[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 25358-25364]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Westmoreland). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Meek) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to address the House 
once again, and we would like to thank the Democratic leadership for 
allowing us to have one more hour on the 30-something Working Group 
tonight. We have been coming to the floor daily and mainly speaking 
recently about the budget and what effects it is going to have on the 
American people throughout this country.
  We have asked our colleagues within the working group to come to the 
floor, share some of their concerns, talk about our Democratic 
alternative, which failed in committee, not because it was not an 
alternative of merit and of commitment and making sure that we place 
ourselves in heading in the direction towards the balanced budget by 
2012, but it failed because we were in the minority. One Republican on 
the opposite side of the aisle did vote against the proposal that will 
be coming to the floor in the coming days, seeing it in a way that 
fiscal responsibility is important but making sure that we do not leave 
Americans behind who sent us up here to represent them.
  I am honored tonight to be joined by the gentlewoman from Florida 
(Ms. Wasserman Schultz) and also my good friend, the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Davis), who has been a part of this in making sure that we 
put American priorities forward. But I must say that there is a lot of 
work that needs to be done.
  Tonight we are going to make sure that the Members know and also the 
American people know exactly what they are going to be voting on coming 
the next couple of days. There will be a bill in the Committee on 
Rules, and we will have debate here on the floor; but Members need to 
know exactly what they are voting for because as we, Mr. Speaker, look 
at this bill as written, veterans are going to have longer lines, they 
are going to pay higher co-payments, they are going to pay higher 
premiums. And those individuals that are coming out of theater, some 
130,000, now we have 150-something thousand in theater of war, when 
they come back and they find themselves waiting in longer lines for 
what we promised them as it relates to health care, as it relates to 
benefits and not leaving out their families and children, I think it is 
something we need to pay very close attention to.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz).
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, it is again a pleasure to be here 
with you to talk about the issues that are important to the American 
people. I think the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) and the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) would both agree that this week 
really everything is going to come to a head. The choices that Members 
in this Chamber are going to be asked to make, more than any other week 
that I have been here, I think, are going to be emblematic of where our 
priorities are.
  The choices that we are going to have to make on this budget 
reconciliation bill, which is Washington-speak for budget cuts, is 
going to show who is for the American people in making sure that they 
can sustain a decent quality of life and who is against that concept 
and is more supportive of making sure that the wealthy can stay 
wealthy. That is really what it boils down to.
  Just to give you, Mr. Speaker, an idea, as well as anyone who can 
hear our conversation, of exactly what we are going to be asked to 
choose between this week, the Republican leadership and the Republican 
Members have been making a lot of hay about the spending cuts that they 
are going to ask us to vote for, that they are needed reductions 
because we have to do something about this deficit. And we agree. We 
agree that there needs to be something done about the deficit.
  But the difference between our approach and the Republican approach 
is that our approach would actually reduce the deficit, and their 
approach actually adds to it. If you have a little less than $55 
billion in budget cuts, yet still have 70-some-odd-billion dollars in 
tax cuts, the difference between that is $20 billion more added on to 
the deficit.
  Now, I can tell you honestly that I was not very good at math when I 
was younger and struggled with it a little bit, but that is pretty 
simple math. That is not complex. It is not calculus. It does not 
require an advanced degree. Seventy minus 50 is 20. And it is not a 
negative number. It is a positive number added on to the deficit.
  Let us demonstrate that while we are still providing $70 billion to 
tax cuts for the wealthy we are cutting the following things: for the 
sake of more tax cuts in this budget reconciliation bill, students can 
expect to pay as much as $5,800 more for college. For the sake of more 
tax cuts, 300,000 of America's neediest will be left without food 
stamps. For the sake of more tax cuts, we will fail in our obligation 
to bring hurricane victims lasting relief. For the sake of more tax 
cuts, $10 billion, $10 billion with a B, will be slashed from Medicaid. 
One in four children in America get their health care from Medicaid.
  For the sake of more tax cuts, we will ensure that the deficit 
remains high and the burden of creating more debt and paying that debt 
by our selfishness in choosing to help the wealthy at the expense of 
the people who are the most in need and the people who are just working 
every day to make ends meet, that is the debt we are passing on to our 
children and our children's children. And it is just mind-boggling to 
me. I know I am a freshman. The two gentlemen have been

[[Page 25359]]

here longer than me. Maybe I am naive. Maybe the gentleman can provide 
some clarity because to me it is simple math.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis).
  Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) for yielding.
  I am honored as always to be here with my colleague from Florida and 
my colleague from Ohio to talk about what is an enormously important 
vote on the floor of the House this week. I thank the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) at the outset for exposing one of the 
great myths behind this vote. As you know, there is a requirement that 
when we introduce bills in the House that we label the legislation, 
that we give it a title that is supposed to be roughly descriptive of 
the purpose of the bill. So we are told, well, this is a deficit 
reduction act, and I thank the gentlewoman for laying bare that myth.

