight.
Maytag Corporation, when it shuts its doors, will be closing a
chapter in our history for generations that stood for high quality and
high performance when they were America's industry leader. They helped
define the manufacturing heartland from which Mr. Ryan and myself come,
and their company represented the words ``quality'' and
``dependability.''
I will talk later about what made their products superior, but it is
really amazing to me that we live in a time when we allow this kind of
gold star company to bite the dust and we cannot even talk about it
here in the Congress except during this particular period of time.
Their production will disappear and it will, just like our furniture
industry, just like the television industry, just like us becoming
energy dependent, it will become another nail in the coffin in America
becoming too reliant on others.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate that. We know the economy sometimes
weeds out industries and new ones pop up. That happens. That is
capitalism. We understand.
But where is the plan? Where is the plan to figure out what are we
going to do next? What is the next best thing? What are these Maytag
workers going to do? They cannot all work at Wal-Mart or Sam's Club or
Super K or Lowe's or Best Buy, or all of the different white elephants
that line the suburbs of America.
Are we going to invest in research and development? Are we going to
invest in the business incubators? Are we going to lower the cost of
college tuition? Are we going to make sure that we invest in the health
care industries with nurses and health care workers? What are we going
to do? There is no plan for the country.
I believe we need a plan. I just think the values that are here that
we are hearing here in the United States Congress certainly do not
reflect the average values. I think the Democrats' priorities are
America's priorities.
{time} 2030
And that is the key here. When you look at this, briefly, as we are
talking about Maytag, this is where the United States is borrowing its
money. $682 billion from Japan. China, $249 billion, U.K., Caribbean,
Taiwan, OPEC, Korea, Germany, Canada. We are borrowing all this money
and giving it to the wealthiest 1 percent, 1.9. Let's see here, $1.9
trillion over 10 years of tax cuts that we are borrowing. So we borrow
from them and we give it the wealthiest in our country. And education
costs go up, health care costs go up, energy costs go up. I yield to my
friend.
Mr. DELAHUNT. If I could just rephrase it a different way, because
Ms. Kaptur mentioned the phrase ``the importing of capital.'' And what
we are doing in terms of our economic policy is that we are exporting
our manufacturing base. In other words, that icon of an American
company, Maytag, who I am sure provided good jobs and good wages to
generations of Americans who represent, if you will, that core American
middle class that really distinguishes a healthy democracy from other
systems. We have taken that, we have exported those jobs because of
these economic policies. Simultaneously, we are importing capital from
abroad. And I think this is a very telling chart, in the past 4 years,
from 2001 to 2005, we have borrowed, in addition to the pre-existing
national debt, $1.18 trillion. Of that $1.18 trillion, 1.16 is from
overseas, from those countries that are evidenced on the chart beside
Mr. Ryan.
Now, what have we done with that money? We have financed a war that
is being pursued heroically by our military personnel and incompetently
by our civilian leadership. In addition, the tax cuts have not favored
any particular percentage of the American citizenry other than the
super rich.
If one takes a look at the chart beside Mr. Ryan, if you earn $40,000
a year you receive a tax benefit of $17. Just think of that, $17. If
you make over $200,000, your tax break amounts to $1,300. Even if you
make $1.5 million, you get $4,500 off your tax liability. But if you
make more than $1 million your tax break is $42,000. So we are
borrowing from overseas to advantage the top, not just the top 1
percent, the top .001 percent in this country and funding a war in Iraq
that is costing us dearly in terms of our national treasure, which are
our young people, as well as dollars and cents being provided for by
Americans who are going through very, very difficult times, that I
would suggest is reflected in our financial markets if you look at the
difference between this past month and that Dow Jones Index and that
Dow Jones Index in the year 2000.
With that I yield to my friend from Ohio.
Ms. KAPTUR. I am so happy to see the chart that Congressman Ryan has
put up there on how much interest we are paying on our borrowing, and I
will let him go into that in detail. But I will just recount a story.
