[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 13 (Tuesday, January 23, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H870-H875]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is recognized
for half the time remaining before 5 p.m. as the designee of the
majority leader.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to address the
House, and I can share with you on this day of the State of the Union
we all look forward to hearing what the President/Commander in Chief
has to share not only with the country but the world, and we hope that
he will bring words of wisdom and unity to the House floor. This will
be the President's seventh opportunity coming to the floor to share
with us the needs of the Nation. And I hope that he speaks on behalf of
the entire Nation.
As you know, the 30-Something Working Group has been coming to the
floor for the last 3 years sharing with the Members about what was
going on under the Capitol dome and what wasn't going on under the
Capitol dome. And we come today in the spirit of bipartisanship, Mr.
Speaker, and I would also like to continue to highlight bipartisanship,
because that is what the American people have called for and that is
what we have delivered.
And when I say ``we,'' I am saying a majority of the Members of the
House of Representatives, and you can sprinkle in some Republican votes
in achieving that. And I am glad that on a number of votes as relates
to the Medicare prescription drug price negotiating, all Democrats on
the floor voted for that, 24 Republicans voted for it, too. They voted
with their constituents.
The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, just about all the Democrats
on the floor voting on behalf, 216 with 37 Republicans joining us on
that vote, it was 253, which is a good majority of the House voting in
the affirmative. That is bipartisan.
The Fair Minimum Wage Act, Mr. Speaker, that passed on January 10,
which was a recorded vote, there were 315 yeas in the affirmative, all
Democrats on the floor at that time voted for it, 82 Republicans joined
Democrats in voting on that bill together, Mr. Speaker.
Again, in the implementation of the 9/11 Commission recommendations,
which we all know, Mr. Speaker, was a bipartisan piece of work by
individuals that were appointed by the President, the leadership, and
the House and Senate at that time, with two bipartisan chairmen, one
Republican and the vice chair was Democrat, all Democrats on the floor
voted, 231, and 68 Republicans. That brought that vote to 299.
I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, as we continue to move on and
as we look at the student loan vote, as we look at a number of the
votes that have come here to the floor, a great vote today as relates
to pensions for those that step out of the line, Members of the House
that step out of line and Members of the Senate, that their pensions
will be on the line. Not one vote against that measure.
In that spirit, I know, on behalf of the Democratic side of the
aisle, the Speaker, majority leader, Democratic whip, the chairman of
our caucus, the vice chair of our caucus, and other elected leadership
within the Democratic Caucus are looking to continue this bipartisan
spirit that we have adopted here.
[[Page H871]]
As you know, in the 109th Congress, Mr. Speaker, I used to always
share with the Members that bipartisanship is only allowed if the
majority allows it. I think that on some issues we will see issues
where we won't be able to see eye to eye and there will be some
partisan votes on this floor. That is just the reality of life here in
Washington, D.C., but it should not be the rule. It should be the
exception. And I want to commend all of those Members that are moving
in a bipartisan spirit.
Now, I must say the winds of bipartisanship are here on the floor. I
am sad to report that on many of those votes the Republican leadership
did not vote with the majority of the U.S. House of Representatives,
including Republicans that did vote on those measures. I say this to
promote a bipartisan spirit here when the State of the Union, when the
President comes in and gives his speech tonight; when he comes to speak
to the American people in the U.S. House, the U.S. Congress, Judiciary,
all branches of the military that will be represented here tonight,
Cabinet officers that will be represented here tonight, hopefully
deliver a message that we can move forward as a unit, as all Americans,
so something we can all grasp.
{time} 1515
I think it is important to move in that direction.
Now, on our side of many of these issues, when I say ``our side,'' I
am saying the Democratic side where we have talked about six in 2006,
where Republicans have joined us in those efforts because they wanted
to vote for it all along but their leadership would not allow them to
do that. We want to continue. We want to lead by example. We want the
American people to know that we are leading on behalf of the country,
not just one side versus the other. We do not want to create that kind
of environment; but when it has to take place, it has to take place.
