[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 110 (Wednesday, July 11, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H7644-H7651]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 2245
30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Altmire). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it's an honor to address the House.
And I hope the Members of the House had a great 4th of July break as we
celebrate another birthday of this great country. And the great thing
about it is you're allowed to say what you want to say
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and feel what you want to feel and express yourself in any way that you
would like to.
Mr. Speaker, as you know, the 30-Something Working Group, we come to
the floor to share with not only the Members of Congress, but also with
the American people, the importance of good policymaking, and also
making sure that we're factual in what we say and what we do here.
It was quite interesting. I was sitting here reading my notes from
the information that we pulled together to come to the floor. We're
going to talk about Iraq tonight, but I'm going to talk a little bit
about SCHIP because we spent a lot of time and many hours on this floor
fixing what the Republican Congress left for dead, really. We had to
come in, the Democratic majority, with the leadership of Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, and save the SCHIP program in many States.
A number of Republican Governors wrote that were in a crisis mode of
their program being shut down in the State of Florida, health care for
children. In Washington, many people talk about SCHIP. I'm so glad to
have the chairman here of the subcommittee that deals with this
particular issue. And it goes to show you, here on the Democratic side
we have great responsibility when it comes down to fixing and cleaning
up the mess that was left from the 109th Congress and the Republican-
controlled Congress and special interests got what they wanted.
I think it's also important to note that a supermajority of
Republicans voted against the continuing resolution to be able to save
the SCHIP program in many States to provide health care for children.
And now we're going through the policy move that we have to take to be
able to make sure that SCHIP is here for every child and to make sure
that they have the kind of health care that they deserve.
So I'm so glad Mr. Pallone from the Garden State is here because he
is the chairman that's dealing with this very issue. I'm a member of
the Ways and Means Committee that is also going to be having a
discussion on this issue. And I can tell you, as we start to move forth
and uncovering and unearthing some of the injustices that have taken
place in the past, and we have Governors on our side, we have children
advocates on our side, we have those that believe in true health care
on our side in saying that this is not a last-day-at-school kind of
syndrome that we see the President and others going through. And I
think something is about to happen that is really great and is going to
secure and make sure the children have the kind of health care they
deserve.
Mr. Pallone, I would be more than happy to yield to you at this time
because I know without notes that you can talk about this because you
and your staff have been working on this issue and members of your
committee have been working on this issue.
Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank my colleague from Florida, first of all,
for being here tonight and for being here for so many nights for so
many years now. I know they call them the ``30-Something,'' but it's
several years now that you've been doing this on a regular basis, and
drawing attention to what the Democrats are doing, and of course when
we were in the minority, pointing out the contrasts between ourselves
and the Republican majority.
I don't want to give a course in history here tonight, but I have to
take issue with what my colleagues from Tennessee and Georgia just said
with regard to the children's health initiative.
First of all, I think it's really important, and I know you say this
all the time, that we're not here as ideologues. I'm not here because
I'm a liberal or a conservative or because I want a government-run
program or a privately run program. As far as I'm concerned, if
everybody could get health care under some kind of privately run
insurance program and it was all affordable and we could cover
everybody, that would be fine with me. The only reason that the SCHIP
or the children's health program was set up about 10 years ago, and I
was there and I was part of it at the time, and it was done on a
bipartisan basis, Republicans and Democrats supported it, was because
we realized that there were more and more children in this country that
were going without health care.
And we did not set up an entitlement. I heard my colleagues from
Tennessee and Georgia on the Republican side repeatedly refer to this
as an entitlement program. It is not an entitlement program. It is a
program that simply gives money in a block grant. I mean, nothing could
be less of an entitlement than a block grant, to States like Georgia
and Tennessee that they match to try to cover children that don't have
health insurance.
Now, let me stress this is for parents who work who have children. We
have a Medicaid program for people who are very low income. But what we
found 10 years ago, and again, on a bipartisan basis, just as many
Republicans as Democrats, what we found 10 years ago was there are a
lot of people who work for a living, but they don't get health
insurance on the job and they cannot afford to go out in the individual
market privately and buy it. I mean, that could cost you $12,000-
$15,000 a year if you have to go out for a family of four and buy
health insurance. If you're making 20, 30, $40,000 a year, you can't
afford to pay $12,000-$15,000 a year for health insurance for yourself
and your children.
So the Federal Government decided, let's give some money to the
States. They will match it, and they can help cover these children of
working parents whose income is a little too high so they don't qualify
for Medicaid, but they can't get health care on the job because their
employer doesn't offer it, and they can't afford to go out and buy it
on the individual market.
Now, what is wrong with that? There is nothing wrong with that. I
cannot understand how anyone on the other side of the aisle, including
my two Republican colleagues that just spoke, would come out and say
that we don't want kids to have health insurance. I mean, what are they
talking about? There is no alternative for these people other than to
go to the emergency room or the hospital. They can't get it on their
job. They can't afford to buy it privately on the individual market.
They have no alternative. And that is simply all we offer to do.
And now my colleagues on the Republican side are talking about
entitlements, raising socialism. I mean, this is not an ideological
issue. This is just a practical way of trying to deal with a problem.
Now, let me tell you something. You already made reference, my
colleague, to the fact that some States this year ran out of money to
pay for this children's health initiative very earlier, and the State
that came here crying first was the State of Georgia.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if you would yield for a second.
