[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 176 (Wednesday, November 14, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H13948-H13952]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE 30 SOMETHING WORKING GROUP
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Altmire) is
recognized for one-half the time until midnight as the designee of the
majority leader.
Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, thank you.
We are here tonight with part of the 30 Something Working Group, and
we are going to talk about what this House has been doing this week. We
are here, it's late into the evening, and we have been working
throughout the day on a variety of issues, and we are going to be at
work tomorrow. I wanted to talk with my colleagues tonight. And we are
going to have a full house. We are going to be joined by Mr. Murphy
from Connecticut, Mr. Meek from Florida, Ms. Wasserman Schultz from
Florida, and Mr. Ryan from Ohio. We are going to have a discussion
about some of the things that this House has been doing.
We took several significant votes this week, including the vote that
was just discussed on Iraq. And we are going to discuss the policy in
Iraq and the vote that we took today.
I wanted to start by talking about the President's veto earlier in
the week of the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill. Now, the
President has found his veto pen, something that on appropriations
bills he had not used until this Congress. And I think it's instructive
to begin this debate by reminding my colleagues, as if they needed
reminding, that we are talking about an administration that took office
after 4 consecutive years of record surpluses, 4 consecutive years of
budget surpluses, that were forecast to continue as far as the eye can
see. In fact, the 10-year projection for budget surplus beginning in
2001 was more than $5 trillion of surplus over that 10-year period.
{time} 2245
Well, what have we seen instead of that? We've seen seven consecutive
budget deficits in the 7 years of this administration, deficits that
are forecast to continue as far as the eye can see. And instead of that
$5 trillion in surplus, we've seen more than $3 trillion in deficits in
just 7 years.
So, this administration that's now lecturing us on fiscal
responsibility and vetoing our appropriations bills, criticizing us for
spending, this administration saw more than $8 trillion flip from a
projected $5 trillion surplus to $3 trillion in deficit and counting.
So, that's the context of what we're talking about.
So, we sent to the President the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations
bill, which includes programs like low-income energy assistance, home
heating, the LIHEAP program. Now, I don't think there's anyone in this
country that has not been affected by the price of oil. And home
heating is something in the Northeast where I'm from in Pennsylvania,
and in Connecticut where Mr. Murphy is from, and in Ohio where Mr. Ryan
is from, the price of home heating has continued to skyrocket. And
we're going to get into some of the numbers, but that's one of the
things that's in this bill. Well, I don't think that's excessive
spending, to help people who would otherwise have their heat turned
off.
We're talking about funding for community health centers. We're
talking about funding for Head Start, a program for early childhood
education. Is there anything more important in this country than early
childhood education, making sure our children get off to a good start
and begin their educational careers in a way that we're able to ensure
that they get off and they're positioned to have the best start
possible.
Now, what about medical research, the National Institutes of Health?
[[Page H13949]]
That's what we're talking about in this bill, funding for medical
research. Is there anyone in the country that thinks we shouldn't be
spending money to find cures and treatments for debilitating diseases
across the board? That's what this bill is. That's what the Labor-HHS-
Education bill funds, and the President vetoed that bill. And we're
going to have a vote in this House to override that veto, and it's
going to be a very close vote. We were two votes shy of having a veto
override majority when the bill passed the House the first time. Two
votes. That's what stands between us and overriding the President's
veto.
And I would remind my colleagues as well that we were able to
override the President's veto just last week. This is not something
that can't be done. We had a Water Resources Development Act that had
not passed in 7 full years. It's supposed to be reauthorized every 2
years. Congress after Congress, in recent years, has been unable to
pass that bill, so we passed it. And we faced a Presidential veto; the
President vetoed it. We were able to override that veto overwhelmingly,
300-plus votes in the House; they got 79 in the other body. And what's
in that bill? That's another bill that the President, and I outlined
his record on fiscal responsibility and he wants to lecture us on
spending, for infrastructure improvements in this country. Building
levees in New Orleans, does that sound like pork? Building flood
prevention infrastructure all across this country.
