[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 22901-22907]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2200
            30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP: REFORMING GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Foxx). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be 
back and continue our discussion here. I hope for the next hour, my 
good friend, we can talk about something that I think is very important 
for the Democratic Party and what the future of the Democratic Party is 
all about, and that is reforming government. We are the party of 
reform. We have offered alternatives, as we have talked about in the 
past hour and over the past several weeks, that have been ignored; but 
we are not going to let that stop us. We are going to continue to talk 
throughout the rest of this year and into next year about the different 
reform measures that we are going to propose, and we are going to be 
critical of what we think is a broken system in general and broken 
systems in general, all of these different systems in our government.
  I was thinking about this and talking about this last night, about 
how our government runs today; and our government really runs today 
totally designed like an industrial-age system. It is almost like an 
assembly line. We have our health care over here and our education is 
over here and our foreign policy is over here and our research is over 
here, and none of the component parts are allowed to ever come 
together. That is an old assembly line kind of system. You deal with 
this part and you put that part on and then that part, and everything 
is separated.
  Government in the 21st century needs to be integrated and unified. A 
health care system that does not teach healthy eating habits and has a 
diverse physical education requirement in our schools or gives our kids 
good food in our schools, that is not a comprehensive health care 
system. Because at some point we are going to pay the bill for obesity 
or diabetes, or whatever may come from the long-term effects of not 
having a healthy diet. And one day, somebody is going to be on 
Medicare, and we are going to have to pay the price.
  I want to just talk for a couple of minutes about what is going on 
with Delphi and their bankruptcy and how I think the system right now 
is a bit broken. Basically, over the last 30 years or so, this company 
and their workers have generated a lot of wealth over the past 30 
years. A lot of people in Ohio and in Mississippi and all over the 
country have made money. Workers were paid well, and they had pensions 
and benefits and health care coverage and everything else. The wealth 
that these workers created was taken and invested in China, first in 
Mexico, then in China. And now, because of all of that that has 
happened, we increased the global supply of labor, that is driving down 
the wages here in the United States of America, which leads to Delphi 
filing bankruptcy because they cannot compete with their competitors 
who are doing a lot of business in China.
  It just is something broken when a worker or a group of workers who 
create wealth and that money is taken and invested somewhere else comes 
back to bite you on the behind. And now their company is filing for 
bankruptcy. The workers are going to be asked to take, they are asking 
them now to take about a 60 percent pay cut. Now, there is not a person 
in the world, there is not a person in the United States for sure who 
could take a 60 percent pay cut in the course of a few months and not 
file bankruptcy. How do you do that? I do not care if you are making 
$40,000 or $200,000 a year. If you are asked to take a 60 percent pay 
cut, you are going to have to file bankruptcy.
  So the squeeze is on the workers here in the United States. Many 
people may say, well, those workers are making $27 an hour, that is a 
lot of money; and that is a whole other argument. But the bottom line 
is, there is going to be in my community $150 million pulled out of our 
local economy.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, let us just think about that for 
a minute. A 60 percent pay cut, the gentleman does know that a 60 
percent pay cut, some folks are going to lose their homes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Absolutely, they are going to lose their homes.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. The media quick-fix probably would be to try to 
go out and get a loan. Now you make a little bit less than what you 
used to make, and you may not be able to get the loan because you do 
not make the money you used to make and the uncertainty of how long 
your company is going to be able to provide the money that you thought 
that you were going to be able to make. I think this is a real issue. I 
think it is a real issue, and I think it is something that we need to 
be very concerned about.
  I agree with the gentleman 110 percent. I have been reading in the 
paper what is going on. The gentleman from Ohio is living it because it 
is right there in his district. But guess what, I say to the gentleman, 
it is happening throughout America. A number of other communities are 
going through it. And once again, I think it is important, it falls 
back on the heels of governance again, and also our stronghold and our 
love affair with China.
  I mean, it goes far beyond, far beyond that particular company and 
the relationship with China. It is almost like if China was to make 
some sort of move, it would affect the United States of America, 
whether it be in manufacturing, or if they were to make an issue as it 
relates to debt, call in some of those chits that they have out there 
with us as it relates to the debt, because they are buying our debt. If 
they were to deal with other countries as it relates to oil, it would 
have some issues and would deal with our economy.
  So it is almost like we have to be very, very careful, because the 
U.S. taxpayers are not only, obviously, the main contributor to many of 
our trade policies, because it is, unfortunately, a negative trade 
policy, and that we are having to take in space where U.S. jobs have 
been lost, people cannot provide for their families like they used to, 
so then government has to try to be there to be able to assist not only 
local governments but State governments in areas where individuals 
through even their payroll taxes could cover some of the costs of some 
of these unfunded mandates that are now out there, and the Federal 
Government has to rise up and be a part of that experience.
  But I wanted to just, I want the gentleman to finish his point on 
sharing with us what is happening in your district, and then I want to 
go back to an article that talks about the issue of not only health 
care, but where our priorities are as a Congress when it comes down to 
dealing with the American people. Because that is what the gentleman is 
talking about right now.
  The gentleman is talking about the American people, and the gentleman 
has a lot of individuals that are deployed out of the State of Ohio 
that are in harm's way right now, and some of their families are tied 
up in this. And I can tell my colleagues right now, I am here, I am 
with my family; but what if I were not and something like this were to 
happen to a spouse or a loved one or a significant other or a brother 
or a sister. We are going have to all come together to try to help that 
individual financially.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, the ultimate question is, and that 
is

