[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 25364-25370]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          THE 30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP: DEMOCRATIC PROPOSALS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gohmert). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri 
(Mr. Carnahan) to continue his coherent and intelligent argument on 
behalf of research and development for alternative energy sources and 
alternative

[[Page 25365]]

technologies to reduce our dependence on oil.
  Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  We have that technology right here in our country. It is here today. 
So with the effort and the funding that we have put into some of these 
technologies that are hurting our environment; that have made us 
dependent and weaker as a country; that we are depending on resources 
for the Middle East instead of from the Midwest, that is the future. 
That is the direction. People are hungry to be led, to be able to get 
into that technology for their families. It is the right thing to do 
for the environment. It is the right thing to do not just for our 
economic security but for our national security interests. So that is 
the direction we have got to get to in this country.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think the 
gentleman makes a tremendous point that we try to present here. The way 
our friends on the other side run the government is not with an 
understanding of, really, what day and age it is. It is 2005. We are an 
information technology age. Government needs to be integrated, and our 
policy on alternative energy sources will strengthen our position in 
foreign policy. They are not two separate smokestacks. They are one 
coherent policy that we are trying to integrate here and say they are 
all connected.
  And I think this brings up a tremendous point about leadership, about 
the corruption and the cronyism, but directly to the incompetence. Here 
we have, directly after 9/11, a terrorist attack on the United States 
of America; and everyone in the country was looking to the President 
for leadership, and no one really knew what to do. It was this great 
moment in history, but every American citizen wanted to give something. 
They wanted to be a part of the solution.
  And many people will remember, Mr. Speaker, that the American people 
were going to blood banks. They wanted to give blood. They wanted to do 
whatever they needed to do. They were donating money to organizations. 
And the Red Cross had to say, We have enough blood. Thank you, but we 
have enough blood for now. But the American people still wanted to 
give. And there were nonprofits and foundations and all kinds of 
organizations opening up so that the American people could donate money 
to help the families and the victims of 9/11 and the policemen and the 
firemen and the emergency responders.
  The American people wanted to give. And the best challenge this 
administration can come up with, not walk to work or get a bike so we 
can reduce our dependence on foreign oil so we can reduce the chances 
of this happening again. Do my colleagues know what this administration 
asked the American people to do? The great challenge after September 11 
from this administration was go shopping. If that is not incompetent 
executive leadership at its best, I do not know what is.
  And I get upset because I think that tragic situations like that, as 
painful as they are, there is a glimmer of possibility within that. And 
we could have made it a national commitment to search for and get to a 
point where we are no longer dependent on foreign oil. The American 
people could have been rallied to that cause, to conserve. And to have 
the Vice President say that conservation is just a personal virtue, but 
has no place in the public discourse is an outrage.
  So why not, with all the political capital that this President had, 
why not say this country is going to have an Apollo project for 
alternative energy sources, for hybrid engines, for biodiesel, for wind 
and solar and everything else? We know we cannot do it today, but 
America is not about what we can do today. America is about what we can 
do tomorrow and next year and 10 years from now. And we could have laid 
out a long-term strategy of all the great possibilities that this 
country is so good at throwing out as a goal and then going after it. 
And it is a shame. It really is incompetent leadership.
  And that is one of the reasons that we come here every night. We 
could be sitting in our offices. We could be going out to dinner. But 
we choose to come here because we want to ask, Mr. Speaker, the 
American people to give us an opportunity to take this country in a new 
direction, to change what we are doing, to get this Congress and make 
it independent of all the special interests, and to end this 
incompetence, this inability to govern.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, my 
good friend from Ohio and my good friend from Missouri, the ``Show Me'' 
State, they say, we are in a situation right now where we should not be 
acting like what we call here in Congress under regular order as though 
it is just another day in Congress, another day at the office, no big 
deal, everything is fine.
  Mr. Speaker, I can tell my colleagues that we should be very alarmed. 
We should be very alarmed at the fiscal situation we are in. The 
highest deficit of the history of the Republic. We are borrowing more 
from foreign countries, breaking records. One administration breaks the 
record of 42 administrations before it. We have CIA agents being outed.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are not setting good records.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. We have CIA agents being pointed out by people 
in the White House who have the highest national security clearance to 
know what is going on throughout the world, getting daily briefings. We 
have a situation where we had Hurricane Katrina, which we have asked 
for an independent commission, not just for the affected area where 
Hurricane Katrina and Rita hit, and if we want to add Wilma, it is not 
just to deal with that. It is to make sure that we have a 9/11-like 
commission outside of the partisan commission that we have here in this 
House to look at the way FEMA and the State and local governments 
respond to natural disasters, or disasters, period.
  Now, we do not even have the ice and water situation down yet when we 
start talking about FEMA and the response to Americans in need, and I 
am going to take from Mr. Ryan, taxpayers when they are in need. We do 
not have that down. Not if, but when a terrorist attack happens in 
another city here in the United States, what will be the response from 
the Federal, State, and local governments? I am on the Homeland 
Security Committee, and I have come to the conclusion that we are not 
ready, regardless of what the Secretary says, regardless of whatever 
podium the President wants to get on in the situation room and say that 
we are ready. We are not ready.
  Even if someone had an alcohol problem, the first sign of recovery is 
saying first we have a problem so that we can work on the problem and 
start cutting through the egos, cutting through the bureaucracy, 
because people need help, and we need to be there for them. So we 
should be alarmed. We should be alarmed about what is going on and what 
is not going on in this country, and it should be something that 
Americans should be very concerned about.
  The majority side beats their chests. They give floor speeches, 
tearing up and voice cracking, talking about how they love the troops; 
but meanwhile here in Congress less than 48 hours from now, many of 
them are going to put their voting card in the machine that I took out 
earlier in the last hour and they are going to vote against making sure 
that veterans are able to get health care in a timely manner, making 
sure that individuals that are financially challenged in our country 
have some level of health care, making sure that students pay more and 
their parents pay more and their grandparents pay more.
  So we have a scenario where we have a family that is financially 
challenged trying to make sure the first person, whether it be black, 
white, Hispanic, or Asian, is trying to better their bloodline by 
saying we make sure we send the first member of our family to college.