You know, I was sitting here. And the great thing about being a
Member of Congress, and I thank the people from the 17th Congressional
District in Florida for sending me here, it's almost like, coach, get
me the ball. I wanted to say, will the gentleman yield? Because it's
interesting that Georgia was on their knees with hands clasped saying,
please help us. Children are about to run out of health care insurance,
and we're about to have a crisis. And it was the leadership of this
Congress, the Democratic Congress, that brought about that kind of
change. That's why people wake up at 7 a.m. in the morning to go vote
for representation.
So now we're down to politics, Mr. Speaker. And it's very
unfortunate, politics is playing a role in the lives of our children,
grandchildren, nieces and nephews that need health care. And this is
for working folks. These are for folks who punch in and punch out every
day, individuals that are struggling every day that are hoping that the
government will stand for them.
So, Mr. Chairman, continue. I yield back. But I'm just saying if
Florida was in the situation, I couldn't come down here to the floor
and start knocking something that this Congress ran to the savior. And
what we had to do, Mr. Chairman, was to couple it with a number of
other things to get it to pass for the President not to veto it. And
we're going to talk about that a little later, but I think that's very,
very important.
I yield back, sir.
Mr. PALLONE. Well, I just want to follow up on what you said. You
know, this money that we give to States to help cover these kids in the
last few years has run out very early for a lot of States. And, again,
it was the gentleman from Georgia's own State, it
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was State representatives, Secretary of Health and Human Services,
whatever they call that person in the State, came down here in
February. And they were over in the Speaker's office, and I was asked
to come. And there were Republicans and Democratic Congressmen in that
room. Now, I can't say for sure that the gentleman who spoke tonight
was there, but there were other Republicans. He may have been, but I
don't want to say for sure because I don't remember. But there
definitely were Republican Congressmen from the State of Georgia in
that room over in the Speaker's office, along with Democrats. And they
said, you've got to pass an emergency supplemental bill to give us more
money for SCHIP because we're going to run out of our yearly allotment
on March 1; two months into the year. So they said, please, do
something. Well, what we did is we attached that to the
emergency supplemental bill. Some people know that as the Iraq
supplemental, but it really covered a lot of different things.
And as you say, we put $750 million just to cover Georgia and other
States to the end of this year. And you know how difficult it was. The
President threatened to veto it three or four times. We finally got it
passed. And every month I would get calls or letters from the Georgia
delegation saying, when are you going to pass this money because we're
going to have to tell these kids that they don't have any health
insurance.
So I don't understand how they come down here on the Republican side
and complain about this program that they helped start, that their
State is asking for money. Most of the people in that room from the
State of Georgia were Republican, not Democrats, okay. And we're just
practically saying, okay, look, we don't want to have to run out of
this money every year because obviously this program is growing because
the number of uninsured kids, again, from working families, keeps
getting bigger every year. It's up to something like nine million
children nationally that don't have any health insurance. Okay. And
what we're saying is, let's come up with a larger pot of money over the
next 5 years to pay for these kids so that, there is about six million
of those nine million that are eligible for the children's health SCHIP
program right now, eligible under the current law. There is about 6.7
that are covered, there are another 6 million that are eligible under
the current law that President Bush and the Republicans have been
supporting for the last 10 years, and there just isn't enough money to
cover them.
So all we're saying is, let's take some money, in this case over 5
years it would cost about maybe $50 billion to cover these kids that
are already eligible for this SCHIP program.
Now, how in the world the Democratic initiative to simply pay for
kids that are already eligible for this program that's already on the
books becomes socialism or entitlements or some kind of radical
procedure here. For the life of me, I simply do not understand. I mean,
there is nothing here that's new. There is nothing new here.
I yield back to the gentleman.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Chairman, you said $5 billion over the next
5 years?
Mr. PALLONE. We're talking about $50 billion over the next 5 years,
about $10 billion more per year, to cover the rest of the kids that are
currently eligible for this program.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. That's $50 billion.
Mr. PALLONE. Right. And we're not talking about anything new here.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Over the next 5 years.
Mr. PALLONE. Right, additional money.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, let me tell you, per year in Iraq we spend
$120 billion.
Mr. PALLONE. Exactly. And where do these kids go? They have no place
to go. The only place they go is if they get sick or they need
attention, they have to go to the hospital emergency room. And what
kind of a way is that to operate a health care system where you have to
take your kid to the hospital emergency room because they can't see a
doctor on a regular basis.
Now, one of them said community health centers. I'm all for community
health centers. I think it would be wonderful if every town in the
country had a community health center and you could go there and get
free care, but that's not the reality. In my district, we have maybe
three or four of these community health centers. I represent about
650,000 people, and we have maybe three or four of these federally
sponsored community health centers. There is no way in the world that
these parents that take their kids, all who are uninsured, to these
community health centers. There is absolutely no way that that's going
to happen.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Imagine the line. Imagine a rural county.
Imagine an urban county that I represent, everyone kind of diving into
one or two locations to make it all happen. Why should we inconvenience
those that are counting on their government to respond, especially on
behalf of our children.