Tonight, Senator Webb, Virginia, will be delivering the Democratic
response to the President, and I think it is important if we can see
eye to eye on a policy in Iraq because right now, as you know, a number
of the Senators on the other side of the Capitol dome have disagreed
with the surge policy or with the escalation of troops policy that we
have now that the President has stepped forward with. Many Members of
the House on both sides of the aisle disagree with that policy.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, a number of Americans spoke not only to
Democratic candidates but to Republican candidates about a solution in
Iraq versus just identifying a problem and continuing to add on to the
unfortunate situation of U.S. troops losing their lives in Iraq.
I think it is also important for us to know that for us to work in a
bipartisan way the President cannot continue to say, just because I
have the power to deploy troops along with my advisers that I am going
to do it. I think a level of responsibility has to kick in.
Mr. Speaker, I was talking to a group earlier today, and I shared
with them that the watch word for the 110th Congress should be
``responsibility,'' responsibility on both sides of the aisle to make
sure that we can fight our way out of the record deficit that we have
now and to be able to stick with our pay-as-we-go rules that we put in
place; to make sure that we govern on behalf of all the American people
need it be young or old, rich or poor; that we govern on behalf of
Americans and not on behalf of the special interests; and to make sure
that our children's children and we have safe, clean water, air to
breath; and that we can provide health care.
Now, saying all of that, it cannot be my way or the highway. Mr.
Speaker, the President has put forth a commission to look at Social
Security more than two times, and at the end of all of those
commissions, the President has come back and said we need to privatize
Social Security. That is a my-way-or-highway approach to governing.
I think it is important that the President come to this floor tonight
and the Congress respond in a way that we can work together, we can
work together to make America better. We can work together to make sure
that our troops in Iraq, hopefully more sooner than later, can be
redeployed, and that we can call not only on the Iraqi Government but
other countries throughout the world to take part in the security of
that region. As long as we continue to have an escalation in troops
without any questions asked, we are going to have problems.
Now, I am glad to be joined here by my good colleague and friend from
the great State of Ohio, Niles, Ohio, and we have spent many an hour on
the floor here talking about these issues, but I was sharing with the
Speaker and with the Members the fact when the President comes here
tonight that it is important that it is a message that all Americans
can embrace, that we deal with the serious issues so that we can get on
with the work of the American people, because shortly after he gives
his speech, he is going to send his budget to Capitol Hill, and that is
going to have a lot to do with the way this Congress is going to
function in this first session of the 110th Congress.
Hopefully, we will be able to pass a budget that will work on behalf
of the American people, but it cannot be a my-way-or-the-highway kind
of approach that it has been in the past. That did not work well, even
when his party had the majority here in the Congress. Imagine what will
happen, and they do have the minority in this Congress.
But we are willing, Mr. Speaker, to work in a bipartisan way to make
sure we can get something done. I think that is very, very important. I
think that is what the American people are asking for, and I yield to
my friend.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate how the gentleman has
been focused on bipartisanship over the past several weeks since we
have been here.
I agree with my friend from Florida on several issues. Just to go
back a few seconds, to talk about what is going on in Iraq and what
really the President's plan has been, and I think it is important that
we remove this from any kind of partisanship.
As we have shown in the past couple weeks here, I mean, the votes
that we have passed here have consistently been passed in a bipartisan
way. Minimum wage, student loans, Medicare and negotiations, all of
these have been passed in a bipartisan way. So the tone that Speaker
Pelosi has set in this House has been a tone of bipartisanship.
The concern that we have in Iraq at this point with the troop surge
is that this President does not have the support of the American
people. He does not have the support of the Democratic Party. He is
losing support among the Republican Party, and the former Chair of the
Senate Committee on Armed Services, John Warner, has now come out
against the President's proposal. The military, for the most part, is
against this proposal. It seems like almost everyone who was in the
Bush administration who had been in the military under this Commander
in Chief and has left is now against what the President is saying. The
Iraqi leadership is against it.