                              {time}  1900

  We want to make sure that my daughter can become an engineer, as

[[Page 25366]]

we have very few female engineers in this country. I want to help. We 
are going to ask our family to pool in. If grandma is on Medicaid and 
she wants to go into a nursing home, the bean counter is going to come 
and say, well, you wrote a check to Warren County Community College for 
your grandson, so that means you do have some disposable income. And 
this is from the AARP letter, this is not the Kendrick Meek report. 
Then she will be denied the opportunity to go into a nursing home. This 
is callous, and it is un-American.
  So I want to make sure that the Members know exactly on the other 
side what they are doing, when they are doing it, because I am going to 
tell you something. It is not going to be a well-kept secret here in 
Washington, D.C., and it will not go away. We will continue to remind 
not only them, but the American people, Mr. Speaker, of the fact that 
they took their card and they voted against those very things, and 
other things.
  They are asking Floridians to vote for drilling off the coast of 
Florida, I mean, the place where the Everglades is located. People 
travel across the world to come to Florida, across the world to come to 
the beaches and to the Everglades. We want to drill there; that is what 
this budget is saying. So many of the members of the Florida 
delegation, when I say the majority are Republican, they are going to 
have to make a real hard decision, and it is something that we must 
encourage those Members to vote for our alternatives.
  So should we be alarmed? We should be alarmed. There should be a line 
of Democrats and Republicans outside the door of this Chamber. I will 
tell my colleagues this: there still has not been a mumbling word from 
the said committees that have oversight and something to say about who 
has a national security clearance and who does not. I think it is 
pretty evident from reading the indictment that there are some 
questionable issues there as it relates to folks in the White House 
maintaining their national security clearance.
  The President's response to it? Do not take it from me; take it from 
his own lips of what he said in The Washington Post and other 
publications that are out there. The President has ordered the White 
House staff to attend a mandatory briefing beginning next week on 
ethical behavior and the handling of classified material.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I would suggest, I say to the gentleman, that it is a 
little late.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Missouri, I 
yield to him.
  Mr. CARNAHAN. In Missouri they have a saying that the cow is already 
out of the barn, I say to my colleagues, and that certainly applies to 
this situation here.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, again, I am pleased to join the younger 
Members, both in age, I want to be very clear about that, as well as 
time and service, if you will, in this House. I was back in my office, 
and I apologize for being somewhat late, but I had business to attend 
to.
  I heard my colleagues talking and having this conversation relative 
to Medicaid. But being, if you will, the senior Member, and I would 
acknowledge honorary member of the 30-something Group, I really felt 
compelled to leave my office and come here and address the issue of 
Medicare, since shortly I will be receiving my Medicare card. It is a 
year or so away, but I am really getting close. I think it is important 
to remind senior citizens that they are at risk in this budget process. 
Now, we do not know what is going to happen, but we know that there 
have been a variety of proposals out there.
  Now, it is my understanding that the other branch of Congress has 
concluded the budget process and has made cuts in regards to Medicare. 
Can any of my colleagues help me in terms of what the order of 
magnitude of those cuts are to Medicare and what does it portend, what 
does it mean in terms of services and health care for senior citizens 
in this country, if the Senate cuts should prevail?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I can say that it is within the 
billions, and some may say it deals with HMO administrative costs, but 
they will affect the delivery of services, managed care services to 
many of the people that are in the managed care area.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Maybe the gentleman can help confirm what I just heard 
when I was in the cloakroom, and that is over 10 years, it is $40 
billion that is reduced from Medicare. Obviously, we are not consulted, 
and it is not something that we would support. But what does it mean in 
terms of actual delivery of health care services to seniors? What does 
it mean? Has anyone explained this to older Americans who need 
Medicare?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I will tell my colleague right now, 
higher copayments, higher premiums, and benefits are going to be 
reduced. That is the bottom line. It does not get better for the 
seniors; it gets worse. It gets better for those who are on the side of 
the Republican majority, because I am going to tell you right now, if 
you are a special interest group, you do not even have to grab the mike 
and come to committee. Do not worry. The leadership on the opposite 
side of the aisle, they have your back. Do not worry, do not say 
anything, oil industry. Billionaires, do not say anything; we have you. 
We are going to make sure you are okay. Do not worry about it; you do 
not have to fight.
  They were talking about a group within the Republican Conference, or 
I should say it is the entire Republican Conference, that has come up 
with a budget that is making cuts across the board for everyday 
Americans. Not a mumbling word, not a mumbling word about billionaires. 
The gentleman from Ohio just had a chart up of Americans making over 
half a million dollars. Not a mumbling word to just say, you know, we 
need 3 percent of what we have given you to not only balance the 
budget, but soften the cuts on everyday Americans.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The gentleman is talking about the Medicare cuts to 
our seniors.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Not Medicaid, but Medicare.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Medicare, the health care program for our senior 
citizens, our grandparents, our parents. And the gentleman is talking 
about the Senate making $40 billion in cuts.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Over 10 years.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Over 10 years. This is the same time that the 
Republican Conference wants to pass $70 billion in tax cuts; and we 
know when they give tax cuts, who they give them to. But I think it is 
important, because I forget the number of what the Republican 
Conference here in the House wants to cut Medicare to, and what that 
number may be.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I am confused. Again, maybe one of my colleagues or 
somebody could contact my office or contact the Web site and explain to 
us what it will mean in terms of the delivery of health care to older 
Americans if that $40 billion cut is accepted.
  Let us remember, by the way, and I think we really should acknowledge 
our respect for a group of Republicans that comprise the Republican 
Study Committee, there are in excess, I understand, of 100 Republican 
Members who belong to this particular group who have the political 
courage, and I think we should acknowledge that, to stand up and say, 
if they had their way, they would really cut Medicare.
  This is their proposal: they would increase Medicare part B premiums 
from 25 to 30 percent. What that translates into, my friends, is a cut 
over 10 years of $85 billion to Medicare, imposing a huge burden on 
seniors.
  But that is not the end of what the Republican Study Committee budget 
would do. They would restructure Medicare's cost-sharing requirement 
over a 10-year period; that would be an $87 billion cut. They would go 
further by imposing a home health care copayment of 10 percent, and 
that translates into almost a $32 billion cut.
  Now, if my math is correct, that amounts to, or that is a cut over 10 
years, that this particular group would embrace, in excess of $200 
billion to Medicare.