I'm glad you came down here tonight to have you here, the person that
has the gavel in their hand, heard testimony from the States. I know
you know what I'm saying. This is what you're doing and this is why
we're here. And Americans voted for a new direction, and we're heading
in that new direction. There are those that are Members of Congress
that don't want to move in that new direction. And, Mr. Speaker, like I
said, the great thing about our country is that we can disagree and you
can voice your opinion and other ideas, but I think it's important also
for the American people to get fact and not fiction. And that's what
we're here about, and that's what it's all about.
You are always welcome, Mr. Chairman, to come down. I am a part of
the ``something'' part of the 30-something. So you can join, and that
caucus is growing. And the good thing about what we do here on the
floor from those new Members of Congress, we call them ``majority
makers,'' to those that have been here as long as you have been here,
to see this process go full circle, 360 degrees, to be able to come to
the floor at 11-something at night, to be able to set the record
straight I think is important not only for Members of Congress, but
also for the Congressional Record and for those individuals that are
listening to the statements that are being made here on the floor that
know better.
{time} 2300
Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate it, and I know you want to get back to the
Iraq war, as I think you should. I want to thank you again, and just
say in conclusion from my part of this tonight, what I really don't
like is trying to make this into an ideological debate.
When I hear my colleagues on the Republican side, instead of being
practical and looking at what is going to accomplish something, to
start making it ideological and talk about entitlements and socialism
and the whole thing, we don't need that. We don't need that rhetoric
here. We as Democrats are trying to accomplish things in a practical
way, without ideology, without right or left and all this jargon that
we are hearing from the other side.
I just hope that it doesn't continue, because otherwise I am going to
come down here every night and talk about why practically speaking the
children's health initiative is a good program.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. If the gentleman would yield, just to make
one last point on this, and I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for
coming down, before I came here, I was the chairman of the Public
Health Committee in the Connecticut State Legislature. What we figured
out over time, because we were a State that submitted waivers to the
Federal Government to expand our children's healthcare program, so we
actually ended up with one of the more generous SCHIP programs in the
country. We had more kids as a percentage of children who were eligible
for children's healthcare, sponsored and subsidized by the State and
Federal Government, than most other States, and what we found was that
was actually reducing the cost of healthcare over time.
I got to listen to a little bit of the rhetoric on the other side of
the aisle earlier, and they act as if we have existing today a fiscally
responsible system of healthcare. We don't. We have the most expensive
healthcare system in the world.
You may have covered this earlier before I got on to the floor. But
we
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have the most expensive healthcare system in the world for outcomes
that are lucky if they rival those of countries that spend 50 percent
less on their healthcare, 16 percent of GDP in this country compared to
10 or 11 percent in other countries that insure everybody and get
basically the same or better outcomes.
So what we found in Connecticut was as we expanded the reach of our
SCHIP program and got more kids eligible and enrolled, we were actually
cutting the cost of care for those kids because, guess what?
Preventative care, as I am sure has been said on the Floor, is much
less expensive, much more fiscally responsible than crisis care, when
these kids show up in the emergency room with much more complicating,
debilitating illnesses that require much more expensive care.
So, for my money, investing in children's healthcare insurance is the
right thing for taxpayer dollars. We certainly know it is the humane
thing to do, it is the moral thing to do, to insure children who have
no healthcare through no fault of their own. But it is certainly the
right thing to do if we are going to be responsible stewards of
taxpayer dollars.
If I were sent here, as the folks on the other side of the aisle
believe they have been, to be stewards of taxpayer dollars, I would be
investing in preventative healthcare every single day I was here, and
that is what the SCHIP program does.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Murphy, I just want to thank you, definitely
fresh out of the State legislature, for coming to this floor. I served
in the legislature myself, and I can tell you that in Florida we enjoy
the Federal assistance that is there.
Some folks, Mr. Speaker, speak of Medicare as socialized medicine. If
you try to do away with Medicare right now and have new and great ideas
that would limit access to clinics and what have you, I think you would
have an uprising in this country as we look at providing better
healthcare.
If I can, we came to the floor tonight, and I have my Iraq notebook
with me, and I want to thank not only staff but the Democratic
leadership for taking a forward lean, as we have done since we have
been here in the control of the House, and the American people provided
us with an opportunity to lead, to move this country in a new
direction, and also move this issue of Iraq in a new direction. I just
want to talk a little bit about the numbers, and I want this to sink
in, because I want Members to know exactly what we are doing.
We have to create and we have to be about a major paradigm shift, I
would say slash ``new direction,'' as it relates to Iraq. We know that
the President has executive authority and he can veto. We know that the
legislature, and when we say legislature, I started talking about
States, I started talking about legislature, I would say the Congress,
the legislative branch of government has the responsibility of policy
and making sure that we pass legislation that will be helpful.
During the 4th of July break, which was a wonderful thing, you have
an opportunity to go back to your districts and you have an opportunity
to go to places where you can learn more, I actually went to Norfolk,
Virginia, to the Naval facility there and spoke to a number of sailors
and some marines and others that have been deployed before. I was there
on a destroyer and also a submarine and also an amphibious vessel that
moved marines into a forward area and had an opportunity to talk to a
number of individuals over that weekend.
I left with the impression, Mr. Murphy, of them saying, if you want
to help the troops, then stand up for us in the Congress and making
sure we bring some sense to what we are doing.