                              {time}  1800

  When we finish with the tax cuts that are still being contemplated, 
dividend tax cuts, for example, in the next several weeks, and we do 
the simple math, our deficit will be worse than it is today.
  This is not a Deficit Reduction Act. Something very different is at 
stake. This is not about cutting spending, it is not about saving the 
government money; it is about a different set of values being in the 
saddle.
  All of us who are here have been in the Congress fairly recently. Mr. 
Ryan, Mr. Meek and I came here in 2003, and you joined us this year. We 
all came with this notion that we stood for a particular set of values 
about government. One of the values that we most deeply believe in is 
the idea of obligation, of strong people to weak people, of people who 
are in one place in society, being related and connected to people in a 
very different place in society.
  A lot of us ran on that, a lot of us talked about that. As strongly 
as we believe in our party, we hope that those just aren't partisan 
values. We hope that those are values that are shared all across this 
aisle, in the center, left and the right, the Democratic and the 
Republican side.
  But what is sad about this week is that a very different set of 
values are now in the saddle. You touched on some of them, but they are 
very much worth underscoring: 300,000 families in this country who are 
getting food stamps. If the majority has its way, those 300,000 people 
will lose their food stamps, not because they have committed fraud, not 
because their income status has changed in the last several years, not 
because they have been shown to not need food stamps but simply because 
a different set of values are in the saddle.
  You talked about, or you touched upon the question of child support. 
If the majority has its way, the Federal Government will walk away from 
a bipartisan commitment to help States go out and find deadbeat dads 
and enforce the laws that require people who have children to be 
responsible for them. We will see a party that styles itself as the 
party of family values walk away from that commitment. Again, it is not 
because of saving money, it is because a different set of values are in 
the saddle.
  You talked about Medicaid. For the first time, if the majority has 
its way, working-class and poor families will have to pay a premium and 
a copay for their children, who are very poor, to go to the doctor. 
When we came here, both parties believed that if you are very poor in 
this society, then your kids are entitled to health care, and, yes, 
that is a social obligation that we owe to people who are struggling. 
Now a different set of values are in the saddle, and we are told they 
have to make a copay.
  You touched on another basic matter. People who are legal immigrants, 
not illegal, not people who violate some immigration law to come here, 
but all those people who come here, played by the rules and have been 
naturalized as U.S. citizens, but have not yet shared in the bounty and 
prosperity of this country. Right now, most of them are allowed to 
receive food stamps.
  If the majority has its way, 20- to 30,000 of those people who are 
eligible will lose that eligibility, again, not to save money, but 
because a different set of values are in the saddle.
  To make a basic point about the food stamps provision in this 
reconciliation bill, $800,000, the 300,000 families will be shaved off 
the food stamp rolls, that adds up to about $844 million. $840 million 
in a $3.7 trillion discretionary budget is about one-sixteenth of 1 
percent. That is worth almost nothing to the U.S. Treasury, but it is 
the margin of survival that means almost everything to these families.
  We could go on, issue after issue. The value of the money that will 
be saved will be offset by tax cuts or is altogether insignificant. But 
the impact of those cuts is devastating to people who are watching us 
right now.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, this is the moral argument of our 
generation. I agree with you 100 percent, but I think there is an 
economic component of this, too. If we are going to be a great nation 
economically, we need to have healthy children, who are going to be 
able to go to school and learn so that they can become scientists and 
engineers, so that we can drive this economy through the 21st century.
  As much as it is a moral imperative, it is an economic imperative 
that will continue to make the United States of America a strong 
country economically and militarily.
  Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I absolutely concur with that 
point. There are two points that we will have to make constantly over 
the next 48 hours. This is not just about altruism. I wish that we 
could convince our friends and colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle just by saying it is wrong to single out the children of poor 
people for sacrifice. I wish we could convince them that this budget 
just has the wrong set of priorities on moral grounds.
  The reality is there is another equally compelling set of arguments 
we will have to appeal to, and it is the notion of our own economic 
self-interest. We already are a country where the gap between skilled 
and unskilled workers is a high one. We are already a country where the 
gap between children who are successful and children who are 
underperforming is a high one.
  We are already a country that builds all kinds of walls between our 
own people, and that is not good for our economy. It makes us less 
productive than we ought to be. It makes us less prosperous than we 
ought to be as a nation. But we can only close these gaps if we empower 
more of our people.
  That is very much what is at stake as we contemplate this vote in the 
next several days, two different visions.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I wonder, and we have asked this 
question before here, I wonder where the religious right organizations 
are that during the election were so engaged and involved in the 
Christian Coalition and promoting Christian values on a couple of 
issues. I cannot think of any more pronounced Christian values than 
taking care of those among you who cannot take care of themselves, for 
whatever reason.
  It is stunning to me, growing up Catholic and spending 12 years in 
Catholic schools with nuns and priests and brothers, that the issue of 
poverty that you see more in the Bible than probably any other social 
issue, that somehow the silence is deafening here on these issues of us 
trying to help poor people and the majority actually causing harm to 
them. All these organizations that help put these folks in office are 
lost and cannot find their way.
  I do not want to say that their membership is lost, because the 
people I go to church with, the people who represent Christian social 
organizations in my community, are very, very, very concerned about 
this.
  I would hope that in the course of the next 48 hours we are able to 
bring this to their attention so that maybe we can put a stop to this 
before it actually harms young children.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The gentleman's bringing up faith as it 
relates to this budget document is incredibly important, because our 
friends