                              {time}  1915

  Now, maybe you can help me. I keep hearing how health care costs are 
continuing to rise and are escalating. And

[[Page 25367]]

yet, this particular group, the Republican Study Committee budget, if 
their plan was adopted while health care costs are increasing, they 
would reduce Medicare funding by $200 billion according to the budget 
that they announced several months ago in terms of what they were 
calling Operation Offset.
  Now, obviously, we would never, I cannot imagine a single Democrat 
supporting that particular approach, but I think, Mr. Speaker, we 
should acknowledge the courage that they have, or not courage, but at 
least their willingness to be open and transparent and provide us with 
their blueprint for America, despite the fact that I do not think there 
is a Democrat, I know there is not a Democrat that would support it. 
But what do all these cuts mean?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I wonder, I wonder why they would cut Medicare to 
the tune of $200 billion.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Over 10 years
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Over 10 years. I wonder why they would not go to 
the oil companies and ask them to give back their billions and billions 
and billions in subsidies. I wonder why they would not go and ask the 
pharmaceutical companies.
  But what really strikes me as odd as you talked about the premium 
going up and the copay going up. I wonder if the health care we have 
given to Iraqis, I wonder if they are asking them for a copay. I wonder 
if they are asking the Iraqi citizens who are getting free universal 
health care in Iraq for a copay. Does anyone know? Because I do not 
know.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I believe the Iraqis have universal health care. 
They have universal health care.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I do not think there is a copay or anything
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. No, it is universal health care. It is something 
that we talked about here, and it just did not happen
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. So we are cutting health care, we are increasing 
the copays, increasing the premiums, but yet giving, we have created a 
welfare state in Iraq, in which we are not even asking the Iraqis to 
pay a copay or pay their premium.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, if I can ask a question, who is paying for the 
creation or the establishment of all of those primary health care 
centers in Iraq? Who is paying for that?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. The American taxpayer, Mr. Delahunt. The 
American taxpayer is paying for it.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, if I can, when will that money be paid back to 
the American taxpayer?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yeah, because I thought they said that we could, 
did they not say something about loaning them? Well, we wanted to loan 
them the money, right?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. The American people have been told a lot of 
things as it relates to what is going to happen and what is not going 
to happen in Iraq. They have been told a lot of things. We have been 
told that the oil will pay for reconstruction, the oil will pay for 
military costs; and I can tell you right now what is very unfortunate. 
We have men and women, I have 21 military installations in my State 
alone, three combined, three unified commands in my State. We have a 
number of Guard and Reserve troops. We have 80,000 active duty 
individuals in my State, servicemen and women, including their 
families, and a number of them are deployed at this time.
  Some of them are engineers that are working in Sadr City and, you 
know, doing infrastructure work and fresh drinking water and building 
schools and doing all of that. We had them before the Armed Services 
Committee the other day. But as it relates to the incompetence and the 
cronyism of contracting, and the abuse and the awarding of incompetence 
and cronyism, that is overshadowing the work that these men and women 
are doing on the ground.
  They are saying, No one is paying attention to what we are doing. And 
