[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 73-79]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           STATE OF OUR UNION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon with my colleagues 
in the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss what I hope President Bush 
will address this evening in his State of the Union message. 
Specifically, Mr. Speaker, I would like to place President Bush's 
speech in some context which I believe America should use in evaluating 
the President's address.
  We can all agree that the President will give a good speech. He has 
practiced, he has rehearsed and he will do a good job. However, I hope 
that his rhetoric will match actions that will benefit all Americans 
and benefit all Americans soon. It was just last year that the 
President stood in this hallowed hall and set forth a number of 
priorities that were to guide this Nation throughout 2003. I, along 
with the rest of the Nation, listened very intently to the President 
searching for some affirmation in his speech of the principles that 
have successfully guided our constitutional democracy thus far. The 
Founding Fathers of the United States understood that governments are 
instituted to secure the God-given rights of all men and women to life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In 1976, the late Senator Hubert 
Humphrey said, ``The moral test of government is how it treats those 
who are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the 
twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, 
the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this administration has miserably failed 
that test. As stewards of the government, we have a moral 
responsibility to ensure that the poor are granted the same access to 
opportunity as the rich; the sick are afforded the medical attention 
needed to restore health; and that the scourge of racism and 
discrimination is forever dispelled from our national identity.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit that the true measure of our Union is the state 
of the least among us. So long as there are 9 million Americans looking 
for work, 43 million Americans without health insurance and nearly 2.5 
million American men, women and children without a place to call home, 
then America has not reached her full potential. We need leadership 
that demands equity, parity and equality. We need leadership that is 
progressive and forward-thinking. And, Mr. Speaker, we need leadership 
that delivers results to all of the American people.

                              {time}  1330

  The American people deserve bold leadership, the demands of frank and 
honest discussion of the issues that are at the center of people's 
lives.
  Just yesterday, we celebrated the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, 
and I have noted so often we listen to the ``I Have a Dream'' speech; 
but one of the things that he said is that every citizen should demand 
the full, the full, the full measure of their citizenship. In other 
words, what he was saying was that this Nation owes every citizen 
certain rights and at the same time every citizen has a duty and 
responsibility to this Nation.
  Since the President's last State of the Union Address in 2003, our 
Nation waited in vain, Mr. Speaker, for the President to recognize the 
importance of liberty, diversity, and charity beyond the superficial 
context of a speech. Yes, the President is quick to say that he is 
compassionate and conservative. As I have said on many occasions, I 
have seen much of our President's conservatism. So we are long on 
conservatism, but it appears that we are very short on compassion. 
Americans look to the President to set forth policies that would 
transform these lofty ideals into reality for almost 300 million men, 
women, and children that reside in our Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, a year later, we see that the President has not yet been 
able to synchronize his conscience with his conduct. Yes, we have a lot 
of photo-ops, but the photo-ops do not bring a paycheck to that worker 
in Baltimore who has been laid off for the past year. It does not bring 
an insurance policy for health insurance to that mother in Appalachia 
who has no insurance; nor does it bring the $7.5 billion to our 
education system where children need computers, children need books, 
children need better classroom atmospheres so that they can grow up to 
be all that God wants them to be.
  So it was last year, Mr. Speaker, that the President stood before 
this Nation, as he will do tonight; and there he announced the new 
initiative to fight the war against global HIV/AIDS with $15 billion to 
the global fund. After years of work by the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Lee), my colleague in the Congressional Black Caucus, and the 
gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen), our health 
chairperson, and many of my colleagues in the Congressional Black 
Caucus urging the Congress to be more proactive in fighting this 
epidemic, the Congressional Black Caucus applauded the President's 
effort.
  We are very pleased that he had listened to us 3 years ago. By the 
way, I might add that it was 3 years ago when the President met with 
the Congressional Black Caucus; but 3 years later after many requests, 
he refuses, actually refuses to meet with the 39 members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus who represent over 26 million people, at 
least a third of whom are white. And it is interesting that he laid a 
wreath at the Martin Luther King memorial just a few days ago and then 
turned right around the next day and appointed Judge Pickering from 
Mississippi, whom, as a matter fact, every civil rights organization in 
the country had opposed and he had been opposed by the Congressional 
Black Caucus; but this President saw fit to appoint a man who had been 
turned away by the Senate twice.
  So we come back to today. A year later we are already underfunding 
our annual contribution commitment by $600 million, that is, to the 
AIDS fund, the global AIDS fund, by $600 million. It was just this 
weekend that members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with the 
U.N. ambassadors from Africa and they talked about how so many of their 
people are dying; but yet and still, after we agree that $15 billion 
should be allocated, we come up $600 million short in the first year, 
and they too are asking why are we holding back, because they say as 
long as we hold back the money, more and more people on that great 
African continent will die.
  Two years ago, Mr. Speaker, in his State of the Union Address, 
President Bush said, ``My economic security plan can be summed up in 
one word: jobs.'' Yet 2 years later, there are 9 million Americans who 
woke up this morning without a place of employment. On his watch 
America has lost nearly 3 million jobs. And I know that he will paint