[[Page 25360]]

on the other side of the aisle throw around family values as a term and 
as part of their make-up and try to contrast us, as if that is not part 
of ours.
  Let us just look at what the faith community is saying about this 
budget, and what they have been saying about this budget. This week, 
this past week, we had a number of members of the organized religious 
community come to Washington and urge the Republican leadership not to 
pursue this budget reconciliation document.
  You had Reverend Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners and Convener 
of Call to Renewal. You had Rabbi David Saperstein, who is the director 
of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism. You had Reverend 
Elenora Giddings Ivory, who is the Director of the Washington Office of 
the Presbyterian Church.
  What Reverend Ivory said when she was here, she said, ``I am here 
today to express concern for the Federal budget reconciliation packages 
under consideration in the House and the Senate. Our Nation is about to 
balance its budget on the backs of the poor. Is that a moral thing to 
do? The Federal budget is a reflection of what we see as important and 
primary. Does the spending package under consideration reflect a caring 
and a compassionate society? Does it reflect you as a citizen of 
faith?''
  I think that each of us, if we ask and look inside our own hearts, 
Republicans and Democrats alike, would have to answer each of those 
questions, absolutely not.
  Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, let me touch on the point the 
gentlewoman just made about faith. All of us were told different things 
and were given dictates by our faith. But one very universal view 
across all denominations that we know is this idea that you do not 
start sacrifices with the most vulnerable of our people. You do not ask 
the weakest of our people to be the first to give. You try to bring 
some moral foundation of equity to all that you do.
  Those are notions that ring across every denomination, and indeed 
nondenominations that still have ethical values in this world. What is 
striking about this budget reconciliation is that it is the first major 
government document that I have seen that says, let us ask the first 
people to sacrifice to be what Matthew would call ``the least of 
these.'' Let us ask the first people to sacrifice to be the weakest of 
our people.
  This is something that is fundamentally wrong and, again, it is at 
the heart of this debate. A lot of us in this Chamber would be open to 
a discussion about fiscal discipline. We would be open to a discussion 
about budget cuts. We would be open to a discussion about shared 
responsibility, but only if it ran across all lines. This is as 
powerful a point as I think we can make in the next several days.
  We are not asking our children to sacrifice. We are not asking the 
children of the people who go to our fund-raisers to sacrifice. We are 
asking the children of the people who cannot get in our fund-raisers 
because they cannot give $250 or $1,000 a head. We are asking the 
children of people who will never walk inside this Chamber or be able 
to spend a million dollars every 2 years to find a way to get here.
  We are asking the people who are doing the work in our country, the 
people who are waiting on the tables, the people who are driving the 
trucks, the people who are bearing a lot of the labor. We are saying to 
them, yes, your children may be on Medicaid, but we can save some money 
if we pare back our responsibility to them. Yes, your kid may need a 
student loan, but we can pare back some money. We can save some money 
if we cut and limit our responsibility to them.
  I think that this is wrong.
  The final point that I will make before I yield is this one. We have 
an obligation to talk about this debate in terms of right and wrong 
this week. This is not simply a matter of different political theories. 
It is not a matter of different economic theories. It is about a 
different value set. Some of us who have heard the word ``value'' used 
so freely in this Chamber, some of us who have heard the word ``value'' 
used so freely to label and to exclude and to stigmatize, well, this is 
about values. Even Abraham sacrificed his own children, not the 
children of others. So that is front and center for this vote.
  Mr. Speaker, I will certainly yield to the gentleman from Ohio to 
discuss something that is on our minds this week. How can we make this 
case to our colleagues, because I believe, as all of you believe that 
our colleagues that are in this Chamber are not hard-hearted, mean or 
evil people who just want to hurt folks? How do we find some way to 
make the case to them that what we are on the verge of doing violates 
every value that we have as Americans and violates every sense of 
connection that we have?