I said, Yes, there are some people that are paying attention to what 
you are doing, and you are doing a fine job.
  One thing I can say about the military, they do what they are told. 
If their country tells them to do something, they do it. It is not, 
well, you know, I do not know. Maybe I will do it. No, that is not the 
case. No, they do it. And that is the reason why, regardless of how you 
may feel, you know, about the reasoning behind why we are in Iraq or 
not, we have got to respect those individuals. I do not see anyone that 
does not.
  But when you have the incompetence and the cronyism from the top, 
from the folks that are wearing the suits and ties and being driven 
around here in motorcades making the decisions, it squashes the 
goodwill that those men and women are doing. And so it is important for 
us to really pay attention to these secret areas of torture that our 
taxpayer dollars are involved in.
  Someone may say, well, those are potential terrorists or they are 
identified terrorists. Why would we care about how they are treated or 
if they are tortured? This is the reason why you care. And I want to 
make sure the Members understand this. You care when a U.S. soldier is 
caught or detained by an insurgent, that they will not be treated in a 
way that is inhumane, that they will not be tortured and that we do not 
have to see on the 6 o'clock news a family crying because they fear 
that they will go through some of the acts that have taken place in 
secrecy under this administration.
  It goes to the incompetence. It goes towards making sure that you 
carry out your leadership acts. And there have been cries, fortunately, 
out of this Congress denouncing that kind of activity.
  When we talk about what the American people have been told, that is a 
big part of the problem. The American people are not being leveled 
with. What we are saying on this end, on this side of the aisle, is 
that we can do better together and we are stronger together when we 
work together; and we are willing, and the record has shown, in a 
bipartisan way.
  And we talked about Social Security. We talked about how Tip O'Neill 
and Ronald Reagan came together to save Social Security in a bipartisan 
way, not, you know, Tip O'Neill going off in his corner and saying, We 
will let you in on it when we feel like it, after we have it written, 
okay? Or President Reagan at the same time saying, Well, I do not have 
the authority of the legislative branch but through an executive way I 
am going to make you do it the way I want you to do it. Conversations 
went on not just over coffee, but over U.S. policy, and that is not 
what is happening right now, gentlemen.
  When this budget, if it passes this House and they go into what we 
call a conference committee with the Senate budget and the House 
budget, I guarantee you, I guarantee you $20, and I am not too much of 
a betting man, but I am going to tell you this. I guarantee you that 
the Democratic conferees that are supposed to be at the table will not 
be invited. It will not be a conference.
  You can talk to Mr. Rangel, the ranking member of Ways and Means. He 
is walking around here, they are saying they are meeting in conference. 
What? No one told me about the meeting; I did not get a notice.
  We talk about the spirit of the House. We have to make sure that we 
move in a way that the American people want us to move. This is truth, 
not fiction.
  When the gentleman from Massachusetts talks about what we are being 
told, there are a lot of things we are being told. It is just not true. 
We were told that the White House had nothing to do with the outing of 
the CIA agent. Then later we find out that they had everything to do 
with outing a CIA agent.
  Not one member of the administration subpoenaed, not one person 
called from The White House to this House of Representatives and the 
said committees to answer the question, how could this happen? Why has 
it happened? Not one individual, outside of Mr. Libby, who I would 
assume that his national security clearance has been taken by now, has 
been called on the carpet on other information that has leaked out of 
the White House that has jeopardized national security.
  This is serious stuff.
  So when we talk about what people are saying, or what we are being 
told,