[[Page 22902]]

why we need to issue a reform agenda for the country, because it just 
seems like nothing is really working right now the way the system is 
currently set up, and there are a lot of arguments against it, but it 
is based on a world that really no longer exists.
  The idea of comparative advantage, the great free trade concept of 
comparative advantage is from the 1800s. I mean, trying to apply it to 
a society today that is so much different than it was a few hundred 
years ago. So our reform agenda that the Democrats are promoting is to 
reform the way government works. Whether it is the way workers here who 
have created a lot of wealth and their wealth is then invested into 
China, to steal their own jobs and wages and benefits and everything 
else, or to argue literally for a supply-side economic theory where you 
cut taxes for the top 1 percent, and, the theory goes, they invest in 
the United States and that creates wealth here.
  Well, who in their right mind thinks a millionaire who gets a couple 
hundred thousand dollars back is investing in the United States? They 
are investing the money in China or they are going to invest it in 
mutual funds in different investment schemes in China. They are not 
investing it in the United States. If people were investing in the 
United States, companies like Delphi would not be going bankrupt. And 
that is the bottom line.
  The question for America is, Who is investing in the United States 
today? We have cut taxes; we have a huge budget deficit, so the 
government does not have any money to make any progressive investments 
like magnetic levitation trains or education or scientists and 
engineers, or research and development. And then you cut taxes for the 
top 1 percent, and they take that money and they invest it in China. 
Who is investing in the United States? That is the ultimate question. I 
think that the government has a responsibility. It cannot do it all, 
but we need to certainly create an environment in which it is okay to 
do business and it is worthwhile for people to make the proper 
investments, and that brings up why we need to reform the health care 
system.
  I was just talking to a gentleman who runs a hospital in Youngstown, 
Ohio. The one hospital left in Youngstown, with a population of about 
between 80,000 and 90,000, almost 90,000, they do about $50 million a 
year in charity care. $50 million. These are people who walk into the 
emergency room because they have nowhere to go. Do you know how much 
money we are wasting by waiting until they come into the emergency 
room? That makes no business sense at all. You cannot be a 
businessperson and analyze our health care system and think in any way, 
shape, or form it makes any sense.
  Would it not be smarter to maybe give them access to a clinic to 
where they could take some preventive measures, get their antibiotics, 
take care of a cold instead of pneumonia. Pregnancies, as far as 
pregnancies go, have the prenatal care, whatever it takes, expand 
SCHIPS, do these things that will take care of the preventive side, 
instead of emergency room care. The taxpayer is paying either way. The 
current system is cheating the taxpayer. It is no good.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, that is the reason why people 
elected us to come up here and govern, to make sure that we stand up 
and forecast future issues. Now, that hospital had to close, I am 
pretty sure, because the funding just was not there in the preventive 
way to be able to deal with the issues that are facing indigent 
patients, or everyday working folks.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. They are open. They are open.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. But what I am saying is that we do not do things 
because we are supposed to do them; we respond to it after it happens.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Right.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Examples are the health care system, and New 
Orleans.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Bingo.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, $14 billion to make ready for a 
category 5 storm, $200 billion later, or several, up into the $60 
billion and $70 billion to not only fix it, but also deal with other 
issues, because of a result of the fact that we did not do what we were 
supposed to do when we were supposed to do it. Going back to vulnera-
bilities here in the United States, that community was ranked number 
one as it relates to a storm, a natural disaster in a catastrophic way 
as it relates to the damage that would be done.
  Madam Speaker, I think it is also important for me to point out, when 
we start talking about this issue, the gentleman mentioned Democrats 
having to stand up and make sure that we deal with the whole corruption 
and cronyism issue, and I think that that is important.