                              {time}  1815

  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think we are not alone here, and I think there 
are some conservatives who are out there who agree with what we are 
saying here. We say it all the time during our Special Orders. This is 
not a Democrat or Republican thing. This is about putting the interests 
of the country before your own particular party. That is what we are 
trying to do here.
  This is a quote from Cal Thomas, who is one of the most conservative 
columnists in the country, who says, ``Here is a suggestion to the 
Republican majority. Don't start with the poor, start with the rich.'' 
That is Cal Thomas talking.
  And let me just put this up here. This is the tax cut, my friends. 
This is the tax cut. This is what people who make over $440,000 a year 
get, and this is what our brothers and sisters get who make $20,000, 
$35,000, and $40,000. Why can we not ask these people? Why do our 
leaders not have the courage to ask these people? We know they 
contribute to their campaigns. We know they get corporate welfare. I 
bet many of these people are executives in the oil companies who got 
$16 billion in corporate subsidies. We know that. We are sure that some 
of these people who make all this money and are getting the big tax cut 
represent the pharmaceutical industry that are getting $100 million in 
corporate subsidies. We are confident that the executives of the big 
agribusinesses are receiving some of this tax cut, and they are also 
getting corporate subsidies for that.
  Why can the Republican leadership in this Chamber, in the Senate, and 
in the White House not ask these folks to give up just a small little 
wee bit of this, just a little bit of this so that we can make sure 
that Medicaid, Medicare, which is on the table in the Senate version, 
$80 billion over the next 10 years is proposed to be cut out of that. 
The Republican Study Committee wants to cut even more and push the 
prescription drug benefit back, not do anything to reduce the cost.
  We are making decisions that are hurting these people because we do 
not have the courage to ask those people who have benefited most from 
society to give just a little bit back.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If the gentleman will yield, there is a way we 
can make changes which take us in a new direction: it is election day. 
We do not have to continue down this road. We do not have to continue 
to prop up and add to the bottom line of the wealthy. We can send the 
Republican leadership home, and we can start today.
  What I think we would all like to see happen in the next couple of 
hours in Virginia, in Ohio, in New Jersey, in New York, in California, 
and anywhere else there is an election of significance, of course, all 
elections are significant, but where the more significant offices and 
contests are being held, we would like to urge all voters to go out to 
the polls tonight in those communities.
  And just to help people know, there is still time left in Virginia. 
The polls close at 7 p.m. So there is about 45 minutes left. In Ohio, 
and these are all local times, in Ohio, the polls close at 7:30. In New 
Jersey, the polls close at 8:00 p.m. In New York, the polls close at 9 
p.m. And in California, the polls close at 8 p.m. So we would urge all 
people who have an opportunity to make change in their State to cast 
their ballots today on election day. Make sure you get to your polling 
place and cast your vote to move this

[[Page 25361]]