[[Page 25368]]

the real issue and the reason why the American people sees the 
President at a 37 percent approval rating and this Republican-
controlled House is between 35 and 31, that is the reason why, because 
they don't believe what we tell them, especially on the majority side, 
because it ends up not being the truth once it is all ironed out.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, there are some things that we do know. We know 
this, that there was a debate on this floor several years ago where 
billions of dollars were appropriated to rebuild Iraq. And those of us 
on the Democratic side supported that funding, if, if it were going to 
be provided in the form of a loan because we were concerned about 
American taxpayers being repaid their money. But the Republican 
leadership, at the insistence of the White House, said, No way; we are 
going to give this money to Iraq.
  So what we have done, and I think there is an irony here, we have 
provided free of charge, no interest, no money to be returned, we have 
provided good health care for Iraqis. We have built 110 primary health 
care centers. We have educated 2,000 health care professionals. We have 
vaccinated 3.2 million children. And I think we all applaud that and 
support that.
  We have rehabilitated 2,700 schools. We have paid the salaries and 
trained 36,000 teachers in Iraq. We have provided $1 billion for safe 
drinking water and we have marshland restoration initiatives going on 
in Iraq.
  We have built, or we have completed some 3,100 community action 
programs. We have provided millions for the construction of housing and 
public buildings for Iraqi citizens. We have rebuilt railways for 
Iraqis.
  And you know what else we did? We rehabilitated a canal system. We 
built a dam, a beautiful dam, a dam that will hopefully serve well the 
Iraqi people. We built this dam in Mosul. At the same time, we are 
cutting millions from the Army Corps of Engineers, including funding 
for levee construction in Louisiana, Mr. Speaker, in Louisiana. We did 
that free of charge.
  Now, we support it. But you know what? We would hope, given the 
abundance of energy reserves that the Iraqis have that they would pay 
us back once they get on their feet. But, no, you know, here is the 
President that said he didn't believe in nation building. I did not 
know he was talking about America. But he must believe it when it comes 
to Iraq. How about doing it for our fellow citizens in Louisiana and 
Mississippi and Texas that have been devastated by natural disaster?

