[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23130-23136]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE BUDGET RECONCILIATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Reichert). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, 6 weeks ago all Americans saw the human 
face of poverty in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. President Bush 
vowed that after the botched Federal response to the hurricane that the 
Federal Government would do everything it could to help those displaced 
in the gulf and to finally address the issue of poverty. Six weeks 
later, the House Republican majority is already forgetting about 
America's most vulnerable. This week, Republicans had planned to cut 
Medicaid, higher education, food stamps, and possibly the earned income 
tax credit in order to achieve budget reconciliation.
  We heard today that the budget reconciliation has been postponed. We 
are not going to vote on it tomorrow, and that is certainly good news. 
I think it is a strong indication that this budget plan was a bad plan 
for America and that it was, in fact, going to be used as a method of 
basically hurting the poor and might have had a direct impact on those 
hurricane victims.
  But it does not mean that the Republican leadership is not going to 
try to bring it up again next week when we come back. And the problem 
is that it just is not fair, it really is not fair. It is un-American, 
in my opinion, to say that we are going to try to pass this budget 
reconciliation by making cuts in the very programs that impact the 
people who suffered during the hurricane.
  The Republicans are claiming that their budget reconciliation bill is 
fiscally responsible and will cut the deficit. But, obviously, we could 
tell from the last Special Order that is simply not true. The budget 
actually raises the deficit, gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest, 
and makes matters worse, obviously, for the victims of Katrina.
  Essentially, this is a way of trying to build in, if you will, the 
Republican tax breaks that primarily go to the wealthy, to the special 
interests, to corporate interests that the Republicans would try to 
pass further down the road this year. And it is amazing to me, Mr. 
Speaker, that it only took Republicans 6 weeks to forget the images of 
Hurricane Katrina. They are once again putting the priorities of the 
wealthiest few ahead of the working-class Americans. It is now clear 
that the Republicans learned absolutely nothing from Hurricane Katrina.
  I could go on myself, but I have to say that my ideas and my concerns 
with this budget bill were very much set forth in a Washington Post 
article or op ed that appeared today by Harold Meyerson called 
``Gunning for the Poor.'' And I am not going to read the whole thing, 
Mr. Speaker, or put it in the Record, but I wanted to highlight some of 
the things that Harold Meyerson said because it basically says in 
probably better language what I just indicated and how I feel.
  And Harold Meyerson said in this op ed today in the Washington Post: 
``Congress is back in session and it's gunning for the American poor.
  ``A revolt of House conservatives has persuaded that body's 
Republican leadership to offset the increased Federal spending going to 
rebuild the Hurricane Katrina-devastated gulf coast by reductions in 
Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs for the indigent. If things 
go according to plan, this week the House will begin to cut $50 billion 
from those efforts.
  ``The emerging Republican response to Katrina, apparently, is to 
comfort the drenched poor and afflict the dry.
  ``For a moment last week, it looked as though the Republicans were 
going to enact across-the-board spending cuts.
  ``That, however, would have meant less money for defense contractors 
and the highway industry and other contributors to congressional 
Republicans' campaigns. GOP committee chairmen made that point so 
forcefully that the idea was scrapped.
  ``The beauty of taking the cuts out of Medicaid and student loan 
programs, by happy contrast, is that it does not reduce the flow of 
funds to the Republican campaign committees by a single dime.
  ``Even before the right-wing House leadership capitulated to the even 
further right-wing House rank and file, the government's response to 
Katrina already appeared to be driven more by laissez-faire ideology 
than by need or common sense. The administration has opposed efforts by 
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley to extend Medicaid 
coverage to those Katrina survivors who lost their jobs and health 
insurance in the flood. And by suspending the requirements of the 
Davis-Bacon Act that construction workers on federally funded 
reconstruction efforts be paid the prevailing wage, President Bush has 
ensured that much of that work will be done by illegal immigrants, as 
one New York Times report on the Mexican workers rebuilding Gulfport, 
Mississippi made abundantly clear.''
  The article goes on, Mr. Speaker; but the bottom line is, and this is 
what Meyerson says at the end: ``The same Republican zealots who demand 
fiscal responsibility by cutting $50 billion for the indigent sick are 
now also demanding a new $70 billion in tax cuts, including the 
permanent repeal of the estate tax, that would chiefly benefit the 
rich.''
  So Meyerson basically explains, and I think it is abundantly clear, 
the Republicans are not trying to make these cuts in programs for the 
indigent that would essentially help the hurricane victims because they 
want to balance the budget. Because, no, the deficit is still going to 
be huge. They are basically doing it because they want to build into 
the budget the opportunity to come back with permanent tax cuts for the 
wealthy, for the corporate interests; and this is their way of cutting 
programs that essentially are crucial for the hurricane victims in 
order to accomplish that.
  And the amazing thing to me, Mr. Speaker, is that we heard President 
Bush just a few days or a week or so after the hurricane struck say 
that the hurricane showed that there were a lot of poor people, a lot 
of people that were unemployed, a lot of people that did not have basic 
necessities; and rather than trying to help them in some way by 
extending Medicaid benefits to them so that if they lost their health 
insurance, they will still have some health insurance, or rather than 
giving them an opportunity to have a job so that

