[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 95 (Wednesday, July 19, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H5485-H5488]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Miss McMorris). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Meek) is recognized for the remaining time before midnight as the 
designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, it is an honor to come before the 
House once again. As you know, the 30-Something Working Group, we come 
to floor if not every other day, every day, to not only share with the 
Members but also the American people about many of the issues that we 
fight for for them here in this U.S. House of Representatives.
  I must say that there are a number of things that we can talk about 
this evening. But I just want to start off, because I know that not 
only the Democratic leader, but also the entire Democratic Caucus is 
looking to hopefully put America in a new direction. We want to make 
sure that we provide the leadership on behalf of all Americans.
  As you know, I want to start off tonight, but as you know, we have 
been sharing it with the Members so that hopefully it will have some 
sort of lift here in the House. It has not had thus far, but we are 
willing to provide the leadership, even in the minority, even though 
the majority is not willing to pick up the philosophy that we are 
pushing here on behalf of the American people, making sure that we have 
more affordable health care.
  Madam Speaker, this is on housedemocrats.gov. Also lower gas prices 
to achieve energy independence, which we have our energy plan on 
housedemocrats.gov. And, Madam Speaker, our innovation plan that has 
been there for some time, and filed legislation here in the House that 
has not been heard.
  We want to talk about homeland security. We have a Real Security Plan 
also on that website that is there for the Members. They have to have 
the will and the desire, Madam Speaker, to be able to take up these 
plans and these initiatives. And if we were able to work in a 
bipartisan way, these plans would already be passed, not only in the 
Appropriations Act, but also here on the floor.
  The two other things that I want to mention, as it relates to cutting 
the cost of college cost. As you know, the cost to go to college has 
gone up. This Republican-led Congress last not helped in that area. 
They have not helped the every-day average American to be able to meet 
the increases that they have been asked to pay.
  And also, Madam Speaker, in a new direction for America is making 
sure that we follow through with fiscal responsibility, pay as we go, 
not just on a credit card, not just saying because we can give tax cuts 
to millionaires, and we will just put it off on future generations, or 
we will go to foreign nations and borrow a record number of dollars.
  These nations, Madam Speaker, that I am holding up here, they own a 
part of the American apple pie, not because of what the American people 
have done, it is what the Republican Congress has done, and allow these 
countries to buy our debt because we are not fiscally responsible.
  I think it is also important to make sure that we encourage working 
families, people that are making minimum wage. Madam Speaker, I just 
want to make this point, then I am going to give it to my friend, Mr. 
Ryan from Youngstown, Ohio.
  As you know, Madam Speaker, we have had, time after time again, three 
or four occasions in the 109th Congress that we have asked the 
Republican majority to join us in raising the minimum wage, to make 
sure that the American workers are able to keep up with the costs of 
not only living but inflation.
  But it has been well said, and Mr. Ryan will point it out with his 
chart that he has there in a moment, that the Republican Congress is in 
no way and in no shape ready to give minimum wage workers an increase. 
Since 1997 they have not had an increase.
  But here in the 30-Something Working Group, Madam Speaker, we 
actually take time to find out the facts, because we want to make sure 
that we are not telling the American people nor Members of this House 
something that is inaccurate.
  I must say that in 1998, Madam Speaker, Members of Congress received 
$3,100 in a pay increase. And we are not minimum-wage workers. In 1998, 
minimum wage workers zero, Mr. Ryan.
  In 2000, Members of Congress received a pay increase of $4,600. Guess 
what? Same year, minimum-wage workers, zero. 2001, Members of Congress 
received $3,800. Minimum-wage workers, zero. In 2002, Members of 
Congress received another pay increase, $4,900, almost $5,000 pay 
increase. Remember we just got one in 2002, I was not a Member yet but 
it happened. Minimum-wage workers, zero.
  2003. Members of Congress, $4,700 pay increase. Just got one last 
year, getting another one in 2003. Of course, minimum-wage workers, 
zero. Punch in and punch out every day. They work a 40-hour work week, 
catch the early bus, trying to raise their children.