Now, some of the bloodiest weekends in Iraq took place during the 4th
of July break, and a number of Iraqis have lost their lives and they
have a number of civil war conflicts that are going on there. Also a
number of marines, soldiers and others, even civilians, lost their
lives.
I think it is important as we look at this and we go through a
forward lean, I just want to capture this moment from the Congressional
Research Service, Mr. Speaker, the nonpartisan Congressional Research
Service, which is a nonpartisan organization within the Congress. These
are individuals that are Ph.D.'s and those that count the numbers and
really give the Americans an objective view of what the real picture
is.
Let's talk about cost here for a minute. You heard Mr. Pallone, the
Chair of a subcommittee dealing with the children's health program, say
over 5 years it would take $50 billion to be able to provide healthcare
for children. Let's look at these numbers.
Per year in Iraq, and this is the chart that I have here, $120
billion a year. I am going to even further break that down to $10
billion a month and change. These are not my numbers. This is the
Congressional Research Service numbers. Per week, $2.3 billion a week
in Iraq. $2.3 billion. This is just Iraq. We are not talking about
Afghanistan. Per day, $329 million and change. I am not even giving you
the change. Per hour, $13 million. That is every hour in Iraq, $13
million.
Think about what we can do here domestically. I am talking to the
mayors of our cities and our towns. I am talking to commissioners that
would like to resolve some issues and want some sort of Federal
assistance in doing that. I am talking to the citizen that is wondering
why something is shut down in their community for a lack of funding.
Per minute, $228,000. That is per minute. $228,000. That is more than
many Americans make in 5 years, Mr. Murphy, a minute. That is what is
happening in Iraq right now. Per second, $3,816. Some may say $4,000 a
second.
You look at the Forbes' richest, most wealthy Americans, they are not
even doing that. You have companies that wish they could make $3,816 a
second. This makes Oprah, her income, look very small. This makes some
of the new people that are there, the President or the used-to-be
chairman of Microsoft, look very small when you look at these numbers.
But you have to look at this issue for what it is. These are the
dollars that we are spending.
Now, who is standing in front of us and making new policy changes
here? I think it is important, and I think we are going to have a gut
check here, and I want to make sure that Americans know exactly and the
Members know. Because many Members, they go back home and they say, I
did not quite understand that. I am sorry. It went over my head. I
didn't understand what happened, when a constituent may walk up to
them.
This week in the House we will have an opportunity to reaffirm our
support and move this Iraq debate in a new direction. Responsible
redeployment of our troops. We talk about responsible redeployment. We
are talking about a bill that Chairman Ike Skelton is going to bring to
this floor tomorrow, or sometime this week, where Democrats and
Republicans will have an opportunity on the record to vote once again
as it relates to redeployment.
The Responsible Redeployment Act, H.R. 2956. It requires the
responsible redeployment of U.S. troops beginning within 120 days of
enacting and ending by April 1st, 2008. I think it is important that
everyone understands that a supermajority, 70 percent, a supermajority
of Americans believe that we should be out of Iraq.
It requires the President to publicly justify the post-deployment
missions for the U.S. military in Iraq with a minimum number of troops
necessary to carry out those missions. This is not saying that we are
going to take all of the troops out of Iraq, but what it is saying is
those troops that are in harm's way, doing the door-to-door, doing all
of these things in the middle of a civil war that Iraqi troops should
be responsible for, there are a number of people that are saying, you
know, they are not quite ready.
But, meanwhile, back at the ranch, I know every Sunday on CNN they
have a report talking about what happened in Iraq that week. I think I
have seen too many flag-draped coffins. I think I have talked to too
many spouses and family members that are saying, what are you going to
do and how are you going to do it and how are you going to stand up?
Chairman Ike Skelton is beyond this. He is what one may say is an
individual that solely has the troops in his heart and in his mind. And
this will be a product of not only him, but many Members of Congress.
So Members will get an opportunity to vote.
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Now, Mr. Murphy, before I yield to you, I think it is important that
we show who is standing in the schoolhouse door here. I would ask for
not only the Members, but also the American people to go to the White
House website if you want some information.
Members of the Republican minority, thanks to the American people, on
March 29 of 2007, stood with the President after we moved the bill
through this Congress that would move the policy as it relates to Iraq
in a new direction. It would bring more accountability as it relates to
profiteering, more accountability as it relates to how our troops are
being deployed based on what the President says that he thinks is
right. It is bringing democracy to it.
When we passed that bill, it passed both the House and Senate, I can
say that the Democratic majority voted in the affirmative with a few
Republicans, and it went to the White House. And before that bill could
be carried to the White House, the President said that he would veto
it.
I want you to take a look at this picture here, because I think it is
very very important. Pictures speak 1,000 words. You have all
Republicans, the minority, that are standing behind the President
saying stand with the President and we will not allow the President to
be overridden, for there to be an override of his veto.
I think it is important for us to pay very close attention to it,
because my message to those that were on the steps of the White House,
who met with the President, who had some sort of discussion with the
President, that have said ``we are going to make sure that the
President's will is not overridden,'' well, I want to ask, how many
times will the Republican minority go down and stand with the President
in front of the will of the American people?
That is going to happen this week, Mr. Speaker, and I am glad that
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said we are willing to take the fight on
behalf of the American people to the executive branch and to those
Members of Congress who believe that we should be ``staying the
course'' or continuing to do the same thing expecting different
results.
