[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23672-23679]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       AMERICAN WORKING FAMILIES BEAR THE BURDEN OF IRAQ BLUNDER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burgess). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we are all glad that Saddam Hussein has been 
dethroned. It is better for the world. It is better for Iraq. But the 
cost is too great and has been too great in dollars, and we now are 
considering another $87 billion. We have already invested more than $70 
billion. The regular defense budget is also enormous, and that has been 
expended, and there is no end in sight. We will have more requests for 
more money.
  The cost has been too great. We have not achieved any greater amount 
of security from terrorism. In fact, we are less secure from terrorism 
now than we were before we invaded Iraq. We have been forced to 
concentrate all of our energies, all of our priorities, our best minds, 
everything has been concentrated in Iraq, ignoring the threat in 
Afghanistan and the borders of Pakistan.
  The overwhelming burden of the Iraq blunder, however, has been placed 
on the backs of working families. The actual troops out there are from 
working families. We all support our troops. We all want to do whatever 
is necessary to

[[Page 23673]]

make certain that those troops come home. We want to do whatever is 
necessary to support them to guarantee that they have a chance to come 
home. The overwhelming burden of the Iraq blunder, however, should not 
remain on the backs of working families. Mismanagement should not cause 
more unnecessary suffering and more death among working families, 
relatives of people who are from working families.
  The New York Times documented what we all knew already, that more 
than 90 percent of the members of the military are from working 
families. More than 90 percent of the people in Iraq are from working 
families. This is true for the war in Iraq, as it has been true for 
most other wars.

                              {time}  2145

  We know in the Civil War, the people who had money could buy their 
way out of the draft and pay someone else to go in their place. But, in 
general, draft boards and drafts in cases of the war in Vietnam and 
Korea and so forth have ended up selecting large numbers of working 
family members.
  The greatest generation that celebrated winning World War II had many 
components, class-wise, but the overwhelming number of people who lost 
their lives in World War II were also people who were in working 
families.
  Working families are very special to America. Working families have a 
right to make a claim on America. And what concerns me, and the reason 
I am here today, is that we do not seem to understand the importance of 
working families, the people who are in charge, the people who are in 
power continue to treat working families as if they were expendable, 
that they are not important.
  We heard some discussion of the welfare bill before today. It was 
technical, and it was probably difficult to understand, but that is one 
of the greatest harassments of working families you are going to find, 
the present welfare legislation, which provides a family of four is 
given a subsidy of $6,000 or $7,000 per year, while at the same time we 
give subsides to agribusiness of more than $250,000 per year. One more 
treatment, one more example of the treatment of working families.
  We need to take a hard look at this war in Iraq and what it is doing 
to us. We need to stop the war for many reasons. We need to stop the 
war because it is absorbing large amounts of cash that can be used for 
other purposes, for purposes that we need here at home to improve our 
economy and to improve the lot of all of us, including the lot of 
working families.
  This great Nation's survival and its freedom are directly dependent 
on the courage and the devotion of men and women from working families. 
The blunder has been committed already. We are mired in a deep pit. We 
cannot leave now. The sons and daughters of working families must 
remain on the dangerous front lines. But at least we could support 
those troops in a better manner, not in the current superficial manner 
being mouthed by so many while at the same time they undercut our 
troops.
  We need to understand that in very concrete ways, we are betraying 
the troops in Iraq who are from working families. The kinds of programs 
that have been promulgated by the Republican leadership are outrageous. 
Patriotic and meaningful support means that we must address some of the 
following issues, and we must do it immediately:
  The conflict must be better managed so that there is multinational 
participation in the decision-making and a clear exit strategy to bring 
these American troops home. The best we can do for our troops, the most 
important thing we can do for them, is to bring them home. It has to be 
an honorable exit. We do not want to leave the job half done. We have 
to make certain that no other leader like Saddam Hussein is ever able 
to take control of Iraq.
  We want to encourage democracy as much as possible. The first step 
toward doing that is to share the decision-making with other nations 
and have other nations get involved because they know they can 
participate in the decision-making. They will then commit troops and 
commit equipment and other things. And, most of all, they will be there 
to send a message to the Iraqi population that Americans are not trying 
to take over their country, occupy their country, and control the 
tremendous oil fields that lie beneath that country. That would be one 
way to say to working families, we care about the troops, we care about 
your son and daughter. We are going to make that effort.
  With regard to the United Nations, this administration has only 
offered a cold shoulder, despite the difficulty that we are in. We are 
not moving to try to convince the rest of the world that we are ready 
to share decision-making with Iraq. We are ready to go some extra 
lengths, swallow our pride, do some things we said we would never do, 
put away our anger, and do what will promote a solution, the fastest 
possible solution in Iraq. That is what we can do for our troops. They 
deserve it.
  There are some other direct benefits that the sons and daughters of 
working families over there deserve. They deserve adequate equipment 
and they deserve troops, a troop contingent, enough troops to make it 
safer for them. There are not enough troops in Iraq. They are not 
adequately equipped.
  We heard some speeches before from some visitors who went over. I 
found them very interesting. John Murtha, who has been on the Committee 
on Armed Services for two decades, made the same trip, came back and 
was incensed and angered by the fact that the morale was so low and 
obvious needs in equipment and supplies were not being met. And he 
immediately demanded that the President fire the people who were in 
charge of the war in Iraq.
  John Murtha, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, who has long experience 
in the Committee on Armed Services, saw an outrageous performance in 
terms of the leadership who planned and executed the war in Iraq.
  Rotation rights have been sort of dismissed. Even in the war in 
Vietnam, there was a right of a soldier not to be placed at risk for 
more than a year. A year in combat, placing your life at risk, was all 
that was demanded. You could rotate out of Vietnam after a year. Those 
rights have not been guaranteed to the people in Iraq, soldiers, 
regular soldiers or Reservists.
  The worst thing is the people who are in the Reserves, who thought 
they were going for a 6-month stint, have now had their time extended. 
Worse still for the people in the Reserves there is no economic 
justice. People in the Reserves gave up jobs. They were not career 
people. Yes, they signed up, and they knew that they would have to go 
in case of an emergency, but they were not career military people. And 
they did not want to give up their income and their jobs, leave their 
families indefinitely, but they had to do that. They were forced to do 
that.
  We have behaved so abominably toward those working families that a 
Washington Post article of yesterday describes it as unacceptable, 
almost atrocious. It is a legislative atrocity that they described. I 
am going to read from this article in which the Washington Post 
described what is being done to Reservists in this war in Iraq. ``A 
proposal to close any pay gap faced by civil service employees who are 
called to active duty in the military reserves will not be considered 
by the House and Senate negotiators working on the fiscal 2004 Defense 
authorization bill.''
  Now, this brings it home to us. We mouth our concern about supporting 
the troops and here is an example of how little we are supporting the 
troops, especially the Reservists, how we hold them in contempt really.
  ``In May the House Government Reform Committee approved an amendment 
sponsored by Representatives Tom Lantos and Chris Bell aimed at 
requiring Federal agencies to make up the difference between civil 
service and military pay for those on military duty.'' The provision 
was one of several civil service changes but, hear me carefully, a 
civil servant working for the Federal Government, who happens to be in 
the military Reserves, goes to