[[Page 23131]]

they can help rebuild New Orleans or the various towns along the gulf 
that were impacted by Hurricane Katrina, this administration and this 
Republican Congress are just cutting the legs out of any kind of help 
that those hurricane victims would receive and basically saying we do 
not care about them; all we care about is giving tax cuts to the very 
wealthy.
  I think it is scandalous, frankly, and it is another reason why we 
need an independent investigation of what happened with Hurricane 
Katrina.
  A number of my colleagues and I have been coming down here for the 
last few nights as well as before the congressional break that we had 
last week and have been saying, and so have the media been saying, that 
a bipartisan Katrina investigation is needed because the Washington 
Republicans, the ones who have set up their own committee or 
investigation on a partisan basis, are the same people who are 
responsible for the problems that we faced in the aftermath of 
Hurricane Katrina. In other words, the Bush administration botched what 
happened in the aftermath of the hurricane. And they continue to do 
things that are primarily for special interests, for the people who 
contribute to their campaign coffers, without worrying about the 
people, the victims, that are suffering in New Orleans and other cities 
along the gulf.
  So why in the world would we let these Washington Republicans who 
control the White House, control the Senate, control the House 
investigate themselves? It makes no sense.
  The only way that we are going to get a true analysis of what is 
really happening in the aftermath of Katrina, including what was 
discussed today in terms of the unwillingness of the Republicans to 
help the victims in the aftermath of the hurricane, is by having a 
bipartisan commission so that Democrats and Republicans are both 
involved in the investigation, both can look at what is happening and 
not have this fake Katrina inquiry that would just essentially be a 
whitewash, if you will, for what happened in the aftermath of the 
hurricane.
  I notice that I am being joined now by some of my colleagues who have 
been here every night making this point; but we are particularly upset 
with the fact that, in addition to not having this bipartisan 
investigation, this bipartisan commission, we now face a situation 
where the Republicans want to bring up a budget plan that actually is 
going to cut the very programs that these hurricane victims need.

                              {time}  1930

  I would like to point out the other night I read a part of an 
editorial in the New York Times which I think says it all about this 
fake Katrina inquiry, and I am not going to read the whole thing, but I 
just wanted to read the very beginning and the very end.
  This was in the New York Times on September 26. It is called, 
``Faking the Katrina Inquiry,'' and it says: As the Nation reels from 
Rita's devastation along the Gulf Coast, any hope for a thorough 
investigation of government's gross mismanagement of Katrina is quietly 
ebbing away behind the political levees of Washington. The White House 
and the Republican-controlled Congress, resisting popular support for 
an independent, nonpartisan commission, remain determined to run self-
serving, bogus investigations. There is no way to whitewash a 
hurricane. The government dominated by one party should be disqualified 
from investigating itself. Just as President Bush repeatedly fought the 
creation of the 9/11 Commission till public pressure forced him to 
yield, so should the public now demand that the administration and 
Congress get real about Katrina.''
  I feel even more strongly about this in the light of this budget 
reconciliation bill that we understand now has been postponed because 
the Republicans do not have the votes. Thank God they do not have the 
votes, and hopefully, they will never have the vote for this scandal.
  I would yield now to my colleague the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Meek) who has been here practically every night making this point.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I can tell the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Pallone) I am just so glad to be here with you tonight, and 
I know that the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) was here a 
little earlier, our good friend from South Carolina and the ranking 
member on the Committee on the Budget, to point out some of the 
variations you have been talking about now.
  I can tell you also that I was concerned. I think it takes more than 
a press conference that the majority did today down in the basement of 
the Capitol here saying we are fiscal conservatives. All of the sudden, 
after all of this time, after all of this borrow and spend money, no 
one said a mumbling word. Now we have Americans that are displaced, 
Americans that are looking for assistance from its government, 
Americans that are still in shelters, and now we want to be fiscal 
conservatives. We want to all of the sudden say, oh, well, you know, 
the American people know the Republican majority here in the House, 
that we are fiscal conservatives.
  Let me just say something. The budget does not reflect the highest 
deficit in the history of the republic or one of the highest. 
Definitely when it comes down to the war in Iraq, there is no real 
accountability as it relates to corporate greed and corruption and 
cronyism of companies that have stolen the taxpayers' money under the 
lights, and they are still getting contracts from some of those very 
same companies that got contracts in Hurricane Katrina to make the 
taxpayer victims all over again.
  Now folks over there want to get religion about being fiscal 
conservatives, saying we are going to find some, what, $55 million or 
whatever the figure is, off the backs of poor people. So I think it is 
important that we talk about this.
  I think that I just want to do this again. Maybe the folks over here 
on the other side forgot about this. Maybe they forgot about this 
community. This is the before picture of the Category 3 levee, and this 
is the after picture. Maybe they forgot about those Americans that lost 
their homes. All under this we are going to be fiscal conservative. 
Maybe they forgot about this lady here with her children, finally 
getting out from the water after 4 days right here in New Orleans. She 
is carrying her kids out when 30,000 people were trapped there. Maybe 
we forgot about that. Maybe we forgot about these folks here that had 
to improvise and find their way back to safety, and these kids stroking 
here on the refrigerator with a board, maybe they forgot about that. 
Maybe they forgot about this, too.
  Let me just say that I want to make sure we do not get confused on 
the reason why we are having this debate in the first place. This is 
all about helping Americans and making sure that local government and 
the Federal Government is able to respond in a way that it is supposed 
to respond, appropriately, to taxpayers when this happens.
  Now we are going to make the country pay even more of the 67 percent 
cut that took place under regular order under the last budget that the 
majority held the clock on once again, open a little bit longer, the 
Republicans on the majority side did, and now we are going to go back 
on top of the 69 percent, and the goal is to do an additional 50 
percent cut, okay, 50 percent more going into cutting these programs 
like Medicaid and Medicare and free and reduced lunch for children.
  What was so disturbing and I think the Members should be aware of, I 
watched this on C-SPAN. It was down in the basement. There were about 
six Members, the temporary majority leader and all of that stuff. They 
were down there talking, beating chests and all.
  In closing my opening statement, I am so happy that there is a God, 
and I am also happy that there are some folks in this Congress that are 
willing to put the pressure on the majority side on this issue.
  As you know, today we were supposed to do some voting on this, on the 
budget, and tomorrow we were supposed to