There are a lot of things that are going on in Iraq that are not in
the control of the American Congress and executive branch and those
that they elected to represent them here in Washington, DC. But what we
do have control over as it relates to the policy and as it relates to
the will of the American people and the troops. One person said if you
want to help the troops, get us out of Iraq. If you want to help the
troops.
Mr. Ryan and I in the 108th and 109th Congress heard all kinds of
speeches here on this floor, Mr. Murphy, Members saying ``I support the
troops.'' ``No, I support the troops more than you.'' ``No, let me take
my shirt. Let me show you a tattoo I have on my shoulder saying I
support the troops.''
That is not what it is about. It is about policy. It is about manning
up and womaning up and leadering up and standing up on behalf of these
men and women that are in harm's way.
{time} 2315
These are real families. We have to treat this issue as it relates to
redeployment of troops in Iraq as though our children or our nephew or
our cousin or our husband or wife, what have you, are in harm's way as
we speak. Those that have a dot.mil address behind their e-mail address
that are e-mailing us and are asking us to be leaders, I am glad that
this House is moving in the direction, and the Senate is moving in the
direction, and I commend those Senators that have come to the side of
the American people saying enough is enough. The President can burn all
kind of Federal jet fuel and fly throughout the country. He was in
Cleveland talking about what we need to do. Enough is enough. The
bottom line is that folks have to come to grips that this is a
democracy.
The White House is under some sort of impression, I want to say
impression. They believe if they were to come out at a press
conference, if the President were to say the rain doesn't fall from the
sky, it comes up from the ground to the sky, they believe many
Americans would actually look outside to see if that is true. We know
what is right and what is wrong. What is wrong is the fact that we can
no longer stand idly by and let this happen.
The Democratic Congress has tried to make this happen. We need
Republican support. We need the American people to call their
Republican representative and say enough with this partisan stuff,
let's move for our young men and women in harm's way.
I yield to Mr. Ryan.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The bottom line is that this is not just us, or the
Democrats or the American people. Mr. Meek, Mr. Murphy, these are the
soldiers who are coming back.
I don't know what your personal experiences have been, but the
soldiers in my district who have come back, and I meet them for a cup
of coffee at the coffee shop and they talk off the record, they say,
Get us out because this is insane. It is ridiculous. The only thing we
all hear from the soldiers who say I want to go back, they say they
want to go back because their buddies are over there. They are not
going back because there is some great cause that the President has
outlined for them. They are so far beyond that. They go back because
their buddies are there, and God bless them. Those are the kind of
buddies that we all want.
I think it is important that that picture that you showed, Mr. Meek,
and what the minority party is trying to do here by not giving us
enough votes to override a Presidential veto in the House and in the
Senate is they are complicit in following President George W. Bush's
foreign policy that has taken this country right off the cliff. Mr.
Meek, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Speaker, $600 billion, thousands of lives lost,
innocent people in Iraq getting bombed.
And here's the bottom line that I think the country needs to know and
completely understand. This President has made the country less safe.
There are more terrorists today that are gunning at the United States
than ever before. Even pre-9/11, and now al Qaeda is coming out and
saying we are stronger than we have ever been. We are as strong as we
were on 9/11.
We have thousands and thousands of more terrorists who want a gun to
come at the United States. There are sleeper cells I am sure in the
United States, but when we try to pass a Homeland Security bill that
funds 3,000 more Border Patrol agents, that puts the proper equipment
and the proper technology on the borders to make sure that when the
cargo is coming into the ports that those are checked, that our first
responders have the proper equipment that they need, the Republican
minority basically filibustered in the House and tried to stop that
from happening.
So what we are saying here is that if we don't quickly rectify this
problem and start making investments that we can go after Osama bin
Laden and al Qaeda instead of this mess that we are in in Iraq, then we
are more vulnerable as a country. And if something happens in this
country, it lays right at the footsteps of the White House because we
have been fighting this war. It has been ridiculous. The whole concept
has been ridiculous. George Herbert Walker Bush said it was crazy to go
into Iraq. This has not made any sense since the beginning. And now we
are wasting $600 billion fighting a war in some country that we don't
know a whole lot about instead of focusing that money on making sure
that we get Osama bin Laden, making sure that we destroy al Qaeda.
That's the war.
And so if al Qaeda hits the United States of America, it is because
George Bush led us into a war in a country that didn't have any al
Qaeda members in it.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, the bottom line is that the President,
and we have to talk about the student loan issue that he talked about
earlier today, and I think it is important that we talk about that
because again we had Members here talking about SCHIP and we were all
once representatives in our States on the legislative end on the State
level. But I think it is important for us to, and where is my red chart
to talk about the debt.
We just had Mr. Pallone as the chairman of the subcommittee down
here, and we have a proposal talking about $50 billion over the next 5
years. Let me say real quick, per year it is $120 billion in Iraq and
climbing. I say that to a mayor or to a Governor, I
[[Page H7649]]
would like to have my hands on $120 billion that the Federal commitment
has made.
Mr. Ryan, it is not the President, that is all too easy. The
President is in his last leg of a swim meet here. He has the last day
of school kind of syndrome. All of us know what the last day or last
week of school felt like. I am about to leave the institution, and I
don't have to worry about what is happening.
