[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23035-23042]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1900
                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gohmert). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, once again it is an honor to be 
here before the House, and I would like to thank the Democratic leader, 
the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), and our elected 
leadership team, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and also the 
gentleman from the great State of New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) and the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).
  We come to the floor, as you know, Mr. Speaker, almost every day to 
talk about issues that are facing Americans; some that we are working 
collectively on, others we are not working collectively on but should 
be working collectively on. Tonight, we are going to talk about some of 
the issues that we did not talk about last night, but I can tell you 
that the themes continue to run together.
  I am here tonight with the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), Youngstown, Ohio, and 
as the gentlewoman from Florida was not here, I can tell her that what 
we are hearing and what we were talking about last night was the fact 
that now we are looking at how are we going to move forward in the 
aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, how are we going to respond 
to those Americans that have paid taxes all of their lives, and how are 
we going to correct past wrongs.
  From the beginning, the majority side has come off the block saying, 
well, the story is kind of changing now, which is interesting, but I 
have a copy of yesterday's Washington Post where there is a lot of bold 
talk about, well, first we are going to start with Medicaid, which is a 
program that provides health care for financially challenged Americans 
throughout this country, and we are going to find this $500 million to 
offset some of the Katrina cost there; and then we are going to go to 
some folks who really cannot fend for themselves, we are going to pick 
on someone that is not our size and we are going to go and cut free and 
reduced lunches for financially challenged children, and then we are 
going to hit

[[Page 23036]]

these small farming programs that we have out here so we can make sure 
they cannot compete with foreign agricultural interests, which are 
already cleaning our clock in many ways with the help of this majority 
that we have here now.
  Now, this has kind of changed, but it has the same theme. Now we are 
going to go after young people, 30-somethings that are trying to 
educate themselves to compete against those kids coming from other 
countries here to the United States and that are taking their jobs, and 
I will let my colleague, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryun), talk about 
China and other countries. As a matter of fact, these days, they do not 
have to come to the United States. They can stay where they are and 
they will have good American jobs because the workforce is there. And 
they will definitely be educated. Yet we are willing to cut Pell grant 
opportunities and some other things.
  So there are a number of issues still on the table, but I hope we can 
talk tonight about the lack of an independent commission. I understand 
that there are going to be some additional partisan hearings this week 
here, if that is what you want to call them, here in the Congress on 
the House side. I hope that we will have an opportunity to talk about 
the lack of a Hurricane Katrina independent commission that 81-plus 
percent of Americans have called for.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be here once again with my colleagues, 
and I look forward to some fruitful conversation with them. With that, 
I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the 
gentleman, and I want to welcome back the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. 
Wasserman Schultz), who we missed desperately last night.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I was pining for you as well.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And I announced last night that my brother had a 
baby last week.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Oh, congratulations. That is fantastic.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yes, that was my big announcement. His name is 
Nicholas John. So I will probably be saying that to every 30-Something 
for the next 6 months.
  But we had a great discussion last night on so many different issues, 
and the Katrina issue was one. I want to go back and sort of fill in 
the blanks here a little bit and let people know that the Democrats are 
proposing that we create an independent Katrina commission like we had 
an independent commission to oversee 9/11. And here is the bill, H.R. 
3764.
  We are asking for an independent commission, meaning Republicans or 
Democrats do not rule the commission. It is independent of this body. 
It is independent of the White House. It is like we had for 9/11. 
Because we feel, as Democrats, that what we all had to watch happen on 
TV was one of the great national tragedies, not only the natural 
disaster that happened but the response from a government that we have 
been promised over the last number of years would be adequately 
equipped to respond, would respond in a timely manner, and that they 
would have a coordinated response in order to save American lives if 
there was an emergency.
  Because after 9/11, and since then, we have been told by this 
administration and by this Congress that we are protecting you. You are 
safe. It is okay. We are going to do it. We are the party that is 
strong with these kind of issues. Then we found out during Katrina that 
that just was not the case.
  You throw that on top of what we are watching happen in Iraq, and we 
are losing our confidence. If you ask the American people, they are 
losing their confidence too. That is why over 80 percent of the 
American people in every poll that we have seen want this independent 
commission. But what the Republicans have set up is a real farce. They 
might as well put the Chair of the Republican National Committee in 
charge of the oversight committee of Katrina.
  There are eleven Republicans and nine Democrats, which means the 
minority party is not allowed to subpoena witnesses. The Republican 
Chair of that committee and the other 10 Republicans on the committee 
will be the only ones who can subpoena people to come and testify 
before the committee and really give this thing a thorough overview and 
a good look-see and overturn every rock possible to figure out what the 
real problems were and what the real problems are.
  This is not about politics. This is about making sure the United 
States post-September 11 has an adequate emergency response system in 
place regardless of where you live. Because that could very easily been 
New York, it could have been L.A., or it could have been Youngstown, it 
could have been Miami. It just so happened to be New Orleans and it 
happened to be a natural disaster instead of a terrorist attack.
  But if it was a terrorist attack, we cannot explain how we would have 
responded any differently. It was about communication and coordination 
and all these other things that we need to ensure for the American 
people. And we believe that an independent commission that is free of 
politics is the only thing that is going to give us those answers. That 
is what the Democratic Party is asking for, that is what the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) is asking for, and that is 
what 80 percent of the American people are asking for.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I 
want to thank the gentleman from Ohio for his comments, and he is 
absolutely right.
  Number one, I am sorry I was not able to participate with my 
colleagues last night. I was in my district. And when you are in the 
district, you really get a true sense of how people are feeling. The 
gentleman is absolutely right, there is a crisis of confidence out 
there in America. People really have had their confidence in their 
government's ability to deal with their everyday problems badly, badly 
shaken by one scandal after another, by one more bit of evidence of 
corruption and cronyism.
  What all of this points to is and is emblematic of is a system that 
cries out for reform. We absolutely have to have some reform here in 
Washington, and one of the first reforms that needs to occur is to 
change this partisan committee that is stacked with Republicans and is 
currently not being participated in by Democrats and shift it to an 
independent bipartisan commission that is going to be able to be 
objective and review what really happened.
  Every day that has gone by since Katrina's aftermath, a little bit 
more trickles out, a little bit more dribbles out, and if we are going 
to be able to restore the American people's confidence in their 
government's ability to respond to disasters like this, be they natural 
disasters or man-made disasters in the form of terrorism, we have to 
start by restoring their confidence and utilize a process that is going 
to be objective and that they know they can have confidence in in terms 
of the outcome, like the 9/11 Commission.
  There is a never-ending possibility of more disaster looming over us. 
Even now, we have Wilma, the 21st storm looming out there in the ocean, 
potentially about to bear down on Florida and then the gulf coast 
again, nearing this weekend. If we do not get the American people 
answers as to how the aftermath of Katrina occurred and make sure it 
does not happen again, it is not like we have the luxury of time being 
on our side. We have storm after storm. We have the fact that you never 
know when a man-made disaster is going to occur. By their very nature, 
they are surprise attacks. It means it is ever more important we reform 
the system and make sure that our government is ready to respond, that 
we have a comprehensive ability to do that.
  When we have people engaging in CYA, which is exactly what is 
occurring here, and when you look at the former Director of FEMA, who 
in today's paper it was revealed was more worried about his title in 
the aftermath of Katrina than getting the job done, that is deeply 
disturbing.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is a joke.

