[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10031-10037]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         30-SOMETHING DEMOCRATS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Carter). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, once again it is a pleasure to come 
before the Members of the House and the

[[Page 10032]]

American people to talk about issues that are facing all Americans.
  As you know, week after week we come to the floor, the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and myself and other members of the 30-something Group 
to talk about things that are facing young Americans, which also I 
think have a lot to do with the bottom line of American families, as 
they start to work on their finances, work on their future, and I am 
glad to do that.
  The first week we came we started talking about the issues of student 
loans, the fact that more Americans are graduating from college in 
debt, unable to purchase a home or take part in the American dream. We 
also talked about the issues that were facing students in America here 
with the price of text books, which then also has an issue that is 
placed on the table of their parents are trying to make sure they come 
up with the in some cases $800 to $1,500 for text books on top of 
exploding tuition costs, which I must say is a student tax and a tax on 
the American people.
  Last week, we talked about the cost of health care as it pertains to 
the young people having an opportunity to have adequate health care 
outside of going to the emergency room, for that level of health care 
that they so desperately need and is so very, very important that we 
have a health care plan here in the United States versus some sort of 
health care savings plan that the average American, that the 
administration is pushing that does not make as much sense as it should 
make to the average American.
  We talked about voter suppression also last week, voter suppression 
on college campus, and we want to make sure we get the word out that it 
is important that students and parents of students, where your children 
are going to be on a college campus this fall, that they can register 
to vote there in that city, that town, wherever they go to school, 
because we had an issue and we still do to this day, individuals that 
are supervisors of elections that are saying, or the Secretary of State 
that is saying, well, you are a resident of Indiana, but you cannot 
register to vote at the University of Georgia. Well, you can.
  The Supreme Court has already spoken to this issue, and so it is 
important that we get that out and we encourage many people who want to 
learn more about voter suppression to contact the Rock the Vote 
organization. On their Web site they have information pertaining to 
that issue.
  We also want to continue to encourage people to e-mail us. We have 
received quite a few e-mails. I know we both will talk about it 
tonight. I am so excited about the fact that we are getting such a 
great response from the American people, young and old. And I will say 
some of these e-mails are really going to help us direct hopefully this 
House, if given the opportunity to lead in this House in the majority, 
to make sure that average Americans are heard. And I will talk a little 
bit about our Web site; I hope the gentleman would.
  I also want to, as we did last week, I want to thank the gentlewoman 
from California (Ms. Pelosi), who is the Democratic leader in this 
House, for pulling us together, helping us realize the importance of 
young Americans, that we have a voice in this process, in this 
democracy and allowing us to be on the floor once a week to not only 
respond to e-mails but also share with the American people about what 
is going on.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for taking a 
lead on this. He is quarterbacking tonight.
  I think there are some great issues. Just so we know, we wonder 
sometimes when we stand on the floor how many people are out there 
watching. And I just got off the phone with my wife and she is changing 
from ``Law and Order'' to C-SPAN so that they can watch us here 
tonight. So we know we have a little bit of an audience out there. But, 
again, it is the Thirtysomething D[email protected]. And I have a 
stack of e-mails here that we have received since we started doing 
this, and it is amazing the response we are getting.
  I think as we have talked about this, and it was not too long ago 
that we were in college and participating in a variety of activities 
there, and we felt that the political leadership was not engaging us. 
And I think that is something that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Pelosi) has made it a point that as a Democratic Caucus we are going to 
go out and we are going to pay attention to what the needs of the 
students are. We recognize that they are the future of the country. We 
do not just want to pay them lip service. We want to make sure that we 
are there for them with the issues that they care about and on the 
issues they need us to be there for them.