There were projects in that bill in almost every congressional
district in the country to prevent flooding, to help the waterways
infrastructure in a way that we're investing for the first time in 7
years in flood prevention infrastructure. So we overrode that veto
overwhelmingly. We do have the opportunity to do it again on the Labor-
HHS-Education bill. And we're going to talk more about that.
At this time, I want to yield to my colleague Mr. Murphy from
Connecticut.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I thank my friend from Pennsylvania, and I
appreciate his promptness in being here as I share with him today. We
trust that the other members of the 30-Somethings will join us here
today, but it falls very often on the new members of the 30-Somethings
to make sure that we are here to begin the sharing of good news with
the American people.
And I hope there is good news, Mr. Altmire. I hope that people
throughout this country who see the President's veto of this incredibly
important bill, and you laid out very clearly and very succinctly what
the President has vetoed, what he has said no to. We're talking about
health care for kids. We're talking about good schools. We're talking
about Head Start, medical research, home heating assistance for the
elderly. And these are the basic building blocks of a compassionate
society, and the President has said, very firmly and clearly, no to
those.
And as you said, we're not very far away from having the requisite
number of votes here on the House floor to override that veto. And I
know that's kind of inside baseball for a lot of people, whether we
have two-thirds or three-fourths or whatever the percentage is that we
need. But it's important because, as you said, the President has found
his veto pen for the first time in his tenure in office. And I think
it's important to try to figure out what's different this year than as
was the case in the last previous 6 years of his Presidency? And it's
kind of funny because, if you look at the record, as you said, Mr.
Altmire, it seems a little odd to be having lectures from this
administration on fiscal responsibility because this President and the
Republican Congress over the last 6 years have increased Federal
spending by 50 percent, 50 percent just over 6 years. We've put $3
trillion on top of the deficit, on top of the debt that this country
owes, as we've watched the President and this Congress continue to
spend and continue to borrow. We've seen the amount of foreign-held
debt, and you know, this is something that Mr. Meek and Mr. Ryan have
been talking about for years and years and years. We've seen the amount
of foreign-held debt during that time double. This is all under a
Republican-controlled Congress, both Houses, and a Republican
administration. And during that entire time, the biggest piece of the
budget that has exploded has been the funding for this war.
Now, those of us who paid attention when the President initially
rolled out his plans to invade Iraq, his very rosy and optimistic
projections of our success there and the cost of that war, well,
remember that he told the American people, his administration told the
Congress that he thought that this war wasn't going to cost more than
$50 or $60 billion to get the job done? And also, if you remember, that
the Iraqis were going to welcome the Americans as conquering heroes.
Well, we know that that $50 to $60 billion was a figure of fiction,
historical fiction now, Mr. Altmire, because now the estimates are that
this war has cost us not $50 billion, not $100 billion, not $500
billion, but $1.3 trillion. And if we look forward to the projections
associated with carrying out a war for the next 10 years, as this
President has told this country he's planning to do, or that his war
planners intend to do, we're talking about a $3.5 trillion commitment
before this is all done. Now, that is a number that is almost
impossible to get our hands around. I mean, what does $3.5 trillion
mean to anybody? Well, what it means is that we're going to borrow more
and more and more. We are going to put our children and our
grandchildren and our great-grandchildren into hock in this country.
And so, when we hear this President sitting down and telling the
American people that he's going to get tough on spending, and the way
he's going to do that is by denying education to kids and health care
to the sick and heat to the elderly, well, during that time he and his
Republican Congress have spent like drunken sailors when it comes to a
very mismanaged and misguided war in Iraq, you can't help but wonder
where his priorities are and where this Congress' priorities were for
the last several years.
So, it's all got to be, I think, in relation, Mr. Altmire, because
we're making choices here, as we have for the last 6 years. We've
chosen not to spend on American hospitals and American children. We've
chosen not to spend to help our elderly get what they need in order to
keep their house heated for the winter. And instead, we've chosen to
build Iraqi buildings and Iraqi hospitals. We've chosen to put more and
more troops in harm's way in a war that is making this country less
safe in the long run rather than more safe. This is all about choices,
and it's time that we started making some different ones.