The only people who are for this is the administration, and I think
it is important for us to recognize that we need to get out in a way
that makes sure that we retain our dignity and that we redeploy. No
one's talking about cutting and running, but redeploy in a responsible
way and getting our kids out of harm's way, because this has been
botched from the get-go.
But I think it is important, and I appreciate you consistently
focusing. We have talked for 3\1/2\ or 4 years about if we get in
charge we are going to do it in a bipartisan way, and we have been able
to maintain that over the past couple of weeks, and I think it is
important that we continue to go down that road.
If you look at, and I do not want to talk too long because I know my
friend has an interest in joining, I want to look at the, Mr. Speaker,
first 100 hours, at what we have been able to.
Okay. This has kind of gone in two different directions. Pass the
minimum wage, reduce student loan interest rates, cut them in half, and
allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate down drug
prices. So if you are an average family, those are three major steps
forward where you are going to make more money, if you have a minimum-
wage worker, where you have less student loans to pay because the
interest rate is going to be cut in half, and the prescription drug
prices that your parents and grandparents are paying will be a lot
less. So
[[Page H872]]
that is going to be significant savings in the short term.
But now we have our long-term program, and if you look at where the
Democratic Party and Speaker Pelosi is pushing our agenda, we have
investments into stem cell research, which is something that we passed
in this Chamber just a few days ago, that we are going to invest into
this new and great and vibrant industry and new sector of our economy
that is not only going to reap tremendous health care benefits for our
citizens but also provide jobs for our scientists and our researchers
and funding the research and development and partnering with private
sector people.
That is going to create an economic boom in the United States of
America because once we pass it, if we can get it past the President,
that is going to be a heck of a move on our part. I think it is going
to be great for the American people, and it is going to be great for
the next generation of people coming out of college and coming out of
medical school and getting their Ph.D.s. We are going to have a whole
other sector of the economy.
In addition to the repealing of the corporate welfare, which I know
you had talked a lot about on this floor the past couple of years,
repealing the corporate welfare that we gave to the oil companies and
the energy companies and putting that money into research for
alternative energy sources, creating and pushing a whole other sector
of our economy so that we do not depend on the Middle East for our
energy, we got it right in the Midwest in the United States of America.
So we are stabilizing. We are taking care of people today. We are
giving the American people a pay raise, cutting student loan interest
rates in half, reducing the cost of prescription drugs now, and then in
the future moving into these two major growth areas of alternative
energy and stem cell research and into the health care industry.
I think Leader Pelosi and Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Clyburn and Mr. Larson
and Mr. Emanuel have all set an agenda for the Democrats in the House
to do some good in the short term and then to open up these other areas
of the economy in the long term.
So with that I would be happy to yield back to my good friend, my
dear friend from Florida (Mr. Meek).
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, I think it is important that we have a
real discussion back and forth on this very issue.
We talked about the President coming to the floor and hopefully
bringing about and, well, promoting bipartisanship, coming to the floor
and saying there are some good things that have happened here; you
know, hey recognize the historical moment of having the first female
Speaker in the history of the country; but secondly, dealing with some
of the major issues.
I understand, Mr. Speaker, in his speech on Iraq he is going to say
what he says and says he sent the escalation troops. He is going to
stick with it or my way or the highway. It is the wrong approach and it
is going to inflame the American people and Members of Congress on both
sides of the aisle.
Also, I would like to say, even when it comes down to the issue of
the minimum wage, I know that the President has said, well, you know, I
like the minimum wage but there are some things that I would like to
do. That is fine, but as far as I am concerned, when it comes down to
the bill, signing it, he needs to be overjoyed to sign it because that
is what the American people want. It is not just Democrats. I mean, the
American people want to see folks that are making $5.15 an hour to make
$7.15 or greater because when they make more, the American people make
more, salaried workers, because their pay is going to go up.
