[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 162 (Wednesday, October 24, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13322-S13323]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          MISPLACED PRIORITIES

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, as my colleagues know, earlier this 
week President Bush announced he will ask this Congress to provide an 
additional $46 billion for the war in Iraq next year. That is $46 
billion more than the $150 billion he already told us he would ask for. 
Taken together, that is close to $200 billion more than the hundreds of 
billions of dollars the taxpayers of this country have already poured 
into the sands and marshes of Iraq--for a war this President has made 
clear he has no intention of ending.
  The people of Rhode Island are tired of watching their sons and 
daughters, their neighbors and their friends, sent off to war by a 
President who won't trouble himself to make a plan to bring them home. 
They are tired of spending money our country has to borrow on a war 
with burdens our country should no longer have to bear. And they are 
sick and tired of hearing this President veto or threaten to veto 
legislation passed by this Congress that supports the real and urgent 
needs of Americans and their families--all because he says it costs too 
much.
  Clearly, this President is an expert when it comes to irresponsible 
and excessive spending. Look at the war. Look at the private 
contractors. Look at the national debt he has run up. But how can he 
keep a straight face and tell the American people it is more important 
to borrow and spend $35 billion for 3\1/2\ more months of the Iraq war 
than it is to provide budgeted health insurance for 5 years to 10 
million American children? What a sobering revelation of this 
administration's misplaced priorities.
  No American should doubt for 1 minute what is going on here. Every 
time President Bush vetoes a bill to fund children's health care, every 
time he threatens to veto legislation that will send our Nation's 
children to college, keep families warm during the winter months, 
invest in job training and technical education programs, or offer the 
promise of medical cures through research at the National Institutes of 
Health, President Bush is making a choice. He is choosing prolonging a 
war in Iraq over battling cancer. He is choosing his no-plan war over 
helping families in poverty. It is a choice, and it is the wrong 
choice.
  Last night, the Senate passed a bill to provide funding for the 
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and other 
agencies. On October 17, the administration expressed its opposition to 
this appropriations bill based on what it calls ``an irresponsible and 
excessive level of spending.'' As I said, this President is certainly 
expert at irresponsible and excessive levels of spending, but what does 
he mean? The President means that $10.8 billion spent to help millions 
of Americans lead healthier, more productive lives is irresponsible and 
excessive, but the nearly $200 billion additional he wants to borrow 
and spend on the war in Iraq is just fine.