[[Page 74]]

a rosy picture. He will tell us that we have a 5.7 percent unemployment 
rate. He probably will not mention that African American unemployment 
is 10.2 percent. He may not mention that in certain areas of our 
country, like parts of my district, the black male unemployment rate 
may be as much as 21 or 25 percent. He will not mention that.
  He will not mention that over the past month only a thousand jobs 
were created. He will not mention that. He will mention that the 
economy seems to be going in the right direction; but he will not 
mention that we have such a lack of an increase in jobs, and when we 
think about it, Mr. Speaker, when we are talking about a thousand jobs 
for 50 States, that means that we have got very few per State. So in 
all, a total of 14 million American men and women of all ethnicities 
are unable to feed their families, pay their mortgages, and clothe 
their children.
  The President will not tell us that when he mentions the 5.7 percent 
that the reason why the number has come down is that so many Americans 
have become so tired of looking for work. They have been unemployed for 
so long that they have given up on looking for a job. So he will not 
tell us that their numbers are not in that 5.7 percent. He will not 
tell us that.
  While the President travels the country boasting about the Nation's 
economic recovery, he neglects and will neglect to mention these 14 
million Americans whose families have yet to recover and remain in a 
state of financial disrepair.
  Mr. Speaker, last year after listening to the President's State of 
the Union speech, I asked the following question: ``Where was the 
assurance that we will adequately fund legislation to guarantee that 
every vote will be counted in determining who will lead the Government 
of the United States?'' A year later this question is even more 
poignant. Just last week students at Prairie View A.& M. University, a 
historically black college in the President's home State of Texas, 
marched in protest of their local district attorney's challenge to 
their fundamental right to vote. It is an affront to democracy that in 
the year 2004, African Americans are still marching for voting rights, 
still marching to exercise the very thing that underpins our democracy, 
still marching, trying to make sure that they are participants in this 
wonderful thing we call a democracy, still marching.
  Mr. Speaker, if our Nation is to retain the strength that has 
sustained us in times of war and in times of peace, in times of 
depression and in times of robust economic growth, then we must 
redouble our efforts to ensure that life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness is indeed granted to all. And when I think about life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, one of the greatest things that 
we can do for any human being is to educate them.
  Then I think about FAM U University, another historically black 
college down in Florida, when I visited there just recently and had 
students come up to me and ask the question at what point will the 
Congress get it? At what point will they realize that we have worked so 
hard to get to college, that our families are making less than $30,000 
a year and we are trying to be the best that we can be? Can we get a 
little help from the Congress that spends all of this money in Iraq? 
Can we get a little help? We Americans, who are trying to be the best 
that we can be, just want to pursue a little happiness so that we can 
grow up and contribute to this society.
  But yet and still, they see the Pell grants leveling off. They see no 
real increase there. They see their tuitions rising. They work the 
part-time jobs. They give it all that they have. They try to borrow 
from Aunt Sally and borrow from Uncle Jim and Momma, but the money 
simply is not there; and then they find themselves, like the students 
at Morgan State University, another historically black college where I 
am on the board of trustees, where we have to actually release some 800 
students. Why? Because they simply do not have the money to go to 
college. Tuition is going up; aid from our Federal Government for our 
students is going down, when we talk about our hope that the President, 
when he addresses us tonight, will address the question of how do we 
support our young, how do we make sure that they rise up to be all that 
they want to be.
  I maintain, Mr. Speaker, that terrorism, by the way, is not the only 
threat to our democracy. Indifference to the ills of the least among us 
and denial of basic human rights challenges the foundation upon which 
this country was built.
  Mr. Speaker, this evening I sincerely hope that President Bush will 
address all the issues which I have outlined this afternoon in a 
meaningful way. I have heard through newspaper accounts that the 
President will articulate a plan to insure the uninsured. I certainly 
hope that this plan will be proactive, realistic, and designed to 
actually achieve the intended results. I hope that if, in fact, the 
President does present a plan to insure the uninsured, it will not 
emulate the Medicare plan that does nothing to make prescription drugs 
more affordable and will in practice destroy Medicare.
  Mr. Speaker, this evening my colleagues in the Congressional Black 
Caucus and the 9 million, and I repeat that, 9 million unemployed 
Americans will be listening to the President very closely in 
expectation of a real plan to create economic growth and, most 
importantly, jobs. America does not want the President to give lip 
service to the idea of job creation while lining the pockets of 
corporate America as he did in his 2002 State of the Union Address. 
America wants the President to promise to work in a bipartisan manner 
to enact policies which we know work to create jobs.
  Mr. Speaker, just yesterday we lost another 20 soldiers to a bomb in 
Baghdad. This evening America wants the President to pay homage to the 
over 500 men and women, brave young men and women, who have lost their 
lives in Iraq by presenting a plan to create stability in the region 
and bring our troops safely home. And, finally, Mr. Speaker, on the eve 
of another Presidential election, the Congressional Black Caucus and 
the over 130 million registered voters in the United States want the 
President to make a real commitment, a real commitment, to protect our 
right to vote and have our votes counted. Americans want to be 
absolutely certain that when they arrive at the polls on November 2, 
their vote will be counted. These are our national priorities, Mr. 
Speaker, that Americans of every color are looking to the President for 
leadership.

                              {time}  1345

  The Congressional Black Caucus will be watching, and waiting to work 
with the president to strengthen our Nation and to secure the state of 
our Union.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from the great State of 
California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, once again let me just thank the gentleman from 
Maryland, the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, for his 
leadership, and for calling these special orders to discuss the real 
state of the Union. I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) 
for once again attempting to wake up America.
  Today I hope that people listen very carefully to the President as he 
tells us about his vision of America. I hope that they listen and ask 
themselves just what America does George Bush see out there? Who gets 
left behind in his vision, and really just where does it take us?
  I want to remind the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) and the 
entire country of what President Bush told us, I believe it was the 
year before last, in terms of creating the ``axis of evil.'' Then last 
year he told us that the British government has learned that Saddam 
Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. 
Of course, that has been questionable, but it did serve, however, as a 
very central and very critical piece of the spin campaign that led the 
country into war. I must remind you this was last year in the State of 
the Union that this critical piece of information was put forward. So 
tonight I hope the country listens very carefully to what the President 
says.