  Members of Congress, 2004, $3,400 pay increase. Same year, minimum-
wage workers, zero, Mr. Ryan, thanks to the Republican majority.
  2005, it is great to be in Congress. Too bad every American cannot be 
and minimum-wage workers cannot be. 2005

[[Page H5486]]

Members of Congress, $4,000. Tell you, the Republican majority takes 
care of their own, and us too. 2005, zero for minimum-wage workers.
  Proposed increase for Members of Congress, $3,100, Madam Speaker. 
And, of course, this year again, 2006, zero for minimum-wage workers.
  Mr. Ryan, I think it is important for us to share that, not only with 
the Members so they will not go home and say, well, you know, I do not 
quite know what was going on. If you have a family member, which I know 
many Americans, because there are 7 million Americans that are working 
in minimum wage, we have middle class workers that are working that are 
not working for minimum wage, but as long as minimum-wage workers are 
making $5 and change, the American worker will got get what they 
deserve.
  Madam Speaker, I guess it is okay, and I do not know if I have my 
chart here, the Republican Congress, Mr. Ryan, and quickly closing on 
this, I guess it is okay for big oil executives to have a $398 million 
retirement package and a $2 million tax break. I think that is where 
the priorities are.
  I think also the priorities are making sure that oil companies are 
able to price-gouge Americans at the same time. We are talking about 
energy innovation, E-85, for them to not only to sell the old stuff 
that is keeping it alive and well in the Middle East instead of 
investing in the midwest, Madam Speaker, and E-85, saying that you 
cannot use a credit card, a Mobil card, to be able to buy gas, but 
better yet you can go into the store and buy a carton of cigarettes or 
10 gallons of milk, but you cannot get this E-85, because we want to 
keep you there, and we are not encouraging them to do anything else.
  Madam Speaker, I think it is important also to outline, if you are an 
oil company, you are in good, or if you are a Member of Congress you 
are in good shape, because you are going to get a pay raise, and we are 
going to make sure that you are able to make record profits.
  As you know, Madam Speaker, and also, Mr. Ryan, almost nightly I read 
the Washington Post article that talked about the special meeting that 
took place in the west wing of the White House, in the complex, where 
oil executives met with Cheney's aides. Guess what? They got a pay 
raise and also a profit raise.
  Look what happened after their 2001 meeting, that Washington Post 
article, I believe it is on our website, housedemocrats.gov/
30something. $34 billion increase for 2002. 2003, $59 billion increase. 
Mr. Ryan, I think that was a good meeting. In 2004, $84 billion. And in 
2005, $113 billion.
  You want to know who is on your side, the bottom line is on this side 
of the aisle, we say we want to take this country in a new direction. 
We want to make sure that they receive the leadership that they 
deserve.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate that, because exactly what you are 
saying fits into the overall economic picture. And there was a great 
column the other day in the New York Times by Paul Krugman, who kind of 
outlined, as the statistics finally came in from 2004, we now know how 
the economic pie was divided in 2004.
  So what happened in 2004, which I find very interesting, this is 
inflation-adjusted income. The top 1 percent in 2004 had a real income 
increase of 17 percent. And the other 99 percent had an increase of 3 
percent.

