[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 49 (Wednesday, March 21, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H2807-H2813]
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 Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to be here 
again to spend a small amount of time on behalf of the Speaker's 30-
something Working Group. I thank the Speaker of the House for allowing 
us this opportunity to come and share with our colleagues and share 
with the American people some, I think, very important thoughts on what 
is happening today.
  It was interesting, I got to hear the end of our colleagues' remarks 
from across this side of the aisle; and one of the things they have 
asked of this Congress, and you hear it over and over again as we talk 
about this war in Iraq, is that we have to finish the job. And I think 
there is a question that has to come before that subject. We have got 
to start asking a little bit more in this place what that job is. I 
think that is what this debate is about, in part, this week, and the 
debate that we have renewed here since we have brought the House under 
new leadership. What is the job that we need to be doing in order to 
keep this country safe?
  The answers to that have come in piecemeal fashion, in dribs and 
drabs over the past year. But maybe the most substantial piece of 
information, new information that helped us decide what that job is, 
was when we got last summer evidence through the National Intelligence 
Estimate that started to tell us that if our job is what we think it 
is, which is to do everything we can to keep this country safe, then 
our own Intelligence Community, the dozens of intelligence officers and 
organizations that contributed to that report came up with one 
unfortunately startling conclusion, and that was that our efforts in 
Iraq are on more days making us less safe as a Nation than making us 
more safe.
  Why? Because we have not only destabilized the region, but we have 
created what that report called a cause celebre in that country, where 
extremists and terrorists around the world now see Iraq as their 
proving ground, as their training ground, and as their breeding ground.
  So what we are debating here today is, I think, exactly the question 
that is posed by the other side of the aisle: Let's start talking about 
finishing that job. That job is ridding this world of fundamentalism 
and terrorism and extremism that poses a threat to us no matter where 
it is. It is not confined by the borders of some country in the Middle 
East that we occupy today. It doesn't know the borders of nation 
states. It poses a threat to us in all forms and from all places.
  And so this debate this week, the supplemental bill which this House 
will vote on shortly, is about refocusing our mission, starting to deal 
with the realization and the reality of a conflict against terrorism 
that goes far beyond the borders of Iraq.
  Part of what this bill is going to do is not only redeploy our 
forces, but also bring our troops out of harm's way in that country. 
You can't ask them to be a referee in what has become a religious 
conflict in that country, one that military leader after military 
leader, our own commanding general on the field there, General 
Petraeus, has said himself just earlier this month that there is no 
military solution to what has become a civil and religious conflict on 
the ground.
  Job number one is to recognize the limits of our brave men and women 
in Iraq. They do an unbelievably admirable job every day. We are so 
grateful, especially those of us in the 30-something Working Group who 
consider those men and women our contemporaries, that they have chosen 
to defend this Nation so that others of us are able to serve this 
country in a different way. In order to honor them, in order to support 
those troops, we need to bring them out of a fight that our military 
forces cannot win alone.
  But this is also about refocusing that effort, and I think that is 
what we have to keep on coming back to here, is there are fights still 
worth fighting in other parts of the world, such as Afghanistan, where 
we are on the verge of losing control of that country back to the very 
forces that gave cover and umbrage to the people who attacked this 
Nation on September 11. Remember, it was not Saddam Hussein that flew 
planes into tall buildings in New York, it was Osama bin Laden's 
organization called al Qaeda that used Afghanistan and the Taliban as 
its place and center of operation. And that country, as we have shifted 
more forces away from Afghanistan into Iraq, is now falling back into 
chaos, and part of our mission here has to be a realization that there 
are places worth fighting, and there are places in which military 
forces cannot quell ongoing violence. Afghanistan is still a fight 
worth fighting.
  But it is also about focusing our efforts back here at home. And one 
of the secrets starting to come out, and thanks in part to the work of 
Representative Wasserman Schultz and

[[Page H2808]]

Representative Meek and Representative Ryan, the work they did here on 
the late nights on the floor of the House, we were able to hear a 
little bit about this in the past year, was that this Congress over the 
last several years wasn't doing justice to the issues of homeland 
security, wasn't doing everything that we should be doing in order to 
protect our own people and our own borders here at home.