[[Page 23674]]

Iraq; he is paid at the same rate as any other soldier, but he left a 
job that was paying far more. He left a family that had been nurtured 
on an income of more.
  If the Federal Government still had him on the payroll, it would cost 
them a certain amount of money. If they continue to pay him at the same 
rate, it does not cost them any more money, it just keeps him at the 
same rate while he is off doing his duty for his country under very 
difficult circumstances. But they did not agree to that.
  ``The provision was dropped when the Armed Services panel put 
together the House version of the defense authorization bill. That 
version sets out guidelines for weapons and equipment purposes and for 
troop strength. The Lantos bill amendment stalled because of its cost: 
$160 million over 5 years including $75 million in fiscal 2004.''
  Hear me carefully: It would have cost the government, the Federal 
Government, $160 million over 5 years, including $75 million in fiscal 
2004. But if those same people had remained in their jobs, they would 
have been paid the $160 million over 5 years and $75 million. And the 
Federal Government was not called upon to do any more than they would 
have done if there had been no war in Iraq. I find that atrocious. I 
find the behavior of this Congress under the Republican majority 
leadership to be atrocious.
  More important, in another outrageous observation, however, were 
objections from the Defense Department, which argued that making up 
differences in pay for civil service employees would undercut military 
morale. You have two sergeants, one a career military and one a 
Reservist doing the same job. And essentially the government is paying 
the civilian employee more for that service than the career military 
guy. That is the heart of the Defense Department objection. Listen to 
that carefully. It would undercut military morale to have a citizen who 
was earning an income at a certain level from the Federal Government, 
who was there against his will, he did it out of duty, has been shipped 
to Iraq, and he is in units along with career military people.
  Now, if you are a career military person, you know what the pay scale 
is. You have accepted the pay scale. Your family is probably getting 
some benefits that the civil servant family is not getting. There are a 
number of ways in which a career person has adapted to a situation that 
they voluntarily went into. But the Reservist, who happened to have 
been a civil service employee for the Federal Government, has to hear 
that he would undercut morale if the government paid him at the same 
rate that they were always paying him.
  About 200 private sector employers, however, and 50 State and local 
governments make up the difference in pay for their worker. Listen 
carefully: The Federal Government, the men and women in charge of the 
blunder in Iraq, who created a situation requiring all these Reservists 
to go, they are doing less than 200 private sector employers, 50 State 
and local governments, which now make up the difference in pay for 
their workers when the workers are forced to serve as Reservists.
  This is outrageous. It falls right at the doorstep of us Members of 
Congress and Members of the other body. About 65,000 Reservists are 
employed by Federal agencies. Mr. Speaker, 65,000 is a large number 
that we are depriving of income, we are depriving those working 
families of their income at a certain level, forcing them to accept the 
pay of the military service that they are in. Sixty-five thousand 
Reservists are employed by Federal agencies making the government the 
single largest employer of Reservists. An additional 48,000 Federal 
technicians are required, they do not have a choice, to be members of 
the Guard as a condition of employment.
  So we have a huge contingent of citizens, who happen to be Federal 
employees, who are treated like dirt. Our government, our Federal 
Government treats this huge number of people and their families like 
dirt. Working families should not have to bear these kinds of burdens. 
This is a legislative atrocity.
  Madam Speaker, I submit this article in its entirety into the Record. 
It is entitled ``Pay-Gap Remedy for Military Reserves Appears Doomed,'' 
in the Washington Post, Monday, September 29th.