                              {time}  2340

  Basically what we are saying here, is over the past 5 or 6 years, 
where President Bush is in and the Republican Congress, Senate and 
House have all been in, the top 1 percent had an income growth of 17 
percent on average. They received tax cuts from this administration. 
They are the same executives that represent the oil companies that get 
$400 million retirement packages. They are the same representatives on 
the boards of all the major multinational companies that have been 
going gangbusters.
  When you move the jobs offshore, and you take them to China, and the 
profits go up, and they just go to a small group, that is the same 
group that is getting the tax cut. That is the same group that is 
getting the corporate welfare, on and on and on.
  All we are trying to say is raise the minimum wage for the least 
among us, the 7 million people who need a little bump. For many people, 
this is irrelevant. I was having lunch today with a guy from Girard, 
Ohio, who owns a bunch of nursing homes. His people are at $8 or $9 an 
hour. He says, this has no benefit for me, one way or another. Why not 
raise it? Why not lift those 7 million people up, because you want to 
make an incentive for them to work and not create an incentive where 
they want to go on the government dole.
  But if you look at what's happening here, while the top 1 percent had 
an income growth of 17 percent, while they got corporate welfare in the 
energy industry to the tune of $17 billion, this is what has been 
happening here at home.
  Minimum wage has gone up 0 percent since 1997; whole milk, 24 
percent. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where you are 
going to the grocery store, and this is having an effect on you. Bread, 
up 25 percent; 4-year public college, 77 percent up; health insurance, 
up 97 percent; and regular gas, up 136 percent.
  We have leaders in the Republican Party saying I don't believe in the 
minimum wage, I am never going to vote for the minimum wage. I am never 
going to vote for an increase in the minimum wage. I mean, come on, 
what are you thinking?
  We need average Americans to be lifted up. I know, down in Florida, 
in Ohio, time and time again, we have people who need assistance. I 
want to make a point that the system right now is cutting against 
average people.
  If you got a couple kids in college, and tuition has doubled in the 
last 5 years, and you have to take your kids to and from school, and 
gas is up 136 percent, and you own a small business and you are trying 
to cover your employees, and health insurance is up 97 percent, you are 
just an American trying to make ends meet, keep your family together, 
and hopefully give the next generation an opportunity to have a little 
bit better off than you had it.
  People down here aren't doing anything to be helpful.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. There is another chart behind that chart further 
that goes into what is happening as it relates to middle-class 
families.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, and the best part about this chart is again, 
really, college tuition up, gas prices up, health care up, this is 
since President Bush has been in; median household income, down 4 
percent. When you have all of these increases, rapidly increasing, and 
the wages are increased by 4 percent, a terrible problem.
  But here is the real problem, President Bush says, America's economy 
is strong and benefiting all Americans. Come to Youngstown, Ohio, Mr. 
President. Come to western Pennsylvania. Come to south Florida, come to 
the Midwest. The economy is not benefiting all Americans, and the 
President needs to realize that.
  You know, I don't want to get into the whole international relations 
discussion here, because this is our focus, and I don't want to. But I 
am going to make one comment, because I know you want me to.
  This administration has been totally disengaged from average American 
people, from the international community. This problem we have in the 
Middle East right now is because this President disengaged the peace 
process 5 years ago. He has not been engaged.
  The number of terrorists are up from what they were in 2000, okay? 
Up. We have got problems now in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, North Korea, 
Iraq. We have got insurgency in Iraq, and we are spending $8 billion a 
month that needs to be going to address these problems, not building 
roads and bridges, health care centers and hospitals, and schools in 
Iraq, but building them here in the United States of America and 
lowering tuition costs.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Exactly what you are talking about, you say we 
are not going to talk about international affairs tonight, but you said 
a couple of words. And I need to say something.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Why do you have to always try to one-up me?

  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I am not trying to one-up you. I am trying to 
provide information to the Members of the House and the American 
people. You know we come in that vein every evening.
  I think it is very important that Members of Congress that have the

[[Page H5487]]

July 17 edition of Time magazine, it says, ``The end of cowboy 
democracy: What North Korea, Iran, Iraq, teaches us about limits on 
going it alone,'' okay? That is what it says, ``going it alone.''
  The real issue here, when you open the page, looks like a very 
worried Commander in Chief. He doesn't look like he is jumping up and 
down about everything that is great in the world. Because the bottom 
line is, we have done a lot on our own. It goes on in further detail to 
talk about how the administration now is trying to reach out to these 
countries.
  But meanwhile, as it relates to this majority rubber-stamp Congress, 
has allowed the President the ability to do anything and everything 
that he wants to do. I am so glad my rubber stamp has made it to the 
floor.
  I want to put it here. Because, as you know, we like to make things 
visible, so that people can understand what is going on here. The 
reason why we are in the situation that we are in now is the fact that 
the Republican Congress has rubber-stamped everything that the 
administration has handed down.
  This is not about the Commander in Chief. He is not going to run for 
election again. But you know what? In this Congress we run every 2 
years for election. It doesn't matter if you are a Republican, a 
Democrat, or an independent, you are an American first. You have to 
have a problem in what is going on.
  How many more indications do we need that the plan that has been set 
forth from the White House, has been handed to the Congress, and a 
Republican rubber-stamp Congress on partisan votes have voted for 
everything that this administration wants.
  The American people want this Congress to play the rule 
constitutionally that it is supposed to play and the checks and 
balances in making sure that we have adequate oversight and action. I 
can tell you no other President in the history, I think, of the 
Republic, has celebrated such a rubber-stamp Congress.
  Case in point: You want to talk about money? Let us talk about money 
for a second. Let us talk about commitment. Here is a chart. I pull it 
out almost every night, because I think it is just so revealing. I 
think in this time and this place and this moment, tonight, Eastern 
standard time, a little bit before midnight, 42 Presidents, 224 years. 
You saw the chart earlier.
  I said, foreign nations have bought our debt. Not because of what the 
American people have done, not because they have misspent. It is 
because the Republican majority has rubber-stamped everything.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Republican House, Republican President, Republican 
Senate. Bottom line.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Exactly. This is not bottom line that relates to 
the Republican Party, Democrats, this and that. This has nothing to do 
with that. It has everything to do with this Republican majority not 
saying no to the President even once, even if he was on the right 
track.
  Look at the numbers. This was from the U.S. Department of Treasury, 
this was a Secretary confirmed out of the Republican Senate and 
appointed by the President of the United States. These numbers are from 
the Republican Treasury, not the DNC, from the Republican Treasury, the 
United States Treasury, $1.01 trillion borrowed over 24 years from 1976 
to 2000.
  President Bush gets elected. Rubber-stamp Republican Congress. This 
is what happens: $1.05 trillion borrowed in 4 years from foreign 
nations. They have dethroned, I say they, we have to get the Gingrich 
chart out, because I don't want someone saying I am out of line here, I 
am only saying what the Republican past Speaker of the House is now 
saying, because the American spirit will rise above partisan politics 
at any time. That is why I feel that the American people are going to 
relook at their vote when it comes down to sending Members back here to 
the House that is willing to rubber-stamp this administration. I can 
tell you right now, it is sending us down a road that no one knows, 
down a tunnel that no one knows if it is sunlight or train.