  So this supplemental bill that everybody hears about that the 
Congress is going to vote on is not only going to finally do exactly 
what the will of the people have asked for in the election of last 
November, which is set a new course in Iraq, but it is also to start 
refocusing and redoubling our efforts back here at home.
  The $2.6 billion in this bill will be rededicated to the efforts to 
make sure that terrorism does not find harbor on the shores of this 
Nation. Over $1 billion for aviation security, $90 million for advanced 
checkpoint explosive detection equipment, $160 million to increase air 
cargo screening, $1.25 billion for new port transit and border 
security, $150 million for nuclear security. We can go on and on and 
on. We are going to finally step up to the plate as a Congress and make 
sure that we are spending money to win the fight that matters to finish 
the job.
  That job, Mr. Speaker, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, has to be done with the 
recognition that Iraq has become now a place that, on more days than 
not, presents a greater danger to this country by creating a hotbed, a 
training ground, a proving ground for terrorists. We need to start 
refocusing our efforts on fights that matter.
  This is going to be one of the more important pieces of legislation 
that will come before this Congress, and I think it will honor that job 
that we are entrusted with, which is to protect this Nation from those 
that would do harm to it.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you so much to my friend from 
Connecticut. It is a pleasure to join you in the 30-something Working 
Group once again.
  And we need to remind our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, 
Mr. Speaker, that, on November 7, the American people sent us a very 
loud message. They sent us a loud message that they wanted us to move 
this country in a new direction. We began to do that. We heard them, 
and we began to do that in implementing our 100 hours agenda, our Six 
in '06 agenda, by adopting a bill that would establish an increase in 
the minimum wage, by having the student loan interest rate, by making 
sure that we hold pharmaceutical companies' feet to the fire and ensure 
that, for Medicare part D prescription drug beneficiaries, that we 
negotiate for lower drug prices. We wanted to make sure that we expand 
the research into uses of alternative energy.
  So what do we do? We repealed the subsidies that were given away by 
the Republicans to the oil industry so that we can use that money more 
appropriately to fund alternative energy research. We passed 
legislation that would implement fully the 9/11 Commission 
recommendations.
  And, on top of that, the other piece of the new direction pie was 
clearly the message sent by the American people, Mr. Murphy, that they 
want a new direction in terms of the war in Iraq. They are sick and 
tired of the rubber-stamp Republican Congress that we used to have 
giving the President a blank check, allowing the administration to go 
unchecked in terms of its utter lack of accountability, allowing 
contracts to be let with no questions asked; no hearings during the 
course of the years. We have now completed 4 years of this war, and up 
until the time when Democrats took over this Congress no questions, no 
hearings about the direction that the administration was taking this 
country and this war. A total shift from the war of necessity, which 
was the war in Afghanistan, which really was in direct response and had 
the widespread support of the American people, that really and truly 
was a response to the 9/11 attack; instead, a shift to a war of choice 
in the war in Iraq. And that was utterly unacceptable when Congress was 
misled and was given a set of facts on intelligence 4 years ago, when 
they misled Congress into voting for this war.
  Now, we are still mired in chaos there. The administration has 
allowed Afghanistan to descend back into chaos when we had brought them 
democracy, and we had beaten the Taliban, and women had been given an 
opportunity to have freedom. Girls could go to school again. It was a 
new day in Afghanistan. And that has essentially been squandered. In 
favor of what? In favor of civil war in Iraq? In favor of us 
intervening and trying to resolve a civil war between the Sunnis and 
the Shiites that has gone on for hundreds if not 1,000 years?
  When is this administration going to recognize that when we say the 
word, when we refer to the troops, Mr. Speaker, it is very easy to 
think, let's examine the term ``troops.'' I think it is very easy to 
look at that word and not see it in a personal way. I think that we 
throw the word ``troops'' around so much that we forget that troops, a 
troop is a person.

                              {time}  2100

  We are talking about individuals who are fighting for this country 
and who are doing their duty. And most of them that are over there are 
on their third tour of duty, Mr. Murphy.
  I know I have told this the last few times that I have been here with 
my 30-something colleagues, but I went to Walter Reed. I cannot get it 
out of my mind, because I have two 7-year-old kids and a 3-year-old, 
and I can't imagine what this family has gone through.
  But one of the soldiers that I visited when I went to Walter Reed 
before we voted on the escalation resolution and rejected the 
President's policy, when we voted to adopt that resolution, rejecting 
the President's policy on escalating this war, I went to Walter Reed 
before we voted on that. And one of the soldiers I met was with his 
wife and with his young child, who was 6 years old, this beautiful 6-
year-old little boy. And that 6-year-old little boy was so excited that 
his dad's tour was going to be done in August, and he said, my daddy is 
coming home forever in August.
  His dad was sick in Walter Reed. He had contracted a mysterious 
illness. But he had been through three tours of duty. Each were a year. 
And his only son, his only child was 6 years old. And that meant that 
he missed half of his son's life already.
  So when we refer, you know, without thinking to the troops, the 
troops, if it is a brigade or any one of a number of military terms 
that we use for individual troops or a collection of troops, we are 
talking about people.
  And if we do not make sure that this supplemental passes, the choice 
is a plan to get our troops home and provide them with the equipment 
that they need and an exit strategy and benchmarks to ensure that the 
we and the administration hold the Iraqi government accountable to meet 
those benchmarks. The alternative is a continued blank check and a 
directionless war that has no end in sight.
  It is a pretty stark contrast. We can eventually see our way clear 
and had there been a light at the end of the tunnel and adopt the 
supplemental and, in addition to that, provide the support that our 
troops need, the equipment that they need, the plan to get them home, 
and support for our veterans, which is incredibly important; $1.7 
billion in this bill for health care for our veterans.
  We have this glaring, horrific problem at Walter Reed that went 
ignored by this administration. And thank God we had those, the heads 
that have rolled. But would they have rolled if Democrats weren't in 
charge of Congress? No. We know they wouldn't have, because, yet again 
another scandal would have been swept under the rug. The administration 
would have tried to ride it out, keep their fingers crossed, squeeze 
their eyes shut tight and hoped that they could endure until the next 
media news cycle went through.
  No more, not now that we have balanced government, that we have the 
ability of this Congress to assert our oversight role and to reassert 
what the founding fathers envisioned, which was our system of checks 
and balances.
  And I think we are all about third party validators here in the 30-
Something Working Group. And I noted what this Washington Post article 
from Wednesday of last week, it was appropriately titled ``White House 
Finds Trouble Harder to Shrug Off.'' And it goes on to talk about how, 
in