And that's why we got sent here, Mr. Altmire. We got sent here to
start investing in this country, to start making sure that our
priorities look to this country, to the United States of America,
first. And that's what the Labor-HHS appropriations bill does. It is
the foundation of that compassionate government that we all believe in.
It's about medical research. It's about schools. It's about hospitals.
And I hope, as you said, that there will be enough Republicans here
who will join us, and we only need a handful, so that we can reverse
that and bring back some common sense to our spending priorities in
this country, Mr. Altmire.
Mr. ALTMIRE. I wanted to mention one other issue that was in that
bill. We talked about home heating assistance. We talked about health
care for children, medical research. We talked about the Head Start
program, but it's the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill. And one
of the programs that's in that bill that the President thought was
excessive spending was additional 200,000 slots for job training for
dislocated workers. And I can tell you, coming from western
Pennsylvania where we know about dislocated workers and the need for
job training and people to readapt when companies move and with the
loss of manufacturing jobs, those are critically important programs
that the President considers to be excessive spending. That's what
we're talking about with this bill. That's what type of spending we're
talking about.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Altmire, if you would yield for a
moment.
Mr. ALTMIRE. Yes, I would.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Really, when it comes down to it, the only
thing that's different here is the party that's writing the budget. I
mean, really, when you look at it over time, what's different about the
last six
[[Page H13950]]
budgets that this Congress passed that over time expanded Federal
expenditures by 50 percent and the budget that we've passed, which
simply reflects the fact that it costs a little bit more to heat your
home if you're a senior, that it costs a little bit more to run a
school than it did last year? What's different? I mean, the fact is is
that it seems like it's just base partisan politics in the end, that
all that really is different is that the Democrats are writing this
budget this year and the Republicans were writing the last six budgets.
And it is not a coincidence that over the last 6 years we saw nary a
veto from this President while his party was in charge of the Congress,
and now all of a sudden we have seen a flurry of vetoes on bills that
reflect many of the same priorities, we think adjusted to make a little
bit more sense for our communities, many of the same priorities that
were reflected in the budgets for the last 6 years. And I think to a
lot of us that came here to change the culture of this place, as much
as we care about resetting our priorities and putting funding back into
our communities, we also were sort of hoping that there was a little
bit of a message sent in this election to change the partisan rancor
that has really enveloped this place, and the President, by vetoing
bills very similar to ones that he has signed in the past simply
because a different party controls the House, I think does a disservice
to the process and a disservice to the mandates that a lot of voters
sent us here with, Mr. Altmire.
Mr. ALTMIRE. And the last thing for context, before I turn it over to
Ms. Wasserman Schultz from Florida, you will remember, Mr. Murphy and I
both being freshman, the excitement of that first week in Congress and
the things that we did that first week when we were first sworn in at
the beginning of 2007. Well, perhaps the most important thing that we
did was return to pay-as-you-go budget scoring, which is very simple.
It's the same thing that we all do in our own checkbooks at home and
the same thing every business in America has to do. It says that you
have to have money on one side of the ledger if you want to spend it on
the other, pay-as-you-go. If you want to decrease revenue or you want
to increase spending, you have to find a way to pay for it, an offset,
you have to find an offset. And every spending bill and every
authorization bill that we have passed out of this House this year,
every single one of them has been compliant with pay-as-you-go. It has
paid for itself; it's been budget neutral.
So, the context of this debate with the President about his
willingness to veto these bills and saying it's excessive spending, the
American people should be aware of the fact that that's in the context
of our returning to pay-as-you-go budget scoring. That's what led to
the record surpluses of the 1990s that I referred to earlier. And the
failure of this Congress to renew pay-as-you-go budget scoring in 2002
is what led to the record deficits that we're mired in today.
So, when you hear about the vetoes of these spending bills, please
keep in mind that we're talking about bills that are compliant with
pay-as-you-go budget scoring, bills that are budget neutral and that
have the appropriate offsets when there are spending increases.
I would yield at this time to my good friend, Ms. Wasserman Schultz
from Florida.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you so much, Mr. Altmire. It is a
pleasure again to join my colleagues in the 30-Something Working Group.