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 29, 2003]

          Pay-Gap Remedy for Military Reserves Appears Doomed

                           (By Stephen Barr)

       A proposal to close any pay gap faced by civil service 
     employees who are called to active duty in the military 
     reserves will not be considered by House and Senate 
     negotiators working on the fiscal 2004 defense authorization 
     bill, according to congressional aides.
       Most lawmakers feel that the issue was evaluated by the 
     House Armed Services Committee during its deliberations and 
     is now closed, the aides said.
       The proposal, pushed by a group of House Democrats, ran 
     into opposition because of its cost, as well as concern that 
     it might cause morale problems among regular military troops.
       In May, the House Government Reform Committee approved an 
     amendment sponsored by Reps. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and Chris 
     Bell (D-Tex.) aimed at requiring federal agencies to make up 
     the difference between civil service and military pay for 
     those on military duty. The provision was one of several 
     civil service changes proposed for the Defense Department and 
     forwarded to the Armed Services Committee.
       But the provision was dropped when the Armed Services panel 
     put together the House version of the defense authorization 
     bill, which sets out guidelines for weapons and equipment 
     purchases, military benefits and troop strength.
       The Lantos-Bell amendment stalled because of its cost--$160 
     million over five years, including $75 million in fiscal 
     2004--and because it could have triggered jurisdictional 
     questions that would have given the Government Reform 
     Committee a voice in shaping the defense bill, a 
     congressional aide said.
       More important, however, were objections from the Defense 
     Department, which argued that making up differences in pay 
     for civil service employees would undercut military morale. 
     ``You have two sergeants, one a career military and one a 
     reservist, doing the same job. And essentially the government 
     is paying the civilian employee more for that service than 
     the career military guy--that is the heart of the Defense 
     Department objection,'' the congressional aide said.
       A Pentagon spokeswoman said there would be no comment on 
     the issue.
       Supporters of the Lantos-Bell effort argue that National 
     Guard and reserve families are increasingly at risk of 
     financial hardship because reservists are being called up 
     more frequently since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 
     The Army recently issued a policy requiring Guard and reserve 
     troops to serve 12-month tours in Iraq, meaning that most 
     Army reservists will be mobilized for more than a year.
       About 200 private-sector employers and 50 state and local 
     governments make up the difference in pay for their workers, 
     and the federal government should serve as an example of the 
     importance of assisting reservists, an aide to Lantos said. 
     But other congressional aides said the issue needs more 
     study. It might be more appropriate to use pay supplements to 
     offset income loss for specific occupations or individuals 
     rather than to take a blanket approach, they said.
       Recent studies indicate that between 30 percent and 40 
     percent of activated reservists face a loss of income during 
     mobilization.
       About 65,000 reservists are employed by federal agencies, 
     making the government the single-largest employer of 
     reservists. An additional 48,000 federal technicians are 
     required to be members of the Guard as a condition of 
     employment.
       The Office of Personnel Management has called on federal 
     agencies to shoulder the cost of health insurance premiums 
     for employees called to active duty. At last count, about 80 
     out of more than 100 federal agencies had agreed to pick up 
     the premiums.

  Madam Speaker, just treatment for working families left behind ought 
to be a major goal of a government that has asked people to go and 
fight in Afghanistan or in Iraq. Just treatment for working families 
left behind. What is involved in just treatment? I serve as the ranking 
Democrat on the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections of the Committee 
on Education and the Workforce. And I am on that committee which has 
jurisdiction over the minimum wage, over the Wage and Hour Act, and 
other safety programs related to persons in the workforce. We have had 
constant harassment since the Republican majority took control of the 
Congress on all of these fronts.

                              {time}  2200

  On the minimum wage, we are still at $5.15 an hour. In the last 3 
years, the Republican majority has refused to allow us to bring a bill 
to the floor to

[[Page 23675]]