country in a new direction so we can continue to fight to make these 
changes.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, just to transition our conversation from the tax 
cuts to the whole issue of where we are going in terms of the budget 
cuts, in addition to cuts that affect children, in addition to child 
support payments, in addition to Medicaid cuts, this budget will do 
more damage than we have ever done to people who are trying to expand 
their horizons and get access to higher education. What is unbelievable 
about these budget cuts is that in terms of higher education, this is 
the most significant cut in history being made in this budget document 
to financial aid than we have ever seen before.
  Mr. Speaker, we are joined tonight by my good friend and colleague, 
the gentleman from the great State of Missouri (Mr. Carnahan), and he 
has been a champion on this issue in trying to raise people's awareness 
of just exactly what this Republican budget document would do to people 
who are struggling to get access to higher education. I yield to the 
gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. CARNAHAN. I thank my colleague, Mr. Speaker, for yielding to me. 
It is great to join the gentlewoman from Florida and the gentleman from 
Florida and the gentleman from Ohio and this 30-Something Group that 
has really done a fantastic job to help educate Americans about the 
many challenges that are being faced here and the things we can do 
about it, the things my colleagues are taking the lead on in this 
Congress.
  I wish I could join you in age, I am a 40-something, but I am not far 
away; and like many people, I had an opportunity to really benefit from 
the student loan program, as did my wife. Even though I worked my way 
through college and my family was able to help me some, I still could 
not have done it without the student loan program.
  What I am sad to see and really concerned about is these Republican 
proposals in this budget reconciliation, which is, for those listening, 
the equivalent of us balancing our checkbook at home to figure out what 
we can afford and what we cannot. They have proposed the largest cuts 
to the student loan program in history, in history, of $14 billion. It 
is a big number. So to really bring it down to the individual student 
and family, already, even before those cuts, the average student 
typically has about $17,500 in debt. That is already. Now, on top of 
that, these proposals would add an additional almost $6,000.
  Mr. Speaker, this comes at a time when we really need to be expanding 
opportunity and at a time when we really need to be opening up access 
to higher education. We all know in our country that is the road to 
opportunity.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Absolutely. And if we look at the number of 
engineers and scientists that a lot of these other countries are 
graduating, last year alone China graduated 600,000 engineers. We 
graduated 70,000, with most of them foreign born. So to put additional 
barriers up, an additional burden or two on someone who is trying to 
construct financially a way to go to school, it makes absolutely zero 
sense economically for our country.
  Look at what the GI Bill did for this country, because we had 
educated people going out into the work force as doctors and lawyers 
and scientists and engineers. Look what the space program did. The goal 
of sending people to the Moon was to motivate and organize a country in 
math and science and physics and a variety of other areas that led to 
tremendous developments and discoveries that otherwise would not have 
been, and that led to great economic growth.
  So the gentleman is exactly right.
  Mr. CARNAHAN. We even heard in the Committee on Science, on which I 
serve, many leading CEOs from around the country came to testify before 
our committee talking about the need for innovation if we are going to 
be able to compete in this new global economy.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. There it is. That is not Kendrick Meek saying that 
or Ms. Wasserman Schultz. These are CEOs.
  Mr. CARNAHAN. Exactly. They are saying we have to really start to win 
the battle of young minds to get them into science and math education 
so that we can compete and innovate in this new global economy. This 
just takes us backwards.
  The statistics are alarming. Studies have shown that financial 
barriers alone prevent 4\1/2\ million high school students from 
attending a 4-year public university.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We actually have a chart that outlines some of 
the things my colleague is about to go over so we can make sure that 
people have it very clearly in front of them
  Mr. CARNAHAN. I would really appreciate my colleagues trying to get 
that information out. Again, I think it is important as this debate 
proceeds over the next few days and weeks ahead, some believe a vote 
could come as early as Thursday, that people back home, families, 
students, leaders in education, contact their Members to let them know 
this is not the way to address the financial needs in our country.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If my colleague wishes to go over the details 
he was beginning to talk about on the bottom of the chart.
  Mr. CARNAHAN. Certainly.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. What we try to do in this 30-something time, 
we do a lot of talking, but we also want to show people with third-
party validators and with the specifics blown up in poster-size form so 
that they have it both in graphical depiction as well as in description 
from us individually. So that was just showing my colleague that while 
he goes through just exactly what these cuts in student aid do, we have 
that up for the folks at home.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We will also post this on our Web site and make it 
available.
  Mr. CARNAHAN. And I have just been handed a copy so I can read along 
as well.
  But as we mentioned, already, even before these cuts, the average 
student has $17,500 in debt. Over the last 5 years, as if the debt were 
not bad enough, tuition is up 57 percent at public colleges, up 32 
percent at private colleges and universities, and 41 percent of college 
grads average over $3,000 in credit card debt. So, again, the 
statistics paint a very clear picture that this is not the way to go.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The gentleman is exactly correct. This is great to 
have the gentleman here because, obviously, he brings in a new 
perspective from the Science Committee, which reinforces a lot of the 
things we have been saying. So we appreciate the gentleman being here.
  One of the things we have to add onto this, as if this is not enough 
for a 22-year-old to have to overcome, $17,500 of debt, $3,000 in 
credit card debt, so you are already over $20,000 in debt before you 
even get out of school, let alone if you want to get a law degree, a 
master's or a Ph.D., or whatever it may be, would be an additional 
burden. In a weak economy that is not growing the kinds of jobs 
necessary to move our country forward and to maintain our economic 
superiority, add to that the $27,000 that every single citizen owes to 
pay the $8 trillion in debt that we have in the United States of 
America.
  Our friends on the other side, the Republican majority, had to raise 
the debt ceiling to over $8 trillion, and each citizen owes $27,000. So 
we try to put this in perspective for people who are having babies 
today, and our generation who have young kids, 2 or 3 years old. Run 
this number out 20 years. If you have a 2-year-old, run that number out 
20 years at a 57 percent increase every 5 years.
  What does that number look like 22 years from now and what does the 
debt look like 22 years from now if we keep running these huge 
structural deficits, paying interest on the loan?
  Pull it out. Get it. Get it right now. Let us get this thing up here.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Please.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Please. Show them. Go ahead. I yield to my friend.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, I want to thank my colleague from Ohio for 
yielding. The gentleman must have read it on my forehead when he 
started talking about how this Republican majority has led us into an 
area we have

[[Page 25362]]

never been before as a country. And I am not talking about leading in a 
way that Americans will be proud of the situation we are in now or how 
other countries are now looking at the opportunity of owning a piece of 
the United States, which is basically what is happening financially.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Let us lay this out real quick before my colleague 
puts the cherry on top.
  So we have $17,500 in student loan debt and $3,000 in credit card 
debt. Run that out 20-some years. A child born today owes $27,000 to 
the debt that we have in the United States of America, the $8 trillion. 
Every citizen owes $27,000.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. And change.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And some change. And we are continually running 
these structural deficits at over $400 billion to $500 billion, with a 
war and natural disasters. So we are borrowing money to pay for this.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. If the gentleman will yield, this feeds into the 
incompetence that we talk about. We talk about it, and we do not use 
the term loosely. We use it because it is well founded.