[[Page H2809]]

the past, questions about its, meaning the White House's, actions might 
have died down without the internal administration e-mails being made 
public, referring to the U.S. attorney scandal.
  There are many issues that would have just been swept aside by this 
administration in the past, allowed to occur and ignored by the then 
Republican leadership here. But not now that we have a democratic 
Congress that is going to make sure that we hold this administration's 
feet to the fire, and make sure that they are responsible for civil 
liberties for all Americans, and fiscal responsibility.
  I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, you are exactly 
right. There is a new day here. And I don't have the comparative 
experience that you do. I watched this place as an observer for the 
last several years. One of the reasons that I ran was you sit around in 
coffee shops and local community halls, and people generally don't pay 
much attention to the division of labor down here. I mean, people 
aren't necessarily talking about in their daily lives the co-equal 
branches of government. They are not thinking too much about the 
separation of powers. But you know what? They were forced to talk about 
it in the past several years, because people didn't understand how, in 
record numbers they were turning out, not only in elections, but in 
community meetings, to tell their Members of Congress that they needed 
a change in Iraq, because, not only did they have moral and 
intellectual objections to what we were doing over there, but they were 
talking to the families of those troops who were being sent over there 
without body armor. 18 months it took until our forces over in Iraq had 
the body armor that they needed. They were looking at statistics like 
the one we just found out earlier this month which said that 88 percent 
of the National Guard and Reserve troops are so poorly equipped that 
they are rated not ready by the military; that we have not one active 
duty reserve brigade in the United States that is considered combat 
ready. And so people out there were hearing over and over again from 
the families of the troops, the troops themselves, which was backing up 
their own instincts about the backwards nature of our policy in Iraq. 
And they wondered where Congress was. And they watched this place sort 
of shut down for a number of years. And they couldn't understand why 
their elected Members of Congress weren't standing up and asking some 
questions. I mean, at the very least, asking some questions about what 
this president was doing over there.
  Mr. Speaker, there were six opportunities since this war began for 
this Congress, on supplemental appropriations bills, to stand up and 
try to perform some perfunctory oversight over this war; four 
emergency supplemental bills, two emergency spending funds in the 
Department of Defense authorization bills, six times this Congress, 
under Republican leadership, had an opportunity to stand up and say, 
you know what? We are going to give you some more money to conduct this 
war, but we are going to put some strings on it. We are going to try to 
check your authority in some even elementary way. Not once. All six 
times this Congress stood down. Despite a lot of yelling and screaming 
from one-half of this chamber, this Congress stood down and gave 
President Bush virtually every single thing he wanted.

  Now, listen. I understand you might have been lulled into a sense of 
complacency here. This Congress heard from this president over and over 
again that things were going well, things were going fine, everything 
was going to be better. We find out now that all along this 
administration knew that things weren't going well. In fact, they knew 
things were pretty terrible on the ground and they were plotting this 
new strategy, a very different one than I think the American people 
intended on Election Day. They wanted a new course of direction in 
Iraq. They didn't necessarily think that that policy was going to be 
escalation. I think they were counting on de-escalation. It was a 
slightly new direction, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
  But here is the thing, is that people in this country became 
constitutional scholars over the last couple of years because they 
started scratching their heads when they picked up the paper every 
morning as this war was going nowhere but downhill, and there was 
deafening silence coming from Congress. And so there is a lot of 
commotion in here about this emergency supplemental bill because it has 
got some policy in it. We are actually, instead of rubber stamping the 
President's requests, we are actually saying, if we are going to give 
you another dime for this war, then we are going to make sure that you 
honor the will of the American people, that you step up to the plate 
and listen to the foreign policy community that this Nation has 
expressed through the Iraq Study Group; that you listen to your own 
generals, many of which who will tell you over and over again, that 
though there might be a political or diplomatic solution to what 
happens on the ground in Iraq, that it cannot be a purely military 
solution; that you start listening to the families of those troops who 
have cried out for years to equip them when they go over, to make sure 
that they are protected when they serve overseas, and to make sure that 
their health care is taken care of when they come back; that we 
actually conduct this war, redeploy our forces in a responsible manner. 
For the first time, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, this Congress is stepping up 
to the plate and actually conducting that type of oversight.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You know, you are absolutely right. And in 
addition to the oversight and accountability and new direction that the 
supplemental on Iraq seeks to provide for the direction that the actual 
conduct of the war is taking, it is really imperative that we focus on 
the portion of the bill that relates to what it does for our veterans 
because, clearly, this administration, and the former Republican 
leadership of this Congress, did a disservice to them. They spent, in 
the 2 years that I was here prior to your arrival, the careless 
disregard that I noticed for veterans coming from the former Republican 
leadership was just really unbelievable because so often, Mr. Speaker, 
I heard our colleagues and friends on the other side of the aisle stand 
on the floor and profess undying devotion to our Nation's veterans and 
how it was imperative that we support them.
  Well, words are nice. But that is all they were because every 
opportunity that our colleagues had, in the time that I was here, when 
I first got here as a freshman, to help our Nation's veterans, the 
Republicans said no. No.
  In January of 2003, which is actually prior to my getting here, the 
Bush administration actually cut off veterans health care for 164,000 
veterans. Don't believe me? You have only to look at the Federal 
Register to see the documentation of that.
  March 2003, the Republican budget cut $14 billion from veterans 
health care that was passed by Congress, with 199 Democrats voting no. 
That was H. Con. Res. 95, vote Number 82 on March 21, 2003.
  Then we moved to a year later, March 2004. One would think that the 
Republicans had a year to think about it and would have finally 
realized that it was time to stand up for our Nation's veterans. They 
certainly said it a lot. When it came to doing it, they fell short.
  The Republican budget shortchanged veterans health care then by $1.5 
billion. That was passed by Congress with 201 Democrats voting against 
it.
  In March of 2005, another year later, President Bush's budget 
shortchanged veterans health care by more than $2 billion for 2005, and 
cut veterans health care by $14 billion over 5 years, and passed with 
201 Democrats again voting against it.
  Now, let's go to the summer of 2005. And I was here by then. I could 
not believe that this happened, because for months and months the Bush 
administration denied that there was a shortfall, said that there was 
no problem, stalled and pushed back. And finally, in summer of 2005, 
Mr. Murphy, after democratic pressure, the Bush administration finally 
had to acknowledge in Fiscal Year 2006 that there was a short fall in 
veterans health care that was their error of $2.7 billion. And we had 
to fight all summer to get it fixed and have an emergency supplemental 
bill just to address the shortfall. It took pressure and cajoling and 
shame to finally bring them to the table and get them to do that.