                              {time}  2350

  $1.05 trillion borrowed from foreign Nations. The Republican Congress 
helped the President do this in 4 years alone. 224-years, Great 
Depression, World War I, World War II, other conflicts, Korea, you name 
it, Iraq, I can go on and on and on. There are too many names, hard 
times in America, challenges in America. They only borrowed $1.01 
trillion. This President in 4-years and the Republican Congress has 
borrowed more than that.
  Mr. Ryan, I am going to yield to you in just one second.
  This is what Newt Gingrich says. This is the Speaker, Madam Speaker, 
that brought on this Republican revolution; we are going to turn the 
country around with the contract for America. This is what he says in 
Knight Ridder newspapers, Friday, March 31, 2006. They, not my 
colleagues, my Republican colleagues in the House, my good friends in 
the House, they.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. My old friends in the House.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. My old friends in the House. He is saying, 
``they,'' so they means, Madam Speaker, that I guess he no longer 
associates himself and he has not said, oh, I was misquoted. He is 
standing by this. He continues, ``They are seen by the country as being 
in charge of a government that can't function.''
  Now, I am going the tell you something. If I was in my office now or 
I picked up the paper and I read that from a former Speaker of the U.S. 
House of Representatives in my party referring to me as ``they,'' that 
is why it it is important, Madam Speaker, that we come to the floor in 
the 30 Something Working Group, and speak with confidence and the facts 
and with great passion, because we love this country.
  The bottom line is, if we were working in a bipartisan way, we could 
not come to this floor with a straight face saying, well, the 
Republican majority is working with us and we have shared ideas and 
issues that we are in right now and the trouble that we are in right 
now, we are in it because we are in it together. The Republican 
majority cannot say that. Bipartisanship is only allowed when the 
majority does so.
  What have we said as Democrats? We are going to raise the minimum 
wage. We are going to implement all of the 9/11 recommendations, and 
you have a chart that is very revealing here, all of the 9/11 
recommendations. We are going to make sure veterans are treated with 
dignity and respect and they have the health care they deserve.
  We also said that we are going to look at these tax cuts to 
billionaires and make sure the middle class get their fair share. We 
are going to make sure there is dignity in health care and affordable, 
and if kids want to go to college, it is not about college kids, it is 
about those parents who have worked their entire lives to make sure 
their children and grandchildren have a better opportunity than what we 
have had.
  That is a new direction for America, and we have the will and the 
desire, Madam Speaker, to stand up to the President and to those that 
are willing to take us back to the days of deficits as far as the eye 
can see, and we are working to work and pay as you go to balance the 
budget.
  That is the reason why this rubber stamp, I want to retire this 
rubber stamp come this January if the American people see fit to say I 
am not going to vote for the individuals that have got us in this 
situation; I am going to vote for the folks that are going to adhere to 
the U.S. Constitution, stand up to the President of the United States 
and govern on behalf of this country and not just be a rubber stamp. 
This rubber stamp is, as far as I am concerned, we are going to have a 
session out in front of the Capitol, and we are going to drop it in the 
garbage can and burn it because this is not what this country is about.
  Democracy is about discourse and balance and accountability to the 
American people, and it should not be a rubber stamp Congress, and this 
is exactly what it is because that is what the Republican Congress has 
brought about.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If you just look at what we would do once we get 
in, just in the first day or two, pass an increase in the minimum wage; 
reduce college tuition costs, interest on student loans by half for 
both parents and student loans, cut in half to save people about 
$5,000. Just those two things alone will