increase the minimum wage. That is what we think of working families 
that we send off to war in times of war. They go. They die. They fight. 
They get wounded. They are the backbone of the security for America. 
But we do not want to increase the minimum wage beyond $5.15 an hour. 
We have had constant harassment on overtime pay and recently that was 
sort of intensified. But they do not want to pay people cash for 
overtime. They want changes in law, so that employers can pay you comp 
time if they so choose. It is not your choice. It is their choice. Comp 
time, taking the cash out of your pay check and food off your table, 
but offering you comp time at some future date they choose.
  They pushed that very hard. And even now, although we stopped it in 
the Congress by executive fiat, the law is being changed to eliminate 
certain categories of people as being eligible for overtime.
  A jobs program is not in sight. Unemployment goes galloping on, and 
we do not have a jobs program.
  Health care, the papers all reported yesterday or today that the 
number of people who are uninsured in America has jumped dramatically, 
gone up. Those are working families that are uninsured.
  Poverty, three or four days ago, it was reported that poverty has 
greatly increased. These are the families from which these soldiers 
come. These are the families that supply the troops out there that we 
say we care about.
  Madam Speaker, at this time I would be glad to yield to the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from New York for 
yielding to me.
  I noted earlier that many of our colleagues had gone to Iraq over the 
weekend, and they came back and described their experiences. I went to 
southeastern Ohio over the weekend, and I talked to people in Shady 
Side, Ohio and in Bel Air, Ohio, and Youngstown, Ohio, and I heard 
about infrastructure needs in Ohio. I heard about schools that need to 
be built. I heard about water and sewer systems that small communities 
simply cannot afford to pay for. And I talked with teachers and 
principals, talked with about three or four high school classes over 
this last 4 or 5 days while I was in Ohio.
  We are a compassionate people, I would say to my friend from New 
York. We are compassionate. We care about other people, but we also 
care about the people that we are charged to represent. And in my 
district, I have got so many needs.
  I found out this past weekend that in one of my communities there is 
the great danger that we are going to lose an additional 275 good-
paying jobs, union jobs, steelworker jobs. This really concerns me. I 
think there is a bleeding of jobs in this country.
  I looked at the headlines in the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch this 
morning. Iraq Battle Lasts 8 Hours and then One in Six Uninsured, this 
U.S. report says. Unemployment is skyrocketing in my district and 
throughout Ohio. More and more of our constituents are without health 
insurance. Our schools are being inadequately funded.
  I toured a school in my district, I would say to my friend from New 
York, not long ago; and after that tour was completed, one of the 
parents on that tour came to me and he said, Congressman, I have two 
children who attend this school. I had no idea it was in this 
condition. He said, I am a building inspector, and if I were inspecting 
any other commercial building that had the problems this school has, I 
would close it immediately. He said, I saw at least 100 safety 
violations in this school. And he said, there are violations that 
cannot be easily fixed because this school has been added on to. It has 
been patched together over multiple years.
  Why is it that we seem so willing to accept the fact that our kids 
can go to dilapidated schools, our people can be without health 
insurance, our roads can be unbuilt, our veterans can be shortchanged 
in the health care we provide to them, and yet we seem so willing, 
almost casual in talking about billions of dollars for the rebuilding 
of Iraq?
  I might say to my friend from New York, it is not the rebuilding of 
Iraq. It is the building of Iraq. The President said when he addressed 
the United Nations that he intends to build 1,000 new schools in Iraq. 
We did not destroy 1,000 schools in this war. They want to build two 
400-bed hospitals in Iraq. We did not destroy hospitals during this 
war. Talk about nation building. This President, during the campaign, 
criticized efforts to nation-build. And as I said earlier when I 
started my comments, we are a compassionate Nation. We care about the 
needs that exist in other countries. We care about the people in Iraq, 
but we are charged primarily to represent our constituents right here 
at home.
  I want to state, I do not know if many of my colleagues or the 
President understand what life is like in southern and southeastern 
Ohio. It is an Appalachian district. Unemployment in one of my counties 
is 13.5 percent. People want to work. They are good people. They want 
to care for their families. They care about their kids as much as any 
Member in this Chamber cares about his or her children. They want them 
to get a high-quality education as much as any person in this Chamber 
wants their children to get a high-quality education.
  If I can just take a moment before I yield back to talk about 
veterans. I am on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. I keep reminding 
us in this Chamber that we are underfunding the VA health care system 
by at least $1.8 billion. Think about that. We have got veterans who 
are going without health care, who are being denied the ability to 
enroll in VA health care, who are going to be asked by this 
administration to pay more copayments for prescription drugs. The 
President wants to impose a $250 enrollment fee on Priority 7 veterans. 
And Priority 8 veterans are being told they cannot even enroll in the 
VA system. They can make as little as $24,000 and be a Priority 8 
veteran, and yet we are just, it seems, almost casually talking about 
spending $21 billion to build schools and roads and bridges and clinics 
and hospitals in Iraq. I just do not understand what is wrong with this 
government. I certainly do not understand what is wrong with this 
President and this administration.
  We have got a war going on. We are shortchanging our national needs. 
We are not caring for our soldiers. We have got about 40,000 soldiers 
in Iraq tonight that have cheap vests that are not capable of stopping 
bullets. The more expensive protective vests, my understanding is, cost 
$571 on average. I got a letter from a young soldier, a West Point 
graduate. He said, Congressman, they are issuing two kind of vests over 
here. One is capable of stopping a bullet, and the other only stops 
shrapnel. My men are asking me why they have the cheap vests.
  I wonder how many of our soldiers may have been wounded or killed 
wearing a cheap vest, inadequate protective body armor. And the British 
Broadcasting System has reported that we have made a deal with some of 
these other countries, I think Poland and some other countries, that if 
they will contribute soldiers, we will provide them with these higher-
cost vests. I want to make doggone sure that no foreign troops get 
these better vests before every single American soldier that is in Iraq 
has access to one of these protective garments.
  I thank my friend for allowing me to express my opinion on this 
subject, and I yield back to him and thank him for his graciousness 
this evening.
  Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman and I would like to 
add to that discussion on veterans.
  Most of us in the House of Representatives were shocked 3 weeks ago 
to discover that there was a provision where veterans who go to the 
hospital must pay for their food, their meals. And we immediately 
passed legislation to end that. I do not know whether it has been 
signed by the President yet or not. It is just one more administrative 
atrocity. I use the word atrocity, and I think it is appropriate. It is 
an atrocity to have veterans treated as they are. Some of my friends 
earlier are talking about ``you have to go to Iraq to know exactly what 
is happening.''
  I suggest to those who want to know what is happening, go to Walter 
Reed

[[Page 23676]]

Hospital and visit the wounded. The wounded also suffer. And in many 
cases those are wounded one week, and in a few weeks are dead. You can 
get a good example of what is going on if you look at veterans who, the 
minute they are off the roster of the Army, they will get no pay. They 
will be put on disability. Some have totally lost everything in terms 
of limbs or the capacity to work. They were put on disability, which is 
a far cry from the salary they earned as a soldier.
  So my simple plea is that working families who fight for the security 
and peace abroad deserve survivable and living wages and a reasonable 
chance to pursue happiness here at home. We are investing tremendous 
amounts of money in the rebuilding of Iraq in the Armed Forces, and we 
are neglecting the needs of our own people in catastrophic proportions.
  On March 3, I summarized my concern with the waste of American cash 
in a rap poem which I call Stop The War--We Need The Cash.