[[Page H2810]]

  And then in March of 2006, President Bush's budget cut veterans 
funding by $6 billion, Mr. Speaker, over 5 years. That was passed by 
the then Republican controlled Congress.
  Fast forward to January 31st of 2007. The new direction Democrats 
increased the VA health care budget by $3.6 billion in the joint 
funding resolution.
  And now, I can tell you that in our supplemental that passed out of 
the House Appropriations Committee last Thursday, on which I sit, with 
none of the Republicans, zero voting for it, $1.7 billion to the 
request for veterans health care, including $550 million, Mr. Speaker, 
to address the backlog at the VA health care facilities so we can 
prevent similar situations like what happened at Walter Reed because 
certainly, if we didn't know what was going on in Walter Reed, we have 
to make sure we address the needs of our veterans in health care 
facilities across this country that are run by this administration's VA 
agency.
  $250 million for medical administration so that we can insure we have 
sufficient personnel to address the rising number of veterans that are 
coming back from Iraq, and that we have to make sure we maintain a high 
level of services.
  $229 million for treating the growing number of veterans. $100 
million to allow the VA to contract with private mental health care 
providers to provide veterans, including Guard and Reserve members who 
so often are neglected, Mr. Murphy, with quality and timely care; and 
$62 million so that we can speed claims processing for returning 
veterans.
  When I went to Walter Reed, and when I have gone home and talked to 
my veterans, and I know that you have experienced this too, the 
bureaucracy and the red tape that our veterans have to go through to 
get care. It is like they put roadblocks, it is like the VA and this 
administration puts roadblocks in front of our veterans on purpose.