And I'm so glad that our newest members of the Working Group, Mr.
Murphy and Mr. Altmire, have been holding down the fort for the last
little while talking about spending priorities, because that is
actually the most glaring difference between the Republicans and the
way they handled this institution and the Democrats and the way we are
handling it.
Let's take the problem that we're facing here now that you've been
talking about, and that is that the President vetoed the Labor Health
and Human Services and Education appropriations bill. And I am proud to
sit as a member of the Appropriations Committee with Mr. Ryan. And I
can tell you that the difference in the overall spending plan that the
President put forward versus our 12 bills combined amounts to $22
billion. Now, $22 billion might sound like a big number, but let's put
it in context.
{time} 2300
Twenty-two billion dollars is approximately what we are spending in
Iraq in 2 months. That's the difference between what Democrats in
Congress are proposing to spend for all 12 bills combined, the
difference between the President's proposal and the Democrats'
proposal. That problem underscores the fact that the President only has
one spending priority, and that is the war in Iraq. The problem is that
the only spending priority that matters to President Bush is the war in
Iraq. It's not even the war in Iraq and Afghanistan because he has so
clearly shortchanged what was going on in Afghanistan when we started,
which is where the war on terror, or the pursuit of bin Laden was
ongoing that we abandoned when he shifted the focus of America to the
war in Iraq, that it has blocked out the sun. His spending priority,
his only one, the war in Iraq, has blocked out the sun and made it
impossible for us to move forward on things like education, like
expanding access to health care for children, like making sure that we
can pass a stem cell research bill that the vast majority of this
country supports.
I will just give you an example of one of the things that resulted
from the veto of the Labor-HHS bill and that is the increase in Ryan
White title IV funding for AIDS programs for families. We have an
explosion of AIDS in this country. We absolutely need to make sure that
we get a handle on it. There hasn't been an increase in title IV
funding in years. Now that we are in charge and are making sure that we
move this country in a new direction, we are focusing on the domestic
priorities of Americans. Americans want us to withdraw our troops from
Iraq in a responsible way and focus on things that they care about when
it comes to their everyday lives. That is literally what the Labor-HHS
appropriations bill does. It is an expression of our values. And our
values reflect the needs of Americans when it comes to their health
care, when it comes to their education, when it comes to their
environment at work. And the priorities and values reflected in the
Republicans' agenda is the war in Iraq.
Now, I think the American people clearly stated what their intentions
were and what they wanted Congress to do last November 7, and we have
repeatedly, and we did again tonight just before we came on the floor
this evening for the 30-Something hour, they have repeatedly urged us
in Congress to begin a responsible withdrawal of our troops, to stop
sending the troops over for tour after tour, the same men and women,
the same strain on their families, sending them over there without the
equipment that they need, sending them over there without the proper
training, with tours of duty that are beyond the appropriate length of
time, stretching families, causing divorces, causing strain,
psychological impact on children, but they don't care. It just doesn't
matter. The President's priority is Iraq, and everyone else's opinion
be damned.
I will be happy to yield to the gentleman.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is not just the President. It is enough Members
of Congress on the Republican side primarily that are standing by the
President. They have to go to the voters next year and say, in my last
term in Congress, I stood by President Bush. The thing is that when you
talk about the war funding, the waste, the no-bid contracts, the
Pentagon losing billions of dollars and nobody knows where it is, you
don't hear our friends on the other side, Mr. Speaker, come up and
pitch a fit about that. But if you want to talk about $1 billion or $2
billion more in health, education, job retraining, all of a sudden the
sky is falling. All of a sudden the party that raised the debt limit
five times and borrowed $3 trillion under President Bush is now
concerned with a shift in funding to college education, Mr. Meek, to
community health clinics, Mr. Altmire, to Head Start, to these
fundamental programs that this country has stood behind. And the kicker
is SCHIP, $35 billion over 5 years, and the President says that's too
much spending so we can't provide health care for 10 million kids, poor
kids, but we can just turn
[[Page H13951]]
around without a blink of an eye and ask for $200 billion to keep the
war going in Iraq, without any kind of deadlines or timelines or any
kind of shift in the focus. That's the frustrating part.