[[Page 23132]]

do some voting. That vote has been pulled now, and it is not going to 
happen. I do not think that it is not going to happen because the staff 
could not necessarily get the paperwork together. It is not going to 
happen because it was the wrong thing to do on the backs of the wrong 
people.
  You do not go to a family saying we are here to help you, but first 
of all we are going to take back at least $1,000 of the services that 
you had coming to you due to the fact that Federal-mandated law, as it 
relates to health care, we are going to take it back from you. Matter 
of fact, take that cookie out of the kid's mouth. Did he get that in 
the free and reduced lunch program? Take it back from him because we 
are going to cut that, too.
  What they did that I think is important and I think the Members in 
their offices that are watching now needs to know, what they did, they 
said, well, we are definitely not going to deal with the billionaires. 
We are having this press conference to send a code to let them know 
that you are safe.
  I want to make it clear we have a Republican majority here in the 
House, and it has been that way for 10 years. We have a Republican 
majority over in the Senate and definitely a Republican White House. So 
anyone that would come and say anything publicly on this floor about, 
oh, the Democrats are stopping us from governing in a compassionate 
way, that is not true.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate that. That is the distinction that we 
need to make here. The Republican Party controls all the levels of 
government, the committees, the House, the Senate, the White House. 
What they say goes. We are an opposition party at this point, and they 
are the governing party. They are taking the country off the cliff is 
basically what is happening here.
  The point I want to make to my friends in the 30-Something Group and 
to the Members who are watching and the American people is this. When 
this body was originally trying to figure out a way to pay for Katrina, 
all those pictures that you show, when they were originally trying to 
figure out a way to pay for this, you know what came up? Across-the-
board cuts in all programs, 2 percent, in order to pay for this, across 
the board. Then, when the extreme right wing Republicans in the caucus 
came over and those corporate interests here in Washington, D.C., came 
over to the Hill and they started exerting their influence here, it 
changed because we cannot cut programs that the big-time lobbyists 
want. That would be wrong in Washington, D.C.
  Notice what is being cut, notice. Look at the list: Medicaid, Head 
Start, college loans. There is not a program that is getting cut where 
the people can actually donate money to Congress. We cannot cut 
programs where people have to donate and they make big profits. Is that 
not a coincidence? Of all the programs we have, not one program is 
going to be cut in which a special interest would be hurt. What a 
shame. What a sham. It is a joke that we are going to ask Medicaid 
recipients, Head Start, free and reduced lunch, college loans. Those 
people are going to take the brunt of the hit to pay for a natural 
disaster.
  I heard a columnist today say we are going to take from the dry poor 
and give to the wet poor, and is that not something?
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. Speaker, the last few nights I have been watching this 
30-Something crowd up speaking at night, and it really inspired me to 
come down to the floor.
  This is my first Special Order as a freshman Member of Congress. I 
hail from the great State of Oklahoma, and this is very, very 
important. I think the American people need to know about what is going 
on here in Washington, D.C. It is hurting my district. It is hurting 
all of us.
  I want to talk about some of these programs that you are talking 
about that affect everyone from Broken Arrow and Idabel, if you are 
listening tonight; to Muskogee, Oklahoma; to Miami, Oklahoma; to 
Durant. Let us talk about the community health centers that the funding 
has been slashed.
  The President's budget asked for a 64 percent reduction. We talk 
about Medicaid and the COPS program. We have talked about economic 
development in the rural part of America that is being cut. Even Start, 
which you talked about earlier tonight, is very, very important. Head 
Start funding, TRIO and Gear Up are so important.
  Let me tell you, in my district we have a lot of young people and 
their families. No one's been to college, and these programs are vital 
for creating jobs in a district like mine. Because of some kind of 
offset for, as you said, a billionaire or someone else like that, 
people in my district are getting cut, people in Oklahoma.
  I am one of the more conservative Members of our caucus. I come from 
a red State. I am the only Democrat in our delegation. The President 
carried my district with 59 percent of the vote, but I want to tell 
you, this resonates with all Americans, both Democrats and Republicans.
  We are running up a huge national debt. We are paying interest 
payments, and it gets larger and larger every day. As we pay those 
interest payments, it squeezes out all those programs that are so vital 
to us, not to a Democrat or a Republican, but all Americans, especially 
in rural parts of the United States.
  I want to tell my colleague from Ohio, my colleague from Florida and 
New Jersey, and now another Member from Florida has joined us, I thank 
you for allowing me to be a part of this team tonight and to speak on 
these issues.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, let me just say that it is great to 
have you here, and I think it shows that it does not matter whether I 
am a red State, Florida's a red State, Oklahoma unfortunately is a red 
State. You are the only blue Stater here, but I think what the 
gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Boren) brings here is that there is this 
idea that we are trying to promote the Democratic agenda. This is about 
America. This is not a partisan issue.
  I mean, help us out here. The kid who is getting Head Start or the 
kid that wants to go to college or the parents that are trying to pay 
for the school or whatever it may be, this is not a red State-blue 
State issue. I think the 30 Something Group is all about talking about 
what is best for the United States of America, and that means making 
sure that those people in your district have an opportunity to go to 
college, that they have a healthy start.
  I think we have talked about that, and that is not a partisan issue. 
This is about what is doing what is best for the country.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