I see Mr. Ryan has something there he is going to go a little further
into it. Stem cell research, folks may have issues here and there, but
the bottom line is the American people have spoken in many of these
Senate races and many of these House races, and they have spoken
because they want their loved ones to have a better chance in beating
some of the terminal cancer that is out there right now and diseases
that so many Americans are suffering through and their family members
are trying to fight through those issues.
The bipartisan 9/11 Commission, Mr. Speaker, why fight on the commas
and the periods saying that, well, we believe that we are already doing
that. Well, apparently you must not be doing it because the 9/11
Commission has given you Ds and Fs in those areas that you say that you
are already doing it.
So not just because we got to the cafeteria first we get an
opportunity at the only oatmeal cookie that is left. It is the fact
that we have to secure America. This goes beyond I thought of this
first or I thought of this second.
The American people said they want the full implementation of the 9/
11 Commission, and that is what we gave them. The majority vote here in
this House and will be a majority vote in the Senate and will have the
opportunity to go to the White House and hopefully the President will
implement those recommendations, it is to make America safer. It is not
because it was not your original thought to do it, and I am hoping that
he comes to the floor and embraces that on behalf of all of our safety.
I do not think that I need to advise the President in any way, but I
think that on behalf of all of us, if we are going to continue the
spirit that we have started and bipartisanship and having the least
friction as possible, especially on issues that we should not even be
debating on, the issues that I have outlined, they are not even issues
that are brand-new issues. These are issues that have been talked about
in committee, talked about it in commissions, even as it relates to
campaigns to get to Congress.
The issue of the investment on Big Oil, the billions of dollars in
subsidies, and now we have reversed and put them in the clean,
renewable energy, that should not even be a debate.
{time} 1530
It should not even be, well, I agree with it or I don't agree with
it. You should agree with it, because we need it more now than ever.
One of the big issues now, Mr. Ryan, when it all boils down to
redeployment of our troops in Iraq, all of this is a vicious circle of
irresponsibility in the past, or a lack of responsibility, and making
sure that we are able to carry out not only diplomatic responsibility,
but legislative responsibility and oversight.
I think the reason we have had the escalation in troops, Mr. Ryan, is
prior to the lights being illuminated or the committee rooms being
illuminated to have hearings on what we should do in Iraq, how we
should work in a diplomatic way in Iraq, what kind of leadership should
we have in Iraq, now that is happening with the confirmation of a new
general to take over the command in Iraq.
I think it is important, Mr. Ryan, that we move in the direction that
we have been moving in, and that is in a bipartisan direction, that is
in a direction that the supermajority of American people agree with.
Let's get those things off the table. Let's start fine-tuning these
issues of six in '06. I think some of the Republican leadership just
has issues with the fact it is part of six in '06 and ``we have to be
against it, because we didn't do it when we had the opportunity to do
it.''
I can care less about what happened in the last Congress. I do care
about what is happening in this Congress, Mr. Ryan, and what is
happening in the future Congresses. Because when folks woke up at 7
o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday morning and voted for
representation, they voted for leadership, they voted for
bipartisanship, they voted for a Washington, D.C., especially under the
Capitol dome, Americans coming together, because we are all Americans,
coming together on behalf of the greater good.
That is what they are counting on. That is what we should give them.
The majority of the Members of the House should give that to them. When
I am speaking of the majority members of the House, I am talking about
Republicans too. I am talking about all of us coming together on their
behalf.
So, to hear these issues tonight, it is going to be very, very
important. The President has a choice. If he wants to come to the
floor, Mr. Speaker, and continue to give the same speech that he has
been giving in the past, it will be very, very unfortunate. But if he
comes to the floor tonight talking about how he would like to work with
the Democratic Congress and work with the Democratic leadership and the
Republican leadership, and the same
[[Page H873]]
thing over in the House and the Senate, work in a bipartisan way, if he
used the words ``bipartisan Congress,'' I think he will be more
successful in passing legislation that we can all come together on and
that we do have an input in it, because we will have input in it, and
we should not dig in and deny the American people of this great
opportunity, Members, to see advancement in health care, to see some
advancement in the issue of Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time, and
to see some level of advancement in having clean air for our children
and renewable fuel here in America, investing in the Midwest versus the
Middle East.