     Stop the war, we need the cash.
     Tank battles escalate into nuclear ash.
     Stop the war.
     We need the cash.
     Give Medicaid families some of Rumsfeld's stash.
     Throw the empty body bags in to the trash.
     Stop the war.
     Welfare mothers rush to cry.
     Soldiers from the ranks of the poor will be the first to die.
     Stop the war.
     Vietnam had profound lessons to teach.
     Empires lose when they overreach.
     Stop the war.

  One of the greatest monuments related to heroes is the Vietnam War 
Memorial monument here in Washington. That monument makes a statement 
that has never been made by any other military monument in the history 
in the world. Instead of unknown soldiers in a tomb, they have put the 
names of every soldier who died in Vietnam on the wall for you to see. 
They have given those individuals a person. They are there. And you 
must confront the fact that wars take individual humans in large 
numbers, in the case of Vietnam, 58,000, but regardless of numbers, the 
individualization of a process, the Vietnam Memorial Wall does that.
  The poor are up there. The youngsters who came from welfare families. 
The numerous youngsters who came out of the big cities because when the 
draft was on, the largest proportion of young men who went to Vietnam 
came out of our big city slums. We must stop and think for a moment 
about the way those soldiers and everybody who was enlisted are treated 
in terms of the technicalities and administrative requirements of the 
veterans administration.
  They have categories, Category 7, 8, people who served in combat 
under great risk are given preference. They are different from others. 
But I say that anybody who has served in the military for the benefit 
of his country deserves equal treatment, because once you put the 
uniform on and you take the oath, your life belongs to the military, to 
the Nation. And where you go and what you do is determined by forces 
that you have no control over.

                              {time}  2215

  If you were needed behind the lines to catalog munitions or run a 
computer, then you were assigned there because you were needed there. 
The fact that you were not put on the front line does not make you any 
less than the people who were put on the front lines, because you could 
not make that decision.
  So everybody who put a uniform on and took the oath should be treated 
as a hero. They are a small percentage of the rest of us. Even in World 
War II when such large numbers went to war, the percentage of those who 
actually went to war was still a small percentage of the overall 
population. They deserve to be treated as heroes. Those who went to 
Vietnam deserve to be treated as heroes, regardless of how many hours 
they spent in combat under fire. They were all heroes. They come from 
working families, as I said before, most of them; and this 
classification scheme, these technicalities about how much copayment 
you have to pay if you are a Category 8 versus Category 7, whether you 
are eligible at all is part of the insult that working families have 
been forced to endure; and we should fight against it.
  Righteous indignation is in order. The treatment of working families 
in America is an outrageous abomination and we should fight. We fight 
on the front lines, and we die on the front lines. We should fight our 
government.
  We should fight Alan Greenspan. Alan Greenspan is against the minimum 
wage law. Alan Greenspan has been the economic guru of Democrats and 
Republicans for a long time. Did you know that Alan Greenspan thinks 
that we should not even have a minimum wage law? Part of the reason we 
cannot get a minimum wage law to the floor is we have the guru of our 
economic system saying we do not need a minimum wage law. This is 
outrageous.
  Alan Greenspan happens to be a disciple of Ayn Rand, a woman who was 
a great individualist, who felt that government was not needed, group 
action was not needed except in times of war or when you need the 
police. So when her physical body was threatened, she believed in the 
group process, we should have police, we should have an Army. Any other 
time, individuals should be totally left alone; and if they cannot make 
it, let them die. So that man is a disciple of Ayn Rand, Alan 
Greenspan. He is one of the reasons we cannot move. Philosophically, 
there are too many people in Washington who agree that minimum wage 
laws are not important.
  Examine the tax cuts of that situation in terms of what happened at 
the New York Stock Exchange. The New York Stock Exchange has a big 
brouhaha because the man who headed the stock exchange, Dick Grasso, 
had a severance package of $140 million and he wanted another 48; and 
they made a big brouhaha, and headlines were formed about how dare he 
ask for another $48 million. Well, what about the first $140 million? 
These astronomical amounts of money are being tossed around by the 
people who belong to the kleptocracy. At the time I call them 
kleptocracy, call them oligarchy, whatever you want to call them. They 
are the ones who want a tax cut. They do not need a tax cut. It is 
obscene the kinds of figures that we have heard that corporations throw 
around among themselves, Enron, WorldCom. The head of WorldCom, one of 
the directors got a $400 million loan from the company, $400 million. 
Can you imagine a loan of $400 million? Surely if you get a $400 
million loan, it is understood by those who loan it to you that you are 
never going to pay it back.
  But this goes on, and these are the people who will show great 
indignation if a welfare mother gets extra food stamps. This is the 
kind of mental attitude that we have allowed to develop.
  The workers who are on the front lines in Iraq, Afghanistan and 
everywhere else have to know they have to come forward and fight, fight 
this kind of oppression.
  On Wednesday, July 16, as a result of my anger following the attempt 
to stop the payment of overtime to workers, I wrote the following and 
enter it into the Congressional Record:
  ``Mr. Speaker, the July 10th vote to allow the expenditure of funds 
to implement radical changes in the overtime provisions of the Wage and 
Hour Act was an outrageous and devastating attack on working families. 
Com-
pounding the horror of this action is the recent announcement that our 
present complement of soldiers in Iraq, 90 percent of whom come from 
working families, will be forced into combat overtime for the 
indefinite future.''
  At the same time we were fighting overtime payment for workers here, 
we were announcing, the President was announcing, Rumsfeld was 
announcing that they would be extending the time of the soldiers 
indefinitely.
  ``Not even the 1-year rotation rule of Vietnam will be applied to 
relieve their long ordeal under extreme heat and guerilla warfare 
duress. Overtime in the dangerous defense of the Nation is being 
mandated without controls while at the same time overtime wages to feed 
working families is being subjected to new schemes to reduce take-home 
pay. This is an unacceptable continuation of the gross exploitation and

[[Page 23677]]

oppression of working families by the Republican scrooges who presently 
dominate the Congress and the White House.''
  I summarize my statement in a rap poem, which is called ``Let the 
Rich Go First.''