[[Page H5488]]

save average American families thousands of dollars. Implement 9/11.
  Now, Mr. Gingrich brought up a great point. They are in charge of a 
government, Madam Speaker, that just cannot function. They do not know 
how to run government. They have had the opportunity over the past 5 
years, and they have been incapable and unable to execute and 
administer government.
  They run it down for years and then they expect it to work. They hire 
their buddies who know how to run ponies and administer horse shows, 
but then they cannot execute FEMA, Katrina, Iraq, Medicare, health 
care, gas prices, college education. They do not know how to administer 
government.
  Everyone likes to say that the Democrats do not know how to 
administer an immigration policy. Well here's the statistics. From 1993 
to 2000, the average number of border patrol agents added per year 
under Clinton, 642; under Bush, 411. Who is trying to protect the 
country from illegal immigrants coming into the country? It looks like 
to me that the Clinton administration did a heck of a lot better job 
than the Bush administration and the Republican Congress did.
  INS fines for immigration enforcement, 1999, under President Clinton, 
417 fines for immigration; only three in 2004 under President Bush. 
Seventy-eight percent fewer completed immigration fraud cases under 
President Bush. Under Clinton in 1995, fraud cases completed, 6,455; in 
2003, under President Bush, 1,389.
  It is not about ideology. It is not about what your rhetoric is. It 
is not about our little cute phrases that you may have and you may have 
worked on in some little interest group or some little building 
somewhere in D.C. and you just say the right things and it may sound 
like you know what you are doing.
  These are facts. Gas prices are facts. College tuition numbers, they 
are facts. Health care costs, those are facts. Prescription drug costs, 
those are facts. Tax rates on small businesspeople, those are facts.
  It is kind of funny because you go back home, you go back to the real 
world, and you get out from where the Potomac fever is, and you go back 
home and people are not saying things are going real good for them. But 
you come down here and our friends, many of them are our good friends, 
on the other side that stand in the well and they will try to convince 
everybody how great the economy is going. But when you go back to Ohio 
or Miami, it is not same.
  We know how to do this and we want, Madam Speaker, an opportunity to 
take back over the House of Representatives that was created by Article 
I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution. We want an opportunity 
to govern, to lower tuition costs, increase the minimum wage, implement 
the 9/11 Commission report, provide for the common good, the common 
defense, and do it with some commonsense and get the country going in a 
new direction.
  On www.housedemocrats.gov/30Something, all of our charts will be 
available. This was the 30 Something 2-minute drill today.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Let me say, I almost feel like a preacher of a 
Baptist church. I just wish I had time to preach this sermon. I wish I 
had time. The reason why I am saying that is by the House rules we have 
to end at 12:00.
  I am going to I say this to my good friend Mr. Manatos, we need a 
chart that talks about what Congress has received since 1998 in pay 
increases and what the American people have received in the minimum 
wage. We need a chart that talks about that every year, so Mr. Ryan, 
when you talk about when folks come to the floor, the majority side 
talk about how great the economy is, you doggone they come and say it 
because they have gotten a pay increase every year.
  Let me tell you, a lot of us here in Congress, including myself, are 
financially challenged. We have got to have a house here and a house 
there and kids and all of the things that goes with it. But do not vote 
for an increase for yourself and then turn around to someone that is 
making $5.15 an hour to say that you do not deserve it. Over my dead 
body. That is what the Republican majority is saying.
  So I think it is important. If I had time tonight to carry this point 
further, I would, but with that, Madam Speaker, we want to thank the 
Democratic leader for allowing us to have this time. It was an honor to 
come before the House to address the American people.

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