[[Page 75]]

  Of course, in preparation for the upcoming election, the President is 
again getting ready to tell the Nation something that really should be 
questioned. According to news reports, the President will declare 
victory in the fight to provide the Nation's elderly and the disabled 
with health care. He will point to the Medicare bill that he and the 
Congressional Republicans pushed through Congress. But there is one 
small problem: The Medicare bill will not help Medicare, and it will 
not help seniors. In fact, it is designed really, if you ask me and ask 
many of us, to do the program in.
  He will claim that the economy is surging ahead; but will he talk 
about the millions of jobs that have been lost during his presidency?
  He will talk about homeland security; but will he talk about the 
insecurity in our ports and elsewhere, about first responders who still 
lack vital resources? So let us all listen very closely to what he 
says.
  What is the state of the Union today? We have about 130,000 American 
troops in Iraq, sent there in a preemptive war that we did not have to 
fight.
  We face an economy here at home that has been dominated by tax cuts 
for the wealthy and job losses for the rest of the country. We have an 
administration that seems eager to expand these tax cuts for the rich, 
and just as eager to privatize one of our most successful programs in 
history, Social Security.
  We have a healthcare system marked by disparities and deficiencies 
which leaves 44 million Americans without any health insurance and 
which the President seeks to reform, not by expanding benefits for the 
public for universal health care, but by expanding profits for the 
insurance industry and the HMOs.
  And we have health care problems, including skyrocketing asthma 
rates, which will only grow worse as the administration erodes 
fundamental environmental protections such as the Clear Air Act.
  That is the real state of the Union: A foreign policy based on 
preemption, not cooperation; an economy based on tax cuts, not job 
creation; a health care and retirement system that promotes corporate 
benefits, not individual care; and an approach to the environment that 
protects polluters and oil companies, rather than promoting public 
health or developing alternative energy sources.
  How did we get in this situation? We got here really not by accident, 
but through a series of choices made by the administration and the 
Republican majority in Congress.
  We have to begin this discussion by confronting the question of war. 
Understanding this war and preventing future foreign policy disasters 
requires us to understand how we got here and to demand answers about 
the abuse of intelligence in the process so that it never happens 
again.
  Over 500 Americans have died in Iraq. Over 3,000 have been wounded, 
many of them suffering terrible injuries. We owe it to them and we owe 
it to the unknown number of Iraqi men, women and children who have been 
killed to ask how we got there, how we can get out and how we can 
prevent future tragedies.
  This Nation went to war not because we were attacked, not because we 
were in imminent danger, but because this administration was just 
determined to do so. They have captured Saddam Hussein, but they have 
yet to find a single weapon of mass destruction, although the 
administration told us with absolute certainty last year that there 
were tens of thousands of them and they were aimed at us.
  This war of preemption without justification goes against both 
American ideals and international law, it has made the world a more 
dangerous place, and it has carried with it enormous costs in both 
lives and treasure.
  Yesterday, this past weekend, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of 
the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King knew all about the 
danger of war and the terrible toll that it exacted here at home. Dr. 
King said, ``In the wasteland of war, the expenditure of resources 
knows no restraints.''
  Dr. King said, ``A Nation that continues year after year to spend 
more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is 
approaching spiritual death.''
  Mr. Speaker, I think it makes a real mockery out of Dr. King's life 
to place a wreath at his tomb one day, appoint a segregationist to the 
Federal bench the next day, and then come forward with a plan for 
military expenditures that, again, will wreak havoc on the areas in 
America which need the kind of help that our resources could provide in 
terms of alleviating poverty and helping young people with their 
college education. This Nation, the state of this Nation, Mr. Chairman, 
is approaching, as Dr. King said, spiritual death.
  What then would Dr. King say? What would he say about the $87 billion 
supplement passed last year, and the fact that the $87 billion came on 
top of the $78 billion that Congress already appropriated for the war, 
on top of the $400 billion defense budget? What would he say about the 
priorities and choices that led to a preemptive war abroad and social 
and economic distress here at home, for as we confront the war, we must 
also confront the domestic choices that this administration has made 
that have led to the present state of our Union.
  The economy, health care, Social Security and the environment are all 
at stake, and, yes, they are all at risk today.
  First the economy. This Nation has lost nearly 2.5 million jobs since 
President Bush took office. That is the worst job creation since 
Herbert Hoover. Reports indicate that in his address tonight, the 
President will propose $120 million, I believe that is what I 
understand, in new job training grants. That sounds fine. But this 
President has sought over $800 million in cuts to job training and 
vocational education since moving into the oval office.
  This same administration has refused, refused, to extend unemployment 
benefits, at the very moment when millions of Americans are desperately 
looking for jobs but simply not finding them. Almost 90,000 jobless 
workers are running out of regular State-funded unemployment benefits 
each week. As we speak, almost 400,000 Americans are jobless and have 
no unemployment compensation.
  We are all excited about economic growth in the last quarter, but we 
want to see real economic development, real jobs and real economic 
opportunities for all Americans, and we want to see poverty rates in 
America reduced, rather than go forward. We want to see those rates go 
down. We want to see homelessness conquered; we want to see hungry 
children fed; we want to see a real commitment to end poverty in the 
President's State of the Union address tonight.
  Secondly, just as the Americans are concerned about the economy, they 
are deeply and justifiably worried about their health care. We have 
raging health care disparities in this country that separate black from 
white, rich from poor, African Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, 
Latinos, all from the poor, from the middle-class. This really is a 
national disgrace in the wealthiest country in the world.
  Forty-four million Americans have no health insurance. Four million 
of those have lost their coverage since President Bush took office. 
Americans who are fortunate enough to have health insurance are not 
only facing massive premiums hikes, but also live in constant fear of 
losing their insurance, and those fears, sadly, unfortunately, are 
warranted.
  Minorities have an even greater reason to be insecure and to listen 
closely to what the President will propose tonight. Minorities are 
sicker, and when they finally make it to the emergency rooms of this 
country, they get poorer care. Like the uninsured and the under-cared 
for, our seniors are also left out of the so-called Bush recovery.
  The Medicare bill passed this fall will leave the seniors who have 
the gravest chronic diseases with the highest out-of-pocket costs. But, 
again, there are beneficiaries to these policies. The insurance 
industry, the drug manufacturers and the HMOs, they will make billions.