[[Page 23037]]


  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It speaks to the structure of their ability to 
respond to that disaster.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Does that not say a lot about what we are dealing 
with in the leadership today?
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It does.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is all about what is my title. After the 
greatest natural disaster in the country and everything that is going 
on, you are talking about your title.
  That just proves what we talk about a lot here with the 30-
Somethings. It is more politics than it is policy. It is more politics 
than it is actually fixing the problems.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Absolutely.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Evident by, my God, this guy is worried about his 
title after Katrina. Give me a break.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Let us explain what we are talking about. In 
the press today there was an e-mail exchange revealed between the 
spokesperson of FEMA and then Under Secretary Brown where he was 
appalled that Secretary Chertoff had made him, I think it was the point 
person, I forgot the title he was given, in the aftermath of Katrina. 
But he looked at it as a slight, an insult, and somehow a demotion from 
his position as Under Secretary.
  In the devastation and aftermath of Katrina, is that what we want the 
FEMA Director to be worried about, what he is called?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Right.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And how he is perceived in terms of title?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Terrible.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That is how out of touch this administration 
is. They are that badly out of touch, and that is why the system cries 
out for reform. We have to make sure we reform the system so that we 
can restore people's confidence and that they understand that the three 
C's are incredibly important: No more corruption, no more cronyism, and 
we have to restore people's confidence.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I think what the gentlewoman is 
saying is so very, very important. We talked last night and spent quite 
a bit of time on the culture of corruption and cronyism, and we know 
that it takes a while to get a culture. It is not like an incident here 
and an incident there. It is a culture.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is not random.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. It is not random. It is a way of doing business 
here in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, it is affecting the entire 
country and in some cases it affects some parts of the world that we 
are also concerned about, and there are also parts of the world we are 
concerned about outside of Iraq. I think that is important to point 
out.
  I just want to mention something that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Ryan) talked about, this H.R. 3764, which is the House bill that will 
create this independent commission just like the 9/11 Commission. The 
only difference between the bill we see by the gentleman from Ohio, 
House Resolution 3764, and the 9/11 Commission is the fact that it says 
the independent Katrina commission versus the 9/11 Commission.