                              {time}  1930

  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am just so sorry. I know we have 
two other colleagues here who are very respectful Members of this body, 
but I just cannot let this moment pass. The fact that we are forgiving 
from the beginning, we forgave the money that we gave to Iraq and the 
money that we continue to spend in Iraq, which we have appropriated the 
largest U.S. embassy in the world in Iraq; but let me just make this 
point here.
  Katrina, Rita, Wilma. Those Americans that were identified to receive 
individual assistance when they called that 1-800 number, FEMA, 
something FEMA, you know what they get back when they say when they 
filed for FEMA assistance? They do not get a check back immediately. 
They get an application from the Small Business Administration to fill 
out for a loan when they are on their knees. You fill out that loan 
application first. And if, and this is a big if, if you do not qualify 
for that Small Business Administration loan, then FEMA comes and they 
actually try to figure out how much money they can grant--you what they 
call ``mitigation''--to put your house back together.
  So for billions of dollars, 87 billion-plus continuing to give and 
there will be another supplemental soon for not only the troops but 
also to pay for other operations in Iraq with companies like 
Halliburton and other companies that are under investigation that are 
enjoying Katrina contracts right now, we are asking Americans when they 
are on their knees to fill out a loan application.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. It is worse than that. You know what is happening in 
Louisiana, Mr. Speaker? You know what is happening? They have got a 
bill for $4 billion. That is the estimate. If they want help from the 
Federal Government they have got to come up with some $4 billion. I 
think it was the State treasurer there that requested the estimate, and 
he said we asked for a grant. We asked for a grant, and they gave us a 
loan. And yet we are doing the opposite in Iraq.
  As a Nation, a government, your primary obligation or responsibility 
goes to your own people. That is what we should be doing. And the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is so right.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we do not swear to the Iraqi 
Constitution. We do not come here to represent the Iraqi people. First 
and foremost it is the United States. So you are telling me that we are 
giving money to the Iraqis, grant money; but if we have a natural 
disaster in the United States, we ask the American citizens to fill out 
a form so they can maybe get a loan. And if an American citizen wants 
to go to college, they got to take out a loan.
  So we are loaning money to the American people so our kids end up 
with $17,500 in college debts because we loan them the money; but when 
it comes to Iraq, we have created a welfare state.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. But they want $4 billion from the State of Louisiana, 
and the State of Louisiana's annual budget is $8 billion. So half of it 
would go to the Federal Government so that Louisiana can get relief 
from their Federal Government. That just does not make sense.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And at the same time we are giving money away, and 
I know my good friend from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan) wants to make a 
point. At the same time we are giving this money away to Iraq, it is 
not like we have it. We are borrowing money from other countries. This 
President has borrowed more money from other countries in the last 4 
years than this country has borrowed from other countries in the last 
224 years.
  So let us get this straight, the Republican majority in the House, 
the Republican majority in the Senate, and the Republican President, 
who have all been in charge the last 4 years, have borrowed more money 
from foreign countries and then they give it to foreign countries. They 
give it to Iraq. That is unbelievable to me when at the same time we 
have American citizens who need a little bit of assistance on college 
tuition, but they got to go borrow the money.
  Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I have got to jump in here. The point that 
I think we all saw in the aftermath of the hurricanes was the 
incredible spirit of the American people rising to the occasion when 
their government, the people in charge of our government now, frankly, 
did not live up to the expectation and that spirit of the rest of the 
country.
  And the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) was talking about 
rebuilding. What about rebuilding the damaged relations all around the 
globe that have occurred because of the way we got into Iraq? We are 
going to be dealing with that for years and years to come. Not only is 
it hurting us economically but hurting us in terms of our relationships 
around the world, and that affects us here at home in what we can do.
  But it gets back to the issues we have talked about tonight about 
priorities in leadership, and there is such a disconnect with this 
leadership. They are so out of touch.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This Republican leadership.
  Mr. CARNAHAN. Right. This Republican leadership is so out of touch 
with the American people. When we all go home and talk to our 
constituents, we get an earful. They want to see people connected with 
the people back home, and that is our job, especially in this body that 
is the closest representative body in the Federal Government.
  That is our job. We work for the people back home. And if we are not 
speaking out and speaking up to implement that here in these programs, 
whether it is Iraq, whether it is rebuilding the gulf, whether it is 
this

[[Page 25369]]