Back when I was first elected to the Congress during the 1980s and
served on what was then the Banking Committee, now called Financial
Services. That tells you something right there. We went from a nation
that believed in savings to a nation that believed in borrowing, and
now we owe everybody because the whole banking philosophy changed. And
we, at that point, had only about 8 percent, between 6 and 8 percent of
our bonds that were sold to foreign investors. And I said, hey, we
shouldn't go over 10 percent. We should make sure, went to see Alan
Greenspan, Paul Volcker, all the different heads of the Fed, and said
let us work on a program so the American people can buy our debt
instruments. Why should we be selling more and more of these debt
instruments to foreign countries? And they said oh, Congresswoman, it
is too much trouble to get the Fed to have a website and to let
grandmothers buy saving bonds for their grandkids, you know, get it at
the bank and so forth. And I told them, put it in the Post Office.
Let's have postal savings stamps like Roosevelt used to have. Let's own
ourselves. Let's not be owned by foreign interests. And I can remember
Mr.
[[Page H3775]]
Greenspan saying to me, well, you know, we like to deal with 20 bond
houses up on Wall Street. And I said how much of a fee do you pay them,
Mr. Chairman? How much of a fee? And why shouldn't that be owned
democratically across this country rather than just a few people in New
York controlling our future?
So I just put that on the table here. Now over half of our debt
securities are being purchased by foreign interests, and we owe what
Mr. Ryan will now explain to the country.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We owe, every year, in interest, this is the 2007
budget authorization, billions of dollars. The big red thing, what are
we spending all our money on, $230 billion is interest on the debt. All
this money we are borrowing, it is like your house or your car. You buy
a $20,000 car. Over time you pay $25,000 for it because you have got to
pay the interest. It is sucking money from education, homeland
security, veterans benefits, research and development, business
incubators, community development block grants, all the things that we
put in the communities to help communities make local decisions so that
they can grow their local economy. We are sucking it out and we are
giving it to China. China is taking the interest that we give them, and
they are investing it back into their state-owned manufacturing
companies that are stealing the manufacturing jobs. That is the cycle
of the money over and over and over and again.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Ms. Kaptur, do you remember when the President talked
about ownership society? The rest of the sentence was, it is not going
to be Americans that will own America. It is those whom we are indebted
to.
We are selling ourselves to other countries, given the obvious
statistics that just jump out at you. For what? For what? For war and
for a tax break for the extremely wealthy in this country. That is all
that it is doing, and it is at the same time putting a burden on
generations of Americans that obviously are unborn at this point in
time. And what a disaster.
Ms. KAPTUR. If the gentleman would yield on that very good point. If
you look back, they say to us, the Secretary of Treasury that just
left, Mr. Snow says you know the real problem with China is the yuan.
If we just vary the currency exchange rate, all of our problems will be
solved. That is what they said to us back during the 1980s when Reagan
was President. Don't worry about the trade deficit with Japan. When the
yen-dollar exchange rates gets low enough our trade balance will just
automatically come back into the black for the United States. Guess
what? It never has because Japan is not an open market. China is not an
open market. And if you look at who is, on the prior chart the
gentleman had up there, if you look at who has lent us the most money,
Japan, they are earning it off of us rather than opening their markets
to U.S. automotive parts, to U.S. Maytag washing machines. You have got
a closed market in Japan now using China as a back door for
manufacturing with imported parts that are being put into everything.
And we are not competing globally on a level playing field and it is
killing our workers, and Washington refuses to respond.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And it is a total lack of leadership. If you look,
this is quite significant. In the first 224 years of the country, we
borrowed $1.101 trillion from foreign interests. In the last 4 or 5
years, we have borrowed more than that. $1.05 trillion under President
Bush and the Republican Congress. Look at this. They have managed to
accomplish more in the last 4 or 5 years than all previous Presidents
combined. And at the same time, as we are borrowing this money and we
are paying it back in interest to China, taking more of our money from
our budget here to pay the interest, I find it peculiar that in 2004, 8
percent of graduating seniors carried student loans of more than
$40,000. That is up from 1.3 percent 10 years prior to. More kids are
incurring more debt to go to college at a time when the economy has
totally shifted from industry to knowledge based capitalism, knowledge
based economy.