                              {time}  1915

  So it is language that we all understand and eventually, like the 9/
11 Commission, the majority side came around and voted for it. Some 
did.
  I think it is also important for us to understand that independent 
commissions are not a new phenomenon to the way to deal with issues in 
correcting wrongs that took place or possible mistakes that could have 
happened.
  For instance, I mention the 9/11 Commission, which is the most 
respected commission that came after 9/11. Also, if we look at the 
commission after the Challenger space accident in 1996, the 
Presidential commission that looked into the NASA program and things 
that we needed to look at.
  And also in the aftermath of the accident at Three Mile Island in 
1979 there was an independent commission; and numerous independent 
commissions established by the White House after plane accident 
tragedies to make sure that we do not make the same mistakes and 
correct issues that might have contributed to loss of life. After the 
attack on Pearl Harbor, there was another independent commission.
  These independent commissions are given authority to go out and make 
sure that we do not continue to repeat some of the same issues that we 
are seeing right now. We are seeing a repeat on issues that are facing 
Americans time and time again.
  Now, I want to say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) on H.R. 
3764, how many Republicans are on that bill?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, as far as I can see, there are not 
any.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure that my 
Republican colleagues know, either in the leadership or the rank and 
file, that they know it is okay for you to call for an independent 
commission even though there is a Republican in the White House, even 
though there is an agency appointed by that Republican administration, 
because we are all Americans. We should have this independent 
commission to make sure that we are able to deal with the Federal 
response to natural disasters or terrorist attacks, whenever it may 
happen, or making sure that we can deal with some of the issues in the 
present.
  There are still 100,000 individuals that were affected by Hurricane 
Katrina that are still in shelters or displaced in some Red Cross 
emergency housing. The deadline for shelters to be empty was a couple 
of days ago, but we have trailer parks that are sitting empty. The 
trailer park has been established, the asphalt has been laid, the 
trailers have been delivered; but the people cannot move in because of 
technical issues of getting them in, need it be someone did not hook 
the power up to the trailer or the sewage is not where it is supposed 
to be. So there is still a lot of work to be done and lessons to be 
learned.
  Any American city, here in Maryland today, there was an alert about a 
possible tunnel attack. The week before last it was the New York subway 
station. So we see cities and counties and local communities finding 
themselves in harm's way, and Americans may have to leave with what 
they have in their pockets or on their backs.
  If we do not learn from lessons learned, having an independent 
commission of people who do not have a vested interest, a political 
vested interest in the outcome of the report, then we are not going to 
get better as a country, and we are not going to be better prepared.
  Two things that we learned under the scenario of Hurricane Katrina: 
one, we are not ready. How about that. All of these top-off programs 
that have been created, and when I say top-off, I want to make sure 
Members understand what I am saying. These are the programs where the 
Department of Homeland Security would go into a local community and go 
through an exercise in case a chemical weapon was actually detonated or 
a terrorist event was to take place here and how would you deal with 
it, how would hospitals deal with, how would first responders deal with 
it. Where would the people go. We did that with Hurricane Pat in New 
Orleans. We knew. When I say ``we,'' the Federal Government knew that 
anything over a category 3 would bring about catastrophic damage to the 
area.
  I have a little picture that too many Americans are all too familiar 
with. This is a neighborhood east of downtown New Orleans. Billions of 
gallons of water flooded 80 percent of the city of New Orleans. Now, 
that is not Hurricane Katrina by herself; this is a lack of governance. 
I want to know why the Corps of Engineers stopped their work. After 37 
years of working on the levee, why did they stop working to make sure 
it is safe. Hurricane Katrina came through and the event was over, and 
it did not look like this. When the levee broke in several areas, all 
of the loss of life took place at that time. Pretty much all of the 
property damage for sure took place at that time. When you say it was 
an act of God, well, I am not going to put all of that on God. I am 
going to put some of it on this government that should have been there.
  Let me just put this poster down because I want to make sure that 
this

[[Page 23038]]

