[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12589]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          AMERICAN PARITY ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ose). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to 67 of my colleagues who 
have cosponsored my bill, the American Parity Act. They join me in 
supporting a funding boost for health care, education, and public 
safety by the same amount we have pledged to rebuild Iraq.
  We are in the process now of beginning to spend down the $1.7 billion 
we have dedicated to the housing, the education, the health care, and 
the infrastructure of rebuilding Iraq; and yet here at home our schools 
are closing, athletic programs are shut down, summer school activities 
are being shut down, hospitals are not being able to provide the health 
care they need, projects for economic growth and economic investment in 
local communities are being delayed. Yet we are in the process of being 
about to rebuild Iraq.
  Let me give an example. The other day I pulled an RFP from USAID. Two 
million dollars has already been designated for Iraq and another $70 
million will be spent next year for desks, computers and supplies. 
Schools in Basra and Umm Qasr have already been given kits containing 
enough supplies for every student for the next year.
  Yet here in America 59,000 kids will be eliminated from Head Start. 
Our teachers in our schools must buy books and supplies out of their 
own wages and then eventually maybe get a tax credit or be reimbursed 
later on. Up to $94 million is now today being spent to give 13 million 
Iraqis, half the population, universal health care and maternity care 
for 100 percent of the population in Iraq. Yet Medicaid will be cut; 14 
million Americans will be denied access to health care in this country. 
Up to $680 million will now be spent over the next year and a half 
repairing six airports in Iraq, 100 hospitals, and 6,000 schools. 
Another $5 million is pledged to complete the only deep water port in 
Umm Qasr, Iraq. Yet we are cutting housing here in America. We are 
cutting our ability to invest in local infrastructure. In fact, the 
Corps of Engineers is facing a cut of 10 percent in its budget. Chicago 
will be directly affected in the projects there.
  I will support the reconstruction in Iraq, as others in this Chamber 
have. Yet I will not support the deinvestment in America. When 
President Kennedy said we will bear any burden, pay any price, he did 
not mean it would come at the expense of the American Dream here at 
home. We can only be strong overseas as long as we come together and 
are strong here at home.
  In the last 2 years, 2.5 million Americans have lost their jobs. Five 
million Americans have lost their health care. Nearly $1 trillion worth 
of corporate assets have been foreclosed on, and 2 million Americans 
have walked out of the middle class into poverty. Those are the 
economic facts that our country faces.
  I do not think when the American people said that they were willing 
to do what they needed to do in Iraq that it would come at the expense 
of their unity, their dreams, and their security here at home. The 
children of Iraq should not be provided a safer, more secure and more 
generous future than the one we are welcoming our GIs home to. The GIs 
who fought there, the people here that support the reconstruction in 
Iraq, who are paying for the reconstruction of Iraq, deserve the type 
of education, health care, and housing and economic investment that we 
envision for Iraq's future.

                              {time}  2015

  I believe that we are on the wrong road when it comes to balancing 
our priorities. The American people have proven over the last 50 years 
that they will be a very generous people, willing to help others on 
their path to a more democratic and more healthy and more economically 
promising future. But they will not do it and pay that price when they 
think their dreams for their children, the security of their 
communities, are less than what they are providing for other people. 
Nor should they.
  Again, I will support, as others will, the reconstruction of Iraq but 
not the deconstruction of America. So I am pleased I have the support 
of my colleagues, 67 of them, for the American Parity Act. I will 
continually come down to the floor to talk about what we are doing in 
Iraq as it compares to what we are doing here at home, because the 
American people I think expect us to not only have our commitment to 
Iraq but to fulfill our commitment to them here at home.
  They cannot have 59,000 American children kicked out of Head Start, 
yet the children of Basra be supported by the American people for a 
full year of great education. We cannot have 14 million Americans 
kicked out without healthcare from Medicaid, yet have 13 million Iraqis 
get universal health care. Those are the not the choices we should be 
providing, and we should not have it be an either/or, and that is the 
choices the American people are facing today.

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