                              {time}  2115

  It is like they delight in stalling them. I mean, it is not their 
money. I don't get it.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Reclaiming my time for a moment, in 
Connecticut we have the same problem that you talk about. It takes 
hundreds of days for veterans simply to get qualified for the benefits 
once they return. I mean, of all the benefit programs that this 
government runs, it would seem that the veterans program would be the 
easiest to qualify people for, right? Because what is the 
qualification? You served in the military. You fought for this country. 
There is a record of it. It is not hard to find. And yet we have 
constructed so much bureaucracy and so much red tape.
  And I understand that a lot of the folks in the Department are trying 
to do a lot with not enough funding to do the job, but it is time that 
we cut through it because we shouldn't be talking about a system that 
is of inferior care or equal care to that of what you or I get or 
people in this community get. Our veterans' health care system should 
be the gold standard of care in this country. We should accept nothing 
less than the best that our health care system can offer. And we know 
not only through the recent revelations at Walter Reed, but also simply 
in the conversations that we have door to door.
  It was amazing to me in this last election, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, as 
I went door to door over the summer and fall. I did it almost every 
night, and almost without exception if you knocked on the door of a 
veteran, someone that had served in World War II through the more 
recent conflicts, almost without exception health care came up, whether 
it was a personal problem they had had with the system or a problem 
that a family member or one of their brothers and sisters in arms had 
encountered when they came back. Almost every single veteran brought 
that up because they have a notion, and it is exactly right, that when 
they come back here, their community should be able to stand up for 
them and make sure that they continue to be healthy, certainly make 
sure that the injuries they received in defending this country are 
treated expeditiously, efficiently, and with the best care possible.
  And so it was remarkable to me how often this issue came up, Ms. 
Wasserman Schultz, just as you talked to people door to door. It was so 
real and so palpable because to the people who have served this 
country, there is no greater dishonor, and I am speaking as someone who 
has not served, but who has had the honor to know many that have, no 
greater dishonor to them than to come back to a country that doesn't 
express a deep and daily sense of gratitude for that service.
  Ms. Wasserman Schultz, for all the bad news that I heard on the 
campaign trail, the good news is this bill that we will vote on will 
honor that service, one of the biggest infusions of funding support for 
the veterans' health care system that this country has ever seen. And I 
can just hope that when I go back out there this summer, when I am 
going out just to knock on doors to check on people in a noncampaign 
environment, that you will hear a very different story, that they will 
feel finally their stories are being heard.
  I yield to Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you. Because now they finally have 
responsive government, Mr. Murphy. They finally know that the Members 
who represent them collectively in this Chamber, the Members that are 
leading this Chamber are hearing them, that it is not falling on deaf 
ears; that this institution is not of the special interests, for the 
special interests, and by the special interests any longer. Now we have 
restored this to actually be the people's House, and our leadership and 
our agenda is a reflection of the interests of the people.
  And as much as they might like to say that that wasn't the case, 
privately in their heart of hearts when they went to sleep at night, 
our Republican colleagues had to lay down in the dark by themselves 
when they went to bed and know that they weren't addressing the needs 
of the American people.
  I mean, I am not someone who lives and dies by polling, but look at 
the polling. Look at the numbers towards the end of last year and how 
the American people generally felt about the job that this Congress was 
doing. That is a reflection on all of us. It is just appalling that the 
American people would have confidence in the twenties in the likelihood 
that Congress was going to be responsive to them. They would express 
support for their individual Member of Congress, but collectively as an 
institution they have lost confidence in us.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Reclaiming my time just for one point. 
Before coming over here, I was reading a really interesting front-page 
article, and I think it was a recent Newsweek or Time, and it was 
entitled, sort of, The Downfall of the Right, and it was talking about 
how the sort of conservative ideology has really fallen by the wayside 
in the past several years. And one of the things it had talked about 
was that when the class of 1994 was ushered into office, there was a 
sort of purity to their ideology. You disagreed with a lot of the 
things they stood for, but they did come in here as reformers. I mean, 
they did come in here and set a whole new bunch of rules for this 
House, how this place was governed. They changed the franking rules. 
They put in term limits. And you could have disagreements with some of 
the results of that ideology, but they did come in here with some real 
ideas rooted in some intellectual discussion about how you change 
Congress.
  And what this article was sort of pointing out was that over time, 
over the last 12 years, the ruling party of this Congress became one 
that was guided by a set of ideas to one that was guided by a 
collection of special interests; that it was simply kind of an 
amalgamation of different lobbyists and different industries that would 
sort of pull and push for control over this place, and it stopped being 
one that was guided by any real ideas about how to move this country 
forward.
  And it was an incredibly interesting survey on how the Republican 
Party has changed over the years. And if you want to know why their 
reign ended after 12 years, in part I think it is a recognition from 
the American people that this place stopped being about ideas and in 
the end started being about those special interests.

  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I want to segue to the U.S. attorney matter 
because what you just said brought something to mind. But before I do 
that, I do want to throw out yet another example of the neglect, of the

[[Page H2811]]