[[Page 76]]

  Thirdly, there is Social Security. This program was one of the great 
inventions of the 20th century. It has made enormous differences in the 
lives of millions and millions of Americans. But the Bush 
administration seeks to partially privatize this program. The New York 
Times says this would cost $100 billion to undertake. It would also 
make the seniors of tomorrow subject to the whims of the stock market. 
Privatization presents risks that we cannot afford and that we do not 
need. We must not dismantle this vital program.
  Finally, I cannot leave without addressing what this administration 
has done and seeks to do to our environment. Like Social Security, 
environmental protections exist to safeguard all, but this 
administration has refused to enforce existing laws and has even worked 
to strip them away, including such absolutely critical protections as 
the Clean Air Act.
  It has failed to create an energy policy that matches the needs of 
the 21st century. We could be reducing our dependence on foreign oil, 
fighting global warming and creating new jobs all at the same time, 
but, instead, this administration subsidizes big oil and big coal, 
refuses to address concerns such as MTBE, and tells Americans that all 
the answers to the energy crisis and problems lie in the drilling of 
the Arctic wilderness.
  So the common theme running through all of these domestic policies is 
that the Bush Administration has signed a contract with corporate 
America at the expense of the American people. That is the real state 
of the union today, and it sounds pretty bleak.
  In fact, I am pretty optimistic about the future of America, because 
these things can be fixed. We can forge a foreign policy based on 
international cooperation that truly enhances our own security. We can 
get our troops home from Iraq and end the daily news reports that 
another two or three or 16 Americans have been killed. We can craft 
domestic policies that create jobs, expand health care, protect Social 
Security, reduce poverty and safeguard our environment. And, yes, we 
can invest in health care and education and affordable housing. We can 
redirect our resources and realign our priorities. We can do better. 
Dr. King, again, left us a road map of how to do it better.
  So tonight, Mr. Chairman, I hope the country listens very carefully 
to the President's picture that he will paint of the state of the Union 
and raise some of these very critical questions as we enter this next 
year, to make certain that his State of the Union is not the state of 
the Union that we want to see for the American people.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her statement.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to a friend of the Congressional Black Caucus, 
the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for 
yielding. I think that as we prepare for this evening, the necessity of 
putting up a minority report on the state of the Union is crucial for 
the American people.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article from the Independent, 
which is a major newspaper in the United Kingdom, called ``George W. 
Bush and the Real State of the Union.''

                 [From the Independent, Jan. 20, 2004]