I yield to my friend from Ohio.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, I appreciate that. This is something you
mentioned about being bipartisan and working in a bipartisan way. I
think what has happened here has been very successful, and I think this
kind of illustrates it.
A couple of the things that the Democratic leadership and the
Democratic Caucus, with some help from the Republicans on the other
side, have been very successful. This is what has happened just in the
first 100 hours, should this all become law.
You look at the minimum wage being raised. It means $4,400 a year for
the average minimum wage worker. So over the next 5 years, the average
person will make another $22,000 because of what happened here in this
Chamber, led by Speaker Pelosi in a bipartisan way with a handful of
Republicans who were able to do that, 80 or 90, I think.
College loan interest rates cut over 5 years will save about $1,473.
Total earnings and savings for a family over 5 years will be $23,473.
This is bread and butter stuff. This is what will be implemented if
we can get it through the other side and signed by the President. This
is good stuff. This is what we can do in a bipartisan way.
So, I think this kind of stuff is important to move the country
forward. When we do that, I think we open up a lot of opportunities for
a lot of people around the country, and really around the world,
because of the opportunity that we would provide here. This is the kind
of bipartisan agenda that we want to continue with.
We are joined hereby a rising star already making a name for himself
down here in Congress, our good friend from Connecticut, Mr. Murphy.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. I am only making a
name for myself by associating myself with the works and deeds of Mr.
Meek and Mr. Ryan.
You are exactly right. As you know, I am able to join you here as a
second time as a new Member of this Congress.
What we were charged with doing was really taking back this House and
this place for people who are struggling every day to make ends meet.
The cost of tuition since 2001 has gone up 41 percent, while we know
wages have essentially remained stagnant, the minimum wage staying
exactly where it has been for the last 2 years, while the cost of
everything from food to school to gas goes up exponentially.
What we are doing here, piece by piece, is really restoring that
American dream, that idea your kids might be able to do better than
you, that your grandkids are going to live in a world with a greater
quality of life than you were able to live in. The first 100 hours were
about doing that, and, as I know you both have remarked, doing it in a
bipartisan way, doing it in a way in which the votes that came before
in the first 2 weeks drew an average of 60 Republican votes.
As Mr. Meek was saying as I walked into the Chamber, I think the
President tonight will find a very receptive Democratic side of the
aisle if he seeks to embrace that same type of middle-class/working-
class agenda that we have made really the central feature of this place
for the last 2 weeks.
Mr. Ryan, if I might, I wanted to talk just for a moment about health
care, because we are going to hear something from the President that,
unfortunately, we have heard for the last several years. We have heard
that the President wants to focus on the rising costs of health care,
the trouble that middle-class families are finding in trying to find
insurance.
It is about time on the issue of health care that this administration
starts to meet words with action. We have seen a lot of verbal
compassion, but we haven't seen a lot of meaningful reform from this
administration, as the profits being made by those who would make money
off of this health care system are in record numbers today. We are
seeing on the other side record numbers of families falling into the
ranks the uninsured.
Tonight we are going to hear a proposal that will essentially lop off
families who are receiving good insurance and put them into the ranks
of those families that have very bad insurance or are underinsured.
Essentially the President is going to propose tonight to make health
care cheaper and worse, whereas the Democrats, we know we can find a
way to make health care cheaper and better.
I simply look forward, Mr. Ryan, to engaging the President on that
debate and trying to convert he and his administration to the new-found
wisdom we found in this Chamber to put middle-class families rather
than those lobbyists and corporate interests first.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks.
The President only has a couple years left, Mr. Speaker, and I hope he
really uses this as an opportunity to try to reengage Congress and
reengage the American people and have some bold initiatives too. And
not just the rhetoric. Because we went through and our staffs went true
and were comparing everything that the President had said in previous
State of the Union addresses and then what the reality is, and you can
pick an issue, and we will give you the Web site and you can go and
check it all out. So a very skeptical Congress will be here listening
tonight.