Mr. DELAHUNT. And meanwhile, we are building roads, we are building
hospitals, we are building schools, we are building dams and levies, we
are building deep water ports, where? In Iraq. And we are not building
them here in Ohio. We are not building them in Massachusetts, we are
certainly not building them in New Orleans. We are not building them
here in America where there is such a crying need. And meantime, our
people go forward, whether they be seniors and concerned about their
retirement security, or whether they be young people and have debts of
40, 50, $100,000 because of education. There is something wrong.
Ms. KAPTUR. If the gentleman would yield on that point.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Of course.
Ms. KAPTUR. And their parents have borrowed against their homes and
home equity borrowings have risen to as high as they can go, and they
can't be borrowed against anymore. The State of Ohio has the highest
rate of home foreclosure in the Nation because the economy is not
galloping ahead and people are borrowed to the hilt and there just is
not anymore well to go to in order to finance their kids education and
other expenditures that they have.
Mr. DELAHUNT. And if the gentlewoman would yield.
Ms. KAPTUR. I would be pleased to yield.
Mr. DELAHUNT. I can give you a similar economic picture of what is
occurring in my district back in Massachusetts. There was a recent
headline in the Cape Cod Times. And in that particular region, where
you have many second homes, we are breaking records now in terms of
mortgage foreclosures. One can just foresee what is happening as we
talk to our colleagues among ourselves, that the ingredients and the
components for an economic downturn of significant proportion are out
there. And it will be as a direct result of the borrowing, the reckless
spending, the giveaway programs that are going on today in Iraq, and
the mismanagement, the fraud and the abuse and the lack of
accountability. When you add it all up, it spells a recipe for economic
disaster for America.
Ms. KAPTUR. I have asked several economists, how do you describe
where America is headed? They said, right now, based on these
borrowings and the situation in our economy, America is in uncharted
waters. She has never been here before.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. All the more reason, there are not many options
here. The Democrats want to take this country in a new direction. We
want to stop all the borrowing, we want to stop all the tax cuts for
people who make $300 million a year, 200 million, 1 million, 2 million,
5 million, 10, stop. Balance our budgets. Implement the PAYGO rules so
that we could make sure we are not spending any money that we don't
have. And we don't have to borrow it from China and take the country in
a new direction. Invest in education, invest into the dams here in the
United States. Find the $9 billion that got lost somewhere in Iraq and
nobody seems to know where it is.
Mr. DELAHUNT. I hope it is in Ohio or maybe Kansas or maybe Ohio.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is almost the same amount that is being cut out
of the student aid. 12 billion cut out of there, 9 billion lost. Take
the country in another direction. Move it along. We want our Democratic
plan, broadband access for all Americans, alternative energy plans, tax
credits for research and development, all the things we need to do to
move in this new direction and, at the same time, cut these loans in
half.
{time} 2045
Make sure that these kids have money to buy a house, buy a car, go
back to school, get a Master's Degree, get a Ph.D., do research, start
a business, take a chance. These are the kinds of things we need to do.
Now, this is not us speaking. This is what we like to call here a
third-party validator. This is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on
the Republican Congress from Friday, March 31, 2006: ``They are seen by
the country as being in charge of a government that can't function.''
That is the man who gave birth to the Republican revolution. This is
Newt Gingrich. This is not Tim Ryan or Bill Delahunt or Marcy Kaptur
from Toledo, Ohio. This is Newt Gingrich, saying that the Republicans
are in charge of a government that cannot function. Katrina, the war in
Iraq, tuition costs, health care costs, energy costs. What is going on?
Foreign debt, all the borrowing that we
[[Page H3776]]
are doing, giving Lee Raymond a $2 million tax break. This is not us.