Before I yield to my friend, I would just like to say there has been
a pattern here. On September 11 or after September 11, Mr. Murphy, it
was go shopping. And then during the whole SCHIP debate, it was, well,
they can go to the emergency room, these kids. Then during Katrina it
was, ``You're doing a good job, Brownie,'' consistently these flippant
remarks that the President tends to make that lacks an understanding of
the seriousness of some of these situations.
So it is frustrating as we are trying to make some investments into
the United States of America, into this country, and the President
consistently, with a small band of Republican supporters, is able to
veto this, and unfortunately, we don't have enough votes in the House
yet to override these vetoes.
I yield to my friend.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Thank you so very much, Mr. Ryan, and I want to
thank the Members and Mr. Altmire for hosting this hour and anchoring
this hour for us. It is always good to see Ms. Wasserman Schultz. She
has been busy. There are a lot of appropriations bills coming through
the floor. And Mr. Murphy has so much to offer to this 30-something.
Mr. Ryan, I appreciate the fact that you took us down Memory Lane,
especially what this administration has done. Being one that pays
attention to history and appreciates those that have contributed to
this country, whether it be in battle or service in the military and
those families that are waiting for their loved ones to come home,
whether it be a son or a daughter or a sister or a brother or a mother,
waiting, I think it is important for us to recognize right here in the
moment, I can't help but think and reflect on the contributions of
those Americans before me, the sacrifices that they have made that was
just regular order that we call here in Congress, it was just another
day. But these were heroes and sheroes that stood on behalf of this
country and wanted to carry out the will of the American
people. Sometimes we get caught up here in Washington about what we
think. I think it's important to note that seven out of 10 Americans
have a bad feeling about what is going on in Iraq, the direction that
we are going in. This New Direction Congress has tried to steer this
administration in the right direction, but I'm just going to put it on
the lap of those that are in Congress. The President is not running
again.
I actually got up pretty early this morning and had a chance to go
down to Morning Journal and have a chance to sit there and take calls
from the American people. As you know, you get a cross section of
Democrats, Republicans, independents, what have you.
But I think it is very, very important for us to realize, four
Republicans tonight voted in the affirmative on H.R. 4156, which is the
Orderly and Responsible Iraq Redeployment Appropriations Act of 2008. I
think it is important that people note that in that bill, it put forth
$50 billion under the $200 billion that the President called for. And
the veto that you were talking about a little earlier as it relates to
the health centers, as it relates to the research that has to take
place dealing with the illness that many Americans are facing, family
members that have cancer right now that need that research, need those
dollars. The President vetoes those dollars.
So I think it is important for the Members here on the floor and the
Members that are listening to what we are saying here on the floor and
the staff members that are listening and the Americans that are
listening that we pay very close attention. Everyone has to be a part
of this paradigm shift in Washington, DC. It just can't be the majority
we have here in the House and the one majority we have in the Senate,
because if we had 60 votes, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, we would be able to
move the agenda that the American people call for.
So my contribution tonight would be to, well, one, to our Republican
friends on the other side of the aisle that don't allow us to have
enough votes to be able to override the President, that the American
people will hold them in judgment. To the Members in the Senate that
feel that whatever the reason may be to not allow us to override the
President, because the President is not running again, but you are,
that the American people, independent, Republican, Democrat, first-time
voter will let their voice be heard in 2008. That's the good thing
about this whole thing, the fact that I know in this democracy that
people are paying attention to what is going on.
You cannot justify, ladies and gentlemen, when you look in the face
of 10 million children that have to receive health care and say that,
well, it's okay for the President to veto and for me to stand by the
President and not by those children, it's okay for us to continue on in
a war with no accountability, and then we have the Blackwater incident,
and then we have other incidents that are there. So the only thing that
I am excited about is the fact that the American people are paying
attention. But if it was about politics, I would just sit in my office
and allow the President to do what he does and a very small majority as
it relates to Republicans standing by the President because I know one
day the Americans will rise up and the American spirit will rise up and
we will see a different America. That is what I am praying for and I am
hoping for very soon.