                              {time}  2215

  And I think it is also important to make sure that we deal with that, 
but to deal with that, A, we are trying to deal with it by calling out 
some of this stuff out here on the floor.
  We are trying to do the best we can. And there are others who are 
trying to do the best they can. The gentleman from California (Mr. 
Waxman), who is the ranking member on the Committee on Government 
Reform, can only do all that he can do to point out some of these 
issues.
  And I have a number of reports as it relates to contracting under the 
Bush administration. But guess what? If we were in the majority we 
could do these things and make sure that we save the Federal taxpayer 
money, we save those dollars. We make sure that they are paying taxes, 
which we all are, okay, that it is being spent in the way that the 
American people want us to spend it, in a responsible way.
  Now, this whole issue, once again, this corruption and cronyism issue 
is so deep here in Washington, DC, I do not even have to say, well, let 
me pick up the paper a week ago because there were some stories in 
there that I think I need to bring to your attention, or I hear there 
is a story coming out on Thursday about some of this stuff that is 
going on here in the Capitol.
  You can just walk out the door here in Washington, DC or in your 
local community and pick up the paper on any given day, be it a 
Saturday or Sunday or Monday or Tuesday, it does not matter what day, 
there is always something here, because there are several things that 
are here because there are several things that are going on in this 
town, and that is just in the present.
  That is just what has happened already. Think about what is happening 
as we speak, and what is not happening under the culture of corruption 
of cronyism. What do not we know about now that we will know 6 months 
from now, because it will have worked on someone's conscience to be 
able to say, hey, you know something, this is wrong. And it is not 
wrong because of a personal decision that someone has made, it is wrong 
because they made a decision that changed the very fiber of the 
Congress. I mean changed the culture of Congress, I mean, what we are 
supposed to be doing and not doing.
  Yes, we know we have individuals that make bad independent decisions. 
Oh, I have made some. But they were independent. Did not affect my 
constituents. Did not affect this country, a bad decision that I have 
made.
  But you have folks that are knowingly and willfully making bad 
decisions that are altering this Congress, and that will alter many 
Americans' lives and the way they live and the way they provide for 
their children, and it is happening every day without a conscience.
  Now in the Washington Post, there are some folks here, and we know 
that there are some folks here in the Capitol that have said, okay, we 
have to deal with this Katrina issue. It is $200 billion and we are 
going to have offsets and we are going to deal with it.
  Where are we going go for the offsets? Well, in this story, it is not 
saying, well, maybe we need to look at some of our advanced weapons 
systems that possibly may be useful to us sometime in the future. Maybe 
we need to say that we are spending $50 million or $50 billion or $130 
billion out there on advanced weapons systems, maybe since they are, 
you know, advanced, maybe there are some other areas we

[[Page 22903]]