                              {time}  1830

  We take this chart out every night, and every time we get an 
opportunity to share with not only the Members on what they are doing. 
Members need to realize what they are voting on. I am not saying that 
some do not, but they have to realize what they are voting on.
  Here is basically what President Bush has done in 4 years that other 
Presidents have managed not to do in 224 years, as it relates to 
foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury debt. This statistic is from the 
United States Department of Treasury, a third-party validator. This is 
not from me or Mr. Ryan or Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
  Let me say this, $1 trillion in debt that was accumulated over 224 
years, from 1776, borrowing money from foreign governments, President 
Bush, who did not do it by himself, and I have said this before, and I 
can guarantee he could not do it by himself, $1.05 trillion in a period 
of 4 years. In a period of 4 years, he has accomplished something with 
the Republican majority that has not been accomplished by 42 other 
Presidents, 224 years in this country of having the Democrats, 
Republicans, Whig Party; and this President and this administration and 
this majority have done the job that 42 other Presidents did not do as 
relates to putting this country in the posture it is in right now.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, all of what we are saying here 
tonight has caused me to look at the view of our generation and how we 
feel about the future and the direction that this leadership, this 
Republican leadership, is taking this country.
  We did a little research in my office. President John F. Kennedy once 
implored Americans to ask not what their country could do for them, but 
what they could do for their country. Another important question that 
all of these issues raises is how all of this budget cutting and 
pulling the rug out from under college students' future leaves them 
feeling in terms of public service and what their government can do for 
people and whether they would want to be a part of that.
  So we found some research that showed just exactly how our generation 
feels about this. A 2004 Hart Research Study for the Council of 
Excellence in Government found that 34 percent of young Americans said 
the idea of a government service career did not appeal to them.
  What does that say about the confidence that this leadership is 
inspiring in our generation? Mr. Speaker, that is 34 percent. That is a 
huge number. It means they have no confidence in government's ability 
to improve people's lives.
  After 9/11, we were starting to change those statistics. You saw 
after 9/11 the incredible response of first responders and of 
volunteers. All of our hearts in America swelled after the response 
from 9/11. The polling that was done then showed that young people felt 
that the response to 9/11 made them more likely to pursue careers in 
government and the public sector. But recent events, the culture of 
corruption, cronyism, the lack of competence that has been evident 
since the inception of this administration has absolutely, in 3 years 
from 9/11, 2001, to 2004, totally turned that belief in government's 
ability to improve our lives on its head.
  Just by way of example, some things that most likely did cause that, 
let us go under the category of corruption. When young people see 
politicians, leaders of our Nation, deliberately deceiving the American 
people, an example would be the recent indictment of Mr. Libby and the 
deceptive actions of Mr. Rove. You have people who spend their lives 
serving their country; and what happens, people in the administration, 
a person for the first time indicted in 130 years that served in the 
White House, people in the administration repay them that service by 
revealing a CIA's agent covert status, jeopardizing the lives of 
countless numbers of government employees who are trying to do good 
work on behalf of the United States of America.
  Example number two of corruption: We went to Iraq under questionable 
circumstances, under false pretenses, no question about it. We send 
American men and women into the battlefield, and more than 2,000 have 
given their lives. If you ask the average person, particularly in our 
generation, if they know for what those lives were given, I do not 
think that they feel confident that they would give an answer that 
anyone would be happy about.
  Let us look at the cronyism that might have caused this shift in 
confidence in our generation. This generation of young people is 
extremely independent. They have a spirit of self-determination. They 
are less likely to identify with a political party. Most young people 
today are identifying themselves as Independents. They see political 
appointments based on friendships. The appointment of Michael Brown, 
``Brownie,'' because he was a college roommate with someone in the 
administration, with a friend of the President, being put in charge of 
one of the most important agencies in the country in terms of making 
sure that people's lives are protected as a disaster approaches and we 
can help them afterwards, we put someone in charge of that agency whose 
sum total of his experience was he was president of the Arabian Horse 
Association.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, that is what our generation is going 
to change when we take the country in another direction. It is time for 
us to start saying that we want the best and the brightest to come and 
work for our government. There used to be a day and age when government 
service, assisting your country, coming from the private sector for a 
few years and helping out and giving your time and talents to the 
government was a respected endeavor.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The bottom line is we can do better. Together 
we can lock arms. Our generation can say to the generation in front of 
us that has been leading this country, give us the baton. It is our 
turn. We are not going there any more. We want to turn this country 
around. We want to make sure our children have health care, that 
mothers and fathers when their kids get sick do not have to wait until 
their kid is so sick they have to take them to the emergency room for 
their health care.
  We do not want to cut the budget for abused and neglected children. 
We are going to continue to pursue deadbeat dads. State legislators 
have fought tooth and nail to ensure that we can continue to go after 
deadbeat dads; yet in this budget we will consider this week, that 
opportunity would be lost. We would be preventing that opportunity. The 
list goes on and on. It adds insult to injury. It cuts the school lunch 
program, which is a program that makes it so that some kids, the only 
place they can get a meal, a decent meal, is from that free and reduced 
lunch, and the Republican leadership would cut that program.
  Our generation can take the country in a new direction, and we are 
ready to.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we are ready, and we have a game plan 
to find the money.
  Why can we not go to the oil companies that we just gave $16 billion 
in