But guess what, it is not the last day of school for the American
people and those that are in harm's way. We have a responsibility to
stand for them. I am not going to just leave the President. I am going
to say that those individuals on the Republican side of the aisle, not
all of them, but a majority of them, are willing to stand with the
President that ran this record debt up that we have now. A $1.19
trillion debt and climbing, done by the Republican majority in the
108th and 109th Congress and beyond, of rubber stamping what the
President has done.
We all live the same kind of lives. We all understand our
responsibility up here. But I tell you, to be able to move in a new
direction in Iraq, it is going to take more than just Democratic
majority Members, especially in the Senate, to be able to bring some
real sense to this new direction in Iraq. The real issue is that there
is a choice to be made.
Mr. Ryan, some of the Members on the Republican side used to laugh at
us when we were on the floor. I see them in the hall and they are like,
``You all are funny. Do you really believe people are going to follow
what you all are talking about if you are given the opportunity to
lead?''
Well, guess what, how do you like us now? People believe. Democrats,
Republicans, Independents. And you know something, some people who
voted for the first time in their lives who had given up on the
political system, and I will be doggone if their vote goes in vain. I
am telling you right now, we need Republican Members of this Congress
to vote on behalf of our troops.
Want to help the troops? Vote for redeployment. You want to help the
troops, vote for antiprofiteering legislation. You want to help the
troops, when Mr. Murtha comes to this floor with an appropriations bill
that is going to bring major sense as it relates to the appropriations
in this war, then support that if you want to support the troops.
Mr. Ryan, I am going to yield to Mr. Murphy by saying this: As of
July 11, today, the deaths in Iraq as it relates to U.S. military
personnel, and this is not even counting those clandestine agents that
are out there, those civilian folks, 3,609. That is as of 10 a.m. this
morning.
Total number of wounded in action, returned to duty, 14,681.
Number of wounded that did not return to duty, 12,014 and climbing.
I want to say this is real. This is above and beyond Democrat-
Republican politics, Independent politics, whatever the case may be. We
are moving in the direction of redeployment of our troops and a new
policy. The President can stand in the schoolhouse door all he wants
to, but the bottom line is he is empowered by the Republican minority
that are saying that we are not going to allow you to have enough votes
to be able to override what the President is saying. That is where it
comes down to it.
I can tell you, like I shared with some of my colleagues, you
continue to follow the President on the old way, and I guarantee you,
just like I said in the 108th Congress and 109th Congress, and I don't
have a whole lot of say in what goes on in some of these districts
because people have their own heart and mind. They read and they see.
They see the people that are not coming back. People are being
deployed.
They are not glad they are going. They are crying when people are
going. Will I see my husband? Will I see my father again? What are we
doing? What does this mean? We are in the middle of a civil war; what
does that mean? Will my husband or wife be knocking down some door as
we speak here on this floor, having Iraqis huddle in the middle of a
room on a security mission that is necessary because the Iraqi
government is not doing it, and those individuals will never forget
that. And they are not doing it just because they feel like doing it;
they are doing it because it is the mission. We support them in that
mission, but the bottom line is we have to have a new attitude and new
direction.
There are Iraqi troops that should be doing those house checks and
taking that responsibility, and an Iraqi parliament that should be
coming to work every day to make sure that they do what they do. It
shouldn't be our people, and people know it. So the bottom line is,
when you are in a place where you don't understand exactly where you
should be, fall on the side of commonsense. That is all that I am
saying.
Mr. Murphy.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Thank you.
We know because we have talked to these families. When they are
crying about their loved ones injured in the field of battle or, God
forbid, have not come back, there is also a sense from military
families that their despair is because they realize they are the only
ones that are being asked to sacrifice for this war.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. What happened to the coalition, Mr. Murphy?
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. The coalition of the willing is no more,
Mr. Meek. What is left are the military family, and their friends and
families have been asked to shoulder almost the entire burden of this
war.
When we talk about where we are going to spend the taxpayer dollars,
you have to talk about what we are getting for that investment.
You gave the statistics on the casualties since the beginning of the
war, but it is even more terrifying when you talk about what has
happened simply since the surge has begun: 593 soldiers have died since
January 10; 3,500 have been wounded; 1,600 wounded so badly they cannot
return to battle. We are talking about 13,000 Iraqi civilians and
members of the military police who have been killed or wounded since
the surge took place.
So you have to ask what we are getting for this investment. It has
gone from $8 billion a month to $10 billion a month since the surge has
gone into effect. What we have gotten is an Iraqi political institution
or Iraqi political infrastructure which is even less willing to take
responsibility for its own actions, even less able to take control of
their own country.
It was reported in the Associated Press of the President's report on
progress in Iraq that the Iraqi government has not ``met any of its
targets for political, economic and other reform.'' Has not met any of
the targets we have given them for economic, political reform.
Parliament is going home for the summer. There is a parliament where
the biggest Sunni group has pulled out. You have an inability for the
Iraqis to deal with their own shop. As someone said, right now the
Iraqis are paying wholesale for their politics because we are
subsidizing every decision that is being made there. It is time they
start paying retail for their political decisions, and that is only
going to happen when they have a sense of when the crutch is going to
be taken away from them.