                              {time}  1945

  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio. 
I feel a little odd over here. But, Mr. Speaker, if more of the people 
on this side of the chamber thought like me, then we would be improving 
things really significantly here. So I think maybe if I stand here long 
enough, maybe the philosophical brain waves will travel over here.
  It is wonderful to have our colleague from Ohio join us in the 30-
Something group. We have been trying to encourage our fellow 30-
Something Members to join us down here to talk about the things that 
resonate universally across this country. The gentleman is absolutely 
right, both gentlemen are. It does not matter whether you are in New 
Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Florida, Idaho, California, the things that we 
talk about on this floor during our hour are resonating and run deep in 
terms of their impact on Americans, whether you are from the right wing 
of the spectrum or the left wing of the spectrum.
  Let us take the cost of college. Obviously, people in our generation, 
whether they are raising children that are

[[Page 23133]]

about to go to college, or whether they, in the case of people who are 
maybe closer to the ages of the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Boren) and 
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), who are closer to having been in 
college than perhaps the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) and I are, 
the rising costs of college are just really getting out of control. The 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) and I just turned 39 a couple of 
weeks ago, so we are in our last year of eligibility here. So listen, I 
am a woman, and I am acknowledging that.
  But there was an article in my paper today in the South Florida Sun 
Sentinel that talked about the cost of college having risen by one-
third over the last 5 years. One-third. Parents have been preparing 
every year for yet another hit in their pocketbook. The average college 
costs today at a private college are $21,000, and almost $5,500 at a 
public university. It does not matter whether you are in a red State or 
a blue State, and I am going to claim Florida as a purple State. We are 
50-50 right down the line when it comes to those elections, so I am not 
willing to cede that we are a red State just yet.
  We cannot have our college students face the double-digit tuition 
increases that have been rained down upon them, coupled with the deep 
financial aid cuts that have been proposed. That is what is coming out 
of this Congress right now.
  One of the things that we mentioned last night was that while we are 
very critical of the actions that are being proposed here by this 
Republican leadership, we do have our own set of plans, particularly in 
terms of how we would approach higher education and making college less 
expensive.
  We would make college more affordable in several ways. Our proposal 
would guarantee a $500 boost to the maximum Pell grant scholarship. We 
would give students the choice between either a fixed or a variable 
interest rate when they consolidate their student loans, and we would 
do so without raising costs for students. We would keep Congress's 
promise that was made in 2002 on the Republican watch, which still has 
not been fulfilled, to lower the interest rate cap on student loans at 
6.8 percent. The Republican bill reverses that bipartisan agreement and 
raises student interest rate caps to 8.25 percent.
  We absolutely have to do not just right by our students, but we have 
to at least do what we say we are going to do. You cannot just talk 
about lowering the cost and expanding access to higher education; you 
actually have to follow up with action on it. And this Republican 
Congress and their leadership has been dropping themselves into a full-
scale reversal and literally closing off access do higher education to 
Americans across this country.
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. Speaker, that building block that we talk about, 
education, being ready for the work force is very, very important. Let 
us talk about going into the work force. This Republican Congress has 
talked about creating jobs, has talked about growing the economy and, 
at the same time, they are cutting programs that are very vital to 
creating jobs. Let me talk about them right now.
  The small business 7(a) loan program is very important to my 
constituents. These loans are the most basic and most used types of 
loans of SBA's business loan programs. Under this budget, for the 
second year in a row, the budget eliminates appropriations for small 
business 7(a) loans and proposes to run the program solely through fee 
increases, substantially raising the costs for small business and 
lenders.
  We talk about these rural communities again. They get out of college 
like at Southeastern in Durant or they are at NSU in Kulaqua, they have 
that degree, they are going for that seed capital. They want to start a 
new business. We have always been the party of small business. We have 
always been the party of Main Street, going out and striking out on 
your own. This budget slashes those programs.
  Another thing, SBA business information centers, joint ventures 
between the U.S. Small Business Administration and private partners, 
they provide the latest in high-tech hardware, software, and 
telecommunications to help start-up and expanding businesses. They also 
offer a wide array of counseling services. Under this budget, that 
program is eliminated.
  One more. Micro loan program. This program provides very small loans 
to start-ups and targets mainly low-income entrepreneurs. In 2003, this 
vital program provided $26.5 million in loans and an additional $15 
million in technical assistance. The micro loan program enables 
individuals to become self-sufficient while creating jobs and 
contributing to economic development in local communities.
  Under this budget, every single dollar is eliminated. Think about 
that. We are talking about growing the economy, we are talking about 
creating jobs. Right now, we are creating inflation, because we have 
such high energy costs.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That one program was for low-income folks?
  Mr. BOREN. Absolutely.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This is almost hysterical, in a bad sense 
hysterical. We were in the Committee on Education and the Workforce 
today marking up the TANF bill. We offered an amendment to raise the 
minimum wage to a living wage. Shot down. We offered an amendment that 
we wanted to give more money for people who were going from welfare to 
work, we were going to step in and provide them with child care, more 
money for child care. We have a study that says you need about $8 
billion for these people to have adequate child care so they will 
actually get off the welfare rolls and get to work. That got shot down.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, we 
need to clarify who we are and they are.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate that. I thank the gentleman. I thank 
the gentleman. The Republicans on the committee who have a majority of 
the folks on the committee shot all of those democratic amendments 
down. The Democrats offered to have a living wage. The Democrats 
offered to increase money for child care so that you can go out into 
the work force and contribute to the economy and pay taxes. Now, our 
friend from Oklahoma says, well, even the program where low-income 
people want to strike out on their own and they want to start their own 
business, that program is getting cut.
  What do you propose these people do? Is there an answer on that side? 
They are talking about this long and distinguished record of helping 
people. How? What do you mean? The poverty rate is going up, wages are 
stagnant, and it is harder to get into school, and tuition has doubled.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, the gentleman 
from Ohio is absolutely correct. I want to go back to what he said 
before, because we are talking about all of these terrible things that 
the Republicans are doing and are proposing to do, and I am sure a lot 
of the people say, well, why would they do those awful things. I think 
it is important for us to go back to what the gentleman from Ohio said 
before, which is why is this happening?
  I mean, obviously, it is not happening because they want to reduce 
the deficit, because my understanding is that this budget that they 
were going to bring up tomorrow, this budget resolution actually 
increases the deficit by more than $100 billion, so it is not for 
deficit reduction. Any spending cuts, in my opinion, are being used 
primarily for 2 things. One is because they want to offset the tax 
cuts; again, these are tax cuts primarily for the wealthy, for the 
special interests that are coming down the road.
  The other thing that I think we need to point out, and that is why I 
asked the previous Democrats from the previous Special Order to leave 
this chart up. Also what is happening here is that the Republicans want 
to continue to pay for these infrastructure and other improvements in 
Iraq. Now, I am not saying that it is bad to do all of this 
reconstruction work in Iraq. I mean, I strongly believe that it needs 
to be looked at, because a lot of times it is going to Halliburton and 
other companies that are skimming the money and