can take 5 billion here or ten billion there and then maybe we can come 
up with some offset.
  No, not that. Maybe we can go to the tax cuts that we gave to the 
billionaires. All right. I am not even talking about the millionaires. 
I am talking about the billionaires. Maybe ask them to give a little 
sacrifice under this time that the country is going through a lot. 
Maybe, you know, maybe just a 5 or 2 percent cut from there.
  No, they are not mentioned. No, where we are going to go, this is the 
Republican leadership. This is the discussion that is taking place over 
there. This is not my report, because I am going to tell you right now 
this is the Washington Post. House GOP leaders are setting up third 
party validator, set to cut spending as it relates to Medicaid.
  Wow. Let us go after the big people. Let us, you know, the folks that 
catch the early bus in the morning. Let us go after them. Yeah. They 
are really strong. In a program that has already been cut.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And the poverty numbers are up so there are going 
to be more people applying for this or qualify for this program.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Let us go pick on someone that is not our own 
size. Yeah, let us go after individuals and make them, because they are 
not giving in the way maybe some of these other folks are. Okay. Let us 
go after them.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. They are not pharmaceutical lobbyists.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, let us go after some folks that we were 
sent up here to protect. Let us go after them. Let us turn on our own. 
I am bigger than that person. So maybe that guy, you know, that is 
driving the pickup truck running around here shopping where he is 
bundling T-shirts and clothes and leaving the truck now parked because 
he cannot take the kids to the recreation center where they can stay 
out of trouble, let us beat up on them.
  Let us deal with the individuals that the company that they went to 
work for, said maybe you need to go get on Medicaid because it is 
better than what we have to provide, because there is really no 
incentive as a business person for me to provide health care for you, 
because there is no national policy.
  Let us pick on them. Let us take Title I lunch programs to help poor 
kids to have the nutrition to be able to go to school and think 
correctly so that they can learn, and so they have to pass a 
standardized test that this Congress has called for to make sure that 
they learn, or they retain, whatever the test is supposed to pull out 
of them, let us take that, let us reduce that.
  Yeah. Let us take away from the kids, because guess what, they cannot 
vote. They are definitely not going to give a campaign contribution. 
Let us deal with them.
  Now I am going to tell you something. And I know there are some well-
intended Members here in this Congress. And I know that there are some 
leadership individuals that are saying, well, you know, maybe that is a 
great idea. But I can tell you right now, if you are going to do it, we 
are not going to be sitting here watching and allowing you to do it. 
You are not going to talk about it in the back halls of Congress and 
then come to this floor under regular order and say, well, we are doing 
this because we have to help the people in the devastated area.
  As a matter of fact, not only are we helping you, the folks in the 
devastated area, and I must add there is no discussion in here, well, 
we are going to take away from the Democratic areas, we are going to 
carve out those counties and parishes and we are going to cut them. No, 
no, we are going to do it to you all. We are going to make sure, and 
this is a national blanket cut, so if you are sitting in Illinois 
tonight, Member, or if you are down the street, you know, at your 
apartment or house, I want you to realize that what some Members of the 
Republican Congress are talking about is cutting programs in your 
district.
  This story goes further on to talk about small farming programs. 
Okay, so if you are sitting there, Member of Congress, saying, well, 
they are not talking about me, they might be talking about those folks 
that are on Medicaid, that I must add if a Member is saying they are 
talking about those folks on Medicaid, they are talking about your 
constituents too, but they are going to cut that.
  Meanwhile, whatever Mr. Rumsfeld calls for out of the Pentagon, and 
whatever the White House says that needs to happen, without an exit 
strategy or even a discussion of the exit strategy on what is our goals 
and objectives outside of the several elections that are going on in 
Iraq and that will continue to go on. What we are going to need as long 
as we are going to need it. Do not ask any questions. What are you 
asking questions about?
  You are asking a question of me about what I am asking for for the 
troops as it relates to money? My question is, is it really for the 
troops or is it really to continue to feed family and friends that are 
out there making billions on this war, billions they are making?
  And I will tell you this also. They can run commercials, I know 
Halliburton is the shining example of what goes on under a culture of 
cronyism and corruption and a lack of oversight. I just gave an 
analysis of what took place of oversight hearings and how the decline 
has taken place, because no one wants to call out the next person, 
because we have an oversight hearing, oh, my goodness, we may start to 
govern around here.
  I think it is important for us to also understand that we are sitting 
here talking about we are for the troops and you know all of this kind 
of stuff, but we are not willing to lead in a way to say that, hey, 
excuse me, excuse me, Mr. President, can we talk about maybe when will 
this be over? Or maybe what is the strategy?
  Is the strategy as long as there is an insurgency, we are going to be 
there? Well, that is a 20-year strategy, Madam Speaker, because we are 
spending billions to fight an insurgency, not the troops, not the 
individuals that a train was not ready.
  The individuals that said that we should go did not do what they were 
supposed to do as it relates to the planning. We are going to run to 
Baghdad, we are going to have bombs and stuff. We are going to get 
there and this is a race and everybody has a clock going, and the news 
media like we are here now. Wow, record time. Wow.
  There was nothing after that. And because of that, hundreds upon 
hundreds of Americans have lost their lives, thousands upon thousands 
of Americans are injured that have come back to their community, that 
have served their country because their country asked them to serve.
  And I am going to tell you, and I want to make sure that we get 
clarity on this, that it is our job to govern here in the Congress. It 
is our job to protect these individuals. It is not our job to continue 
to hold on and to cover for individuals that are making bad ideas or 
that are sharing bad ideas and continuing to compound on these ideas, 
and to continue to come here and say, well, you know, why are you 
asking me the question, and with great arrogance.
  Now I am going to share this with you. It is our job, and you know 
it, for us to not only call out the fact of a lack of governance, a 
look of oversight, a lack of bipartisan working on these very issues, 
and bringing to a head of what is important here. The head is, is 
making sure that we govern in the way we are supposed to govern.
  And for some of the individuals that are calling out saying that we 
have to have offsets, Hey, we have been calling for offsets. We have 
been saying, if you are going to spend it, you better have a plan on 
how you are going to pay for it but, listen, did not get religion now 
when we are talking about the American people.
  Do not stand up and say, well, I am going to get religion on this 
week. I am going the make them pay when you will not even stand up to 
big companies, when you come to the floor with an energy bill that is a 
gift to the industry.
  You did not come here on behalf of the American people. You came here 
on