So, Mr. Meek and Mr. Ryan, I think to myself when we talk about how
we are going to spend money, whether we are going to spend $120 billion
a year in Iraq or whether we are going to spend $40 or $50 billion on
children's health care insurance, and I think, as Mr. Ryan said, that
$120 billion investment is getting more and more Americans killed every
day and is making this country less safe and less safe every day, and
is making it less and less likely that the Iraqis will ever be able to
take control of their country.
{time} 2330
That's a terrible investment. That's a bad investment. When I think
about $50 billion in children's health care, by doing the right thing,
the moral thing for kids, and at the same time, probably making our
health care system more affordable and less costly in the end, because
we're hooking kids up with preventative health care, that's a great
investment. That's a worthwhile investment.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We're slingshotting the kids then for 5 months.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. At some point, we've got to talk about
what results we're getting for our money, and if you can turn around
even a portion of the money that we're using over there to make this
country
[[Page H7650]]
less safe, turn it around and college age, children's health care, I
mean meat and potatoes things that matter to middle-class families,
those are the investments that I came to Congress to work on. Those are
the investments that millions of Americans around this country sent a
new class of Democrats here to work on, and if we can get some
Republicans to stand up with us this week, as we have seen happening in
the Senate over the last week and a half, we'll start to make good on
those promises.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, $50 million for children's health care or 5
months more in Iraq, let the American people make that decision. Poll
that, get the focus group out and figure that one out, where the
American people are going to be. They're going to be with the
leadership. They're going to be with the Speaker. They're going to be
with the majority leader in the Senate. They're going to be for making
these investments.
And I just love, Mr. Speaker, how our Republican counterparts went
way back to 1992, they went into the deep parts of the Republican
library, the CATO Institute and everywhere else, and they pulled out
the 1992 talking points, and they've dusted them off and everything's
socialism and union bosses. And it's typical of why they're not in
power.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I guess I wonder whether the water is
different in the Republican cloakroom down here than it is in the
Senate cloakroom, because what we've seen in the last couple of weeks,
and I've got a list here of all of the people who have changed their
opinion on the war in the last several weeks and all the quotes from
Republicans in the United States Capitol regarding their new opinion of
this war, which is that we should set a date for withdrawal, and it is
Senate Republican after Senate Republican after Senate Republican after
Senate Republican, Dick Lugar, George Voinovich, Pete Domenici, Lamar
Alexander, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins.
What's missing from that list, for some reason, are members of the
Republican minority here in the House. This is the body that's supposed
to actually be more responsive to the American people, not less
responsive. So I haven't been here long enough to understand what the
difference is, but some Republicans are waking up to the notion that
it's time for a change. It just hasn't happened here yet.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That's the God's honest truth of where we are. The
force of the American people broke through in the election, but it is
yet to penetrate the ideology of the Republican leadership and the
Republicans in the House, many of them, and everything is coming down
to priorities. It's all coming down to priorities.
And when Mr. Murphy and Mr. Pallone and yourself are talking about
making this investment in the children's health care, poor kids getting
health care, our friends on the other side are so void of any ideas on
how to make America competitive in the 21st century that they have got
to scream socialism, and I urge all of our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to
go back to the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s and 1960s. The only argument
our friends on the extreme right have is socialism.
We're talking about a bill that passed out of the Appropriations
Committee with bipartisan support. The Members who are coming down here
are extremists. They are the extreme neoconservatives who have
implemented their policy over the last 6 years and have run this
country domestically into the ground, have run our foreign policy into
the ground, and now all they have is names to call us.
Well, go out, and when these millions of kids have health care, go to
them and say, you know what, you really shouldn't get that health care
because it's socialism, okay? When you go to college and you have an
extra 700 bucks in a Pell grant or over the next few years it will be
an increase of over $1,000 by 2011, from $4,050 to over $5,000, go to
that college family, the parents that are struggling to pay for that,
and let our friends on the other side say we have no business helping
you with college; that's not the role of government, Mr. Speaker,
that's socialism. And when we cut student interest rates from 6.8
percent to 3.4 percent, I urge all of our friends on the other side, go
to all the millions of families across this country and say we don't
want to do that, that's socialism; let the free market work.
These banks have been sucking off the government for years. We didn't
raise taxes to do this. All we did was say the banks aren't going to
make a big profit on the student loans. We're going to give it to the
kids and give them a nice 3.4 percent rate so they can go get an
education and go get a job and go create wealth and go start a business
and hire people that are going to pay taxes to keep tax rates low for
everybody.
They're void of ideas, and this is the best investment. I mean, this
is great. We get to go, over the course of the next year, and campaign
on this? This is good stuff.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. The thing about it and the thing about what we
work on and what we meet on, and after we leave the floor I need to
talk to you even further about this issue, because, Mr. Speaker, the
President was on the road and saying, well, I'm going to veto the
interest rate cut that the Democratic Congress passed because it
doesn't help enough needy kids that are presently in college.
Well, this is the same President who said we're going to be treated
as liberators when we were in Iraq.
This is the same President that has said that investing in big oil
will be able to assist us to be energy independent when big oil made
nothing but profits after the White House meeting.
This is the same President that said he was going to treat anyone in
the White House that outed an CIA agent in a way that they should be
treated, and then later let that person off the hook through his
executive power.
This is the same President that has said that we need to send an
escalation of troops to Iraq and we'll see a safer Iraq; that we've
seen otherwise, some 500-plus men and women in uniform that have lost
their lives since that surge.