aerial picture that was taken, and I am going to put it down for a 
minute because the real issue, and this is the picture before or right 
after people were on those roofs waiting, living it out for 3 days, 
waiting on the cavalry, waiting on someone to come and say is it 
possible to get off the roof.
  Here is another picture. There is concern about somebody looting a 
Walgreen's for food, and people had to improvise. People are jumping in 
a boat not with a paddle, but with a board. Here is a kid in a 
refrigerator trying to find safe haven. It took awhile for all of this 
ingenuity to come about because definitely they could not count on the 
government, whether it be State, Federal, local. We need to get to the 
bottom of this. We need to make sure that this is not coming to a city 
near all of us, and we are not standing and waiting and hoping and 
praying that the helicopter is going to come soon or the boat is going 
to come soon. I think it is important. We need to learn from our past 
mistakes.
  So 81 percent of Americans support this independent commission. For 
people to talk about they do not quite understand, independent 
commission, why? We do it when we have a horrific event in our country, 
whether a plane crash or a natural disaster.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz).
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I have mentioned this before and 
likened the lack of desire on the part of the Republican leadership 
here to establish an independent commission. For example, if the 
executives and CEO of Enron after the fiasco that corporation went 
through, it would be as if we said, Okay, Mr. CEO of Enron, you go 
ahead and investigate what happened at Enron and do a report and a full 
examination of the doings of your corporation and you get back to us 
and let us know what steps need to be taken to prevent it from 
happening again. We can do the same thing with Tyco.
  I think the gentleman is smiling, and people who might hear this 
description would be sort of laughing to themselves saying of course we 
would not do that. This leadership is saying of course we would not 
have an internal partisan committee that would investigate. For some 
reason that is not ludicrous to the people who run this institution. It 
would be ludicrous to anybody who was a rational person who would 
actually want to get to the bottom of what happened. One would think 
given the information that has come out slowly over the last weeks now 
that there would be some more deep, abiding concern.
  Let me go back to what I was saying earlier that came out today. 
Secretary Chertoff, according to The Washington Post, apparently 
belatedly named Brown the on-site disaster coordinator on the night of 
August 30 and declared Hurricane Katrina ``an incident of national 
significance,'' which is the highest order catastrophe under their new 
national response plan.
  This was the reaction of then-Under Secretary Brown and his 
assistants, ``Demote the Under Secretary to PFO, principal Federal 
officer?'' an outraged FEMA press secretary Sharon Worthy wrote Brown 
at 10:54 p.m., soon after Chertoff's decision.
  ``What about the precedent being set? What does this say about 
executive management and leadership in the agency?''
  Brown's reply was, ``Exactly.''
  Reading a little further, there are e-mails ``that show that the 
government's response plan, 2 years in the making, began breaking down 
even before Katrina hit the gulf coast.
  ``Before the storm hit, Brown's deputy chief of staff, Brooks 
Altshuler, said White House pressure to form an interagency crisis 
management group was irrelevant even though a task force and principal 
Federal officer are key parts of the plan.'' He says this: ``Let them 
play their `Reindeer Games' as long as they are not turning around and 
tasking us with their stupid questions. None of them have a clue about 
emergency management.''
  Mr. Speaker, these are the people that were responsible for making 
sure that the people in that picture survived and actually got out and 
did not have to float in a refrigerator to save their own lives. This 
is what they were worried about, their own little title and the petty 
garbage that you would think is reserved for the smallest of issues.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, during this time, they spent more 
time having press conferences thanking everyone and saying you are 
doing a wonderful job.
  No, you are doing a better job.
  No, I want to make sure you know that you were doing a good job.
  Meanwhile, folks are still clinging onto life, people are running out 
of insulin. They need medical supplies and people are drowning in 
nursing homes. These are Americans. These are Americans. These are 
individuals that live in our communities. There were veterans caught up 
in this stuff. There were teachers caught up in this. There were 
individuals counting on their government for them to be there for them, 
be it State, local, or Federal. I am not here to protect anyone. I want 
to make sure that we have what we need from an independent commission 
to make things better.
  I remember this time very vividly when these e-mails were going on. 
This was at the height of the rescue, and they were running around here 
talking about titles and respect.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we can blame the FEMA people 
complaining about their title and all of that stuff, but who appoints 
these people? These people are appointed by the President of the United 
States. This goes to his judgment to hire a horse attorney, not a 
horse's attorney; but he is an attorney for equestrian activity, that 
is what this gets to.
  This President appointed this person, and he appointed the other 
people. The top seven or eight people who were involved in the top FEMA 
flow chart were appointees from President Bush, and they were not 
qualified. They had no emergency management experience. We need change 
in the government today. We need to change the way the situation is. We 
need to change the leadership. We need to reform the way we do 
business. We need to change the way we do business, and you do that 
through an independent commission, not through politics.
  Do Members think that the majority party here, the Republican Party, 
is going to somehow oversee this whole process and dig up and say, What 
were we thinking? This guy was asking about his title during the 
greatest natural disaster in the history of the country. They are not 
going to highlight that and say maybe that was a little bit of the 
problem. They are going to do their best to keep that out of the press. 
Fortunately, that stuff makes its way in. But why not have an 
independent commission, bipartisan, to figure out exactly what 
happened. If we do not implement this change, we are going to be in 
real trouble the next time this happens.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I wanted 
to highlight was one of the things we have been asking people to do. 
H.R. 3764 is the Democrats' bill that would establish an independent 
commission on the response to Hurricane Katrina. The way that the 
administration relented on the independent 9/11 Commission, as the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) referred to earlier, they initially 
opposed, was the groundswell of support, particularly from the families 
of the 9/11 victims.

                              {time}  1930

  And we need a groundswell of support from the 81 percent of Americans 
that, when polled, say they think the only way to approach the response 
and the investigation of the response to the aftermath of Katrina is 
through an independent commission. We need people to contact us and 
become citizen cosponsors of H.R. 3764.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, they can 
e-mail us at 30SomethingD[email protected]. They can e-mail and be a 
citizen cosponsor, but call their Members of Congress, call their 
Senators. I mean that is what really needs to happen.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has the website at 
the bottom.