[[Page 23134]]

not necessarily delivering the services. But I think it is very 
interesting to see that almost every one of the programs that were 
mentioned here tonight by each of my colleagues, well, to the extent it 
is being cut in the United States, it is being done in Iraq. I just do 
not think that is fair.
  I want to just read this again briefly, because it is just amazing to 
me. Again, this comes from the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), 
our democratic colleagues: health care, because the gentleman from 
Oklahoma mentioned the community health programs. Health care in 
America, $10 billion in medicaid cuts through reconciliation, $252 
million in cuts for health care professionals, $94 million in cuts to 
community health care centers that the gentleman from Oklahoma 
mentioned. In Iraq, 110 primary health care centers built and 
renovated, 2,000 health care professionals trained, 3.2 million 
children vaccinated. We are spending the money in Iraq rather than 
here.
  Education, the gentleman from Florida talked about education. The 
Republican budget cuts in the United States, $9 billion in cuts to 
student loans through reconciliation, $806 million in cuts to No Child 
Left Behind. In Iraq, 2,717 schools rehabilitated, 36,000 teachers and 
administrators trained. I am not going to go through the whole thing 
because it was gone through before and I do not want to repeat it.
  But I will just never forget, within a couple of months after the 
invasion of Iraq, a couple of my Republican colleagues came down here 
one night on the Floor and they had just come back from Iraq and it was 
the first day of school and they had all of the books and the pencils 
and the papers that were being provided to the students in Iraq. I had 
just come back from New Jersey and was hearing complaints from the 
schools about how they did not have pencils and paper and supplies. 
There is nothing wrong with helping the people in Iraq, I am not trying 
to take away from them. But for them to say to us that we have to cut 
similar type programs for people who are really in need, including the 
hurricane victims, it is just not right. An the reason they are doing 
it is because they do not want to cut the programs for their special 
interest friends and, at the same time, I believe they are trying to 
build in money that they can use for these additional tax cuts that 
primarily benefit the wealthy.
  I just want to also say, again, I am showing my age here because I 
know this is the 30-Something club, but I am going to digress for one 
minute. I am so pleased that the gentleman from Oklahoma joined us 
tonight. I followed his election last year and I was so happy that he 
won, because we certainly need Democrats in Oklahoma. I know you are in 
a long tradition of people that the rest of my colleagues probably do 
not even remember, and that is your father, who was the Senator; Brad 
Carson, your predecessor; Mike Synar. Oklahoma always had conservative 
populace, I guess I call them, who were conservative but, at the same 
time, understood the needs of the people. So I am very pleased that you 
are with us here tonight.
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I want to add 
one more person to that list, and that was my grandfather, who served 
in this body from 1937 until 1947 and actually represented the southern 
portion of my district. So we share a bond that we both serve in the 
House. Dad was in the other chamber.
  But I talked a little bit about programs that are traditionally 
Republican programs, like what you would think of as economic 
development, creating jobs, these are really programs that I believe 
that Democrats support more than Republicans. Another one that 
Republicans try to talk about that they have the upper hand on is law 
enforcement programs. Let me just give a few statistics about law 
enforcement.
  The COPS program, a very, very successful program. It stands for the 
Community-Oriented Policing Services program. It provides grants to 
help communities hire, train, and retain police officers and improve 
law enforcement technologies. Under this budget, it is slashed by $477 
million or 96 percent.
  Another program which is very vital to my district is the firefighter 
grants program. It affects all of our communities I know that are here 
in this chamber tonight. This program provides local firefighters with 
everything from trucks and equipment to the ability to pay salaries for 
trained professional firefighters, despite the fact that police 
departments nationwide do not have the protective gear to safely secure 
a site after the detonation of a weapon of mass destruction, and fire 
departments have only enough radios for half of the firefighters on a 
shift.