Mr. Ryan, I think you are 110 percent right. I think we need to
remind the Members of the past. We need to make sure that we recognize
those Members that were once Members of Congress but decided to follow
the President, and the American people took them out of office, and as
far as I am concerned, if you don't want to stand on behalf of those
that sent us here, then you are making a career decision. The bottom
line is we have men and women in harm's way right now.
Mr. ALTMIRE. That is a perfect segue for what I wanted to get into
right now, and we are going to, I think, conclude on this topic because
this is certainly the most important issue facing the country today is
the war in Iraq. I think anybody would agree. What this House did today
is, as the gentleman from Florida talked about, try to get a handle on
this situation and try to put a plan in place where none exists today
on what our mission is going to be in Iraq.
I was going to talk a little bit about what we did today in the
House, what the bill said, and I will turn it over to Ms. Wasserman
Schultz to go into a little bit more detail. H.R. 4156 requires the
redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq to begin within 30 days of
enactment with a target for completion of December 15, 2008. It
requires transition in the mission of U.S. forces in Iraq from
primarily combat to force protection and diplomatic protection, limited
support to Iraqi security forces and targeted counterterrorism
operations.
The bill prohibits deployment of any U.S. troops not fully equipped
and trained. Is there anybody who can disagree with that? Waivable with
a presidential national security certification. So it gives the
President the ability to waive that requirement if he feels it is
necessary. It extends to all U.S. Government agencies and personnel the
limitations of the Army Field Manual on permissible interrogation
techniques. That means no torture, something that this House has voted
on in the past. It is in the Army manual today. It just says you have
to abide by what is in the Army Field Manual as it is currently
written. And finally, as we discussed, it provides $50 billion to meet
the needs of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan but defers the
consideration of the remainder of the President's nearly $200 billion
request.
So this is a responsible course of action. The House passed it today.
I will yield to the gentlewoman from Florida at this point to give
her views on this issue.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you, Mr. Altmire.
Here is the bottom line. There is a dramatic and stark difference
between the Republicans' priorities and the Democrats' priorities.
There is one priority, and only one that you will ever hear from the
other side, and that is to continue to fund the war in Iraq, continue
to put our troops in harm's way, continue to have their families
separated from them, continue for them to have longer and longer tours
of duty,
[[Page H13952]]
more and more strain, more and more tours of duty.
Here are our priorities. We passed the largest increase in veterans
benefits in the 77-year history of the VA. We passed legislation to
increase the minimum wage. We passed legislation to expand access to
health care for 10 million children. We passed legislation to cut the
student loan interest rate in half. The list goes on.
And what do you hear from the Republicans? Nothing. You hear, let's
put more money into the war in Iraq. Let's lengthen the time that the
men and women fighting on our behalf spend there. Let's send them over
there for more and more tours of duty. Do you ever hear anything from
that side of the aisle in terms of an agenda, in terms of getting
anything done? All I hear is ``no.'' All I hear is, ``not going to do
that.'' All I hear, again, is, ``Yes, Mr. President. Whatever you say,
Mr. President.''
Our criticism of them, Mr. Meek and Mr. Ryan, if you remember, in the
30-Something Working Group in the 109th was that they were the
bobblehead Republicans who did nothing more than shake their head up
and down and do whatever the President said. And nothing has changed.
Well, guess what. A year from now, which is just about a year from now,
they will be called to account just like you said, Mr. Meek, and we
will see just how many fewer Republicans there will be here that serve
in this chamber, because I think the American people have had it up to
here.
I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I just want to make a point. It is not
like we are out on a limb here. We just saw a poll that came out a few
days ago from CNN that shows that seven in 10 Americans oppose this
war. That is the highest number, 68 percent, 70 percent of Americans
oppose this war, the highest number since the war began.
{time} 2315
We are seeing almost by the week, by the day, new generals, new
senior retired American military officials coming out and breaking with
this President. We have already seen the Iraq Study Group, we have
already seen dozens of foreign policy experts come out and plead with
this President. Even many of his best friends, many of his father's
advisors have pleaded for a new course.