[[Page 23039]]


  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, they can go to the website at 
www.housedemocrats.gov/Katrina or they can e-mail us. We will put them 
on either way. But I think it is important we also need to get ahold of 
the people who represent folks at home, who come down to Washington, 
D.C. for 3 and 4 days during the course of a week, and let those folks 
know that this is something they are interested in because it speaks to 
more than just this legislation. It speaks to the independence that we 
think needs to oversee this process. It also speaks to the kind of 
change that we need in government. We need this kind of independence. 
We cannot have people holding us back to make the proper decisions in 
government, and that is happening way too much down here.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think it is 
important to note that everyone has some sort of inquiry going on. I 
mean we have this partisan commission here in the House that obviously 
we tried to push an independent commission. That is out of order. We 
cannot do that. We do not need to do it because we have control, and 
since we have control, we are going to keep control of this situation 
to make sure it does not get out of hand because there may be some 
political reasons that we do not want certain things to come out. Well, 
this happened in America. It did not happen somewhere across in some 
foreign third world land to a group of individuals who are not a part 
of our democracy. These are people that live within the borders of the 
United States of America, born here, and I think it is important that 
we do not leave any American behind because the whole country can 
learn. So why deny the whole country from that?
  Someone may say, Congressman, Congresswoman, we got it covered. We 
are dealing with it here in the House. What are you talking about? We 
are all Republicans, but we got it. We will take care of it. As a 
matter of fact, the White House appointed someone inside the White 
House, a high-ranking Homeland Security adviser to the President. Well, 
that is interesting. We are going to keep the adviser who advises the 
President on the part of Homeland Security to do a report to let him 
know what went wrong. If something went wrong, then maybe the adviser 
did not do what she should have done in this case, maybe some of the 
conversations that we know that the President's Chief of Staff had with 
the folks on the ground and the Deputy Chief of Staff that happens to 
be the boss of the person who is doing the inquiry.
  I always tell people, I come to the floor and say, listen, this 30-
Something Working Group in looking at what is happening and what is not 
happening, this is not a game. This is serious, and we went on the 
White House website 2 weeks ago. This thorough review that they are 
doing, not a mumbling word about this review. Not anything where 
Americans can be reassured that our country is doing all that it can to 
make sure that we do not make the same mistakes, have the same kind of 
loss of life that took place.
  Now, here is the front page, and our President is there and honors 
Buckley, the anniversary and all. It is good stuff. I mean this is 
stuff that the President does. And then we have the little thing that 
people can click on. I want to make sure that folks know that this is 
not the Wasserman Schultz-Ryan-Kendrick Meek report.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Third-party validators.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Third party validators. Then they can go over to 
the Homeland Security responding to Katrina and Rita and the same 
picture that was there a couple of weeks ago, the President hugging an 
emergency worker, rightfully so. I think that is important. But it says 
nothing, not even a press release, about what we are doing and if what 
we find we are going to make corrections and these are the subject 
areas that we are concerned about. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. So we 
know under the drape of not only corruption, cronyism, but this culture 
that we have here that the majority does not have the ability to even 
have an inquiry on themselves.
  I said this as a joke several weeks ago, and I am going to say it 
again because it is very real. It is like my coming to the floor 
saying, Listen, my name is Kendrick Meek, and I have made some possible 
mistakes, and to make sure that I do not make these mistakes ever again 
I am going to investigate myself and I will be back in a couple of 
weeks to let you know what the findings are. That is how off balance, I 
am just trying to find the right words, that this whole theory is of 
the fact that the White House can look into itself and that we are 
going to have some findings that are going to save American lives in 
the future and that the House is going to have a partisan commission 
that is going to look at the agency that we did not give proper 
oversight to and still do not. The Committee on Homeland Security right 
now, I am here and I am giving the report, I am on the committee, has 
not even had one, hear me, not even one hearing since Katrina, not one 
public hearing to talk about what has worked and what has not worked 
and why do we have this problem and why do we still have people in 
shelters. Not a mumbling word. Not one. I am telling my colleagues if I 
am lying, I am flying, and I am still well footed right here. Not one 
hearing. That is horrible for the Department of Homeland Security, for 
the committee that deals with it. And I told my colleagues we are here 
to take care of the Federal business.
  I like some of my colleagues. We go and we talk about baseball games 
and all of these things, and they are nice people. I consider myself a 
pretty nice person. But let me tell the Members something. This is 
about business. It is not personal. It is about business. It is about 
the business of protecting the American people, and if we are going to 
sit here and act like nothing is really going on, something is really 
wrong, and that is the reason why we need this independent commission.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, we have been talking about what 
they are not doing, that they are not establishing an independent 
commission. Let us mention what they are getting ready to do because we 
all can describe what we think the response to the aftermath of Katrina 
should be. Obviously, a pretty significant fiscal hit on our economy. 
No question about it. Between Katrina and Rita, we have refineries 
down. We have gas prices that have skyrocketed out of control. We have 
people having to dig deeper into their pockets. A dollar is not going 
as far as we would like it to or as it was previously before the storm 
hit. So one would think that the Republican leadership's response would 
be to ease up on the tax cuts. Let us pull back on making them 
permanent. Let us push back the reconciliation process, which is 
Washington speak for budget cuts. Let us make sure that we can ease 
some of the pain and dull the sharp point that has been the aftermath 
of Katrina.
  So, instead, what is their response? Because it certainly is not any 
of that. This week on Thursday we expect what will be an extremely 
close vote on a rash of Republican spending cuts that will cut to the 
core, to the deepest heart of the people who need the help the most, 
the people who have truly been impacted by the aftermath of Katrina. 
They are actually going to ask us, force us, to vote on cuts in the 
Medicaid program, force us to vote on cuts in the Food Stamp program, 
force us to vote on cuts to higher education. This is a laundry list of 
items that they are going to propose now. A 2 percent across-the-board 
random set of cuts that are going to impact the people who were hurt 
the most by the aftermath of Katrina. It boggles the mind. How that 
could be a natural response to the needs of the people who are hurting 
the most is just so far beyond me. I feel like I am dealing with people 
who live on another planet sometimes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to 
yield, there is no doubt about it, to be so far removed. And if we look 
back, we have got three wars going on right now and