     Working Families
     Keep your soldiers at home,
     For overtime in Iraq
     No cash
     No comp time
     Not even gratitude,
     Republicans intrude
     To exempt all heroes,
     No combat rotation
     Life on definite probation
     Scrooges running the Nation.
     To the front lines
     Let the rich go first--
     For blood they got a thirst,
     Let the superstars drink it
     In the glorious trenches;
     Leave the disadvantaged on the benches.
     Working Families
     Let the rich go first:
     The battlegrounds they always choose
     Their estates have the most to lose;
     Send highest IQs to
     Take positions at the front,
     Let them perform their best
     High-tech warfare stunt;
     Working Families
     Keep your malnourished sons home--
     Harvard Yale kids should roam
     The world with guns and tanks,
     Reserve gold medals
     For the loyal Ivy League ranks.
     O say can you see
     Millionaire graduates
     Dying for you and me?
     Welfare Moms
     Have a message for the masters:
     Tell Uncle Sam
     His TANF pennies he can keep
     For food stamps we refuse to leap
     Through your hoops like beasts;
     Promise to leave our soldiers alone
     And we'll find our own feasts.
     To Uncle Sam we offer a bargain--
     Don't throw us dirty crumbs
     Don't treat us like bums
     And then demand
     The full measure of devotion;
     Our minds are now in motion
     Class warfare
     Is not such a bad notion;
     Your swindle will not last
     Recruiters we won't let pass,
     Finally, we opened our eyes--
     Each family is a private enterprise.
     Each child a precious prize;
     We got American property rights,
     Before our children die in war
     This time we'll choose the fights.
     Let the rich go first:
     They worry about
     The overtime we abuse;
     The battlefields they always choose
     Their estates have the most to lose.
     Let the rich go first!

  I have stated a divine right of parents that nobody's ever bothered 
to talk about. We assume that the government, like the kings and the 
queens of old, have the right to conscript in a time of war and take 
their sons and daughters. Why do we not have a movement which 
challenges that? Governments that do not bother to provide food, 
clothing and shelter for poor youngsters have no right to later on 
claim their lives in wars that they had no decision-making power to 
start or stop.
  It comes down to a class warfare. There is class warfare in America. 
The rich have declared war. The powerful have declared war on the poor. 
The poor do not fight back. They do not know that they are being 
constantly abused. It is time we took a hard look at how much they are 
abused in times of war. Like the blunder in Iraq, it is a life and 
death matter. They are going to die if they do not fight back.
  America is a promised land, and America's promised land is being 
grossly mismanaged. We are as a promised land as man can ever get, 
human kind will ever get. We have the greatest potential of anything 
that ever existed on the face of the Earth. While managing a society 
that provides justice for all provides the right to pursue happiness 
and the opportunity to pursue happiness for all. That is possible in 
America, but America's promise is being grossly mismanaged by this 
Republican administration. The war in Iraq is the most dangerous 
mismanagement this country has ever experienced.
  Preoccupation with $87 billion for the war dooms any realistic effort 
to revive the economy. There are alternatives, but this mismanagement 
team will never consider those alternatives.
  There was a bill offered by a friend of mine, the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), which says if we are going to spend 20-some 
billion dollars in Iraq to rebuild Iraq, then let us spend an equal 
amount in the cities and the States to improve our economy. That is a 
good idea. There are other good ideas along those lines that have been 
offered.
  I think several months ago I offered a bill called the Domestic 
Budget Protection Act, H.R. 1804. The essence of the Domestic Budget 
Protection Act is we should have a situation where the domestic budget, 
the budget for education, for highways and schools, and the budget for 
health care is not in the same category with the budget for the war. 
Let the war pay for itself in some other way, and H.R. 1804 says that 
we should pay for it the way we paid for part of the Vietnam War and 
part of the Korean War and to some extent World War II. We placed a tax 
on the profits of corporations. Let a tax be placed on the profits of 
corporations to pay for the war so that no money is taken out of the 
other revenue that comes in and there is no threat to the domestic 
budget from the war budget. That is not a radical idea. We have done it 
before. Let us consider it now and do it now.
  I also had another act which was a twin for that, and this is called 
the Emergency Targeted Revenue Sharing Act of 2003, H.R. 2335, and that 
is a simple act which says that we should spend the same amount of 
money in the States and the cities on job creation programs, education, 
health care, et cetera, that we spend in Iraq. The gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) says $20 billion, I said $9 billion was at the 
time the amount we were proposing for the war in Iraq.
  The principle is pretty clear, as my colleague from Ohio stated. We 
are suffering greatly in our cities and our towns. Our schools are 
suffering. People are being laid off. Terrible things are happening in 
terms of taxes being raised on ordinary local people. At the same time, 
the Federal Government is cutting income tax for the richest people, 
for the Dick Grassos who earn $140 million and want another $40 
million. They are getting tax cuts for the WorldCom president who can 
borrow $400 million. He is getting a tax cut. For all the Enron 
criminals who squandered large amounts of money, they are getting tax 
cuts. But for those who are out there searching for jobs, they are 
sinking in a quagmire of poverty. The report that came out a few days 
ago said poverty is increasing. The number of people who are uninsured 
is increasing. It is not surprising, they are both very much related.
  We want to support the troops. The first way we can support them is 
to support their families. We should manage the war and the economy 
better, manage the war and the economy better.
  The team now in charge is not capable of managing better. I have here 
an advertisement that appeared in the New York Times last Friday. It is 
a big, full page advertisement that reads: ``Donald Rumsfeld betrayed 
my son and our Nation; it is time for him to go.'' It is written by a 
person who has three sons in the military, three sons in the military. 
Two of them are in Iraq.