[[Page 22904]]

behalf of oil company profits. Tell the truth. At least come to the 
floor and be straight with the American people. Because if you are not, 
we will. And let me tell you something. It really infuriates me that 
folks will run around here and even hold their head up going after 
poverty programs saying that we are going to balance the budget on the 
back of poverty.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Can I ask a question? Where is the Christian 
Coalition? Where is the Christian Coalition when you are cutting 
poverty programs? Where are you? You know, they are fighting over 
Supreme Court justices and meanwhile poverty programs are being cut for 
poor people.
  Now I do not know. 12 years of Catholic school, and I know you had a 
religious upbringing as well. Where is the Christian voice in all of 
this? All of a sudden silence. Medicare, Head Start, No Child Left 
Behind, which would help more in high poverty schools than any other. 
Where is the Christian right? Silence. Silence. Because they are 
getting overrun by the corporate greed and the corruption and the 
cronyism that is going on here. That is the problem. Right under their 
nose.
  Join us. You talked about Medicaid. You talked about poverty. You 
talked about Head Start. You talked about helping people that cannot 
help themselves. I cannot think of anything more Christian. I do not 
want to get religious, because this is a public forum. But it has been 
invoked time and time again from the other side.

                              {time}  2230

  We hear it every day.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I will put it to you pointblank. Never apologize 
for representing not only what you feel spiritually about what is going 
on, because I think your spirit makes religion act right. That is the 
bottom line. Spirit brings about the kind of change that we call and 
pray for in government and in our regular lives.
  When we talk about young children, when we talk about the weak, 
physically, maybe financially, these are individuals that are going to 
pay the high prices for the heating oil. These are the individuals that 
we ask to go out and vote. They do not need to be Democrat, Republican 
or Independent, Reform Party, Green Party or no party; and we ask them 
to go out and take part in this democracy. They are the first ones on 
the chopping block. As a matter of fact, they were the first under 
regular order when it came down to even working the budget out in the 
first place.
  Now, when it comes down to responding, going back to what is the 
federal Commitment to the South, I would add also the poor in this 
country, and then the first time out of the blocks we are going to go 
after Medicaid? We are going to cut it. We are going to go after 
reducing free lunch. We are to go after Head Start. We are going to go 
after small farming programs. We are going to go after those 
individuals who cannot hit back.
  That is almost like someone who cannot move their arms and their 
legs, and we get the world heavy weight champion of the world and he 
hits them and beats them up and it is over in one round and he jumps up 
and waves his hand and says, I am the heavy weight champion of the 
world. They expected you to win because you are the heavy weight 
champion of the world. But the bottom line is, it is okay to have 
offsets. Goodness gracious, we are calling for offsets. Let us call for 
some offsets in some other areas so we can ask some Americans who can 
afford to take the sacrifice of an offset, or a particular program that 
this Congress has put forth that has very little to do with right now 
but it has something to do, hopefully, dealing with the future.
  And if it is something that is dealing with the future, okay; and we 
are the superpower of the world, and there is an advanced weapons 
system that somebody in Congress likes, maybe we need to go to that 
person in Congress or that person in the other body over there and say, 
you know something, you know that project we passed, the $400 billion, 
the advanced weapons project for several million dollars that you 
wanted, maybe we need to try to offset that. Maybe we can try to do it 
verses 5 years, we can do it in 8 years. With that money we can have 
some offsets for the Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita package to 
help us as it relates to bringing about offsets.
  No, that conversation was not in The Washington Post. But we are 
going to take people, real Americans, and say we are going to make you 
pay because we are not big enough to stand up to the special interests 
here in Washington, D.C. Let me just take that way out. The majority 
leadership of opening discussions, this is the opening discussion, this 
is not even the ``maybe there was a small discussion.'' No, this is a 
serious discussion within the leadership of the Republican Caucus in 
this House about cutting those programs. That is a serious discussion.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Let us put all this together here because as I am 
listening here; I am beginning to see how this is coming together. Let 
us see if we can outline this here. If you are poor or working poor, 
which is the dark underbelly of the United States of America, the 
working poor that do not qualify for Medicaid so they do not have 
health care but they are working a couple of jobs and they are trying 
to make ends meet. So if you are in that class, this outfit, the 
Republican outfit that we have in right now wants to cut Medicaid, is 
not funding No Child Left Behind, they are cutting Head Start and we 
have a health care system that is a wreck. Watching health care in 
America is like watching a train wreck happen. It is terrible.
  So if you are poor or working poor, those programs are getting cut, 
school lunches, all the other good stuff. And you probably live in a 
community where you are having criminal justice issues like we are 
having in a lot of our communities where you cannot afford the prison, 
the jail. You do not have enough sheriffs, deputies to run the jail. 
You do not have enough police on the beat. And if you do, you put them 
in the court system and they wait and wait and they get back on the 
street. A whole other set of the issues.
  If you are in the middle class, the Republican majority has done 
nothing for Pell grants to try to reduce the cost of college tuition 
when tuition has doubled in just about every State in the Union in the 
past 5 years.
  If you are in the middle class trying to provide health care, if you 
are a union worker in Delphi or some other UAW or something else, you 
are getting squeezed. If you are part of the 45 million or 50 million 
now that do not have health care, you are getting squeezed. If you are 
a middle-class small businessperson, you are getting squeezed. We get 
calls every day in my office about small businessmen and women who 
cannot afford to provide health care for their workers. Squeezed.
  If you are in the upper middle class and you are trying to provide 
health care, it is not working. These systems that we have in place are 
broken; and instead of fixing them, instead of reforming the system or 
the systems, our ideas are so antiquated, old school, supply-side 
economics in a world where that does not work. Look around. I mean, 
look around. This does not work. It is crazy.
  What are we doing here? We have a reform agenda that invests in 
education, invests in research and development, helps kids with math 
and science, fully funds No Child Left Behind, puts money into the Pell 
grants so your kids can go to college and afford it, reforms the health 
care system to move the investment on the preventative side instead of 
on the tail end when people are so sick and acutely ill that it costs 
so much more money.
  The reforms that we want to make on the preventative side provide for 
mental health coverage so people do not go out and commit crimes who 
are mentally ill because they have medication or they have some basic 
counseling which saves us money. We are cheating the taxpayer right 
now. They want to tell us we were tax and spend. They are borrow and 
spend. And they are not even spending it right. They are spending at a 
billion and a half a week in Iraq. They are giving it to billionaires. 
That is not good government.