[[Page 25363]]

corporate welfare to, why can we not have the courage, why can the 
Republican leadership here not have the courage to ask the oil 
companies to give back their $16 billion in corporate subsidies to help 
pay for some of these priorities?
  Why can the President of the United States and the Republican 
leadership in the Senate and the Republican leadership in the House, 
why can they not go to the pharmaceutical companies and ask for 
reimportation for the Medicare program to help save our country 
billions of dollars?
  Why can they not allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to 
negotiate down drug prices with Merck and Pfizer on behalf of the 
Medicare recipients who are going to now be eligible for Medicare part 
B?
  The Democratic Party has a plan to get that money back from the 
corporations instead of giving it to corporate welfare and investing it 
in the United States of America so we can have more scientists, more 
engineers, more investment in research and development.
  Mr. Speaker, the average taxpayer gives us money and they trust us 
with it. They work hard. We see the top number at the top of the check 
and you see the number that you actually get to take home. There is a 
big difference whether you are on the bottom or top scale. You give us 
your money; and we need to honor that by making sure that when we spend 
it, we give that taxpayer the best value they could ever get. We need 
to assure them we are running an efficient, effective government here, 
not just wasting money and giving to our political friends, like the 
oil companies. Can you imagine with gas prices what they are now, we 
are giving oil companies $16 billion in subsidies.
  Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I have to jump in on that point and talk 
about the tale of two different numbers here. We mentioned earlier the 
number of $14 billion that was being cut, proposed to be cut out of the 
student loan program where over $14 billion has been given away in 
subsidies in these recent energy bills to the oil companies who have 
not just made record profits; they have made the largest profits in the 
history of the world.
  To me, that is such a glaring and sad example of the priorities here 
in Washington. We can do better.
  I think the American people are hungry for leaders that can inspire 
us and not divide us and talk about a future that lifts us all up. The 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) talked about the 
attitudes of young people and how they did not have a good attitude 
about public service. I hate to see that.
  There are also studies out there that for the first time in the 
history of these studies being done people believe that the generation 
after them will be worse off than they are now. To me that is just 
contrary to everything in our American values. We always want our kids 
and the next generation to be better off. So I think it is a matter of 
priorities. It is a matter of attitude, inspiration; and I think people 
are hungry for that. I think what you all are doing here in getting the 
word out is really important to give people hope that they can make a 
difference and that there are leaders here in Washington fighting for 
them.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is what we are all doing, making 
sure that not only the Members know exactly what they are doing when we 
come in and push the red and green button, and endorsing or not 
endorsing an idea or a plan. I think it is important for us to not only 
highlight the $14 billion in cuts which mean higher fees for students 
because the States have to balance. When we make those cuts, they have 
to make cuts. This is not the end of the cuts to the average student.
  When you look at higher education, college education, preparing the 
next generation, that is not just on that 20-something or 18-year-old. 
That is on the parents of that 18- or 19- or 20-year-old. That is 
another burden on their backs.
  I just wanted to mention quickly, I was reading this letter as both 
of you were sharing good information with the Members and the American 
people.
  Mr. Speaker, I am holding a letter dated November 8. It is from the 
president of AARP. AARP is the largest retirement organization here in 
the United States and also on the face of the Earth. This is from the 
CEO. What he is saying here, basically, is that they oppose the 
Medicaid cuts that are in the House bill. They are for reform, but they 
oppose the cuts.
  I just want to make sure that the Members, and one Member came from 
the opposite side, the Republican side, and said I wish my friends on 
the Democratic side would join me in voting for this budget that we 
have put forth.
  I said first you have to work on some of your own Members who have 
not come to grips on how they can vote for something that AARP is 
against.
  Basically, this letter says that AARP opposes the 2006 reconciliation 
bill now awaiting consideration before the House.

                              {time}  1845

  ``We strongly oppose the changes.'' Not that they oppose the changes. 
They strongly oppose it because they know what it will do. Basically, 
it goes on further. For example, they say: ``The House package, in 
effect, would prevent a stroke victim from entering a nursing home, 
even if there were no other alternatives, simply because she has helped 
a grandson with college tuition costs.'' This is basically where a bean 
counter would go in and evaluate the financial situation of the person 
that wants to go into a nursing home under Medicaid. They would go in 
and say, You wrote a $500 check for your grandson to go to college. You 
can afford to pay for this nursing home. We will not.
  This is not what I am saying. This is what the AARP is saying, which 
has thousands of members and is the largest retirement organization on 
the face of the Earth. It goes on to say that a private nursing home 
could evict a person, force a person out of a nursing home for a period 
of time, even after the assets were all exhausted, if they contributed 
to a hurricane recovery victim. Once again, the bean counters would go 
in under this budget. This is not fiction. This is fact. Under this 
budget, and then say they are denying them assistance in a nursing 
home. This is the reality of what is in the House budget right now.
  We talk about Veterans Day, and I am going to mention this as many 
times as I can because I think it is important, many of us, Mr. 
Speaker, are going to leave here on Thursday and go do the things that 
we need to do. Some Members have already entered into the Congressional 
Record recognizing Veterans Day observances throughout the country, the 
past contributions of our veterans. But at the same time, on the 
Democratic side what we have called for is we provided $1.6 billion 
more than the Republican budget for veterans programs for 2006 and $17 
billion over the next 5 years.
  The Democratic budget reverses what the Republican budget has put 
forth on the $798 million over the next 5 years in Republican cuts that 
they have asked the Veterans' Affairs Committee to do, not even talking 
about what they have done as it relates to cutting $14 billion over the 
next 5 years.
  So, Mr. Speaker, what this really means is that when the veterans go 
to the VA in some rural areas that some of us in this room represent, 
there are some VA clinics that are only open once a week, not because 
that is all they can do, but because they have been cut so much, they 
cannot provide the health care for the veterans, that when they signed 
up, they held up their end of the deal. We are not holding up our end 
of the deal.
  But meanwhile back at the ranch, we are giving breaks and tax cuts 
and some may call them incentives for companies that are making record 
profits in the history of the world. So when we start talking about 
these cuts, it is a reality. They are a true reality. And I just took 
the veterans out for a minute because I knew what we were talking 
about. But it is an irony that Veterans Day is Friday and Members are 
going to come here and they are going to take their voting card out, 
and they are going to put it in the machine, and they are going to look 
up to