just stark neglect, that this administration has and has had for our 
veterans. I mean, take Walter Reed. I have a timeline in front of me, a 
neglect timeline for the treatment of the soldiers that are housed at 
Walter Reed and that seek services at Walter Reed, going back to July 
of 2004.
  First I want to just put up this Newsweek Magazine cover, Mr. 
Speaker. This is a young woman who clearly has lost her legs, and I 
think the picture speaks all that it needs to without words. But the 
caption on the picture on the cover of Newsweek, which was the week of 
March 5 of this year, says: ``Shattered in body and mind. Too many 
veterans are facing poor care and red tape. Why we're failing our 
wounded.'' And Walter Reed, there is no better example of what this 
article spoke to, Mr. Speaker, than the neglect timeline at Walter 
Reed.
  If you go back to July of 2004, again, Mr. Murphy, in the summer 
before I was elected, you had Major General Kevin Kiley appointed 
Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Commander.
  In mid to late 2004, you actually had our colleague from Florida (Mr. 
Young) and his wife stop visiting the wounded at Walter Reed out of 
frustration; Mr. Young, who has been a champion for veterans. Believe 
me when I tell you that our colleague from Florida Mr. Young is a 
legend, an absolute legend, that is revered in a bipartisan way in this 
institution. But Mr. Young said he voiced concerns to commanders, 
including Major General Kiley, over troubling incidents he witnessed, 
but was rebuffed or ignored. He said, ``When Bev or I would bring 
problems to the attention of authorities at Walter Reed, we were made 
to feel very uncomfortable.'' And the source of that was the Washington 
Post.
  November of 2005, House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Steve 
Buyer announced that for the first time in at least 55 years, 
``Veterans service organizations will no longer have the opportunity to 
present testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate 
Veterans' Affairs Committees.''
  Now, talking about closing off access to the people that we are here 
to serve, can you imagine that they wouldn't let veterans service 
organizations testify in front of the Veterans' Affairs Committee? I 
mean, it is just mind-boggling.
  August of 2006, Army Major General George Weightman assumes command 
of Walter Reed, replacing Major General Kiley.
  September 2006, 13 Senators, 11 Democrats and 2 Republicans, sent a 
letter to urge then-Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad 
Cochran, Republican from Mississippi, and Ranking Member Robert Byrd, 
Democrat from West Virginia, to preserve language in the House defense 
appropriations bill that prohibits the U.S. Army from outsourcing 350 
Federal jobs at Walter Reed. A similar provision, introduced by 
Senators Mikulski and Sarbanes, was defeated by a close 50-48 vote 
during the bill's consideration in the previous week.
  Then in September 2006, Walter Reed awards a 5-year, $120 million 
contract to IAP Worldwide Services, which is run by Al Neffgen, a 
former senior Halliburton official, to replace a staff of 300 Federal 
employees. Halliburton again. Who headed up Halliburton, Mr. Murphy? Do 
you recall who headed up Halliburton?
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. For a period of time, it might have been 
the gentleman that currently serves as our Vice President.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Yes, I believe you are right. The gentleman 
that is currently our Vice President.
  In February of 2007, just about a month ago, the number of Federal 
employees providing facilities management services at Walter Reed, Mr. 
Speaker, had dropped from 300. There were 300 Federal employees that 
were replaced with a $120 million private contract run by a former 
senior Halliburton official, and the 300 dropped to fewer than 60. The 
remaining 60 employees went to only 50 private workers; 300 to 50 
private workers.
  February 19, we know it was revealed by the Washington Post that 
there was an expose detailing mistreatment of veterans at housing on 
the grounds of Walter Reed Medical Center. And what has unfolded since 
then is resignations of top generals, resignations of the Secretary of 
the Army. Heads are rolling, Mr. Murphy, as they should be, because of 
the profound neglect of our wounded veterans and our veterans that need 
assistance from that very fine institution.
  Not only did the heads roll, but it led the Appropriations Committee 
last week to adopt an amendment offered by my colleague who sits on my 
subcommittee, Mr. LaHood, to ensure that Walter Reed Army Medical 
Center is not closed down because not only do we need to get to the 
bottom of what is going on there, but we need to make sure that that 
institution not only continues to serve our Nation's veterans, but 
serves them well.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, you talk to Members 
on the other side of the aisle, and I think they share that same 
concern for veterans. I mean, they do. We are not suggesting that 
anybody in this Chamber was sitting here intentionally deciding that 
they were going to create the situations that happened on the ground at 
Walter Reed. It is just a matter of choices. It is a matter of the 
choices that were made here. And whether they were made consciously or 
unconsciously, it resulted in an abysmal situation for veterans.
  The choices that ended up getting made here when it came to the 
fiscal situation in this country was to hand out massive, unprecedented 
tax breaks to the top 1 percent of income earners in this Nation while 
we were fighting a war. While we were fighting a war. It never happened 
in this country. We have never asked this country to go into war 
without asking the entire country to sacrifice in order to pay for it, 
because here is the thing: The cost of the war isn't just the guns and 
the troops and the tanks and the armor. It is the health care for the 
people that come back here afterwards. The cost of the war is the whole 
thing.
  And so we ended up short-changing our troops and short-changing the 
people that came back here because we decided that what was more 
important was to hand out another round of tax breaks, this last one to 
the persons in our districts, the rare folks who are lucky enough to 
make $1 million a year. They got $40,000 back from that tax cut.
  I know if I showed up at their door and asked them, if you had to 
choose, if you had to choose as someone who is taking in income of $1 
million or more a year, would you take the full value of that tax cut 
if you knew that that was going to leave the decrepit conditions that 
we have found at Walter Reed, that that was going to result in waiting 
times of up to a year for services for the men and women that fight to 
protect us overseas? I know what their answer would be, and it should 
have been the answer of this Congress.
  It now does get to be the answer. The answer now gets to be that our 
priority is going to be making sure that those folks are taken care of 
when they come home.
  And do you know what? We have already voted for tax cuts in this 
Congress. You can do both. You can still find a way to provide targeted 
tax relief to people who need it, as the small business tax cut bill 
here in the House a couple of weeks ago, and honor those commitments.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, it is essential that we honor 
those commitments. And I was stricken by what our colleague from 
Georgia said at the end of the last hour when he referenced the need to 
be bipartisan, to come together and work on bipartisan solutions and 
move forward together. I was really glad to hear him say that.
  But the room was shockingly silent for the last 2 years that I served 
here, that there really weren't calls for bipartisanship or locking 
elbows together and finding the way to the best public policy on issues 
of mutual concern.
  But be that as it may, we agree that we should move forward in a 
bipartisan way. And, in fact, the open government and ethics package 
that we adopted as part of our New Direction agenda on the first day 
that we were here was a commitment on the part of our leadership and on 
the part of our Speaker  Nancy Pelosi that we would have the most 
inclusive, open, and honest Congress in American history. And we have 
steadily been doing that every single day.