budget reconciliation, it is about priorities and expressing those 
people's beliefs here; but that is not getting through with this 
leadership.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I am almost afraid to have this outfit 
that we have in charge here, Republican majority and the Republican 
running the executive branch, I am almost afraid to have them go out 
into the international community to try to rehab our relationship 
because their solution is to just throw money at the country and just 
give them grant money, taxpayer money. That is their only solution. A 
stronger America begins right here at home. We need to do this together 
because it is only together that America can do better.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. And that is the reason why we are here on this 
floor. Many Members have gone home and they are having dinner or 
watching some sort of program in prime time, but we opt to be here 
letting not only the Members know, Mr. Speaker, but also the American 
people know what is happening in this House. We want to bring true 
meaning to the fact that this is the people's House. We want the 
American electorate and Members to know that the people of the United 
States of America elected us to be here to represent them.
  We may be from different districts, but we have been federalized by 
the fact of our elections to represent all Americans. And the question 
that is before us now is what kind of government do you want? Do you 
want a government that is going to set the stage, a stage for a 
grandmother to make the decision if she is going to contribute to her 
grandson's or granddaughter's college education in jeopardy of losing 
her Medicaid benefits for nursing home care if she needs it? Are we 
going to set the stage for a veteran who wants to see an 
ophthalmologist who has to wait 3 months now, maybe 6 months?
  Are we going to ask legislators from environmentally sensitive States 
to jeopardize the very trademark of their State on behalf of special 
interests to drill oil just miles off the coast? Is that the kind of 
leadership that we want? Do we want the kind of leadership that is 
willing to protect those industries, the industries that make record 
profits, not we are just making it or we are just barely holding on and 
we need some assistance or an airline bail-out? It is not that. It is 
individuals eating lobster and steak and telling the shareholders it 
has never been better ever in the history of the world.
  But better yet, you are going to come to the people's House, or what 
is supposed to be the people's House, take the taxpayers' dollars, put 
it in your pocket while you hold on to your profits in this pocket and 
for you to expand and continue to prosper, that you are going to do it 
on the backs of everyday Americans that are paying taxes, need it be 
Democrats or Republicans.
  We should be very alarmed. Americans should be very concerned, and we 
should every day in this 109th Congress rise up every time we have the 
opportunity to give voice to those individuals that have sent us here 
or those individuals that wish that their Congressman or Congressperson 
would stand up on their behalf.
  We challenge those individuals in the majority to make the right 
decision. Make the right decision, because history will reflect on what 
each and every one of us did in this moment, in this time when you are 
cutting school free and reduced lunch for poor children. I mean, I am 
not a preacher or anything, but I am here to tell you for poor children 
and then walk around chestbeating that we are balancing the budget and 
just a couple of weeks from now going to try to pass a tax cut on 
behalf of who? Not the people that you have just taken from, but the 
people who are receiving benefits on the backs of the people that you 
just took from.
  So it really does not make sense. The only thing that really makes 
sense here is the fact that those with financial power not only in this 
country but in this city and the special interests that they are going 
to get what they want, bottom line. And if you question it, you are in 
the line of fire. So when you start looking at this very real 
standpoint of what we may call the ``political two step,'' I may say 
the political look left, we are going right or look right we are going 
left. The bumper sticker theme politics that are there, we have to make 
sure that we break this thing down for people who are not voting 
politics over principle, but they are voting principle over politics. 
And that is Democrat, Republican and Independent. These are the things 
we have to focus on.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. So let us see if we can tie this all up. Our 
country gives billions of dollars in corporate welfare to the most 
profitable industries in the world that are having the most profitable 
quarters in the history of mankind. They are then giving tax cuts that 
go primarily to the top 1 percent, who are probably executives of the 
oil companies and the pharmaceutical companies.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Half a million dollars.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Half a million dollars and up. So you get corporate 
welfare from the public taxpayer. Then you get tax cuts for people 
making more than half a million dollars. And then the money that does 
get sent here, we give it to Iraq and create a welfare state. And then 
we do not even have the money to give away; we go and borrow it from a 
foreign country. We have borrowed more money in the last 4 years from a 
foreign country than we have in the last 224 years.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. China.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. From China, from Saudi Arabia.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. What the gentleman is saying in effect is that we are 
borrowing money from China so that we can create a welfare state in 
Iraq. We have become a conduit. That in very simple terms is what is 
happening because we are borrowing our way into bankruptcy to cut taxes 
and to support programs, not for American citizens, but for Iraqis who 
deserve this help but at least should be required to pay it back. That 
is what it comes down to. Meanwhile, our own citizens in the States, 
particularly the gulf States, they have to ask the Federal Government 
for help; and what they hear is, we will give you help, but it will 
come in the form of a loan. You have got to do matching funds.
  I think we have got to be friends to our Republican colleagues too, 
because there are many Republicans that have spoken out about the 
incompetence of what has transpired in Iraq, have spoken out about the 
folly of the approach to the war.
  Senator Pat Roberts from a neighboring State to Missouri and Kansas, 
back in May of 2004, that is a year and a half ago, he made this 
observation, now he is a Republican, a respected Republican: ``We need 
to restrain our growing U.S. messianic instincts, a sort of global 
engineering where the United States feels it is both entitled and 
obligated to promote democracy by force if necessary.''