                              {time}  2245

  If we are going to continue to thrive as a democracy and country we 
are going to need to invest in our young people, and we cannot just say 
we are only going to take care of senior citizens. I think there is a 
responsibility there and we have a commitment there, but at the same 
time, we need to make sure that we let these young people know that we 
are committed to the issues they care about, we are committed to them, 
we want to see them get educated and see them recognize their own 
dreams, their own aspirations. In many instances, that is through a 
college education, period, end of story.
  It is not the only thing you need but for a good many Americans, if 
you want to succeed, you have to do it by going and furthering your 
education.
  So the question that we have here tonight is, are young people better 
off today, are students better off today than they were 4 years ago? I 
think if you look at the chart that we will put up and some of the 
statistics that we will talk about here today, it is clear that young 
people are not better off today than they were just 4 years ago.
  In the past 4 years, the unemployment rate for people ages 16 to 24 
has gone up 3.7 percent through the Department of Labor statistics. So 
there are thousands of kids who are young people who are out there 
trying to get jobs, trying to find work, and they cannot find work.
  Then this is not so much off the subject, but I found this article 
today that I wanted to talk about and bring up today.
  This is from San Jose, California, and the title of the article is 
Offshoring of U.S. Jobs Accelerating. We talk about how we have to 
educate our young kids. In every single trade agreement that we have 
passed, the commitment was we are going to continue to invest in 
education, K through 12, No Child Left Behind, Pell grants, 
consolidation of student loans, investment in our young people. We are 
going to move the country forward by investing in our young people, and 
if you get an education, the promise was, then you have work in this 
country.
  So this study that was done roughly, and that is a quote, roughly 
830,000 U.S. service sector jobs ranging from telemarketing and 
accountants to software engineers and chief technology officers will 
move abroad by the end of 2005. Eight-hundred-and-thirty-thousand jobs 
will move offshore, high-tech jobs, by 2005.
  This same outfit did a study a couple of years ago, and they said it 
was only going to be 588,000. Now it is 830,000.
  So the question is, do you have the opportunity that you had if you 
would have graduated in 1999 or 2000 and the kind of job market that a 
Democratic Congress and a Democratic President created through 
balancing the budget and being fiscally responsible and leading an 
enormous economic growth and creating the kind of jobs needed?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, can I say, without one Republican 
vote. Democrats did that on behalf of our future, balancing the budget.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Many Democrats lost their job over it because they 
made the sacrifice.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. And did the right thing.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. To do it right and to create long-term and probably 
really what we have, and I think young people sense this when I talk to 
them because they have grown up in the culture of where we are talking 
about stocks and politics, and they are a little more sophisticated 
than even we

[[Page 10033]]