                              {time}  2230

  His name is Larry Syverson of Richmond, Virginia. I am going to read 
it all and submit it for the Record.
  ``I am a patriotic American with three sons in the military, two 
serving in Iraq. Brandon is a master gunner near Tikrit. Bryce is a 
gunner stationed in Baghdad. I'm proud of their service, but I'm angry 
with those who have led us into what can only be called a quagmire.
  ``Donald Rumsfeld had day-to-day authority for planning the war and 
its aftermath. He was the chief architect, and it is his house of cards 
that is tumbling today. Months after the President declared `mission 
accomplished,' Americans are being killed almost daily. On April 13, 
Rumsfeld said: `Every hour that goes by, it's getting better and more 
peaceful and more orderly in Iraq.'
  ``We know that is not true. Rumsfeld's bad planning has left our 
troops poorly equipped and vulnerable in an increasingly hostile 
environment, and

[[Page 23678]]

Americans are being asked for an additional $87 billion for Iraq. We 
now know that the President and those who serve him misled us about 
weapons of mass destruction, about Saddam's supposed nuclear program, 
about a link between Saddam and September 11.
  ``I'm in awe at the courage of my sons and the honorable service they 
give, but the leaders they serve have not acted honorably. They have 
failed my sons. They have failed all of us. At the very least, 
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must go.''
  Now this is an ad that appeared in The New York Times and is paid for 
by MoveOn.org that says we can win without war.
  We have a situation where very high-powered leaders with very high-
powered advice, almost unlimited funds to pay for the personnel to do 
the planning, have placed us in a situation which is a quagmire. There 
is an overwhelming blunder that has taken place in Iraq. Did we not 
know about the dilemma of Robert McNamara in Vietnam? Were the people 
who did this not able to read? Did they not see the clippings and the 
media representations about the war in Chechnya, the Russians trying to 
contain a very small population, compared to the 24 million population 
of Iraq? Did we not see that and understand what that was all about? 
Did we not understand what happened to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan? 
Did we think the Soviet Union was driven out of Afghanistan because we 
supplied the Taliban, the al Qaeda at that time, the Mujahadeen? We 
supplied them with modern weapons. We supplied them with training. We 
spent billions of dollars that were never recorded in Afghanistan to 
defeat the Soviets.
  I invite anybody who would like to hear more about that to read a 
book called Charlie Wilson's War. Charlie Wilson's War has gotten very 
little publicity in terms of what it deserves. Charlie Wilson's War is 
a story of a Congressman named Charlie Wilson from Texas. He is still 
alive. He was an amazing character and should be given some kind of 
medal for being the Member of Congress who controlled and manipulated 
billions and billions of dollars. He has the record for what he 
controlled and manipulated, using the CIA and other mechanisms to get 
money into Pakistan to be used against the Russians in the war in 
Afghanistan.
  Eventually, the modernizing of the Mujahadeen and the Taliban, 
including Osama bin Laden, who was there at the time, the modernization 
of that group led them to the point where they were able to drive the 
Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. Stinger missiles were supplied in 
tremendous numbers through the efforts of Charlie Wilson. It is 
something everyone should read. But did Rumsfeld not read it?
  Westmoreland, in Vietnam, kept offering optimistic reports and 
blowing up the body bag numbers for the enemy. Did he not read about 
that? Later, we found it was not true. The number of enemy that General 
Westmoreland claimed were being killed in Vietnam was far less than 
were being killed. Therefore, it threw off all our calculations, and 
the North Vietnamese were later to mount a tremendous counterattack, 
and we had to scramble to get out of Saigon. Did no one read that?
  Does anybody remember the Tet offensive, the Tet offensive in Saigon? 
At a time when President Johnson said we were winning the war, the 
Vietnamese guerrillas, with the help of North Vietnam, launched a 
massive weekend guerilla attack which shattered once and for all any 
hope that we could ever win the war in Vietnam. It was called the Tet 
offensive. In the environment of Iraq it will be easy to mount a Tet 
Offensive type operation. They have already started down that road.
  The guerilla attacks are getting more intense in Iraq. There was an 
8-hour firefight yesterday, an 8-hour firefight with the guerrillas 
yesterday. This is not a hit-and-run suicide bomber situation. They are 
moving into other levels.
  Now, should we cut and run? That is not my proposal. I propose that 
we immediately move as rapidly as possible to create a situation which 
will head off the support for these guerrillas. The way to do that is 
to be able to get help from other nations. Let it be known clearly that 
we are not oppressors, we are not occupiers, we do not intend to stay 
there. We need to get help from other nations, move rapidly to 
establish a constitution for Iraq, and while we are doing that, send in 
more troops.
  We cannot play games the way we are playing now, pretending we do not 
need more troops. The way to stop the guerrillas is to have more 
troops. The way to stop the sabotage of the oil wells, the way to stop 
the sabotage of the water systems, the way to stop the sabotage of the 
electricity systems is to have more troops to guard them. You cannot 
escape the need for more troops on a short-term basis.
  Naturally, Mr. Rumsfeld does not want to be in a position of exposing 
that his calculations were all wrong. God forbid he should become a 
person who has to call for a draft. But he puts our soldiers in harm's 
way by playing such games, by not agreeing with the generals who are 
afraid to say so in public but they tell us behind the scenes they need 
more troops. We need more American troops while we are waiting for 
those others to come from other nations, who might show up and they 
might not.
  We must understand the degree of the mismanagement. Robert McNamara 
was a genius, but he got caught up in a situation in Vietnam which 
drove him to ignore all of his common sense and all of his genius. 
Lyndon Johnson was a political genius, but ego and the belief that 
America must never allow itself to be defeated led to a quagmire in 
Vietnam. Fifty-eight thousand died in Vietnam.
  The numbers are much smaller in Iraq, but every life is sacred. And 
if we do not move now in a decisive way, the numbers will go up, and 
every soldier killed will have died in vain. I do not think this 
blunder in Iraq is worth a single American life, and since we are 
there, we could not avoid being there, let us try to limit the number 
of lives that are being lost.
  So I say to the working families of America and the people who care 
about all of Americans, who care about our troops who are out there 
suffering, really care about the troops and not just waving flags but 
refuse to provide the kind of support the troops need, as veterans, as 
soldiers out there who need flack jackets at work, and there are a 
number of things going on which are detrimental to our troops in the 
field and certainly affect their morale when they look back home and 
see their families being treated like dirt, I say to all those people 
who are watching this to not give up.
  Now is the time for us to come forward and place ourselves on the 
front lines for the defense of America. The greatest Americans are the 
Americans who want peace. The greatest Americans are the Americans who 
will tell the truth and who will fight the myths that are endangering 
our security. It is a myth that Iraq is a center for fighting 
terrorism. That is a myth. We have said it is a center, but it is only 
a quagmire, a trap, an ambush. The real center is still wherever Osama 
bin Laden and his network is located, and that network is still our 
greatest threat in terms of our security. That is a myth. We should 
fight that myth.
  We should fight the myth that the United Nations has nothing to 
offer; that France, with its French fries and American fries, does not 
deserve to be a decisionmaker in this situation; that Russia only wants 
to get involved because it wants to get the money back for its 
contracts; that Iraq cannot pay for its own reconstruction. That is the 
biggest myth. Iraq has oil fields beneath the surface that can pay for 
any reconstruction they need to take. The problem is that many of the 
people involved in this war are trying to secure the oil of Iraq for 
the oil barons and the companies that already are involved. They want 
theirs off the top. They do not want an agreement which says Iraq 
should pay its own way because they have plans to take their 
commissions off the top.
  There was a time when the Middle East oil flowed out of the Middle 
East and each country only got 12 cents on the barrel. The rest of it 
flowed to Great Britain or France or some other