This is the same President that goes on and on and on talking about
how he's going to increase Pell Grants when he hasn't done that.
This is the same President that said that 9/11, that we are going to
implement this Department of Homeland Security and said there was no
need to pass all of the 9/11 recommendations. That still hasn't made it
to his desk yet, that we want to get passed, that this Democratic
Congress passed.
This is the same President that told folks to go shopping after 9/11
when he had the opportunity to move this country in a new direction,
bring us together, help our economy, and the Americans were ready to do
what they needed to do.
And this is the same President saying I'm going to veto a bill that's
going to cut student loan rates not only for students, I will go
further as a parent to say, for parents and grandparents that are
helping children that are now coming out of college that are more in
debt now than ever because the Federal Government is not there for
them. If we're not there for them, then the State government can't be
there for them because they have to cut, and guess where the first
place is they go. They go to students and cut back.
So I'm about full right now of the American spirit and say that I
hope that our leadership here in the House, with the President, you
spoke of politics saying it's a great thing to run on. I always said
this whole Iraq issue, if we see more and more pictures like this,
Republican leadership leading their caucus down to the White House
saying we stand with the President and making sure that the Congress
doesn't override his original thoughts or what he feels should be, the
White House is not to be used as the Republican National Committee
instrument or the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. This is
about the American people and what we do.
So, the President, this is his last day of school. This is the last
month of school. He's about to move on. He's about to become a private
citizen. Those of us that are in Congress, if the American people that
allow us to come back after 2008, will be here to govern this country,
and guess what, this is not the last day of school for Americans.
So, when we talk about cutting student loan rates in half and the
President starts using all kinds of, I start to go back to the big oil
argument. What,
[[Page H7651]]
did the banks have a special meeting at the White House, saying we
can't allow this to happen; you got to stand in the schoolhouse door;
and will they be able to motivate these Members to go back to the White
House and say we stand with the President? How many times?
So, Mr. Speaker, I know that the bold leadership we have here in the
House, if he vetoes this bill, which I don't want him to do, I hope he
signs it, and we're able to provide the assistance to these individuals
that are in all of our districts, Republican and Democrats. This is not
for Democratic kids. This is for all kids, for all families, for all
working people. If he does it, I hope that within the hour that he does
it that we have something here on this floor, and we'll separate the
Members from the followers here on both sides of the aisle.
And when we passed this bill, I know you brought this issue up, but
when we passed this bill, there was 143 Republicans that voted against
it, just enough to withstand. One, one over to be able to hold off a
presidential override. That's a gut check there, Mr. Speaker. I wonder
how many of those 143 are going to be with the President in not
allowing American families to have a cut in financial aid.
I want their constituents to pay very close attention on whose side
you're on. Are you on the bank's side or are you on the American people
side?
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Can I make a point because I think this is so
important. There's not been a tax increase here. This is not where the
President can say, I'm going to veto this bill because the Democrats
increased taxes on someone.
What we did is we shifted this money that was going to the banks and
allowed them to charge students 6.8 percent. It was basically corporate
welfare, and we're saying that that same amount of money that went to
them is going to go to more students for cheaper loans, less interest
rates, 3.4 percent instead of 6.8 percent, just a shift in the money,
shift in priorities.
So what the President's basically saying is I would rather have the
banks make the profit than expand student loans to more kids and more
parents. Now, that's just reading the facts. Ignore our rhetoric.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. To go deeper than that, let's explain
exactly what the deal is. Let's delve one layer deeper into this,
explain exactly what the deal is for banks here.
We already guarantee all of these loans for the banks. That's a great
deal. You tell me that I'm going to lend money to somebody and if they
don't pay it back, somebody else is going to pay me back? Well, guess
what, I'll probably make that loan.
But then what we did on top of it, on top of it was we gave them a
cut of the loan, too. You know what we figured out? They're still going
to make the loans even if you don't give them a cut of the loan.
They're guaranteed loans. They're essentially guaranteed loans. That's
just commonsense.
And so as Mr. Ryan said, this becomes sort of a socialist welfare
program for just a different set of people, people that are doing
pretty well already. So, to me, this is just commonsense. So to a lot
of people it's commonsense.
When we go back in our districts, we're hearing a lot of people
talking about Iraq. People are behind the Democrats' plan to reorder
our priorities there and start going after the real bad guys, but there
are a lot of people struggling just with getting by every day and every
week, and there are a lot of young parents who are raising young kids
and looking at college costs, thinking to themselves how on earth am I
going to do this.
And to think that one of the things that stands in their way is a
system now that subsidizes some pretty well-off banks, at the expense
of those parents and their kids, is ludicrous. I mean, frankly, I could
probably sit there, even coming from a pretty fiscally conservative
State like Connecticut, I could probably sit here and justify bringing
in new revenue somehow in order to increase money for student aid. I
think I could sell people back in Connecticut, and say, listen, we've
got to put a little more into the pot and we're going take care of
students who need help, I mean truly meritorious students.
We don't even have to do that here. We don't even have to make that
argument. All we have to do is say listen, we've just got to shift
moneys from the haves to the have-nots. That's the brilliance of this
program.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. I know that we're running out of time, and I
think Mr. Ryan is going to move us to a few more minutes here.
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