[[Page 23040]]

four tax cuts primarily to people who make hundreds and hundreds of 
thousands, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800,000-plus, billionaires who are 
getting these kind of tax cuts, and then not only to do this. After 
Katrina we have got a $500 billion deficit. Now we are going to cut $10 
billion out of the Medicaid program for low-income folks who need 
health care and their kids. $9 billion out of college students loans. 
What? It is so competitive out in the world today, and we are going to 
cut student loans? And throughout this whole process, through 9/11, the 
war, Katrina, natural disasters in the gulf coast, hurricanes last 
year, all this stuff that has been going on, not one time has the 
President asked those people who make more than $1 million can they 
maybe help us out a little bit? A novel idea. Please, somebody who 
makes more than $1 million, help us. And he is the President of the 
United States, for God sakes. He can call these people into his office 
and ask them for help. Ask them for assistance. We need to balance the 
budget. We need to make investments in education. We need to make sure 
that the poor folks and the middle class folks in our country have 
adequate health care coverage.
  And then with the wounds wide open, to throw a little salt in it, he 
repeals the Davis-Bacon provision, which says that for the Federal 
money being spent to rebuild the gulf coast after Katrina that the 
people working would have to get prevailing wage in that area. And the 
prevailing wage in that area is 9 or 10 bucks an hour, and the 
President repealed that so the Federal money going to that area does 
not have to be prevailing wage. How much lower is he going to go? He is 
trying to help these people, and they want to go back and rebuild their 
community, and he is saying no. He is going to say we are going to pay 
them minimum wage. That is salt in the wound.
  And those same people are going to be the same folks who will 
probably need Medicaid, who still want to send their kids to school and 
need the student loan and the Pell grant, which is being cut by $9 
billion. Meanwhile, and I am going to just reiterate what the gentleman 
from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) said before we got here, all the while we 
are spending $20 billion in reconstruction in Iraq, building and 
renovating 110 primary health care centers, vaccinated 3.2 million 
children, rehabbed 2,700 schools and trained 36,000 secondary teachers, 
funded 3,100 community development projects, and provided housing for 
tens of thousands of Iraqis. Meanwhile, we are repealing the prevailing 
wage provision for our own people? We are cutting health care and 
student loans for our own people? This is outrageous. This is 
absolutely outrageous what is going on.
  We need change in the government. We need reform. We need people to 
come down here who are not going to be so tied to the special interests 
to be independent and make independent decisions for the best interests 
of this country, not any other, and in the process hurt our country.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Florida 
will continue to yield, I was just going to say that all of this points 
to this culture that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) referred to 
earlier, this culture of corruption and cronyism. And it has created 
this groundswell of need for reform. We cannot go on like this anymore. 
I mean I am raising young children. He is raising young children. The 
gentleman from Ohio's (Mr. Ryan) brother is raising a young child now. 
We need to make sure that the next generation that comes up does not 
inherit a badly damaged country that results from the policy decisions 
that are being made here. There is some deep harm that will reverberate 
for at least a generation as a result of these cuts and more and more 
tax cuts and an ever-burgeoning deficit and more and more reliance on 
foreign countries and more debt. There are consequences for these kinds 
of things.
  When I go trick or treating with my kids on Halloween, that is when I 
most often get to see my neighbors and spend some really good time 
talking to them, and those are the times that they grab me by the wrist 
and say, ``Debbie, what is going on here?'' Every year that goes by 
with another year of this Republican leadership literally not having 
any ability to be in touch with the reality of the lives of real people 
is another year that we have shaken the confidence to the core of the 
American people.