[[Page 23679]]

country, the dollars. They want to go back to that. They do not want to 
admit that Iraq can pay for its own reconstruction. We can set up a 
situation where they wait maybe 10 years, 20 years. Who cares? Charge 
them low interest. They can pay for their own reconstruction.
  We need to come forward and be as fervent, as dedicated as the people 
who support Donald Rumsfeld. They have fervor. They are bold. But they 
are wrong.

     We need to be fanatics for peace.
     We are citizens who ought to volunteer to do our part.
     Never mind looking for a military Purple Heart.
     We are fanatics for peace.
     Our holy assault must never cease.
     The Constitution light still shines.
     We should launch spit into the fascist face.
     Our maneuvers will launch the human race.
     Pledge allegiance to the human race.
     Pledge allegiance to the civilization that our children 
           deserve.
     This is the cause we swear to serve.
     Victory without blood in Ghandi's name.
     Celebrate Mandela's fame.
     The spirit of Martin King again will reign.
     Resist a government that has now gone insane.
     Commanders of abuses must face the Nuremberg nooses.
     We are fanatics for peace.
     Run and broadcast the brave news.
     Divine mobilization is what working families should choose.
     Surrender we unconditionally refuse.
     Our vision will not decrease.
     Our passion will never cease.
     We are fanatics for peace.
     We are the greatest Americans.
     We want peace.

  Madam Speaker, the article I referred to earlier is as follows:
       I'm a patriotic American with three sons in the military, 
     two serving in Iraq. Branden is a master gunner near Tikrit. 
     Bryce is a gunner stationed in Baghdad. I'm proud of their 
     service. But I'm angry with those who have led us into what 
     can only be called a quagmire.
       Donald Rumsfeld had day-to-day authority for planning for 
     the war and its aftermath. He was the chief architect and it 
     is his house of cards that is tumbling today. Months after 
     the President declared, ``mission accomplished,'' Americans 
     are being killed almost daily. On April 13, Rumsfeld said: 
     ``Every hour that goes by, it's getting better, and more 
     peaceful and more orderly in [Iraq].'' We know that is not 
     true. Rumsfeld's bad planning has left our troops poorly 
     equipped and vulnerable in an increasingly hostile 
     environment. And Americans are being asked for an additional 
     $87 billion for Iraq.
       We now know that the President and those who serve him 
     mislead us about weapons of mass destruction, about Saddam's 
     supposed nuclear program, about a link between Saddam and 
     September 11. I'm in awe at the courage of my sons and the 
     honorable service they give. But the leaders they serve have 
     not acted honorably. They have failed my sons. They have 
     failed all of us. At the very least, Secretary Donald 
     Rumsfeld must go.

                          ____________________