were just a few years ago, but a lot of those young people recognize 
that the decisions that are made in this body and the political 
decisions that are made are made for short-term political advantage, 
not long-term prosperity for the country.
  I think you have seen it over the past few years that the decisions 
that are made about how can we win the next election, and I am from the 
school of thought that if you do right when you are in power, when you 
do right by leading, that the electorate will take care of itself and 
the people will vote for candidates who support issues that make the 
country better, make the country stronger, economically, politically 
and whatever.
  But I think it is important for us to realize that the kind of 
atmosphere that we are creating here, the lack of investment in 
education, the lack of investment in K through 12, the lack of 
investment for our college kids is coming home to roost, and we are not 
creating any kind of new jobs. We are losing jobs.
  But what is the next industry? If you are not investing in the young 
people, you are not going to be able to create the next industry.
  I am going to share one statistic with you and then I am going to 
kick it back over to the quarterback here tonight.
  Some of the major technology hubs over the past few years, Silicon 
Valley, famous; Seattle, booming; Austin, Texas, everything was great. 
Those areas now have a higher unemployment rate than the Nation at 
large, and I think when we are talking here tonight about what is the 
future prospects of the young people who are hopefully out there 
tonight watching this, if not studying and going to school and trying 
to make themselves better, what are the future prospects, and think 
when you hear statistics like that where great areas of concentration 
of high-tech wealth and job creation have higher unemployment rates 
than the Nation at large, I think that there is a lot of things that 
need to be done, and I think the answer to that is investment into 
education.
  So I am hoping that through raising the awareness for the young 
people here that we have an opportunity to hopefully engage these young 
people like the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) wants to do, 
reach out to these students and 20 somethings and 30 somethings and 
engage them in the process and let them know that they have a right to 
stand up and they have a right to be involved in this process.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, the only way we are going to see the shift 
that we need, and I am so glad that you are referring to studies that 
were not only done recently but were done 4 years ago, and also having 
a backdrop of reading articles that are in daily publications and the 
facts from the Department of Labor, U.S. Department of Labor of what 
the reality is, because many times people may turn on C-SPAN, Members 
may be sitting in their offices listening to us right now, and they are 
saying, oh, well, that is just the 30 Something Democrats, upset 
because they are not in the majority right now; so they will say and do 
anything, and we will tell the American people anything.
  I just wanted to say this is not the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) 
report or the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) report. This is the 
report of the reality of what is going on in this government that we 
serve in and what is happening to the American people.
  The rubber meets the road when one has to go into the emergency room 
for health care services. I must say if we cough or our throat feels a 
little funny today, we walk down to the clinic. We have good health 
care. Fine, not a big long wait. We are not told what veterans are 
told; we will see you in a couple of months. If we need to see an 
ophthalmologist or optometrist or whatever the case may be, oh, sure, 
in a matter of hours, not days, not weeks.
  Folks did not elect us to Congress nor any Member to Congress to say 
I want you to have better health care; we love you so much we want you 
to have better health care than what I have. No, they elected us to 
make sure they have life better for them. That is our purpose, and I am 
pretty sure that a lot of Members come to this body thinking that that 
is what they would do eventually.
  We have impediments of allowing us to be able to provide a better way 
of life, and so the question that you mentioned earlier, are you better 
off than you were 4 years ago, well, looking at the numbers, it does 
not necessarily look that way.
  In the past 4 years, the unemployment rate for 16 to 24-year-olds 
have gone up 3.7 percent, and I think it is also important, in the past 
4 years a number of unemployed college grads have doubled from 600,000 
in 2000, a whopping 1.2 million in 2004 and this is the Economic Policy 
Institute in case someone wants to check that out.
  Goodness, I do not want to talk about gas prices. Have you filled 
your car up lately?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I am not sure we want to talk about it because it 
is painful.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, I do.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I drive back and forth from Ohio to Washington, and 
it is just, to try to get it on the turnpike or in a big city like 
Washington, shameful.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Last night, I filled up, and you have to have a 
credit car when you fill up. No more of that, oh, I will just take 20 
bucks out and make it happen. You may get a quarter of a tank in some 
gas stations.
  So when you look at these issues it is not within our control. It is 
not our control. That is the reason, well, we do not necessarily set 
the agenda here in this House. We had a great debate today on the issue 
of overtime pay. Please, tell me that we are not arguing about taking 
away overtime from Americans. Please tell me that. Please tell me that 
what you are saying, I wish it was untrue about American jobs that are 
going overseas. Guess what, when they fire you, they do not come and 
ask you are you a Democrat or Republican or Independent. You are fired 
because your job is now overseas.
  So the only way I think that we are going to change that is that the 
American people help people like yourself, myself, the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Pelosi) and some Republicans who want to do something 
about it, and I think it is important. So the only way that is going to 
happen is that we can bring it here to this floor. We do not have to 
talk about it in a special order after legislative business. We can 
actually take action towards making life better on behalf of every 
American.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think when you ask and we talk about what do you 
do, and I think there is ample evidence for criticism of what has been 
happening, not only in this chamber but the leadership throughout our 
government, the lack of leadership, I guess I should say, throughout 
our government, and the variety of issues that have not been touched 
upon here tonight and a lot more that we have, but what are we going to 
do? What should we do? What is the answer? It is one thing I think to 
criticize and critique, but what is the answer?
  I think part of the answer is all we have to do is look back 
throughout the history of this country from its inception, and many 
people like to say, well, the government is not worth anything, the 
government cannot initiate anything. If you look at all of the major 
advancements that have been made in the country from the post office, 
to land grant colleges, to the railroads, to the interstate highway, 
Medicare, Medicaid, civil rights, Social Security, the GI Bill, the 
Pell grants, Federal housing, all of these initiatives have, in one way 
or another, moved the country forward. Who was it that moved the 
country forward? It was always the government who was leading the way 
to move the country forward.
  The research on the Internet was government investment. The research 
for diseases now at NIH, government investment, and now I just heard 
Secretary Abraham, Secretary of Energy, he wants $50 million for a new 
super high-tech fast supercomputer to give our country a competitive 
advantage. Who is the Secretary of Energy? Who does it belong to? Where 
does the money come from? It comes from here. It comes from the 
government.

[[Page 10034]]

  The government always has had a role to play. It will continue to 
have a role to play, and I think the philosophy that people are trying 
to push down the American people's throats now of here is your 300 
bucks, while tuition and fees has increased by 28 percent under this 
current administration; tuition and fees at 4-year public institutions 
increased by 35 percent; tuition and fee increases at public 2-year 
institutions increased by 60 percent; tuition and fees increased in 49 
of the 50 States in 2003.
  You and I come here at eleven o'clock at night. Our wives are 
watching and hopefully trying to engage some young people.