This is Speaker Gingrich saying that, and I just happen to agree.
Also, in the same article, he cited a series of blunders under
Republican rule from failures in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to
mismanagement of the war in Iraq. He said the government has squandered
billions of dollars in Iraq. Newt Gingrich, not the Democrats saying
that.
Ms. KAPTUR. Would the gentleman keep that chart up there? What amazes
me about that statement is Mr. Gringrich was on the advisory board to
the Secretary of Defense when the war started. He was one of the people
giving advice. So he was one of those responsible for billions of
dollars being wasted. I find that very interesting that he would make
that statement. I hope he does not try to resolve himself from his own
responsibility.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I do not exactly know what specific issues he is
talking about, but I am sure he is talking about the $9 billion lost in
Iraq. I am sure he is talking about the foreign borrowing, I hope, and
find a way to fix it.
This is Pat Toomey. I am sure both of you served a lot longer with
him than I did. He is now President of the Club for Growth. ``There's a
very high level of frustration,'' says Mr. Toomey, ``and disappointment
among rank and file Republicans when they see a government-controlled
Congress engaging in an obscene level of wasteful spending.''
``Obscene level of wasteful spending.'' Here is a man who recognizes
the fact that paying $230 billion a year in interest payments to
foreign countries primarily is not a good investment for the United
States of America. And these are the kinds of things that need to
change. And these are conservative Republicans.
And all we are saying as Democrats is let us take the country in a
new direction because I think our values as Democrats better reflect
what the priorities are in America.
And it hit me a couple of weeks ago when we were home for a week and
got to spend a long week with our constituents that there is a real
disconnect between what the American people want and what is happening
down here and the misplaced priorities that I think we see every day
here in the United States Congress. And I know my friend from
Massachusetts would like to interject here, but just finally to say
that it is those investments that we want to make in college education
and some of the others that I feel we need to do and do rather
immediately.
I yield to my friend.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Marcy?
Ms. KAPTUR. Well, I think that the proof is in the pudding. Every
single trade agreement this country has gotten itself into, whether it
is NAFTA that was supposed to give us jobs, which has cost us nearly 1
million jobs now, was supposed to yield a trade surplus and it has
yielded growing trade deficits. The same is true with the CAFTA
countries. Now they want to push FTAA. If you look at what is happening
to our country, we are losing the ability to produce the wealth that
provided the middle class standard of living for a vast majority of our
people, and that was America's great achievement in the 20th century.
In addition to defeating Naziism and communism, it was our great
achievement in the economy where we helped lift an entire society. We
provided for seniors in their retirement years. We made affordable
college education possible for those who had the ability and the will.
And now we look at this century and we look at those possibilities
being diminished for the families that used to see rising standards of
living and rising tides. And it goes right back to mismanagement of the
economy, the overborrowing that is going on, the lack of production,
the lack of trade agreements that really open markets so that we can
sell products and earn income so that we do not go into these trade
deficits and end up having to monetize that through borrowing.
Mr. DELAHUNT. If the gentleman from Ohio will yield for a moment, the
greatest risk to any democracy is a disparity between those that have
in a society and those who do not. There is only so much poverty and
uncertainty that any democracy can tolerate. If this trend should
continue because that gulf between the affluent, particularly the very
affluent among us, and the rest of America is growing so large that we
have to step back and take a hard look. And I think what is important
to understand here is that occasionally you hear somebody from the
other party talk about, well, Democrats don't do this and they don't do
that. The truth is that all of the sources of power in this country
today at the national level are controlled by Republicans. They control
the House, Madam Speaker. They control the Senate, and they control the
White House.
You cannot blame Democrats. This is your package. You have got us
here. You have owned Washington. Do not say that Washington is the
problem because if you say that Washington is the problem, you are
admitting that you are the problem because you are Washington. And that
is the reality.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I agree with the gentleman. There is nowhere to
run, nowhere to hide. And when you have Speaker Gingrich saying the
same thing that Bill Delahunt from Massachusetts is saying or those of
us from Ohio are saying, it must be a consistent theme. And I do not
think Republicans are bad people. I just think their priorities are
misplaced when you look at what is happening time and time and time
again, and it is the same in Ohio. A Republican general assembly, every
statewide holder is a Republican, and these kinds of problems have been
exacerbated by the local policies at the State level.