             George W. Bush and the Real State of the Union

       Today the President gives his annual address. As the 
     election battle begins, how does his first term add up?
       232: Number of American combat deaths in Iraq between May 
     2003 and January 2004.
       501: Number of American servicemen to die in Iraq from the 
     beginning of the war--so far.
       0: Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the 
     Nazi surrender to the Allies in May 1945.
       0: Number of coffins of dead soldiers returning home from 
     Iraq that the Bush administration has allowed to be 
     photographed.
       0: Number of funerals or memorials that President Bush has 
     attended for soldiers killed in Iraq.
       100: Number of fund-raisers attended by Bush or Vice-
     President Dick Cheney in 2003.
       13: Number of meetings between Bush and Tony Blair since he 
     became President.
       10 million: Estimated number of people worldwide who took 
     to the streets in opposition to the invasion of Iraq, setting 
     an all-time record for simultaneous protest.
       2: Number of nations that Bush has attacked and taken over 
     since coming into the White House.
       9.2: Average number of American soldiers wounded in Iraq 
     each day since the invasion in March last year.
       1.6: Average number of American soldiers killed in Iraq per 
     day since hostilities began.
       16,000: Approximate number of Iraqis killed since the start 
     of war.
       10,000: Approximate number of Iraqi civilians killed since 
     the beginning of the conflict.
       $100 billion: Estimated cost of the war in Iraq to American 
     citizens by the end of 2003.
       $13 billion: Amount other countries have committed towards 
     rebuilding Iraq (much of it in loans) as of 24 October.
       36%: Increase in the number of desertions from the U.S. 
     army since 1999.
       92%: Percentage of Iraq's urban areas that had access to 
     drinkable water a year ago.
       60%: Percentage of Iraq's urban areas that have access to 
     drinkable water today.
       32%: Percentage of the bombs dropped on Iraq this year that 
     were not precision-guided.
       1983: The year in which Donald Rumsfeld gave Saddam Hussein 
     a pair of golden spurs.
       45%: Percentage of Americans who believed in early March 
     2003 that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 11 September 
     attacks on the U.S.
       $127 billion: Amount of U.S. budget surplus in the year 
     that Bush became President in 2001.
       $374 billion: Amount of U.S. budget deficit in the fiscal 
     year for 2003.
       1st: This year's deficit is on course to be the biggest in 
     United States history.
       $1.58 billion: Average amount by which the U.S. national 
     debt increases each day.
       $23,920: Amount of each U.S. citizen's share of the 
     national debt as of January 19, 2004.
       1st: The record for the most bankruptcies filed in a single 
     year (1.57 million) was set in 2002.
       10: Number of solo press conferences that Bush has held 
     since beginning his term. His father had managed 61 at this 
     point in his administration, and Bill Clinton 33.
       1st: Rank of the U.S. worldwide in terms of greenhouse gas 
     emissions per capita.
       $113 million: Total sum raised by the Bush-Cheney 2000 
     campaign, setting a record in American electoral history.
       $130 million: Amount raised for Bush's re-election campaign 
     so far.
       $200 million: Amount that the Bush-Cheney Campaign is 
     expected to raise in 2004.
       $40 million: Amount that Howard Dean, the top fund-raiser 
     among the nine Democratic presidential hopefuls, amassed in 
     2003.
       28: Number of days holiday that Bush took last August, the 
     second longest holiday of any president in U.S. history 
     (Recordholder: Richard Nixon).
       13: Number of vacations days the average American worker 
     receives each year.
       3: Number of children convicted of capital offenses 
     executed in the U.S. in 2002. America is the only country 
     openly to acknowledge executing children.
       1st: As Governor of Texas, George Bush executed more 
     prisoners (152) than any governor in modern U.S. history.
       2.4 million: Number of Americans who have lost their jobs 
     during the three years of the Bush administration.
       221,000: Number of jobs per month created since Bush's tax 
     cuts took effect. He promised the measure would add 306,000.
       1,000: Number of new jobs created in the entire country in 
     December. Analysts had expected a gain of 130,000.
       1st: This administration is on its way to becoming the 
     first since 1929 (Herbert Hoover) to preside over an overall 
     loss of jobs during its complete term in office.
       9 million: Number of U.S. workers unemployed in September 
     2003.
       80%: Percentage of the Iraqi workforce now unemployed.
       55%: Percentage of the Iraqi workforce unemployed before 
     the war.
       43.6 million: Number of Americans without health insurance 
     in 2002.
       130: Number of countries (out of total of 191 recognized by 
     the United Nations) with an American military presence.
       40%: Percentage of the world's military spending for which 
     the U.S. is responsible.
       $10.9 million: Average wealth of the members of Bush's 
     original 16-person cabinet.
       88%: Percentage of American citizens who will save less 
     than $100 on their 2006 Federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut 
     in capital gains and dividends taxes.
       $42,000: Average savings members of Bush's cabinet are 
     expected to enjoy this year as a result of the cuts in 
     capital gains and dividends taxes.
       $42,228: Median household income in the U.S. in 2001.
       $116,000: Amount Vice-President Cheney is expected to save 
     each year in taxes.
       44%: Percentage of Americans who believe the President's 
     economic growth plan will mostly benefit the wealthy.
       700: Number of people from around the world the U.S. has 
     incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
       1st: George W. Bush became the first American president to 
     ignore the Geneva

[[Page 77]]

     Conventions by refusing to allow inspectors access to U.S.-
     held prisoners of war.
       +6%: Percentage change since 2001 in the number of U.S. 
     families in poverty.
       1951: Last year in which a quarterly rise in U.S. military 
     spending was greater than the one the previous spring.
       54%: Percentage of U.S. citizens who believe Bush was 
     legitimately elected to his post.
       1st: First president to execute a federal prisoner in the 
     past 40 years. Executions are typically ordered by separate 
     states and not at federal level.
       9: Number of members of Bush's defense policy board who 
     also sit on the corporate board of, or advise, at least one 
     defense contractor.
       35: Number of countries to which U.S. has suspended 
     military assistance after they failed to sign agreements 
     giving Americans immunity from prosecution before the 
     International Criminal Court.
       $300 million: Amount cut from the federal programme that 
     provides subsidies to poor families so they can heat their 
     homes.
       $1 billion: Amount of new U.S. military aid promised Israel 
     in April 2003 to offset the ``burdens'' of the U.S. war on 
     Iraq.
       58 million: Number of acres of public lands Bush has opened 
     to road building, logging and drilling.
       200: Number of public-health and environmental laws Bush 
     has attempted to downgrade or weaken.
       29,000: Number of American troops--which is close to the 
     total of a whole army division--to have either been killed, 
     wounded, injured or become so ill as to require evacuation 
     from Iraq, according to the Pentagon.
       90%: Percent of American citizens who said they approved of 
     the way George Bush was handing his job as president when 
     asked on 26 September, 2001.
       53%: Percentage of American citizens who approved of the 
     way Bush was handling his job as president when asked on 16 
     January, 2004.