The Democrats are on the side of the American public. The Democrats
are on the side of the foreign policy community on Iraq. The Democrats
are on the side of an increasing number of retired military generals
and officials on this issue. As you said, there is just a very loyal,
very recalcitrant block of Republicans who refuse to abide by the
growing will of the American public on this issue. There will be a
price to be paid for this.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If the gentleman will yield. What is clear
here is there is a threat of panic running through the caucus on the
other side of the aisle because we are up to 16 of their incumbent
Members who have decided to bail and who recognize that the ship is
listing and has been listing badly and is in danger of just completely
going down. There doesn't appear to be any likelihood of the ship
righting itself in the near future. They aren't expected and aren't
expecting to get their act together and focus on an agenda that the
American people support because they have been a one-note, tunnel-
vision party for far too long.
So you have 16 that have decided to retire already, with, we are
sure, more to come. It's just not surprising because they do not share
the priorities of everyday working families, Americans who want the
Congress to focus on a new direction and not give them more of the
same.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It's interesting, and I think you made the right
point. It seems like the President has one priority, and one and only
one, and that is the funding of the war. What is interesting is when
you look at the Labor-HHS bill, some of the other bills we are trying
to pass that increase the Pell Grants and some of the other things, we
are not getting the level of support we should.
These vets need those programs. These veterans that are coming back,
it's not like they are making a lot of money, many of them with their
kids they are trying to send to college. So why wouldn't this apply?
The vets aren't just fighting for the Defense appropriations bill that
passes out of the House or the VA benefit package that passes out of
the House. The veterans are fighting for America. They are fighting for
a strong country that does research and development. Veterans have
family members who get cancer. So they are very concerned, I would
think, Mr. Speaker, with investments at NIH to continue cancer
research. They have kids that may need health care. They have kids that
go to school. They may have a kid that wants to participate in a Head
Start program. In each instance, Mr. Altmire, our fearless leader in
this 30-Something group tonight, these vets are fighting for what makes
America great, and that is freedom, that is investment, that is a
strong economy. Those are the kind of things we are investing in.
So to say your only priority is the war and spending what is now
projected by the end of the year $1.3 trillion in the war. The
President says, and a small group of recalcitrant Republicans say here
in the House: We can't fund it because we don't have the money to put
in the health care and everything else.
Mr. MEEK. Will the gentleman yield for a second? I know you're an
appropriator and we are talking about appropriations. You and Mr.
Murphy are kind of throwing around these big words tonight. Let it be
known that some of us in the room just want to break it down a little
bit here in this Chamber.
I can't go back to my district and tell Ms. Johnson and Ms. Rodriguez
or Ms. Jones who worked their entire lives that because the President
decides to veto the Labor-Health bill, and I think it's important that
we share this with the Members, we can't tell those individuals to suck
it up. I am sorry that you weren't in the Defense bill. I am sorry that
it had nothing to do with Iraq and Afghanistan, that we can't be for
you.
One thing I can say here in this House is that we are for them and
that we are standing for those individuals, and they are Republicans
and they are Independents and they are Democrats and they are nonvoters
and individuals thinking about voting for the first time. They are the
sick and shut-in on that sick and shut-in list when people go to
wherever they worship, or whatever the case may be. They are the
individuals counting on this Congress to stand for them.
The Congress is doing what we are supposed to do, Mr. Altmire. But
the bottom line is that the President has to do what he has to do, and
he has to be the President of the United States of America, not just to
secure the issue in Iraq. We have Americans here right now that need
our support and our help.
I am glad that we are here and I am glad that we are putting the
pressure on the minority party to do the right thing on behalf of their
constituents and the American people.
Mr. Altmire.
Mr. ALTMIRE. Thanks to all my colleagues who participated tonight.
Thanks, especially, Mr. Speaker for the time allotted to us. Please, to
continue the discussion, anyone can go to www.speaker.gov and go to the
30-Something Working Group and we can continue this discussion by e-
mail.
I thank the Speaker.
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