And the real issue here is in cities like Toledo, Ohio; or
Youngstown, Ohio; or Warren, Ohio; or Niles, Ohio; or Boston,
Massachusetts is that there is, as Mr. Delahunt said, an underclass
forming. And 70 to 80 percent of the kids who go to Youngstown city
schools in in my district live in poverty. Cleveland is now the poorest
city in the country.
There is something wrong with the system when we allow that to
happen. I do not believe that we cannot figure out how to do something
about this. And when you cut community development block grants and you
cut Head Start and you make college more expensive, those are not the
priorities of the country. And here is why. I just want to make one
point. This is not a moral argument. It can be and it is. But I want to
make an economic argument to this. How are we going to compete with 1.3
billion Chinese citizens when we only have 300 million and we have a
good number of our people living in poverty? They are not even on the
field playing for us. We need them on the field. We need engineers, we
need scientists, we need teachers, and nurses and doctors in our inner
city schools, in our rural communities to help move the country forward
and make those investments like the Tennessee Valley Authority, like
the G.I. bill. Let us make those investments again, and we will see
what will happen to the country.
I yield to my friend.
Mr. DELAHUNT. I am going to ask the gentlewoman to help on this
because she serves on the Appropriations Committee, but there has been
a raging debate in this country about immigration. There is nobody, I
dare say, on either side of the aisle that does not believe that our
borders should be secure. And the best evidence, however, of a sincere
intent to secure the borders is the recent history of the Appropriation
Committee's lack of action in terms of creating the suitable or the
necessary funding for Border Patrol. The American people should be made
aware when we hear our friends rail on the immigration issue that they
have voted time and time again against Democratic amendments over the
past 5, 6, 7 years to increase funding for Border Patrol so that our
borders would be secure. And I hear that, and I just have to laugh
because they own it. They own it. They want to indulge in the rhetoric.
They want to talk tough. But when it comes to producing the resources
so that we can say our borders are safe and secure when it comes to
illegal immigration, they are missing in action.
Ms. KAPTUR. I want to endorse what the gentleman says and mention
that the arrests that just occurred in Toronto were due to people
driving up through Ohio, through Windsor, and going up into Canada. And
we have been trying to get homeland security money at the northern
border, and the Bush administration has just produced
[[Page H3777]]
a budget, with their allies here in Congress, that cut the amount of
money that cities like Toledo and Detroit, Cleveland received to
protect this border with Canada. We cannot even get Coast Guard patrols
up on Lake Erie. Members like Peter DeFazio of Oregon here have fought
so hard to try to get 100 percent funding. We have had amendments in
our committee to examine all containers offshore before coming to this
country. They are simultaneously defeated every single time that we
offer them.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Did we get a Republican vote ever?
Ms. KAPTUR. No Republican votes. No Republican votes. So the problem
is that we cannot do what is right for this country, and all that money
we paid in interest due to borrowings we could fully fund the homeland
security additional needs that we have. We could take care of those
kids that cannot pay their college tuition. We could take care of
veterans. We could take care of the water and sewer lines that the
gentleman from Ohio, ``Mr. Ryan'' was talking about. That is how big
$200 billion is. Roll all those agencies together, paid for, but not
when you are extending yourself by all these borrowings.
And when the new head of the Federal Reserve made a statement that
interest rates might have to go up because of this capital crunch our
Nation is facing because of this debt, the markets got so skittish. The
stock market dropped a couple days in a row. The real estate industry
went crazy because they know if those rates go up, the kind of
foreclosures you are experiencing in Massachusetts and we are
definitely experiencing in Ohio are going to skyrocket. So the economy
is at a critical edge. We are in unchartered waters in terms of the
importance of these borrowings and the down draft that that is creating
inside this society. It is really a very dangerous situation.