  Let's look at two areas in this bill where the funding levels we 
propose exceed those in the administration's budget to see just how 
irresponsible and excessive we are.
  The first is at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at NIH. 
Our bill funds the institute at $67 million more than the President's 
request. I want to introduce my colleagues to one man who does not 
think this increase is irresponsible and excessive.
  This is a picture of Richard Pezzillo on his last visit to 
Washington, DC. Rich is a bright, kind, thoughtful young man from North 
Providence, RI, who hopes one day to become a meteorologist. Rich also 
suffers from hemophilia and right now lies in a hospital bed in Rhode 
Island, too sick to attend his classes at Western Connecticut State 
University where he hopes to graduate this May. Sadly, Rich, now 24, 
has missed 2\1/2\ years of school due to his illness.
  One of these absences was caused by an activity most of us would 
never even think about--something we do, in fact, to save lives--
putting on a seatbelt. Three years ago, Rich unfastened his seatbelt 
from the airplane, collected his things, and walked off into the 
airport and suddenly started to feel tremendous pain. He started 
vomiting blood. Simply wearing his seatbelt had caused Rich to bleed 
internally, inside of his stomach, eventually requiring that his gall 
bladder be removed. Rich spent roughly 3 weeks in the hospital, 
accumulating bills totaling nearly $1.5 million. Luckily, Blue Cross-
Blue Shield of Rhode Island, his family's insurer, covered most of 
these costs. But Rich is desperately afraid what will happen to him 
when he graduates from college and no longer qualifies under his 
parents' health care plan. Hemophilia is one of the most expensive 
conditions a person can have, one that few insurance companies will 
want to take on.
  Richard Pezzillo is a fighter. He is an example for us all. But he 
will continue to face tremendous difficulties with his health 
throughout his life. Soon, thanks to research going on at the National 
Institutes of Health; specifically at the National Heart, Lung, and 
Blood Institute, hemophilia could be the first disease cured by gene 
therapy. The funding in this appropriations bill will go toward 
research which could save Richard's life and the lives of 18,000 people 
across this country who suffer from hemophilia. This spending is not 
irresponsible. This spending is not excessive. This spending is vital 
and it is working and it has the potential to save thousands of people 
like Rich Pezzillo.
  A second place where this bill calls for spending above the 
President's budget--$128 million above his budget to be exact--is at 
the National Cancer Institute. Here I want to share the story of 
Benjamin Haight. I met Ben's parents this summer when they came down to 
my office from Warwick, RI, to share their little boy's story. Ben was 
diagnosed with neuroblastoma early in 1999 when he was just 4\1/2\ 
years old. At the time, Ben's dad was a senior chief in the Navy, 
serving aboard the USS Miami. He was airlifted off the submarine to 
join his son, as Ben underwent five rounds of chemo, surgery, 
radiation, and endured two stem cell transplants. These treatments left 
Ben with no high frequency hearing, requiring him to wear the two 
hearing aids, and they left him with a severely compromised immune 
system. But Ben refused to let any of this keep him from being a kid. 
He told his doctors there would be no treatments during science class, 
and that they would have to be out by 3 to go to Cub Scouts or baseball 
or soccer or other activities. He often left his chemotherapy sessions 
dressed in his Little League uniform. Ben was a snorkler, a sailor, a 
swimmer, a fisherman, a climber, an artist, and an animal lover. He 
was, as his parents say, a child first and a child with cancer second.
  Though Ben and his family enjoyed 2 years of remission, he relapsed 
again in October 2001 at the start of second grade. This new round of 
treatment consisted of more chemo and over 200 blood and platelet 
transfusions. Ben lost his battle with neuroblastoma on August 8, 2003, 
at the age of 9. The night before he died, Ben turned to his mom and 
asked: ``Can't we try a stronger medicine?''
  Well, Ben, at the pediatric oncology branch of the National Cancer 
Institute, they are trying to create that stronger medicine. Ten phase 
I and four phase II clinical trials are currently being conducted on 
neuroblastoma, and scientists are closer and closer every day to the 
stronger medicine you asked for.
  Is it really so irresponsible and excessive to provide the funding 
for these studies, to find the treatments that could have saved Ben 
Haight and could save so many more children like him?
  To me, irresponsible and excessive is borrowing and spending $450 
billion for an endless war that undermines our national security and 
then asking the Congress for another $196.4 billion without a plan to 
bring our troops home, all while nearly 50 million Americans go without 
health insurance and millions of families hover at the door of poverty.

[[Page S13323]]

  We should be clear that the nearly $200 billion this President has 
requested for the war in Iraq, on top of the hundreds of billions he 
has already spent, is not even the whole story. When this 
administration tells us about the financial costs of this disastrous 
war, they don't tell us about the interest payments we will have to 
pay. The Congressional Budget Office tells us that interest on the war 
will total $415 billion by 2017, and then there will be more interest 
on the additional $200 billion the President wants us to borrow and 
spend. The final interest costs of this war could approach $1 trillion, 
passed on to our children and grandchildren.
  President Bush, I think most Americans would argue with you. I think 
most Americans would argue that $22 billion to keep our families 
healthy is a pretty sound investment in our country's future, and 
trillions of dollars in spending and hundreds of billions of dollars in 
interest for a war you won't take action to end, that is what is 
irresponsible and excessive.
  The President's threatened veto of this appropriations bill is just 
another illustration of his extraordinarily misplaced priorities. The 
$67 million increase this bill calls for to fund the National Heart, 
Lung, and Blood Institute is a few hours of the cost of the war in 
Iraq--not even a full day, not even half a day, a few hours. In fact, 
the entire NIH budget in this bill is only $1 billion above the 
President's request. One billion dollars sounds like a lot of money, of 
course, but it is, in fact, only a few days of the war in Iraq--not a 
month, not a week, only a few days.

  President Bush would rather prolong the war in Iraq than fund 
additional research at the National Institutes of Health into pediatric 
cancer, into hemophilia, and into other diseases such as diabetes, 
heart disease, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, autism, Parkinson's, and 
Alzheimer's. He would rather fund a continuous war than provide hope 
for millions of families around this country.
  Well, I hope President Bush will listen to Rich Pezzillo's story. I 
hope he will listen to Ben Haight's parents. I hope he will listen to 
the thousands of Rhode Islanders who have reached out to me to demand a 
new direction, not only in Iraq but here at home in America. I hope he 
will listen to Americans across this country who think that people such 
as Rich and Ben should be our first priorities.
  I am proud this bill puts people such as Rich and Ben ahead of the 
extreme rightwing ideologies and reckless wars this President pursues, 
and I hope we in Congress will stand our ground when, of all people, 
this President charges that putting Rich and Ben first is irresponsible 
and excessive.
  Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tester). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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