                              {time}  2300

  But why do it? Because we need to establish a program in this country 
that will move the country forward.
  Now, after 9-11, we had opportunities for energy efficiency, or 
another GI bill, or you could have asked the American people to ride to 
work on bikes and they would have gone out and done it because they 
were committed to moving the country forward and committed to doing 
whatever it takes. And yet look at the inaction, look at the one 
solution for every problem. This is a one-trick pony. Tax cuts, tax 
cuts, tax cuts. And they are not going to the people in my district.
  Fifty percent of the people in my district in Youngstown, Ohio; in 
Niles, Ohio; in Warren, Ohio; and in Akron, Ohio, 50 percent of the 
people got a tax cut, but 50 percent did not.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is also important for my 
colleague to identify that the majority of the tax cut is going to the 
individuals with the most money, the individuals that are making over 
$1 million a year. A lot of my constituents are not. If I had to go out 
and run the election saying I am only concerned in my district with 
those who are making over $1 million, I would be surprised if I 
received 50 votes out of the number that I need.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I have been very, very on target as it 
relates to sharing with the American people, with not just pointing out 
and describing the inequities of leadership or the inequities of our 
so-called health care plan, because we do not have one right now, but I 
just want to share this with our listeners here.
  The amount of young adults 18 to 29 years old who are uninsured has 
gone up 8 percent since 2000, and in 2000 only 22 percent of all young 
adults were uninsured. Now 30 percent of the uninsured Americans are 
young adults, despite the fact that their age group represents just 15 
percent of the population. These are uninsured numbers, I just want to 
add and correct myself.
  I think it is important that there is a piece of legislation authored 
by one of the members of our caucus, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. 
Snyder). He has a bill, House bill 3192, that aims to help young adults 
without health insurance.
  I want to also share with the American people that the Federal 
Government, we in the Congress are supposed to be in the business of 
not only helping the people that we represent, especially this 
Congress, but also assisting States. Now, we have the benefit up here, 
and here I have my credit card here. I do not have any money in my 
wallet, but I can go back in and pull a credit card out, I pulled my 
credit union credit card out, and we have the ability here to just 
swipe the card and add it to the deficit. Swipe the card and add it to 
the deficit to the point that we are borrowing money by knocking on the 
bank of China, saying, hey, can you help us pay down our debt. But we 
are not doing it on behalf of everyday Americans. We are doing it on 
behalf of making sure that we can provide tax cuts to people who are 
not asking for it.
  For the middle-class individual, we support some of these tax cuts. 
We support the family tax cut as it relates to child tax credit and 
things of that nature. But when we start talking about tax cuts for 
billionaires, fundamentally, I believe, especially in this deficit 
time, in this time when States are running deficits because they cannot 
take a credit card out and swipe it and say I will put it on the card, 
they have to balance their budgets. So they balance their budgets on 
behalf of who? The people in their State. Those people are who? 
Americans that we represent. And what do they do at the State level? 
They then in turn pass it on to the county government. Well, county, 
sorry, but you have to let us know how you are cutting costs. We are 
going to get down to the bottom of this.
  What is important is that we start getting to the top of the whole 
situation, and the top is in the White House, the top is here in this 
House of Representatives, the top is over in the other body where we 
have the kind of leadership that we have that is allowing this 
legislation to pass. This is what some academics call devolution of 
taxation. We will cut it here, but we will raise it there.
  I can tell you right now, for the Americans listening to us and 
Members of Congress and mayors and council members, or city 
commissioners, school board members, they know exactly what we are 
talking about. They get it. They know.
  Tell me if this sounds familiar in a community near you or as to 
Members of this House or people that are watching us now. Has there 
been a referendum for a bond issue or something to help pay for 
schools? Of course there has been. Has there been an extra penny for 
transportation or something of that level, or a gas tax increase on the 
local level to try to make up some kind of shortfall in revenue? Of 
course there has been. It is going on now. To seniors, are you getting 
the same service that you were receiving as relates to an activity 
program or a good-will program in your neighborhood or in your 
community? Of course there have been cuts.
  The reason why there have been cuts is not the fact that we have not 
been able to provide the level of service that we have been providing 
in the past. And I have great concern about being in the Congress and 
standing over the largest, or be taking part in the largest deficit in 
the history of the Republic.
  One would assume, listening to some of our colleagues in the 
majority, if we were to believe what they are saying, it is those 
liberal Democrats that brought us here. Oh no, it has been a long time. 
And they cannot say that. I challenge the other side constantly. I 
wonder where the deficit hawks are, those individuals that came to this 
floor, just like we are here on this floor talking about how they 
cannot believe the deficit is where it is. I cannot believe this. How 
did we allow the deficit to get out of control?
  Guess what? Democrats delivered a balanced budget. They got what they 
asked for. Then they turn around and flip the script and try to make it 
seem as though the Democrats did something fundamentally wrong. Now we 
have a deficit that people do not understand how we are going to get it 
down. I guarantee people are going to suffer. Student loans? Forget 
about it. The banking community is here, and they are trying to make 
the situation even worse for students that are trying to pay their 
loans back. They will never pay them. They will always be in debt to 
the banks for getting an education.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) gave some great 
statistics that even when individuals graduate from college, where will 
they go? Where will the jobs be? Back when President Clinton was 
President, there were jobs looking for people. Now there are people 
looking for jobs. And the President says, well, for anyone who is 
willing to work. Well, I do not have a lot of constituents saying, 
Congressman, I am not willing to work. They want to have a job. They 
need that job. It is very, very important that we help them.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to share this one point with my colleague, 
but I have to say I love to hear my friend when he is sharing these 
statistics and everything. I just sit right here, and I say this is 
amazing, look at this guy. The way my colleague deploys the 
information, it is just so informative. And this is good because we are 
addressing folks who know what it means for someone to call your house 
and say are you going to pay this bill or this student loan that you 
have, or what