                              {time}  2000

  Under the Republican budget it has slashed the fire fighter grant 
program by $215 million or 30 percent.
  We talk a lot about Homeland Security. I am on the Armed Services 
Committee in this body. We talk a lot about Homeland Security, we talk 
about being prepared for the next threat. Obviously with Katrina, that 
is a new threat that most of us probably did not even think about just 
a few months ago. How are we going to be prepared for the next disaster 
if we are cutting programs like these?
  A budget here in Washington, when we craft a budget it is a statement 
of our priorities, and unfortunately the priorities of some Members in 
this Chamber have been for those who have, and have left those in areas 
like my district in eastern Oklahoma who do not have the funding to 
make sure that they can talk on these radios.
  I can tell you a perfect example. Greg Walters, if you are listening 
tonight, he is a first responder in Sequoyah County, somebody I talk to 
every day, talks to me about his fire trucks. The Nicut Fire 
Department, they are having trouble getting funding for their trucks, 
they are having problems getting funding for their radios. If there is 
a fire or something that happens, and terrorist attacks can happen 
anywhere, they happened in my home State of Oklahoma. It is not just in 
the urban areas. We have got to be prepared. Again, we have got to 
refocus our priorities.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The gentleman just mentioned that if we are 
going to make sure that we are ready for the next natural disaster, 
often when you talk about events like epic proportions like natural 
disasters, you think of them in terms of their rarity. Since myself and 
Mr. Meek are both from Florida, and in the next 2 days we will face 
what is no longer considered a rarity in our State in the name of 
Hurricane Wilma that has now reached the point in history that it is 
the strongest storm on record with the lowest barometric pressure ever 
to be recorded in the Atlantic Basin and is expected to make landfall 
in our home State, possibly crossing over either mine or Mr. Meek's 
district over the weekend.
  One of the things that we have been emphasizing over the last several 
days and weeks is that the confidence of the American people in their 
government has been badly shaken. The gentleman from Oklahoma mentioned 
that we are not sure how people are expected to be able to have that 
confidence restored and know that the next natural disaster, or man-
made disaster for that matter, that their government is going to be 
prepared both in terms of getting them ready to deal with that disaster 
or in the aftermath of that disaster.
  If you look at the results of Katrina and the aftermath of Katrina, 
certainly their confidence was not restored. If you look at the 
revelations that have come from the independent 9/11 Commission's 
Report, and now yet another report is about to come out from the 
independent 9/11 Commission that through their private educational 
foundation they are about to release a report that blasts the FBI for 
not implementing much of their recommendations.
  When is this administration, this Republican administration and the 
leadership here going to listen to the priorities of the American 
people and make sure that, in terms of disaster preparedness, whether 
it is man-made or natural, that we not add insult to injury in the 
aftermath of those disasters by cutting services and badly needed

[[Page 23135]]