[[Page H2812]]

                              {time}  2130

  Unfortunately, the administration doesn't seem to be buying into that 
same concept of bipartisanship. Again, very nice words are said. I have 
seen the President stand in the Rose Garden and stand on the South Lawn 
and stand in lots of different really attractive camera shots talking 
about the need for bipartisanship. And yet, again, when it has come to 
light that there was a proposal out of the White House to fire 93 U.S. 
attorneys and subsequently we have gone back and forth with the White 
House about what the actual truth behind those suggested and then 
eventual firing of eight of them was, we have not been able to get a 
straight answer.
  In fact, we have had a concern that administration officials, 
including the Attorney General, have come before Congress and been less 
than forthcoming. I want to be careful about the words I choose, but it 
has gotten to the point where we have been told so many different 
things about what was behind those firings that we are at the-boy-who-
cried-wolf point now.
  Again, speaking as a mom, I know I have talked to my kids, and 
sometimes children will be less than truthful when they are concerned 
that they might get in trouble. I know that my kids sometimes are 
worried they are going to get in trouble and that the potential 
punishment is worse if they tell me the truth than if they kind of 
soft-pedal the actual facts, and maybe what happens to them will be not 
the worst thing. But I always find out. I always eventually know what 
really happened. And that is exactly what is going on here.
  Any parent will tell you that they have sat their children down and 
counseled them, ``You know, it is always better to just tell me the 
truth, because I am going to find out anyway, and the consequences are 
going to be far worse for you when I do find out than if you were just 
up front with me in the beginning.''
  Maybe we have to talk to the President and the White House and the 
administration like moms talk to their kids.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I feel like I should admit something to 
you now.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Not to be your mother or anything now, but, 
seriously, maybe an elementary back-to-basics conversation is what is 
necessary, because clearly the process that they have been taking us 
through has been less than honest. We have had a lot of misleading 
excuses.
  We have reached a point, and I sit on the House Judiciary Committee, 
Mr. Murphy, where now our subcommittee has taken the step of feeling 
like in order to get to the bottom of it, we had to authorize the 
committee to issue subpoenas to bring the Attorney General and to bring 
Karl Rove and the administration officials associated with this 
scandal, with potentially being less than truthful to this Congress, 
with covering up what actually happened, maybe a subpoena may be 
necessary.
  I think that is sad and unfortunate, but we cannot have less than 
truth when we ask administration officials questions when they come 
before this institution.
  I am glad about the potential for bipartisanship. During the hearing 
we had in Judiciary yesterday, a number of our Republican colleagues 
indicated they were also unhappy with what was going on with this 
administration. In fact, specifically on the issue of the attorney 
firings, one of their top leaders, another good friend from Florida, 
Congressman Putnam, actually said that he questioned the Attorney 
General's ability to continue to serve. I will quote what he said in 
the Washington Post.
  He said, ``His ability to effectively serve the President and lead 
the Justice Department is greatly compromised.'' During a lunchtime 
interview with reporters, he said, ``I think he himself should evaluate 
his ability to serve as an effective Attorney General.''
  We are talking about the number four ranking Republican in their 
leadership on that side. Believe me, I know Adam Putnam. He has served 
with integrity in our legislature in Florida, and does so here. If he 
is at that point, then you know there is something seriously wrong. 
There is seriously something wrong.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, I think it serves 
us well to sort of try to outline for people why this is such a big 
deal. Why do you have a senior member of the Republican leadership 
coming as close as you can come to calling for the resignation of the 
Republican sitting U.S. Attorney General? Why do you have the papers 
filled with this day after day? Why do you have the Judiciary Committee 
going to the unfortunate but necessary step of actually having to 
subpoena members of the administration to come before us?
  It is pretty simple. If you are an average Joe out there, you want to 
know that if the guy next door to you commits a really bad crime, that 
he is going to go to jail, no matter who his political friends are, no 
matter what political connections he has; that justice should be blind. 
Justice should certainly be blind to politics.
  Now, we can freely admit that when Bill Clinton came into office, he 
sent out notices that he was intending to get rid of all of the 
prosecutors and everybody was going to have to reapply.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If the gentleman will yield for a second, when 
then-President Clinton did that, correct me if I am wrong, he was 
asking for the resignations of the Bush appointees, of the Republican 
appointees of his predecessor.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Correct.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Now, my understanding when this scandal 
occurred, we are talking about a situation where the President, I 
believe, was considering asking for the resignation of 93 of his own 
U.S. attorneys. Subsequently, they decided maybe that was going a 
little too far, so I think the number is eight, they only fired eight.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. That is correct.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. My recollection also is that there was some 
interference and some questions about specific cases for each 
individual U.S. attorney that were raised by some of our colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle during this process before those firings.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. And there is the rub, Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz, is that it is one thing to decide to clean house and say okay, 
everybody goes. I am not going to examine all of your pasts and your 
political connections and whether you have done what you have asked, 
because I haven't served one day. I am just going to come in as a new 
president, which is their prerogative, and just clean house.
  That not what happened here. In fact, there is a reason why somebody 
within the White House actually recommended that they fire everybody, 
because they knew that if you are going to start firing prosecutors, 
people that are given by the public and by this government the very 
grave responsibilities of carrying out our system of justice, then you 
better not inject any politics into it, because the worst thing that 
can happen to the American justice system, and for all of the 
inefficiencies of government, one thing we can stand very proudly by, 
is our system of blind justice.
  We do have a system of justice that by and large makes decisions 
without political influence. If you are my neighbor and you did 
something wrong, no matter who you know, now matter how powerful you 
are, now matter how much money you have, you are going to pay for it. 
You are going to be held accountable for it.