[[Page 10035]]

have you? These are what real people go through, receiving a letter in 
the mail that you do not know how they are going to pay it.
  For the individuals that own credit cards, because they do not have a 
job and they are trying to make ends meet, they are paying what the 
bank or the credit card is asking for, $23 versus paying to the 
principal because they cannot afford to do so because they are in debt. 
So it is important for us to share this information.
  The government spends $900,000 a minute. Every minute, $900,000. That 
is a lot of money. And it borrows $1.1 billion a day. That is an awful 
lot of money, $1.1 billion, to pay down on this deficit that is in the 
trillions. And people talk about our children are going to pay. My 
colleague, we are going to pay it, and seniors are going to pay it. 
Because Social Security is not going to be what it should be and how it 
should be.
  So when my colleague started talking about are we better off today 
than we were 4 years ago, and I know my colleague wants to say 
something. He is ready to get back on the mike, and I am going to give 
him a chance in just a minute, but I think it is important for us to 
share this. We shared about a piece of legislation that one of our 
colleagues has sponsored now to help young Americans without health 
insurance. I am 37. Individuals such as myself, the 50-somethings, the 
60-somethings can say, well, we have health care needs. Of course, we 
do. But guess what? When that young person, that grandson or that son 
or daughter finds him or herself in a health crisis, who is going to 
pay for it? Nine times out of 10 they will mortgage their homes to pay 
for the health care costs for their children and grandchildren.
  So this is not an issue; this is interconnected. It is all together, 
and it is going to be the reality of America, or it is the reality of 
America.

                              {time}  2310

  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Meek) makes some great points. I believe this is a good 
opportunity for us to try to communicate some of these points.
  To continue on a point that the gentleman was making, the gentleman 
was talking about the devolution of taxes and going from the Feds cut 
their taxes and they push it off onto the States. And the States, in 
many instances, cut their taxes too and have reduced revenue, and they 
are passing it on to the county. And we see the local school boards, we 
see the university raise its tuition prices, we see mental health 
levies, transportation levies, disability levies, and senior citizen 
levies for senior programs, parks; we see levies for just about 
everything.
  We have the devolution down until it gets to the local level, and the 
reason why we have a Federal Government to pass money along is because 
a lot of those areas are poor. They do not have the money to treat 
people with mental health problems in their county. They do not have 
the money. We need the Federal Government and the States to come in and 
help those poor communities.
  A lot of the school districts, and this is something that is going on 
in Ohio, some of the school districts, they do not have the local tax 
base to be able to fund an adequate education for their kids. So you 
need the State to be involved or you need the Federal Government to be 
involved in order to help them.
  That is one stream that comes down, and it is pushing down on the 
poor citizens in our communities all across the country regardless of 
the State.
  Then, as you reduce the Federal revenues and, as you said, you borrow 
the money, you reduce the Federal revenues; but then you have to figure 
out what you are going to give back because the revenues are not there 
to give back. It is not like we are returning surplus money to the 
millionaires, it is not like when Clinton left office, and we had 
billions of dollars to give back. There is no surplus to give back, and 
we keep giving back. So where do we get the money? We pull out the 
credit card. We borrow the money to give it to the top 1 percent.
  So we are cutting services on this end. We are pushing the burden 
down to the local level, and then we are borrowing money to give to 
rich people; and then in this other area here, we are pushing the 
burden off on the next generation. It is a tax shift off onto your 
kids, to your grandkids some day, my kids and my grandkids.
  So we are going to have a higher rate of taxes for your grandkids 
because of this indulgence, this binge that we have been on, the binge 
that this administration has been on; and we are pushing it down to 
these kids at the same time that the baby boomers are moving into our 
systems, our Medicare system and our Social Security system.
  What are we thinking? This makes no sense to do what we are doing. It 
is mind-boggling.
  I was on the floor a couple of hours ago with the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Brown) and the other gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and we 
were talking about veterans. When you listen to this, if you are home 
just listening this, Law and Order is over, now you are turning on C-
SPAN, watching us, you think those are two partisans down there 
talking, and a few hours ago there were three, just trying to score 
political points, just blatant politics. But then you look at the facts 
and you look at what is going on with our country and the lack of 
investment in people, the lack of investment in all of the programs 
that we have believed in for years, you begin to recognize it is an 
issue of priorities. It is an issue of we would rather give these tax 
cuts because we think in the long run it will help us win an election 
as opposed to what is best for the country.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, we are in our districts working 
next week, but the week after next what we should have, we need to get 
a nice credit card. Just write the deficit in, expiration date unknown, 
put the credit card there. You know how they have the pictures now with 
the football teams, we need to talk about that, and I think that is 
something that we need to talk about over the break.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Over the break, maybe we can get away from here and 
open up and let the creative juices roll, and we can come up with 
something.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Yes, and I have a couple of credit cards. None 
with any substantial balance, but there was once upon a time that was 
the case. We know better now. I think it is important to understand 
that young people make youthful indiscretions, and some of those 
indiscretions are financial.
  Another thing is, when we set the deck, when we cut Pell Grants and 
cut opportunities, low-interest student loans to students that need 
them, and these are Democrat, Republican, Independent kids that are 
trying to educate themselves, that is another thing. That is 
indiscretion based on this Congress knowingly doing this. That is a 
fundamental problem when we have more young people coming out.
  Are you better off? I am looking at this chart that is next to the 
gentleman, and you can see it better than I can. The gentleman and I 
are both Letterman guys. He is coming on in a few moments on another 
station, and I always like to hear his top 10. We have more than 10 
here.
  When we look at those that are employed, January 2001, 132.4 million 
were employed. Now we have 130.9 million, and there are more people in 
the United States of America than there were 3 to 4 years ago.
  Unemployment, January 2001, was 5.6 million. Now unemployed is 8.2 
million. We are going in the wrong direction.
  Not in the labor force, but want a job, 4.6 million then; 4.7 million 
now. You would assume these numbers would be heading higher rather than 
going lower.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Absolutely. I think an amazing number here, and I 
know viewers cannot see these at home, but these are official 
statistics.
  Household debt in January 2001 was $6.6 trillion. Household debt 
today, $8.8 trillion; $2.2 trillion more of household debt. And that is 
the issue that we keep talking about because the debt tax, the tax per 
household from this reckless binge that we have been on over the past 3 
years is ultimately