[[Page 22905]]

  That stinks. That is not right. It is just not right because average 
people are suffering. Let me say this, we do not come to this floor for 
what this week will probably be 3 or 4 hours. All day we are here and 
we get an opportunity to come at night. We are not doing this for 
therapy. We are not doing this because we like to come down here and 
listen to each other talk. If we wanted to do that, we would go out and 
grab a hamburger and a Starbuck's and go talk and drink some green tea. 
We are here because the country is unraveling before our very eyes, and 
the Republican leadership is either doing nothing or doing something to 
make it worse.
  The Democrats have an agenda on health care, education. We are ready 
to reform. We are ready to take over. We just need the chance. And I 
know from people in my district and from the gentleman's district and 
from the district of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), 
people are suffering; and the government is part of the problem now. 
Maybe Ronald Reagan was right, government is the problem. Right now it 
is. But I think government can be a positive, progressive leading force 
in society with the proper leadership. And right now it is just not 
happening. But we are not doing this stuff for therapy.
  We could be going out and having dinners and everything else. We have 
come here because this country needs reform; and if no one else is 
going to talk about it, then the 30-something group is going to step up 
and implement an agenda and talk about the agenda that is going to make 
this country better.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Let me just say that it is important that we 
realize the time that we are in now. I think the gentleman is 110 
percent right.
  I was in my district recently and I went to New Shiloh Baptist 
Church. One of my local pastors was celebrating his third pastoral 
anniversary of the church. And I went over and worshipped with him and 
some parishioners. When I was there, a couple of folks came up to me 
and said, It is really something that is going on in Washington right 
now. Are you not shocked? And I am, like, I am not. Oh, no, I am not. 
No. Not only did I see it coming, but some more is to come.
  How do you know that? Well, I am not a prophet, but I am your 
Congressman. And when we are not doing our job as Members of Congress, 
not individuals. Folks make sure to keep the district offices open, 
respond to constituent mail, return phone calls, this, that and the 
other, not the individual policing of our own districts, but the 
policing of the Federal budget, the policing of having oversight over 
all the Federal agencies. When we are not doing that, then that means 
we are not doing our job. When we are not doing our job that the 
Constitution calls for and that the rules of the House calls for of how 
we do our job and conduct our job and we violate the rules of this 
House, then we have issues.
  When we violate the spirit, I must add, of the rules, then we violate 
this country. When we violate the spirit of the rules of this House and 
we violate the spirit of fair play and also our oversight 
responsibilities through a lack of governance or the lack of oversight, 
then we will see what we see now.
  Now, I am here to say that I think it is very, very important, we 
have talked and covered a lot of ground here this evening, but I can 
tell you that there is so much more to be covered. There is so much 
more work to be done. I wish, because it gives me no pleasure to come 
to the floor and to just point out the obvious of what is not happening 
and what is happening to a certain group of people, and guess what, 
that certain group of people are the American people.
  It is not like you start saying, well, there is something happening 
to the folks over in Iowa. No, it is not. It is happening to the 
American people. It is happening to your constituents. It is happening 
to my constituents. It is happening to the Member's constituent that 
sits right there, and the one that was here a minute ago, and the one 
that is back in their apartment and the other that is back in their 
office right now; it can either be a he or she. It is happening to 
them.
  So when the historians start looking at what happened and how did we 
get to the point where we are now when someone turns the lights on here 
in the Congress, I mean, the real lights, and that ember starts to hit 
the floor and they start to look and say, goodness, how did this 
happen, then we want to make sure that there were Members of this 
House, need it be those Members that put together reports in minority 
committees of what is happening and should be happening; need it be our 
friends on the other side of the aisle that are lathered up enough that 
will stand up to the majority and that will say, you know something, we 
are doing this wrong and I will use my voice the best way to use it. 
And I want to say as an American, I thank you.
  The gentleman talked about religion a moment ago. I talked about this 
article about where we will make these offsets here in The Washington 
Post: $50 billion, how are we going to find it?
  The first thing mentioned is Medicaid. The second thing mentioned is 
reducing free lunch for poor children, for Head Start and small farming 
programs. Yes, let us go for those. How are we going to get there?
  This is just in today's Washington Post. It is not an article found 
just the other day. It is important. And we talked about sitting in 
church or a synagogue or a mosque or whatever the religion may be of 
policymakers here in Congress and you hear about the ills of our 
society. You hear about the tragedies and the tough times that 
parishioners are going through. The only difference between the average 
American that goes to those institutions of religious practice, the 
only difference between them and the rest of the American people is 
that they could have done something about it. That is the bottom line.
  Now, that is not about how I feel about it or how you feel about it. 
Because I could walk into any religious institution and say, you know 
something, we are here to govern on behalf of the American people. 
Period. Dot. If given the opportunity to do more we will do more.