  But if prosecutors throughout this country start having to look over 
their shoulder every time that they decide to try that rich guy or that 
influential guy or politically powerful guy, and they have to wonder 
whether the consequence of that decision is going to be the political 
boss somewhere decides their job shouldn't be their's anymore, then 
that has immense, immense consequences for our system of government and 
our system of justice.
  I know it is just eight. I know it is just eight. But if that message 
that those eight guys, men and women, those eight men and women, who 
for some reason displayed some act of political disloyalty to the 
President, don't get to hold their job anymore, then that has an 
unbelievable chilling effect on the rest of our prosecutors, and I 
think it has dire consequences for our system of justice.

[[Page H2813]]

  So it is a big deal, and it should be a big deal. I hope that the 
President sees the light of day and decides to put the people that were 
responsible for this decision before Congress so that everything can be 
aired out.
  His offer now is obviously certainly not acceptable. As the chairman 
of the Judiciary Committee today said, Representative Conyers, said we 
might as well go down to the bar down the street and have this 
conversation, because that is about as much meaningful information as 
you are going to get out of that conversation.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If the gentleman will yield, we should point 
out the President believes he magnanimously offered was to offer that 
the officials associated with this scandal to speak with, essentially, 
the Judiciary Committee, not under oath, that there be no transcript, 
and that Congress would not subsequently subpoena them.
  That is when Mr. Conyers said, yes, we could just go have a drink and 
have that kind of private conversation which reveals nothing, which has 
no accountability whatsoever.
  Mr. Murphy, the other thing that I think is important to note is that 
the first answer that we were given about why, and these people do 
serve at the pleasure of President. Again, that is why I drew my kid 
analogy. Because I never understand when I ask my kids, and, 
fortunately, I have very honest children, so this doesn't happen often, 
but little kids, when they are learning as they are growing up, they do 
dumb things.
  What brought this to mind was the first answer that the 
administration gave was that, well, you know, we were concerned. We 
lost confidence in their ability. They weren't up to snuff, they 
weren't very good attorneys and they weren't doing a very good job.
  As you might imagine, these are eight pretty capable people who 
thought they were doing a good job. When they had their ability 
questioned, a bunch of them got mad. We are talking about very loyal 
Republicans here, some who had been long-standing supporters and 
contributors to the Republican Party. They went out there and defended 
themselves and said, wait a second. I am pretty darn qualified 
individual. How dare you.
  Then we dug a little deeper. It turns out, well, it is not that they 
were not qualified. It is more that they weren't aggressively pursuing 
Democrats who were being investigated in their jurisdiction.
  The bottom line is we really don't know. And then they started 
pointing fingers at each other inside the administration. First, it was 
really Karl Rove. No, it wasn't Karl Rove, it was Harriet Miers that 
called for the firings.
  The bottom line is to restore the confidential of the American people 
in their government, which is what we absolutely need to do, and that 
is our goal. Because it was badly shaken by the Republican leadership, 
we need to get to the bottom of scandals like this.
  I know we are getting closer to our end time and we want to make sure 
we have an opportunity to encourage people, if they have any questions 
or want to see the charts more closely we have seen tonight, we will 
give out the Web site.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I think, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, it is part 
of a pattern. Political influence in the judiciary, we are finding that 
prosecutors are being fired for not being loyal to the President. We 
find it in some of our scientific agencies, where basic scientific 
accepted data is being suppressed by the administration because it 
doesn't meet their political goals within some of our medical approval 
agencies and boards. Decisions are being made based on ideology, rather 
than on science.
  We have had hearings on a lot of these subjects in the committee that 
I sit on, the Government Reform Committee, and you actually get some 
indignation expressed, as you said, from both sides of the aisle, from 
Republicans and Democrats on this issue. I think there is a bipartisan 
frustration at the administration's willingness to inject politics into 
a lot of places where politics have no business.
  But at the same time that I accept there is criticism coming from 
both sides, I also note that there were a lot of things we probably 
would never have found out about unless we were asking the questions, 
and the questions weren't getting asked for a very long time. They are 
getting asked now. Maybe the answers are terribly palatable.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Or forthcoming.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Or forthcoming. When we get them, they are 
not the ones we want necessarily, but at least we are starting to get 
them, because we are asking them. And if you want to talk about 
restoring people's faith in government, we have to open it back up 
again. I hope that is something we can engage in on both sides.
  I yield before we give the contact information.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It has been a pleasure to join you, Mr. 
Murphy. I have to tell you how thrilled I was that we expanded the 30-
Something Working Group and we have now given ourselves a new chapter 
to talk about the issues that are important to the American people, and 
we have now the ability to hold the administration's feet to the fire 
and exercise Congress' oversight role which the Founding Fathers 
envisioned.
  I would be happy to yield back to the gentleman to close us out.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I am happy my application was accepted, 
Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
  The 30-Something Working Group, we were given this opportunity by the 
Speaker of the House, who has been so generous to allow us time on the 
floor to talk about issues that affect folks not only in their 
thirties, but issues that affect people throughout this country.
  You can e-mail the group at [email protected], and you 
can always visit us on the web at www.speaker.gov/30something.
  Ms. Wasserman Schultz, it was a pleasure to share this hour with you.

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