[[Page 10036]]

going to cost your kids and your grandkids enormous amounts of money to 
pay for that debt.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. There is one thing coming out at me, like 3-D, 
15 gallons of regular gasoline, January 2001, was $18.90. Now, May 
2004, is $26.33.
  Let me just say this, it is one thing to talk the talk, and it is 
another thing to walk the walk. We have a lot of guys down on 
Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House. They have the bully pulpit. 
They are members of the administration talking about what the 
indicators said, and we believe that the indicator is going to 
indicate. But when it comes down in the final analysis, the American 
people more is coming out of their pockets than they are getting in 
their pockets, if they are getting anything.
  So when we start talking about young people, once again, I go back to 
the parents and grandparents. I think the goal of every parent and 
grandparent or even aunt or uncle is to see their kids or grandkids do 
better than what they have done. That is their goal.
  What we are seeing now, and this information can be found if Members 
want to find it. You can check onto the Web site, this information is 
there at housedemocrat.gov/areyoubetteroff. It is amazing, people come 
up with these Web sites.

                              {time}  2320

  Mr. MEEK of Florida. It is just amazing what we are finding and what 
we are seeing and what is actually happening out there.
  One other thing I wanted to mention. I want to talk about a broken 
promise. President Bush said 4 years ago that he promised to increase 
Pell grants to $5,100. For the past 4 years the President and 
congressional Republicans have frozen or cut the maximum Pell grant 
award. The Pell grant stands at $4,050 today. That is $1,000 off the 
mark. But meanwhile we are here on this floor to make permanent tax 
cuts for the most affluent individuals in this country. The only way 
that this is going to change, not if we do the 30-Something hour every 
week. We can only inform the American people. They are going to have to 
act.
  They are going to have to make sure that we have the kind of 
leadership that is willing to stand up to special interests and say, 
no, it is not going to happen. We have a constitutional right to make 
sure that we watch out for the future of this country and to stand here 
on this floor today not because of our doing, and we voted against a 
lot of the stuff that has put us in this situation now, laws or 
legislation passed. I always say this is the biggest cake and ice cream 
administration I have ever seen. It is almost like sitting one's kid 
down at the table and say, hey, do not worry about the veggies, do not 
worry about eating your baked chicken. Turn those plates around and eat 
that cake and ice cream, go ahead, all you want. But what happens 
eventually? Either obesity, diabetes, or something. And that is what we 
are finding ourselves in.
  Well, we are down in the polls; so let us see what kind of tax we can 
come up with today. We will give maybe 30 percent to average Americans 
and the other we will give to friends and individuals that have money. 
So I think it is important that we look at that.
  I wanted to just hit one more Web site because I think it is 
important we pay attention to this. It is rockthevote.com on voter 
suppression, to make sure that young people can vote. And, Mr. Speaker, 
I want to tell the gentleman from Ohio that I am telling school 
districts in Florida to tell the kids in school to send notes home to 
their parents to remind them to vote in the general election. Now, 
those kids have Republican moms and dads, Democrat moms and dads, 
Independent moms and dads. But anyone who is paying attention to what 
is going on with their child in school, they are going to have an issue 
of what is happening here. So if those parents were to go out and vote, 
it would be a different conversation. We would be on the floor talking 
about, what, under the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) as 
Speaker, we passed on behalf of the American people, not just 
Democratic kids, not just Democratic 30-somethings, not just senior 
Democrats, but on behalf of all Americans, and it will be fair. It will 
be fair to the business community. It will be fair to the other 
everyday Americans.
  I am going to let the gentleman go ahead because, like I said, he has 
a way of being able to supply that information; but once again we as 
Democrats are looking to make sure that we have opportunities to 
provide opportunities for young Americans. During the Clinton 
administration, more than 10 million people were able to take advantage 
of the New Hope Scholarship tax credit and other scholarships. Students 
saved $8 billion through the direct college loan program. John Kerry is 