                              {time}  2245

  Matter of fact, we want to do more. You need us to do more. But I 
feel for that Member that goes into these religious institutions in 
their mind knowing that they could have done more and they could have 
stood up at such a time as this.
  So there is a spiritual component to what we do. We cannot get 
religion on certain things and not have it on others. That is what my 
colleague pointed out when he said where is the faith community when it 
comes down to dealing with issues such as this. For openers, we will 
start with the poor. That is what we are going to do, we are going to 
start with them first.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Where is the outrage? Where is the outrage? They 
are outraged about Harriet Miers? Wait a minute, here is a woman who 
has a distinguished legal career. And I do not want to give the whole 
Supreme Court thing here, because that happens on the other side of the 
Capitol, but here is a distinguished lawyer. Now, I am not so convinced 
that she may be the best Supreme Court Justice pick, but, my goodness, 
to be outraged at that? How about being outraged at both? How about 
that? Be outraged at both. Be outraged about Harriet Miers, and be 
outraged about this too. My goodness.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Let me just say this. There are faith-based 
groups that are very concerned about cuts to Medicaid and will speak 
out, that will come to Washington and will talk to the appropriators 
and to some of the individuals who want cuts; but those individuals 
that have relationships with the President of the United States, those 
very high individuals within the very, very conservative groups should 
go and say this is wrong, in my opinion.
  I think that those voices on a spiritual level need to be worked on, 
and also in this House. We need to be worked on about making the right 
decisions as it relates to the masses of Americans who need us the 
most. That is just where it is. So that is where the responsibility is.

[[Page 22906]]