                              {time}  1400

  This article lists the accomplishments of this administration. We all 
know we are engaged in a war that the President could not keep us out 
of; he had to go to war. We have had 501 people die. But what people do 
not know about is that 40,000 of our troops whose enlistments have 
ended are being kept in under stop-loss orders. There is a major 
crisis, and the likelihood of the President talking honestly tonight 
about what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, in my opinion, is zero, 
because he cannot talk about solving this problem with soldiers if 
people do not want to reenlist, or enlist for the first time. They are 
offering $10,000 to people in Iraq to reenlist while they are in 
country, and 4,000 people are chafing to get out and go home.
  Now, that is a situation that is, I think, undeniable. Worse than 
that, in the President's rush to go to war, is that when he came into 
office, he had a $127 billion surplus. In the first 6 or 8 years I was 
in the Congress, there was endless talk from the other side about, we 
have to have a balanced budget amendment. Bill Clinton did it and 
actually started reducing the debt. Now, in this year, in 2004, the 
President will pile up a deficit of $374 billion and counting.
  Now, that means in this country, or it explains, perhaps, why we have 
the record number of the most bankruptcies in a single year: 1.57 
million bankruptcies in 2002 under Mr. Bush. He wants to tell us this 
is a recovery. Well, explain that for me. Mr. Speaker, 2.4 million 
people have lost their jobs, and 221,000 jobs have been created since 
all of those tax cuts. He promised over 300,000 last month. We got 
1,000 jobs. That is 20 in every State: 20 in Washington, 20 in 
Maryland, 20 in New York, 20 in California, and so on. Yet, he has not 
asked for an extension of unemployment benefits. Mr. Speaker, 68,000 
people in the next 6 months in the State of Washington will lose their 
unemployment benefits because the President refuses to ask for an 
extension of unemployment benefits.
  Now, presently, we are spread out across the world: 130 of the 191 
countries on the face of the Earth have an American military presence. 
Forty percent of the world's military expenditures are done by this 
country. Will the President suggest that Mr. Rumsfeld's office be 
changed to the Secretary of War? I doubt it. They are going to keep 
talking about defense. But, in fact, we are making war.
  The average income, and this is where the tax cuts are really 
amazing, the average income of Mr. Bush's cabinet was $10.9 million. 
Eighty-eight percent of Americans will save less than $100 in 2006 as a 
result of those 2003 tax cuts. The average American makes $42,000. Vice 
President Cheney will save $116,000 in taxes every year. Remember, 
$42,000 is the average salary. The President cut $300 million from 
Federal programs that provide subsidies to poor families so they can 
heat their homes in a cold winter. I wonder if they have turned the 
heat down over at the White House. Think so? No. He will come and tell 
us everything is great: the economy is picking up; everybody is doing 
better. Look at the stock market. One cannot eat the stock market; one 
has to have a job. And this President has done relatively nothing.
  The previous speaker talked about his assault on public health and 
environmental laws. As a physician, this has been the most disastrous 
administration in history. Mr. Speaker, 200 separate issues they have 
undercut, undermined, done away with; and it has all been done on 
Friday afternoon about 4 o'clock. They come out, they put a little bit 
in the paper, and they change the Mercury in the water, or they change 
the air quality, or they change something. They have made a full-scale 
assault on the environment in which all of us live.
  The state of the Union is not good. If we think about the whole 
question of the amount of greenhouse gases, the United States leads the 
world in greenhouse gases; and the President says, we refuse to deal 
with the rest of the world on this. We are 5 percent of the population. 
We use 25 percent of the energy in the world. We do not have to care 
what the rest of the world thinks. Will he make a proposal tonight to 
get us off our oil addiction, or are we going to continually be at war 
over oil reserves in Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, 
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan? This President is taking us 
into a situation from which it is going to be very difficult for 
anybody else to dig us out.
  The next President of the United States will have a tremendous 
problem. That is to say nothing of what he has done with the question 
of Medicare and what he has done, or not done, with Social Security. He 
has borrowed all of the money, and we are still going to have a deficit 
of over $300 billion. And tonight he is going to say, hey, look, folks, 
I have a plan for us. You ought to privatize that Social Security. You 
could be doing a lot better if you just had that money yourself. You 
should not be giving it to the government and getting a guarantee. Let 
us just give it back to you and you can open your private accounts, and 
you can all get privately rich. What do you think the people of Enron 
think who lost everything and all they have left is their Social 
Security? George Bush and Ken Lay could not figure out how to get that 
away from them, or they would not have that either.
  So the question tonight is going to be a rephrasing, in my view, of a 
question that Ronald Reagan asked us a number of years ago. And I 
really think this crystallizes the problem with where we are tonight in 
this State of the Union. Ronald Reagan said to the American people, 
``Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?,'' making it all 
a very personal thing.
  Now, the problem with the speech we are going to get tonight is going 
to be more of the same sort of stuff to confuse the American people: I 
am going to make the tax cuts permanent; I am going to go to the Moon; 
I am going to go to Mars, trying to confuse the American people and get 
reelected. The question that should be asked tonight is, Are we better 
off than we were 3 years ago?
  The question the President needs to answer for us is, What is the 
common good, Mr. President? Why, why does all the money in the tax 
cuts, why does it all go to people on the top? Why is it all for those 
people? What about the people at the bottom, the kids that are going to 
college and get deeper in debt; the older people who have still got to 
come up with $3,500 out of their pocket to get anything out of this 
pharmaceutical benefit?
  The question tonight should be, What is in the common interest? What 
is the