                              {time}  1945

  We have got to move in the direction. We have got to get some reform. 
We have got to get some leadership in America that understands what the 
basic needs are of the people.
  Instead, we have an administration that appears to be of the wealthy, 
for the wealthy, and by the wealthy. It has, I think, actually reached 
historic proportions. We have never had a time where you have had the 
priorities of the leadership in the government so focused on the most 
elite set of people in the country.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are not making this up.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I wish I were making it up.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I really think if I was not here and coaching some 
football in high school in Ohio and I was flipping through and watching 
us, if I was not exactly plugged in as much as we are, I would think 
they have got to be making this up. I mean, they just cannot be serious 
about all of this stuff. They have got to be fudging the facts or 
misrepresenting them or putting a certain spin on it like they do in 
D.C.
  We are not making this stuff up. I do not think you can, even if you 
wanted to.
  Picture this, natural disaster in the U.S. In the U.S. years ago, 
they passed the Davis-Bacon provision, which two Republicans authored 
just by coincidence, that when Federal money is spent somewhere, 
including natural disasters, wherever the money's being spent, the 
workers have the right to be paid the wage in that area.
  Then during the greatest natural disaster, the President repeals it 
for the very people who are going to go back in and rebuild their own 
community. What? You have got to be kidding me. Who would believe that?
  At the same time, to pay for the rebuilding of the community, we are 
going to cut health care for the poor; we are going to cut student 
loans for middle-class people; and we are not going to ask the rich 
people to pay for anything, not even the rich people, people who make 
four or five, six, seven, eight. Even during this, you just wanted to 
ask millionaires to give a portion of their tax cut back to help us 
fund this. It is like you cannot believe it.
  It is almost like when you play sports, did you ever have those 
moments where things kind of slow down a little bit? That is what it 
feels like down here. You are just slowly watching the unraveling 
happen. We come to the floor every night not for therapy, but we come 
here because we hope that we can convince the American people that the 
Democrats are for changing all this and making this better and 
reforming the way government works. Reform is not consistent 
necessarily with tax cuts for wealthy people. It is about fixing the 
way government executes its responsibilities, and this is what we are 
for, and that is what this independent commission is for.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I did not want you to leave out, he raised the 
ceiling as it relates to small businesses to a quarter of a million 
dollars that an agency could spend on a credit card and not necessarily 
have to do business with the small businesses in the area. That was 
also suspended. These are small and the minority businesses, too. When 
we say small businesses, these are small businesses, period. This is 
not something where you say just women-owned businesses and minority 
businesses. These are small businesses, period.
  So I think it is important we realize that any outrage in this 
Congress is not from the majority side as it relates to it. If you 
start talking about, well, first of all, I want to help you out, we are 
going to respond to the disasters, matter of fact we want businesses to 
move back, we are going to let the businesses back in before we let the

[[Page 23041]]