health care and badly needed higher education and assistance for the 
very people that were victims? And when are they going to make sure 
that they have adequate preparation to deal with those, the aftermath 
of those disasters? Right now we have not seen anything other than the 
development of a partisan committee in this institution to supposedly 
investigate what happened. Well, if you cannot even know that the FBI 
and that the administration is going to respond to the report that was 
issued from the independent 9/11 Commission, then certainly we would 
have little to no confidence that anything is going to come from a 
partisan investigation like the one that is going on here.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I just want to tell my colleague 
from Oklahoma that he is supposed to do exactly what he is doing. We 
are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing, and that is 
represent our constituents. That is why we are up here. We are not up 
here to be friends, buddies, and pals. We are here to make sure that 
folks who woke up early one morning, whether they be Democrat, 
Republican, Independent, no party affiliation whatsoever, an individual 
that was in a nursing home could not make it, did not have an absentee 
ballot, they deserve our representation. And the reason why this bill 
did not come up and hopefully will not come up in the form that it is 
in now, and some folks ask what do Democrats do in the minority? What 
do you do because you do not have the ability, not we do not have the 
physical ability or the mental ability to do it, but by rule we cannot 
bring certain things to the floor. We cannot agenda bills here on the 
floor. There are a lot of things that we cannot do because we are in 
the minority. But what we can do is propose.
  Now, this very bad budget amendment that is coming up that is going 
to cut the opportunity for families who want to work to be able to have 
child care and to be able to, like the gentleman from Ohio, provide for 
their families. And so I think it is important that we realize that 
this is not a partisan conversation. The only thing partisan about it 
is the fact that the majority, which is the Republican leadership here, 
will not do what they are supposed to do.
  The last point. This whole issue on this we are going to cut, this 
exercise as it relates to looking at the budget has gone off the focus 
of helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina and Rita to we have got to 
prove to America that we can govern. That is what it has turned into. 
It has turned into that by saying, well, we can govern because we know 
how to cut. We know how to cut. Well, who are we cutting? We are 
cutting those that cannot fight back. You might as well just answer the 
question the way it really is. Let us talk, let us, like they say in 
some places, let us put the cookie on the bottom shelf so that we can 
all reach it and understand what is going on.
  So I think it is important, need it be if someone has a bus pass in 
their hand, they carpool to work, they have to go out and do certain 
things in their car before they turn it over because they cannot afford 
to buy a new car. I have been there before, I put my hand up. Those 
that are running around here know that they can only put $20 in their 
tanks and some of them have to shut their car off at certain times 
because they know they just cannot spend that money because they do not 
have it. These are individuals that we are standing for. These are the 
individuals that we are leading on their behalf.
  So it is important that we put these things out there. It is 
important that we come to this floor, and not let Democrats in the 
House or America know what is going on, to let Americans know what is 
going on. But this stuff does not just happen. It happens because we 
want them engaged, we want Members engaged in representing their 
constituents.
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. Speaker, I will just give my colleagues an example in 
my district. We have a terrible problem with methamphetamine. It is 
happening everywhere, it is not just happening in rural areas, it is 
happening in urban areas. We have places in Le Flore County in Oklahoma 
where literally this is infiltrating not based on socioeconomics, the 
rich and the poor, it is affecting everyone. And one of the only tools 
that we have to fight this scourge of methamphetamine is the Byrne 
Grant Program. Under this budget, it was slashed. Once again, when we 
have the tools, we have the necessary tools, it is taken away.
  And I can think of the district attorneys and the drug task forces in 
my district that I have met with, the first responders who say, damn, 
we desperately need it. We need it in places like Heavener. And we are 
saying to them, no, we cannot do it because we are going to spend it 
somewhere else. I just wanted to give that example.
  Mr. PALLONE. I am so glad that the gentleman used that example and 
the other examples that he has been using. Tomorrow in the Energy and 
Commerce Committee we are going to have a hearing on the health and 
social costs associated with drug use, particularly methamphetamine 
use. And I just have the statistics because I am getting ready for the 
hearing. In 2000, researchers estimate the annual health and social 
costs associated with drug use, particularly methamphetamine use, was 
approximately $116 billion, $15 billion of which was attributed to 
health care costs.
  A lot of the things that we talk about here, particularly health 
care, are actually preventative. And so the Republicans think that 
somehow they are saving money. They are not saving anything because 
they are going to drive people, as the gentleman says, he is talking 
about methamphetamine, they are going to create a situation where the 
problem is going to even get worse and it is going to cost us more in 
the long run because the people that are impacted are going to get 
sick.
  I was thinking of the gentleman's dad again, and I do not want to 
keep bringing it up. But one of the things that the Republicans are 
talking about doing, this $10 billion in Medicaid cuts through 
reconciliation, the gentleman from Oklahoma pointed out that we are not 
just talking about poor people and indigent people here, we are talking 
about working people. Maybe you call them the working poor or middle 
class, I do not know what the word is, lower middle class. The Medicaid 
cuts that the Republicans are talking about mostly impact senior 
citizens who go to nursing homes, because what they are proposing to do 
is to make it more difficult for the spouse who is left behind to keep 
their home or to keep their car. They want to make the guidelines so 
that they take the money from those very people in order for them to be 
able to continue to stay in a nursing home.
  And I remember, I was thinking again about the gentleman's dad, 
because one of the things that he did was the so-called Boren 
Amendment. I do not even know if my colleague remembers that, but that 
was the one that said that the nursing homes had the ability to seek 
redress if the Federal Government was not providing enough funding for 
nursing home care, because what happened is that the quality of that 
care decreased and people became sicker, and so he wanted to have some 
enforcement mechanism to make sure that the quality of care in the 
nursing homes was still good. When the Republicans came in, they wanted 
to repeal that, of course, and they did repeal it ultimately.
  So these cuts, they directly impact people, not just indigent people. 
I am not saying we should not be worried about the poor, we obviously 
do. But a lot of the people who may not necessarily be aware of the 
fact that they are going to be directly impacted, middle class people, 
senior citizens, they are going to be impacted by these health care 
cuts. Even the student loan programs. These are not just student loan 
programs for poor people, these are middle class kids that are 
struggling. These cuts impact the majority of Americans. I mean, that 
is a fact. And I appreciate the fact that all of you are bringing that 
out, because I think it is very important.
  I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think that is 
a