[[Page 78]]

common good for all of us? If it is good for all of us, we will support 
him. But if it is just for his friends in the oil industry and the 
munitions industry, then I think he deserves to get a pretty silent 
response. He does not deserve clapping when he stands up and says the 
economy is great.
  Mr. Speaker, 1,000 jobs last month, 1,000. 68,000 people in my own 
State are losing jobs, and no unemployment benefit. How can you call 
that good?
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his statement. I 
really appreciate his being here.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia 
(Ms. Norton).
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding; and I 
thank him, above all, for his leadership in affording the opportunity 
for members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other Members to come 
forward with this so-called ``prerebuttal.'' I am going to speak on one 
subject instead of on the many subjects that concern me likely to be 
raised this evening, because this subject is at the center of black 
misery today. Instead of calling it a prerebuttal, I literally mean it 
as friendly advise because the subject is the cause of so much chaos in 
the African American community, and that subject is jobs.
  The President got 10 percent of the black vote the last time, 
something under 10 percent; and there are various figures about how 
much he proposes to get this time. What the President has got to 
understand about the African American community is that it is the most 
bottom line community in the United States, that is to say, it votes 
its bottom line because it has no choice, because it is further behind 
in our country because of historic circumstances of which we are all 
aware. The indication of just how bottom line the black community is, 
is switch from the Republican Party, the so-called party that freed the 
slaves, to the Democratic Party when the bottom line was whether or not 
you could get a job or had enough to eat, and those are the issues that 
are central to the African American community today.
  Yet, I expect the President to boast of the economy. He stands before 
his economy today, his economy, his economy after almost 4 years. But 
our response to the President is borrowed from 8 years ago. It is not 
the economy, Mr. President, it is not the economy, and I will not say 
``stupid.'' It is not the economy, Mr. President. It is jobs. There is 
no such thing as a recovery without jobs. Whatever happens on Wall 
Street will be irrelevant to the average American if there is 
joblessness and fear of joblessness; and that is what continues to grip 
our country, despite improvement in the stock market. Any doubt about 
that may have vanished yesterday when Iowa, the preeminent antiwar 
State, according to the responses to the Democratic primary, said as 
its residents left the polls that jobs was the number one issue. Half 
of the American people indicate they are worse off than when this 
President took office. Jobs and the lack of health care, which is in 
our country attached to jobs, is the reason for that sentiment from the 
American people. And if half of the American people say they were worse 
off, I can assure my colleagues that the majority of African Americans 
would answer they are worse off to that question.
  This Congress left town this time, the latest in memory; but they 
left, but they did not leave before they made sure that the 
pharmaceutical companies had theirs in the Medicare bill, and they 
certainly did not leave until the tax cuts for the wealthy were secure. 
But they left a country at 9 percent unemployment.
  For African Americans, that represents a 20 percent increase since 
this President took office. We have some befores and afters to compare 
here in recent history, because there was a 48 percent decline in 
unemployment while President Clinton was in office. Yet Congress left 
town without any jobs program and with virtually no discussion on this 
floor of a jobs program. I understand the President is likely to talk 
about a retraining program this evening.

                              {time}  1415

  Mr. Speaker, I am going to have to say a few words about what we need 
more, that is a jobs program, not a retraining program. And I want to 
have something to say about how we can get there, by the way, with no 
increase in the deficit.
  Congress left town without even any extension of unemployment 
benefits even though it was just before Christmas. Merry Christmas, 
America. Congress left town without increasing the minimum wage at all 
even though average income has decreased every year for the last 2 
years. Congress left town with the child tax credit for the 6 million 
of the poorest Americans not there. Everyone else but the poorest even 
though the poverty rate in our country is up 3 years in a row.
  Congress left town with a provision in the omnibus bill to reduce 
overtime for 8 million people. You know, for many of these people this 
is the difference between a low wage existence and a living wage: To 
work for it; you work overtime and you will get it.
  Now, African Americans knew better than to get used to the Clinton 
economy. For a while we did hold some hope that this two-for-one, that 
is to say we had always have twice as much unemployment as white 
people, would somehow disappear, we held that hope because I can tell 
you here in this city even African American men getting out of jail 
could often find a job because then employers were looking for workers.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, workers are searching endlessly for jobs. And the 
reason the unemployment rate does not look any worse than it does is 
because so many millions have dropped out of even looking any longer. I 
do not expect an economy like the economy of the late 1990s. And that 
is not the comparison I would make or the standard I would hold this 
President to. But I do not expect what we have seen, that black 
unemployment would increase faster than any period for the last 20 
years.
  I do not expect a month like October, for example, when blacks 
absorbed all of the unemployment. They were the only part of the 
population where unemployment grew. That kind of disproportion is not 
only heartless, it is immoral. And in the face of that, surely we can 
do more than talk about retraining. We can talk about an honest-to-
goodness jobs program of the kind we have always had in times of 
recession.
  Yet what bothers me most about the most recent period is there has 
been no particular American conversation about the disproportionate 
effect of joblessness on African Americans. We used to always talk 
about it. We used to talk about there is twice as much unemployment for 
African Americans, the effect that was having, having to reach down and 
do something about it. We ought to go back and read Ralph Ellison's 
Invisible Man. Because African American unemployment has become the 
invisible unemployment.
  I indicated earlier that I was not talking about something we could 
not do something about. The Democrats introduced the Rebuild America 
Act of 2003. We could have given America a quick start in this jobless 
recovery with a provision of jobs in areas where they are most needed 
and where the country most needs work without increasing the deficit 
because this bill, a $50 billion bill was paid for. It would have had 
an extraordinary effect, particularly before Christmas, because many of 
these jobs would have been in manufacturing and construction, and that 
is where the ripple effect is in areas like retailing, for example, 
where blacks are found often disproportionately.
  But what did we do? Instead of looking at the Rebuild America Act, we 
went home. This act was focused on manufacturing and that is where the 
President is in trouble and where the Congress is in trouble, and on 
construction where the country is in trouble, where he is in trouble.
  We could have relieved our national infrastructure deficit with this 
$50 billion bill that would cover every aspect of our own 
infrastructure. Now, I was particularly interested in this because