But I hope in regards to health care that we can really focus. Of
course, we want everyone covered. But if you think about it, we
actually have a universe health care system right now, but it is just
run through emergency rooms. It is run in the most inefficient,
ineffective way that you could possibly set up a health care system. So
it is really not even a system, but it is just health care kind of.
What we need to do is try to get some of this investment on the front
end, make sure our kids through SCHIP have access to health care, and
that we are reaching out and communicating and pulling in people who
may qualify for some of these programs but don't actually sign up for
them. What is the outreach going to be? Because as we are competing a
global economy, as we have talked 1 million times on this floor, we
only have 300 million people in the United States of America. We are
now competing against China, who has 1.3 billion, India who has a
billion, and everyone else on the globe. We only have 300 million.
So we have to make our best efforts count, because we need all 300
million on the field playing for us, especially these young kids who
are coming up through the ranks. That is why I think it is important
when we are talking about the minimum wage and we are talking about
making sure that student loan rates are cut in half so we can have more
kids go to college, and then we pass the stem cell bill, so we are
creating not only a compassionate kind of research that is going to go
on and save people's lives and improve their quality of life, but that
is creating jobs in a whole new sector of the economy that right now we
are not doing exactly what we should be doing.
Then we also repeal the corporate welfare and we take the 13 or 14
billion and we are going to pump that into alternative energy, create a
whole other sector for alternative energy sources.
So you put all this stuff together that we are able to do that, that
is bold leadership. These are the kind of initiatives that we really
need in the country, and Speaker Pelosi has provided us with that
leadership.
So I hope in regards to health care, we get some bold tax credits.
How about a bold program where all Americans are going to be covered
and where we are going to put the money, instead of managed disease,
prevent diseases from happening and investing in these young people so
that they are healthy, educated and then create opportunity for us.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. I think it is very important, Mr. Ryan, to
really talk about many of the issues that are facing the right here,
right now Congress, right here, right now. Not, well, what we would
like to do pie-in-the-sky. Something realistic.
[[Page H874]]
Mr. Murphy, I can tell you that it is very important that when we
look at the issue of Iraq, that we have a real discussion. The
President is going in the opposite direction of the American people at
this point. I mean, in November, that is what happened. The President
is moving in this direction, the American people are going in the
opposite direction. He could be going this way, they are going that
way. I mean, it is just that simple.
I don't know who the advisers are in the White House or what have
you, but when you have generals that have been in the field at the
double digit numbers saying that we are headed in the wrong direction
as it relates to the strategy that the administration has, you have
Colin Powell. Goodness gracious, the Secretary of State, the former I
guess two Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of the military, to say an
escalation in troops in a civil war is a wrong thing to do.
We have been saying in November and even now saying that the
principal mission of our forces should be training of the Iraqi troops.
Now, that is ``we are going to start training.''
Well, we have been saying that from the beginning. That is a strategy
to redeploy hopefully one day. Not ``we will work it out sometime in
the near future.'' The issue of the logistics and force protection and
counterterrorism activities, those are the things that we should be
involved in versus patrolling the streets of Baghdad. Patrolling the
streets of Mosul. That should be the Iraqi force's responsibility right
now.
The beginning of phase, to be able to redeploy our troops, that has
to happen. We have military bases, Mr. Ryan, we have been there. We
have military bases that are the size of some U.S. cities in Iraq where
troops can be trained, Iraqi troops can be trained, along with getting
some of our allies to take part in that.
So for us to have what we talk about so much here on this floor, a
bipartisan approach towards some of these major, major issues, we are
going to have to move in that direction.
To try to make tax cuts permanent for the super wealthy, that is the
opposite direction as it relates to being able to provide some sort of
relief for the middle-class and small businesses in this country. We
have already said, Mr. Murphy, that we are going to operate in a pay-
as-you-go atmosphere. What does that mean? Mr. Ryan, you know how over
the years we have said we want to break this down, Mr. Murphy, so that
everyone can understand what we are talking about.