talking about the same. He is talking about $4,000, not once in the 
college experience but per semester, per year, credit to be able to 
allow young people to attend college even though student loans have 
gone up. That will allow them to be able to receive a college 
education.
  Let me share this, Mr. Speaker, before I yield. During the Bush 
administration, college tuition has increased by 28 percent. That is 
that devolution of taxation we talked about earlier, when we cut it up 
here and we hand it down to State governments. They have to find it 
somewhere. So where do they go for it? The weak prey, seniors and 
students and young children, cutting back and saying that public 
schools need to suck it up and do better. 400,000 qualified high school 
graduates will not attend a 4-year college this year because of 
financial barriers; 200,000 will not attend college at all. This is not 
because they do not want to. It is because they cannot afford to. So I 
think it is important that if we are going to have a workforce that 
will be able to take those jobs under a new administration, hopefully 
under a new leadership here in this House of Representatives, that they 
will be able to get through school to be able to provide the kind of 
skilled worker that we need versus what we are experiencing now, more 
and more jobs going offshore than right here in our own communities, 
State, and country.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from Florida is 
absolutely right, and he is as articulate as anyone is around here.
  A couple of issues that I want to talk about. And we are going to 
wrap up here in a few minutes. The hour is getting late, but I think it 
is important to just say that what we want this Congress to do, what we 
want this President to do is to take a strong leadership role in 
creating a new economy for the young people of this country. And I come 
from an old steel town, very strong during the industrial age; and what 
I hear from the retirees, I hear from people who have been working in a 
lot of these mills over the years and are coming close to retirement, 
is, What are our kids going to do? And when we look back at how we 
succeeded during the industrial age, the GI bill, the investments in 
infrastructure, the investments in the interstate highway systems, and 
I think needs to be duplicated, not in the same, but look at the space 
program, the national priority to educate people. It was not just about 
going to the Moon, which was a great national priority; it was about 
getting people, young people and the country engaged in math and 
science and engineering and physics because that administration 
understood that that would spin off into the economy, and those 
engineers who were getting educated were not just working in the space 
program. They were working in a lot of other industries. So I think it 
is important for us to do that. That is one.
  And, two, I have heard the President say the economy is turning 
around. I cannot help, as we are wrapping it up here in the final 
couple of minutes, but to just acknowledge the fact that just a few 
miles outside of my district in Canton, Ohio, Timken, which was a 
staple in Canton and Massillon, some of the greatest high school 
football in the country, the Timken Company is going to close up shop, 
1,300 jobs in this community. Howard Fineman just wrote a great article 
about Timken and its potential effect on the election, but

[[Page 10037]]

1,300 jobs in Ohio were bleeding. And the President and others want to 
say that the economy is turning around, and I cannot help but say, 
where? Where? Maybe if they have a little bit of stock, and the stock 
market is not even doing all that well. And gas prices are going up. I 
mean, where is it getting better? It is not. It is getting 
progressively worse. We have the financial albatross around our neck 
with the current war, and we are having a number of problems. So these 
are some things where we have to make education a national priority for 
us.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Are you better off now than you were 4 years 
ago? Mr. Speaker, I just want to, if we can, share just a few of our e-
mails that we received, and I am going to start off. From Melanie B. of 
Maryland, and I will just leave it at that. She is a political and 
science and social worker major at the University of Maryland, 
Baltimore campus, will be 30 years old this year. And she goes on to 
say that ``I have noticed over the past 2 years how tuition costs have 
gone up and continue to go up. Just over the past year, I have gotten 
really interested in the workings of the Congress. I tune into C-SPAN 
quite often now, and I was so happy to listen to the 30-Something Group 
talk Tuesday night. It almost brought me to tears.''

