[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 23662]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            AMERICA SHOULD RECEIVE THE SAME FUNDING AS IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Madam Speaker, we are on the verge of considering $87 
billion to be spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the second payment 
on top of the first $70 billion that was requested by the 
administration, and Secretary Powell the other day noted this is a down 
payment for an additional request to come 6 months from now.
  Back in April, I introduced a bill called the American Parity Act, 
which said whatever we invested in Iraq's health care, their education, 
their infrastructure, their armed forces, we ought to do here at home. 
Today, I am proud to announce we have 102 sponsors; but in his recent 
request, there is $6 billion for the Iraqi electric grid, and what does 
America get? They get the blackout. Not a single dollar invested in 
America's electric grid.
  Iraq is being pledged, and thought of, $4 billion for water 
purification, a wetlands restoration project for Iraq, we finally found 
an environmental policy the administration can support, and all types 
of water projects in Iraq. Yet in the Great Lakes, where 40 million 
Americans get their daily drinking water, there is not a single dollar 
dedicated to deal with the drinking water in the recent environmental 
degradation of the Great Lakes along New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, 
Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Indiana. We have a bipartisan 
bill to dedicate $4 billion over 5 years to restore and upgrade the 
environmental quality of the Great Lakes where drinking water is 
provided for 40 million Americans, equal to the amount we are pledging 
for 1 year in Iraq.
  Just this week, we are talking about spending $4 billion for the 
Iraqi police. Yet the administration's budget cuts $1 billion for the 
100,000 police program here in the United States.
  So what I did is produce a T-shirt. It envisions and puts on the 
front the President's reconstruction budget for all of Iraq and 
Afghanistan, the two proposals. On the back are the cuts here at home 
in the respective areas of health care, education, veterans health care 
and veterans hospital, veterans benefits, but also the cuts in job 
training and job growth.
  In the last 2 years, Americans have lost 3 million jobs, 45 million 
Americans are without health insurance, 25 million of that 45 work 
full-time but have no health insurance.
  We have taken 4 million Americans out of the middle class and put 
them in poverty and nearly $1 trillion worth of corporate assets have 
been foreclosed on. That is the net result of the economic policies.
  We have a vision for Iraq with an additional $20 billion of 
reconstruction dollars, of American taxpayer dollars being spent on 
their roads, their health care, their ports. Um Qsar, a great port in 
Iraq, is being redredged. Yet we have a 10 percent cut in the Army 
Corps of Engineers here in the United States, which all of us use to 
keep our economic vitality and job growth in our districts.
  The same values that we hold for Iraq we must pledge for all 
Americans. The same goals we envision for Iraq's future we must 
envision for America. Unfortunately, we have had two priorities, two 
sets of values, two sets of books, one for Iraq, their children for 
tomorrow and one for America.
  I do not think I will ever not support our efforts in Iraq, but I 
will not support the deconstruction of the United States, and somebody 
can be cynical enough to now see how the votes for Iraq's 
reconstruction can be compared to what we are doing here at home, a $90 
billion cut in Medicaid, compared to the 13 million Iraqis who will get 
universal health care. Somebody could see that as wrong; opening up new 
universities in Iraq, while we cut $500 million from Pell grants here 
in the United States.
  So I ask my colleagues on the other side as they consider on the eve, 
and I understand the pressure of being loyal to our President and loyal 
to an administration's goal, to think about what this means what we are 
doing here at home. Americans over the last 40 to 50 years have been 
very generous. They have funded the Marshall Plan, brought Europe back 
to its feet, helped build Japan after World War II. They have 
continually donated and helped other countries, but America will not be 
generous if the dream of a tomorrow for America is diminished compared 
to the dream we hold for the Iraqi people.
  So as we are on the eve of debating the $87 billion, we need to 
support our troops; but we need to support our people here at home for 
their education, their jobs, their health care, their economic 
development of their communities and the safety of their communities. 
We should treat our veterans who come home with the same respect we are 
treating the forces in Iraq that we are trying to rebuild.

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