At the beginning of the 21st century when President Clinton left
office, and there was much I disagreed with him about, but we had a
balanced annual budget and were beginning to pay down our accumulated
debt. And I can remember Alan Greenspan saying when we are getting down
to zero and we were starting to pay not just the annual deficit down
but the accumulated debt, he said, well, gosh, you know, it might be
dangerous for America not to have some debt. And I remember hearing
that statement and I thought what? What? America's strength comes from
standing on her own two feet. What kind of international investments
does he have?
Mr. DELAHUNT. What a dangerous thing, Ms. Kaptur, a debt-free
America.
Ms. KAPTUR. A debt-free America. And I thought, hey, wait a minute,
which bondholders is he having dinner with up there on Wall Street?
What is going on?
And look at what happened on NAFTA. When the peso went south after
NAFTA was passed, Wall Street bailed them out. Well, who are their
little friends? Who is the club up there, the Wall Street club, that
governs what happens across this society?
The person on Main Street in Toledo, Ohio, wants a balanced budget.
They want a debt-free America. They know that makes America strong.
They are not willing to accept this kind of financial dependence that
our country has gotten itself into.
Mr. DELAHUNT. They do not want a Wall Street. They do not want a
financial market that has not moved upward in 6 years. It has just slid
and stagnated. That is what has happened here. All you have got to do
is pick up the paper every morning and check the Dow Jones.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. When you talk about NAFTA, I remember during the
whole debate that was supposed to fix the whole illegal immigration
problem. So I do not think we can have this immigration debate without
putting it into some context to say I thought NAFTA was supposed to fix
this problem. Wages would rise, standards of living would rise, and
people would not want to come back over here. That was a part of that
big debate.
Ms. KAPTUR. Could I just comment on that to say the reason we have
all this illegal immigration from south of our border is because NAFTA
for the Mexican people totally disemboweled their rural countryside. It
was planned. We have had over 2 million people who have lost their
livelihoods. Peasant farmers. It is a sacrilege on this continent as
far as what is going on. And the people have nowhere to go but to try
to come up here to get food. They run across deserts. They risk their
own lives lives. And why? Because their farmsteads were taken away from
them. They have nowhere to go.
I tried to get agricultural amendments for transition in Mexico
passed when NAFTA was considered. They were disallowed on the floor of
this Congress under the Fast Track procedure, and now we are reaping
the wrath of that agreement.
{time} 2100
Those folks that are coming up here, illiterate, risking everything,
for why? To feed their families. That is the reason for the illegal
immigration. Unless we fix NAFTA, we are not going to fix the illegal
immigration problem in this country. I don't care how many fences they
build.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. As we wrap up, there is a lot of rhetoric, but you
have just got to look at the facts. President Bush says America's
economy is strong and benefiting all Americans. Ask yourself,
regardless of the rhetoric, what the reality is. College tuition, up 40
percent. Gas prices, up 47 percent. Health care costs, up 55 percent.
Median household incomes, down 4 percent. Don't listen to us. Don't
listen to Newt Gingrich. Don't listen to the other side. Judge for
yourself. Is this the kind of America you believe in? If so, continue
to put the Republicans in charge of the government. Quite frankly, I
believe as much as we like them, they are unable to govern. Katrina,
the war, all of these statistics, unable to govern.
Let's take the country in another direction and really embody the
freedom that this country is supposed to have. Www.housedemocrats.gov/
30something, if any of you would like to email later.
Www.housedemocrats.gov/30something. Dana from Pittsburgh and Amanda
from Connecticut emailed us last time. Both emailed saying, Congress
needs to talk about the priorities of college costs and gas prices and
get on the stick.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Ms. Kaptur, I know that you are still under that cutoff
of 40, but it is great having you on board because I feel very lonely
here with these young people.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I sense a mutiny coming.
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