                              {time}  2330

  It almost brought me to tears.
  ``I started my education late at 25. I am working full-time for an 
attorney to put myself through school. My parents were unable to help 
me. I live on my own, which leaves me no choice but to work full-time, 
or I wouldn't be able to support myself. It is going to take me 6 years 
to complete both degrees. I started at the community college and 
transferred.
  ``I received a scholarship from the National Honor Society, but lost 
the scholarship after the first semester. In order to keep the 
scholarship you are required to go to school full-time, 12 credit 
hours, and keep a GPA of 3.5. I was not able to do so, and just by 
dropping down to 9 credit hours I lost the little bit of money I had 
for access to school.
  ``I make too much money to qualify for a Pell Grant, which means that 
by the time I finish school, I will be in a mountain of debt. I hope to 
go to grad school, but right now I am not sure that that will be an 
option. I can't imagine the cost of grad school adding to my already 
outstanding debt.''
  That is a reality of what is going on out there. Community college, 
had a scholarship, have to work full-time, lost scholarship because she 
has to work to support herself, had to go to 9 hours, she lost it. She 
wants to continue her education, but cannot; not because it is not 
offered, but because she cannot afford it, and also because she will be 
in so much debt.
  If you will read one.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I will read a couple here and start wrapping things 
up here. Alan T, a senior at Oklahoma State University, sent us an e-
mail.
  ``I am spending over $300 a semester for textbooks that have been 
used four or five times already by previous students. My best friend 
was unable to be the first in his family to graduate from a major 
university due to the fact that he was unable to pay for textbooks, 
parking permits and other student fees that are burdening students more 
and more,'' also probably a few parking tickets, if I remember college 
well. Those are also a cost that students must endure.
  ``I can either pay my bursar, or I can pay my rent. Next year, I 
won't buy my textbooks, so I can pay both.''
  The fact that we have people making this decision, it sounds eerily 
similar to the decision that a lot of our senior citizens have to make 
between food and prescription drugs.
  Joseph Oliver from North Dakota, a 20-year-old chemical engineering 
student:
  ``Full disclosure, I do want to tell you that I am historically, even 
though I am only 20, a conservative voting citizen. The investigation 
into textbooks,'' for those of you at home, we have a bill that is 
going to investigate the high cost of textbooks, also provide a $1,000 
tax credit for you to be able to deduct that, or credit that, for your 
textbooks, up to $1,000 a year, or your parents up to $1,000 a year.
  ``The investigation into textbooks is long past due. I spent nearly 
$600 for three classes of books, then was unable to sell any of them 
back because the new editions were released.''
  If anything gets you more upset in college, than you would drop 
hundreds of dollars for a textbook, and then you would go back at the 
end of the semester to get hopefully 10 or 20 bucks back, and they say, 
``We are not buying these back any more.'' I mean, that was ridiculous.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I still have some of my textbooks 
from college at home, because I was so upset, I was appalled by the 
fact they would not even give me even one-tenth of what I spent for 
them, and I did not even give them the privilege of giving me $5 for 
the textbook. I kept the textbook, even though maybe Bush 41 was the 
last President of the United States in it.
  Go ahead. That is just a personal issue.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. He goes on to say, ``That was the biggest unseen 
cost of college.'' He also goes on to talk about the variable interest 
rate for student loans. ``I have a fixed rate of nearly 3.4 percent 
right now. If that were to change, the light at the end of the tunnel 
would get a little less bright. I work 18 hour days in the summer to 
afford the opportunity of continuing school. I get upset every year, 
because I get penalized for working hard, among other factors, when it 
comes to receiving financial aid.''
  I am going to wrap up here and just, again it is an honor to be here 
with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) to talk about these issues. 
I think it is important, if you are there, please send us your e-mail 
to us, find the rockthevote about voter suppression. But continue to 
send us these, because it is important for us to know exactly what your 
issues are.
  I do want to take this opportunity, since we are not going to be here 
next week and this is my first term in Congress, to wish my mother a 
happy birthday. She is 60-years-old, so I wanted to wish her a happy 
birthday. Also my cousin, Phil Guerra who is also turning 60 this year.
  I wanted to take this as an opportunity to wish them a happy birthday 
before we take off for our Memorial Day break. And just to say again, 
we got to keep plugging away. We got a long road here. But you 
establish what you stand for, you take it to these young students, 
these young kids, and I think you have an opportunity to change the way 
the country is run, and I think that is a great opportunity that we 
have here.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Congratulations to the young people in your 
family. They are still young, and they still have a lot to do. 
[email protected], [email protected].
  I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), for this evening. 
I look forward to coming back in another 2 weeks to talk about other 
issues that are facing young Americans.

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