[[Page 23136]]

tremendous point. The Democrats are offering up amendment after 
amendment on the floor, in committees. We have an agenda that we are 
trying to move forward here, and our agenda is pro taxpayer, and it is 
pro taxpayer because we make investments, just like you do in your home 
with your family. The best investment you can make with your kids long 
term: Education. It is going to save you money in the long run. That is 
what the Democrats want to do. We want to invest into health care and 
pay up front so that we do not have to pay more in the long run.
  The Democrats are for preventative care with the community health 
centers, with clinics, so that people go to a clinic and get the 
antibiotics that they need or the basic care that they need, the 
preventive care that they need so they do not wander into an emergency 
room 2 weeks later with pneumonia and the taxpayer still has to pay for 
it. That is smart use of the taxpayer money. Investing in the student 
loans, I have said this a million times on this floor. We had a study 
in Ohio, University of Akron. For every dollar the State of Ohio 
invested into higher education, the State got $2 back in tax money. 
That is the investment the Democrats want to make. We are playing 
offense. We have an agenda here. We are not here just to criticize, 
although we could spend a lot of time making the proper criticisms.
  Providing health care for young kids. If you do not get these kids 
health care at a young age on the Medicaid program, SCHIP, the programs 
that we want to fund, these kids are going to develop long-term 
diseases, illnesses that will cost us a lot more money. And not only 
that, if you have kids in the classroom and only half the kids have 
health care, they are going to get the kids that do have health care 
sick.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Do you know what else we are for? We are for 
honesty. We are for honesty in government. We are for ridding this 
institution of the culture of corruption that has consumed it in recent 
weeks and months.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Do not forget cronyism, please.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I was getting to cronyism, because there are a 
lot of Cs that are flying around this Chamber, including the first 
letter of the word Chamber. The gentleman from Oklahoma and I are 
freshmen, we just got here, we have been here 10 months. We have 
conversations on the floor all the time about how astonishing it is 
that this institution has a pall cast over it, that there is a shadow 
cast over this place by the culture of corruption, the cronyism, the 
ethical challenges that some of our Members face, the cronyism in the 
administration, the appointments of people who are not qualified for 
the job that they were hired to do.

                              {time}  2015

  It is time to return this government back to the honest people, back 
to the people who are in it for right reasons, back to the people who 
went into public service to make the world a better place, not to line 
their supporters' pockets, with all due respect. That is literally what 
I have watched this place become both as an outsider and now as someone 
who has become a Member of this body.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Let us reiterate that point right before we go. We 
have about 5 minutes left.
  Every cut that is being made to fund the Katrina relief is being made 
to a group of people who do not donate to the Republican majority. They 
are Medicaid recipients. They are food stamp recipients, and they are 
college students and middle-class parents who do not have a big lobby 
group here.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I just want a point of clarification. The folks 
that are going to suffer under these cuts, they do not make political 
contributions. Their only contribution is their vote to send a Member 
of Congress up here. I do not know when I go to these health care 
centers and they say, well, we had to cut 10 employees, we cannot even 
meet the people from the community that are coming in and need our help 
because the budget has been cut.
  It is the evolution of taxation. We make the cuts up here and then 
the States, they return the favor to the local folks, and they cannot 
do what they are supposed to do. The folks that are being cut and dealt 
with and manhandled by the majority on this, they do not make 
contributions to anyone. They cannot afford to. These are the people 
that are punching in and punching out every day.
  I think it is important that everyone understand the proposal that 
the majority is talking about now will do nothing but weaken the 
country. That is the bottom line. That is what it does. I want to make 
that point of clarification because even when I check my campaign 
reports, there are not a lot of Medicaid recipients there saying, we 
are writing a fat check to the Congressman. They cannot write $10 to 
the Congressman because they are too busy trying to pay for gas and the 
heating oil.
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. Speaker, actually, something that we are not talking 
about also, we are seeing all of these cuts, but at the same time there 
is a State tax increase there because you have cuts at the Federal 
level and guess who has got to bear the brunt?
  I served in the State legislature in Oklahoma before I came to 
Congress. And we had all these things called unfunded mandates that the 
other side talked a lot about, these unfunded mandates. Guess who is 
sending these unfunded mandates right now? It is the other side. They 
are sending them back to State legislatures like my home State of 
Oklahoma. And they are not only going to the States. They are going to 
the counties, they are going to the municipalities, and it is going to 
be a tax increase for the American people.
  Mr. PALLONE. The gentleman mentioned before Medicaid. Medicaid is a 
matching program, 50 percent Federal, 50 percent State. So if the 
States do not get the 50 percent from the Federal Government, they have 
to make it up themselves or drop the people completely.
  I know we are almost done so I would like to yield to the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) because he is going to give us the 30-Something 
information.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Before I give the e-mail address, the cuts at the 
Federal level, it goes down to the States. The State has to make a 
decision to raise taxes; and then it goes from the State, the State is 
pushing it down to the counties, as was said; and many of us represent 
districts, the local communities which are some of the poorest in the 
country. So those people are choosing between raising their own taxes 
that they do not have, the person who does not have $10 because of the 
energy costs and everything else, versus funding for their local school 
because No Child Left Behind is not paid for or hiring more cops 
because the COPS grant has been cut. And that is the end line.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest the Web site.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Our Web site is [email protected].
gov. We have been getting a ton of e-mails. Keep sending them. We love 
to get them.
  I appreciate the strong cast we have here and maybe tomorrow or next 
week we will be able to fill the whole Chamber up. Let us keep rolling.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I thank everybody for joining us tonight 
for a very important Special Order.

                          ____________________