residents back in, you have got to do more for our small businesses 
than give them a boon and say good luck. They have no employees.
  In the meanwhile, we want the people to come back, but as it relates 
to the construction, to build the bridges and rebuild the schools and 
do all the things that need to happen to make this a functional 
community; but we do not want them to make too much money. We want them 
to make the minimum wage on these jobs, or whatever wage you want to 
pay them, but not a prevailing wage that is this Federal law.
  Because this happens to be an emergency, and this is the President's 
thinking, since this is an emergency, I can just suspend Davis-Bacon. I 
could not do it under calm waters; let me do it now. Let me just hit 
you while you are down on all fours.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. What is coming out of the conservative think tanks 
at this time, well, what is going to happen is these workers are going 
to get this extra money from the prevailing wage, and they are going to 
give it to the unions. Then it is just going to pad the union coffers.
  I do not know if you have the chart there or not, union membership in 
the three hardest hit gulf States, the highest was 10. The lowest was 
four, and another one was like five. Five percent of the workers were 
union workers. It was just nonsense, and then you look how many union 
members are there, none basically. None.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. When you think about it, some people may say, 
well, what are they talking about? What are these three Members of 
Congress talking about that happen to be in the minority, a few votes 
shy from being in the majority, to be able to make what we are talking 
about reality?
  This would not be a discussion about an independent commission to 
look at Katrina or what did happen or what did not happen in Katrina, 
best practices, so when another U.S. city goes through a situation 
where they have to evacuate the entire city, families being displaced, 
living with others, some people living in arenas, some folks living in 
gyms and church fellowship halls and synagogue fellowship halls 
throughout the country, how do we bring about the kind of organization 
that is needed to make sure that we can get Americans back into their 
normal lives so that hopefully it will not be a burden on the U.S. 
taxpayer for a very long time?
  The way things are set up now, A, there is no oversight, especially 
in this House. There is no oversight about the urgency of making sure 
that we save as many dollars as possible through a functional 
government doing what it is supposed to do on the timelines. It is not 
there. Money is still going out for vouchers to stay in hotels. I mean, 
folks need to have shelter; but if there is a cheaper, better way that 
will get them back home and to get them helping them, being able to get 
the paycheck or even open their business, then let us do that to make 
them self-sufficient. That is not the conversation.
  The conversation here is to say, well, let us make some budget cuts, 
and we do not want to talk about Iraq. We did want to talk about that. 
Oh, my goodness, if something comes out about Iraq, get out of the way; 
we have got to fund it. Matter of fact, can we add another billion to 
it, can we, because I want to make sure we give our commitment to the 
Iraqi people. Let us get another billion.
  But when it comes down to the Americans, our people, once again, I 
will say we salute one flag. I do not know, we have to look at these 
student loans and grants, and we have to also look at Medicaid, 
additional cuts on top of cuts that we have already made.
  Well, my colleague said something that I thought was very 
interesting, and I know our time is coming to an end shortly, about the 
fact that we have to ask millionaires. We are not talking about folks 
that make a hundred, not even $400,000 a year. People that make 
millions a year, the Congress has to ask if we can roll back some of 
the tax cuts that they are enjoying right now in the hundreds of 
thousands to help the country after it was hit by the biggest natural 
disaster that it has ever been hit with. We have got to ask.
  But guess what, no one is asking folks on Medicaid, no one is asking 
kids that receive free and reduced lunch for the reason because they 
are poor. No one is asking them. No one is asking States as it relates 
to rolling back their Head Start money to make sure that kids are ready 
to perform in this working world and that they go to school ready and 
prepared. The gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) worked 
on that in the Florida legislature.
  No one is walking around here asking about that. Folks just say, 
well, you know what, this is what we are going to do; tough talk for 
hard times. We are not going to pick on someone that can pick back. We 
are not going to hit a person that can knock us to the floor, because 
they will be able to give campaign contributions to my opponents. No, 
we are going to get the folks that we say we are trying to help. We are 
going to hit them. Matter of fact, we are going to floor them, and we 
are going to do it because we can. That is what makes this such a 
tragedy.
  That is why we need this independent commission. That is the reason 
why we need H.R. 3838, an anti-fraud commission that will oversee all 
of the contracts that are going on in the present to be able to review 
it all, to make sure that it is not left up to some bureaucrat so that 
I am sitting somewhere in the Committee on Homeland Security and they 
are saying, well, you pick up The Washington Post or New York Times, 
whatever the hometown paper may be in someone's area, and say there 
were millions of dollars that were spent and someone charged $1,000 for 
a roll of toilet paper, and we do not know what happened, but we are 
looking into it.
  No, that is after the taxpayers have already been raped of their 
money and the victims were made victims again because the money ran 
out. So we do not have time for an Iraq-Halliburton experience that we 
have an investigation going on, meanwhile thousands of dollars are 
going out the door.
  If folks want to have tough talk about budget and fiscal 
responsibility, then we have to have management, and we have to have 
oversight. You just cannot let billions of dollars out the door and 
expect the people who have already made mistakes again and again and 
again say here is another $62 billion, see if you can do better this 
time. It is just not going to happen, and that is the reason why we 
have to have it.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, in our last few minutes, I want 
to just point out that the responsibility lies at the feet of the 
President. He has the bully pulpit to ask people who are among our 
wealthiest to make sacrifices.
  I represent a community that has a lot of wealthy people, and I know 
they say to me all the time, you know what, I am willing. They 
understand what the needs are. They get it, and I know we have an hour 
tomorrow night, that we are going to have an opportunity to come out 
here again.
  One of the things I think we should talk about, and I do not want to 
do a rush job on it, is there are steps we can take. There are things 
we can do to make people whole. There is a way that we can restore 
Americans' confidence in their government, and there are reforms that 
we can and must make. I hope we will have a chance to talk about that 
more tomorrow night because we have got to take this country in a new 
direction. It would be irresponsible for us to continue hurtling down 
the path of irresponsible public policy and harm that we are bringing 
on people who are already knocked to the ground, and now we are putting 
our boot on their neck to keep them that way.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I agree. We want to take the country in a new 
direction, in another direction.
  Since 1994, the Republicans have held this Chamber. The President has 
been in for 5 years. They have controlled the Senate on and off for a 
good while over the past decade and a half. We want to take the country 
in another direction, because if you look at the leadership, I just 
believe that because of the lack of

[[Page 23042]]

experience they just are not governing. They just do not know how to 
govern.
  When you look at the increased poverty rates, when you look at wages, 
when you look at what is going on with companies like Delphi and 
General Motors, when you look at the health care crisis in this 
country, when you look at the poverty crisis, the cuts for school 
funding and local communities, libraries being cut, prisons and jails 
that cannot handle the load that is coming in, in every single aspect 
here, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, every single aspect here 
has been the ball has been dropped.
  We want to take the country in a new direction, in a better place, 
with the changes that I think the Democratic Party wants to provide.
  If you want to e-mail us, it is [email protected], and 
let us know if you want to be a citizen cosponsor of the independent 
Katrina commission, which we think would be the best way in a 
nonpartisan, bipartisan way to try to address the issues, and I thank 
my good friend from Florida for the opportunity to join both my 
colleagues here tonight.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan). I am 
glad you were able to sum it up for us. The gentlewoman from Florida 
(Ms. Wasserman Schultz) is right to let us focus on things we are 
doing.
  We mentioned the pieces of legislation the Democrats have offered to 
this Congress. The Congress and the majority side have not accepted 
that legislation. We are still willing to fight on behalf of the 
American people.

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