That means if you are going to pay for something, if you are going to
spend money, then you have to show how you are going to pay for it. Not
just saying a chicken in the pot for everyone. Well, how much does it
cost? That is not important, because we will just ask our country, we
will just ask Japan, China, the U.K., the Caribbean, Taiwan, Korea,
Canada and Germany and OPEC nations to pay that for us and we will just
owe them. We don't have to pay it any time soon, but we will owe them.
We will be indebted to countries even to countries that we have been
with war with in the past.
{time} 1545
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate that, because that is exactly what
happens is you don't have the money, there was no pay-as-you-go in the
last several Congresses, runaway spending, borrowing money from China.
What does that mean? Well, here is our budget priorities for 2007 prior
to Democrats taking office, budget into the billions of dollars. This
red bar here is just interest on the money that we borrowed. This is
not paying it down; this is just paying the interest on it. You know,
you get your mortgage and you get your car loan and you open it up and
you have got a 5 or $600 payment. You see $300 of it is actually going
to the payment and the other stuff is interest, and it breaks your
heart.
This is what the country is doing. But compare that to what we are
doing, this is education, homeland security and veterans. This is going
back to China; this is going back to some of those other countries.
And then you look and you see China says the test they did in space
does not signal an intent to militarize space. You can't get the real
facts on China's military budget, but they are buying a ton more ships.
That is where that money is going.
I think it is important to make that point because it is not just
money that just goes and floats out and the Federal Reserve tries to
find it somewhere. It is going to China, it is going to the Middle
East, it is going to OPEC countries.
And then we are funding both sides of the war on terror because we
are buying all the oil, making them money. It gets back to the
terrorists. And then we have a war in the Middle East and we pass
almost $500 billion already that we are spending from our side already
on the war in Iraq.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. I am going to yield to my friend from
Connecticut here in one second. Great point. I am glad that you put a
period at the end of that dot.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is why we are friends, stuff like that.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Ryan.
The real issue here is, gentlemen, even before I have an opportunity
to get a copy of the President's speech, Mr. Speaker, and even before
our great Sergeant at Arms stands there and says, Madam Speaker, for
the first time in the history of the country, the President of the
United States, even before that happens, I guarantee you, gentlemen,
that this health care proposal that the President has is going to end
up being to the American middle-class taxpayer, a person that wants
health care, money out of this pocket, taking money out of this pocket
and putting it hopefully in the other, with some coming out to pay for
it.
There will be no real program that will benefit the middle class in
achieving health care. It would have to almost be, Mr. Speaker, an
atmosphere to where for a person to get a true benefit, they would
probably have to go out and get a tax attorney to understand their
opportunities, their lucky-ducky opportunities that we hear so much
about here on Capitol Hill.
I think it is important, Members, that we break this thing down
before we leave Washington this week to make sure the American people
know exactly the direction that the administration wants this Congress
to move in, because there has to be a discussion. And it has to be
open-ended, Mr. Murphy. He needs to say, Listen, I have this health
care initiative; I would love to have a discussion with the Congress on
how we can make this possible for the American people.
Now, I can tell you right now, the superwealthy have an advocate in
the administration in making their tax cuts permanent; I am talking
about the superwealthy. I am talking about the folks who are not
worried about if they are going to be able to get health care. They
already have it.
We are talking about those 47 million Americans that are stuck right
now, and the thousands of small businesses that once provided a level
of health care; but let's not make it so technical so that only a few
can benefit. Some of the earned income tax credits are not taken
advantage of, Members, because when you are punching in and punching
out every day and you have to go pick up your kids, and if you have got
to take them to the doctor, you are making a career decision, that is
the reason why the emergency room is so convenient because the boss
person doesn't want to let that working parent or parents off to be
able to take care of his health care needs.
So this is a huge issue. But at the same time, I think it is
important, Members, that we keep in the frame here this issue of Iraq.
It has to continue to surface; we have to deal with it; and the
American people are counting on us to provide leadership.