  But guess what? Ultimately, we make the decision. They do not. We are 
elected to make the decision; they are not. And I do not want to put 
this on an outside group saying it is their responsibility, but as it 
relates to what people are reacting to here in Washington, DC, as it 
relates to the leadership and what the leadership is reacting to here 
in Washington, DC, we just may need that intervention.
  We may very well need that intervention on behalf of individuals who 
cannot fight for themselves. And they have a lobbyist. It is supposed 
to be Members of Congress. All Members of Congress. Not folks that are 
saying that, well, we care more about our philosophy and we are going 
to start with the individuals who cannot protect themselves, because I 
am their lobbyist. They have the power to elect or unelect individuals, 
but they do not have the money to send a lobbyist knocking on my door 
saying, No, I know you want to start offsets, but do not start with us. 
Matter of fact, do not even look at us. Do not even come this way.
  They do not have that. We are here as Members of Congress to make 
sure they have lobbyists, because we are their lobbyists. We sit at the 
table. We come to the floor on their behalf. So when we back out, when 
we see the majority side and this philosophy being pushed onto the 
front page of the local paper here and other papers throughout the 
United States that this is where we are going to start, and we are the 
individuals that are supposed to be here blocking on behalf of the 
folks that need us most, then we are in trouble.
  So we need to start talking about leadership and standing on behalf 
of every American. We need to start talking about oversight. And 
tomorrow, if we can, I want us to talk more about this oversight 
committee, talk about House Resolution 3838 that has this commission 
that is looking at fraud over contracting. I have a report here that 
has been put together by the minority side on the committee dealing 
with the whole issue of protecting against contractor fraud, making 
sure the American taxpayers are not made victims due to a lack of 
oversight.
  One thing I do know is that the majority, not the White House, not 
any other group here in Washington, DC, has the ability to oversee the 
Federal tax dollar in an administrative no-bid contract scenario. They 
do not have it. They are not moving fast enough to be able to protect 
the Federal tax dollar.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I want to just go back, and I think this week, 
whenever we get our next hour to come this week, I think that is a 
great idea, to talk about that. As you were going through the poor and 
the middle class that is getting squeezed harder and harder, you made a 
great point that it is our job as Members of Congress to advocate on 
behalf of those people. I think that has a moral component to it. I 
want to set that moral component aside. I want to talk for 2 minutes, 
because we are wrapping up here, about economics.
  We talked about who is investing in the United States. Not many 
people. We are talking about even the government now is cutting 
programs that would invest in these young people and these poor middle-
class people that we need economically, like the 30-somethings are 
calling for a million new scientists and engineers over the next decade 
in the United States of America to generate our economy again. That is 
what we are saying. That is investment into human capital here in the 
United States.
  We need these poor people to turn into with health care, education, 
and we are going to talk a little this week or next week about the arts 
programs that we believe if started at an early age, afterschool 
programs, will increase math and science scores. And we are going to 
bring some third-party validators and some studies that have been done 
to back up that argument and why the arts are a good component of 
feeding into this math and science goal that we have.
  We have to recognize that investments into Medicaid, with reform, and 
we need to reform the system too, do not get me wrong; but investments 
in Medicaid, and investments in Head Start, and investments in the No 
Child Left Behind, and investments in the Pell grants are going to lead 
to more wealth in the United States of America. We are going on the 
field right now with half of our society not eligible to play in the 
game.
  All these poor kids that we saw down in New Orleans, it is the same 
in Miami, it is the same in Youngstown, Cleveland, Akron, Canton, 
Toledo, Cincinnati, and Columbus. There are core pockets of very, very 
poor people in our country. And all we are saying is, invest in those 
people so that they can go out and create wealth for the United States 
of America.
  The Ohio State football team would not go on the field with five 
players. It does not make sense. You need to have everybody on your 
team. And quite frankly, our country is only 300 million. We are 
competing against over a billion Chinese citizens and over a billion 
Indian citizens. If you are going to compete with them, you better have 
every single player on the field prepared, conditioned, and ready to 
move forward.
  So when we talk about Medicaid, Head Start, No Child Left Behind, and 
Pell grants, we want reform on these systems because we want to make 
them better and convert them into the 21st century, but we have to make 
the proper investments into our people. That is the bottom line.
  There is the moral component that we talk about, hopefully not just 
on Sundays, but there is also this economic component too that I think 
is going to help stimulate the economy in the 21st century if we make 
those investments. But today we are not making them. So we cannot 
expect something to happen when we are not doing anything. It just does 
not make any sense.
  I will let my colleague make a final comment or two and then we will 
wrap it up and give out the e-mail address.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, I want to thank my colleague for bearing 
with me.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I hope you feel better. My colleague from Florida 
was down last week, sick as a dog.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Down last week, but came back in on behalf of 
the country. The fact is we have to continue to do what we have to do 
as Members of Congress. I think that it is very, very important that we 
continue to pay very close attention to these issues.
  I want to commend many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle for 
standing up in ways that are unprecedented in this institution and 
trying to change the tide of not only thinking but also making sure 
that we get back to governing this country of ours and that we stand up 
on behalf of those Americans who need us to stand up for them. I can 
tell you right now they come in all ages and all economic backgrounds, 
and some of them are even children. It is important that we work on 
their behalf in an honest way.
  If anything comes out of this, I would be happy if the leadership on 
the Republican side was to say, you know, I think there are some points 
that have been made and I think we need to implement some of those 
things; or at least have a fair discussion on some of those issues to 
make sure that we will govern in a way that does not violate the spirit 
of our existing rules. That would be a victory.
  Or if the American people were to say enough is enough, it has 
affected my household personally, and make other decisions based on the 
representation here in Washington, D.C. And this will not be a 
discussion; it will be action on what we are talking about. So there is 
a long time before that happens, because the election is not up until 
2006.
  But on behalf of the country, there are some things that just cannot 
wait that long, and there are some issues that need to be brought to 
the forefront and hopefully change will come out. So my spirit is the 
American spirit and dream that things will get better and should get 
better because it is the right thing to do.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, we are going to do our best. If you are not 
watching baseball tonight and you were watching the 30-something Dems, 
our e-mail

[[Page 22907]]

is the [email protected]. We have been getting a ton of 
e-mails lately, so do not be afraid to drop us an e-mail. We appreciate 
everybody who is listening and watching, and I appreciate my colleague 
fighting through a cold to be down here with us.

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