[[Page 79]]

I am on the Permanent Select Committee on Homeland Security and because 
I fret daily about the deficits in infrastructure and what that does to 
security. For example, I want aviation. We have shored up some of 
airline security, but rail security, for example, is just out there. 
Amtrak, your Union Stations around the country and the lines that go in 
between them with tracks that invite mischief.
  There was something in this bill for every district. For example, 
there were several things in there that would have helped my district, 
$500 million for pending work items, for rehabilitation of Federal 
buildings. Pending work items that they cannot get to. And the 
interesting thing about this bill was that everything it was directed 
at were projects ready to go. Projects on the table waiting for the 
money to lift them up so that they could put people to work and deal 
with ailing infrastructure in our country.
  The average length of unemployment today is more than 20 weeks. This 
is the longest period of unemployment in 20 years. Mr. Speaker, this 
President must speak directly to jobs, to the fear of jobs, to the loss 
of unemployment insurance with jobs or else he has given us nothing 
that essential to reviving the domestic economy of our country.
  Yeah, we got the slogan for tonight. It is not ``It Is the Economy, 
Stupid''; it is jobs. And not ``stupid,'' I respect our President. It 
is jobs. It is not the economy, Mr. President; it is jobs, Mr. 
President.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. 
Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the chairman of 
the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus for 
giving us the opportunity to lay out a road map, if you will, for this 
Nation as we prepare to hear the President's State of the Union 
address.
  And I might say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, I am 
told and I have heard that many view this as a state of the world 
because he is the commander in chief and the leader of the free world, 
commander in chief of the most powerful Nation in the world. And the 
world watches tonight.
  So, my first concern with respect to the optimism that I hope we hear 
tonight is that he will restate for the world that we are a country of 
freedoms, protecting both our civil liberties and civil rights, and 
that we will not intend or pretend to govern from a position of fear, 
that we will continue to mourn those who we lost on 9/11 but that we 
will go forward embracing the freedom of this Nation and reemphasize 
our civil liberties.
  And so that we can address Attorney General Ashcroft to the extent 
that we began to reinforce the civil liberties of Americans as opposed 
to take them away, to ask the questions about an enemy combatant 
without the opportunity to have access to counsel, to wonder why the 
Transportation Security Administration will begin profiling all 
Americans who are traveling on domestic flights, and are an outrage, to 
begin to address the questions that our rights should not be taken away 
but they should be enhanced. Library books need not be the cause of 
suggesting someone is a terrorist.
  And the civil rights of Americans reinforcing affirmative action, 
believing in the right to privacy, must be stated tonight. The 
Congressional Black Caucus has worked for a very long time on a real 
racial profiling bill, one that would prevent racial profiling. We ask 
the President to speak tonight about the need to sign hate crimes 
legislation which we have been working on for now over almost a decade.
  And then when it comes to election reform in this year, it is crucial 
that we add to the election reform legislation a tracking system, a 
paper trail, so that when we go to the 2004 election, when many 
jurisdictions have gone to the electronic process, we will not have the 
crisis of 2000 when we turn people away but, more importantly, when 
votes were not counted. Now that we have the electronic process, let me 
say to you that it certainly is a travesty that we have a situation 
where we cannot even track how the votes were cast.
  I hope he will promote the Peace Corps and that encourage, in the 
next fiscal year, extra support for the Peace Corps, the face of 
America, and make sure that we do not assign one person to an area but 
we assign two Americans to a region for safety and other reasons.
  I believe going into space is valuable, but we have to do it in a 
bipartisan way, protecting American jobs, providing for education and 
explaining to the American people how we will fund our vision in going 
to Mars and to the moon and the safety of it.
  Let me just say that the Democrats have extended an olive branch. I 
agree with my colleagues the need to create more jobs. That is a big 
question, are you going to do it. But I agree that Democrats are saying 
to the President that those who seek higher education need increased 
dollars for the Pell Grant from $4,050 to $5,800 and doubling the Hope 
Scholarship Tax Credit from $1,500 to $3,000, and getting rid of the 
disabled veterans tax once and for all. How can we have young men and 
women in the front lines of Iraq and when they come home as disabled 
veterans, they are to be taxed?
  And finally let me say, Mr. Speaker, we have got a lot of work to do 
on immigration reform. And my support for moving in the right direction 
is that I say to the President tonight, let us talk about comprehensive 
immigration reform including Liberians, including Haitians, including a 
comprehensive response, Europeans and others from all over who are 
trying to earn access to legalization, let's not have a flat earth 
procedure where at the end of 3 years you disappear into the night.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope the President will be optimistic tonight. I hope 
he will accept the olive branch. I hope he will work with the 
Congressional Black Caucus and the chairman, and that we will get on 
the right track for America. Because if we do not, the world is 
watching us tonight and wondering whether America can lead in the 21st 
century.

                          ____________________