I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I thank Mr. Meek.
There are already reports that the words we may get tonight are going
to give a little short shrift to the issue of Iraq. If the President
wants to put forth a plan that is so unpopular that it is not backed by
his own military leaders, it is not backed by our civilian foreign
policy expert, it is not backed by the American public, well, then he
should also have the courage to talk about it, to defend it, to put it
before us. But knowing that it is unpopular, we may not hear too much
about it tonight.
To get back to, Mr. Meek, your point on health care, let us be honest
about
[[Page H875]]
what is going to be proposed tonight, how we are going to save money on
health care. It is not by investing more in prevention; it is not by
moving people out of emergency rooms and putting them into real
programs and care. It is taking people who have good insurance and
making their good insurance bad insurance. It is going out and taking
folks who have had the great benefit of working for an employer that
provides a comprehensive package of benefits, and it is becoming less
and less likely these days that even good employers out there can
afford to give a robust package of benefits.
What the President is going to propose today is that for families
that have had the good fortune to find a good insurance plan, they are
going to tax that employer. They are going to make it less likely that
you are going to get good insurance anymore. So we are going to get a
proposal today which is going to actually result in worse health care
for a lot of families.
I guess the point here is that, you know, again, if we are going to
listen to the words that come from this administration, we heard in
last year's State of the Union that we need to confront the rising cost
of care, strengthen the doctor/patient relationship and help people
afford the insurance coverage we need, if we want to talk about that,
then we need to do something about that. And how we do something about
that is not by taking the haves and putting them into the column of the
have-nots. It is by keeping the haves where they are on health care and
taking the have-nots and giving them that same level of health care.
We can absolutely do that without adding cost to the system, because
those have-nots, as Mr. Ryan said, end up getting care. They just end
up getting the most expensive, the most unfortunate type of care, that
being crisis care. We can do a better job on that.
And, Mr. Meek, as you said, we can make sure that we continue to have
that discussion on Iraq, which may be missing tonight.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. One of the issues, you know, the more you talk, the
more you see how all this just really ties together. This is health
care costs and tying in a way to the minimum wage. The average family
health care premium in 2005 was $10,880; and the salary of a full-time
year-round minimum-wage worker was less than that, $10,700. So you will
work as a minimum-wage worker 40 hours a week for an entire year and
not even be able to pay for your full health care bill.
Now, in the United States of America, there is something wrong with
that. There is something wrong with the wage of the minimum-wage
worker, and there is obviously something wrong with the cost of health
care in the United States because of this kind of backward system that
we now have that just basically treats diseases and is not focusing
probably like it should in preventing a lot of these things from
happening.
And I think the more we reach out through the SCHIP program to make
sure that these families who are qualified for children's health care
know that they are qualified, to get them signed up, because at the end
of the day it is the right thing to do, it is the compassionate thing
to do, but at the end of the day it is going to save everybody a lot
more money, too.
If we can get these kids at a young age and make sure they are
treated, evaluated, they know the direction that they are going in,
they know the medical history of both parents so that they can be
treated accordingly.
I appreciate what you are saying and I appreciate you bringing up the
issue of health care.
I know we are running down here; the clock is ticking, Mr. Meek. I
would be happy to yield to you in order to get us down the road here of
wrapping things up. I appreciate all the comments that have been made
here, and I appreciate our young friend being here with us, who is
probably older than me.
I yield to our fearless leader from Florida.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I think in light of bipartisanship,
I know we split the hour, and I see my colleague on the Republican side
is already here, in the light of bipartisanship, we will yield back our
10 minutes that we have left on our time to get off on a good note
here.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, for any Members who want to, also to
their constituents, if they want to look at some of these charts we
have, www.speaker.gov/30something, get on the Web site, send us an e-
mail at [email protected], you will get a chance to look
at all these charts.
I appreciate our friend from Connecticut joining us. I look forward
to our President's speech tonight and hope it is inspiring and filled
with good information and good public policy that we can work on in a
bipartisan way.
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