[[Page 25364]]

see how the leadership is voting, nine times out of 10, and they are 
going to vote the way the Republican leadership has asked them to vote, 
and that is very unfortunate.
  But I want to warn the Members to take this card, and let me tell 
them, there are some people who woke up one Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. 
to vote for some representation. The people that gave Members of 
Congress this card to vote and put into these machines, I mean, it is 
not like I have a Miss Mobil in my district or I have a Mister Special 
Interest in my district. They do not cast a vote. The people that I 
represent cast a vote. So it is important that we keep that in mind, 
and I want to make sure that the Members understand, because veterans 
will be prepared and the American people will be prepared. Why do I 
have to pay more for health care because they want to make room for the 
billionaires to receive tax cuts?
  Mr. Ryan has that chart there that shows individuals that are making 
over $500,000. Let us talk about these individuals just for a minute. 
They are Americans. I do not blame them for the tax cut that they are 
getting. I blame the individuals that are continuing to build on a tax 
cut that is already there for that group of people and there is very 
little that is for the individual that is even making $91,000, a 
household that is making $91,000 to $179,000 a year. It is not fair.
  So when we have people fighting in Iraq, we have three natural 
disasters here that we are trying to manage and trying to help 
Americans bounce back from, and then at the same time we want to build 
on even more incompetence and cronyism as it relates to giving to the 
special interests, it is just unconscionable; and I hope that Members 
really weigh heavy.
  And I am just going to say this: I am from Florida, and what the 
Republican majority is asking the Florida delegation to do is to vote 
for oil drilling miles off the coast of Florida. Oil drilling miles off 
the coast of Florida. Everyone comes to Florida for what? Tourism. What 
else? They come to the beaches, from all over the world. It helps our 
Florida economy, and it helps our national economy. But yet Members of 
the Florida delegation are being asked to vote against one of the very 
principles where the Florida Everglades is located, where we have 
hundreds and thousands of miles of coastline so that when people come 
to Florida now they can step into a patch of oil and they can see a rig 
off the coast of Florida.
  That is a high order to call a Floridian to do. Both of our Senators 
are against this, I must add. We have some Members in the House that 
are going to have to go see the wizard, get a little courage and go to 
the leadership and say it is not going to happen, bottom line.
  I will tell my colleagues what I am prepared to do. As long as that 
language is in there and we are talking about drilling in the ANWR, let 
us just take our national parks, and let us just start drilling there. 
Forget about what we already know, that there is very little oil in 
many of these areas, that the oil companies just want to go out, not at 
their expense but at taxpayers' expense, and start to drill in those 
areas.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we continue to come to 
the floor to not only share with the Members but with the American 
people by letting them know what is going on in this House and what is 
not going on in this House and that there are alternatives and we are 
putting forth those alternatives in a fiscally sound way that will 
place us on the road to balancing the budget but at the same time not 
hurting the very people that some folks come to the floor saying they 
want to help.
  Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, 
the Florida delegation, and the gentleman makes a great point, has an 
obvious perspective on tourism; and they have got such natural beauty 
on their coastline that people from around the world come to visit. My 
family has been down to visit their great State. But the point beyond 
even that we believe it is the wrong thing to do in these pristine 
areas, the amount of oil that could potentially be produced is so 
small, they have to weigh what is the real cost; what are we really 
losing for generations to come in terms of our environment, and look at 
what we can do in our immediate future in terms of alternative energy.
  Again, I have to mention some of the things we hear before our 
Science Committee about the innovation and the science that has brought 
this technology. It is not something that is decades away. It is years 
away. We have already seen that with the growth of the hybrid vehicles, 
hydrogen cars, you name it. That technology is here today. Consumers 
want it, and within the decade we could have the goal to become energy 
independent, rather than investing in this older technology in pristine 
areas.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we have a 
little administrative transfer to make here.
  I yield to Mr. Ryan so he can give the Web site.
  Mr. RYAN. Mr. Speaker, it is [email protected]. People 
can send us an e-mail.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for giving 
out that Web site. That has been very useful; and we want to thank 
Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and even some Members for letting 
us know some of their thoughts.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, we would like the Democratic leadership for 
allowing us to have this honor.

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