                              {time}  1945

  That comes from a highly respected Republican, and yet what do we 
hear from the White House? We have to stay the course, but please, 
please temper can the White House not just stand up and say that we 
were wrong? We have heard other individuals say that. They would gain 
respect.
  Senator Lugar, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, a 
highly well-respected Midwestern Republican senator, this is what he 
had to say back in September of last year: ``Our committee heard 
blindly optimistic people from the administration prior to the war and 
people outside the administration, what I call'' and these are his 
words, ``the `dancing in the street crowd' that we just simply will be 
treated with open arms. The nonsense of all that is apparent. The lack 
of planning is apparent.''
  You know what? Now, we face another scandal. We have heard about 
scandals in the past 6 months to a year. We talk about special 
interests on this hill, but there is a scandal brewing out there, and 
the American people are going to discover it.
  It was reported by two very conservative journalists in the 
conservative paper, the Washington Times. Let me quote for just a 
minute: ``The Bush administration is facing another scandal that is 
quietly bubbling away in the background as most press attention is 
focused on the'' Plame affair.

[[Page 25370]]

  ``Defense officials tell us the scandal involves massive corruption 
in Iraq related to U.S. and international funds meant for 
reconstruction efforts and the failure of the administration to 
control'' and monitor ``those funds.
  ``The officials say conservative estimates put the amount of stolen 
money at about $9 billion, and that it could be as high as $15 
billion.''
  So you know what, many of those projects that we had hoped to do to 
build a Nation, to build a Nation in Iraq, that money went into 
somebody's pockets. It was the wild West, and you know what, I, as 
ranking member, the senior Democrat on the subcommittee in the 
Committee on International Relations dealing with oversight and 
investigations, have asked repeatedly, let us investigate, let us 
conduct oversight hearings into what has happened to that money. And 
you know what I hear?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. That is what you get. You are hitting it right 
on the head.
  Here is the real issue here. In the Armed Services Committee, you 
start talking about strategy for success or you start talking about an 
exit strategy or what is the strategy, what is the coalition strategy, 
it is why are you asking questions? What you are talking about? Cutting 
and run? No. We are talking about running responsible government. That 
is what we are talking about.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Are you a patriot? Are you hearing that?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Are you a patriot. Are you with them or are you 
with us. It is to assault individuals from asking the questions 
constitutionally we are supposed to ask. To say that on the expiration 
date we have is a carton of milk is really it is not a question of the 
expiration date. It is a question of since we have a coalition of other 
countries and single digits, as they may be, of those individuals that 
have pulled out, since we have those individuals there, what is our 
strategy of being able to exit? Is it to train Iraqi troops? Okay. We 
have been doing that now for just under 2 years now. We are still under 
the numbers and they are not ready yet, and we still have a lot of work 
to do.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. How long does it take to train a Marine?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. It does not take 2 years.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. That is right.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am going to tell you that it is 
important that we do start asking some of the tough questions, that we 
do start pressing the card.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. The entire country wants to have those questions posed, 
and let us be fair. There are Republicans, there are noted 
conservatives. We all know William F. Buckley, the founder of the 
Nation, a respected conservative journalist. When he heard what he has 
heard, he made this statement: If I knew then, meaning around the time 
of the debate on the war resolution, what I know now about what kind of 
situation we would be in, I, William F. Buckley, would have opposed the 
war.
  That should resonate among the Republican leadership and particularly 
the White House, but they do not want to acknowledge that they have 
made mistake after mistake after mistake and are compounding it, are 
driving our economy into a structural deficit in an order of magnitude 
that we have never seen, that we will never get out of, and most 
importantly, the lives that have been lost and the men and women that 
are permanently damaged by this war of choice.
  Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, that just 
reminds me of something that I think really fits right in with this.
  One of my favorite figures in history is President Harry Truman who 
was from the great State of Missouri. I know that does not surprise you 
that he would be my favorite President, but he is a great figure to 
learn about responsibility. He had that famous plaque on his desk that 
said, ``The buck stops here.'' He was not about blaming somebody else 
or hiding things from the American people. He stood up and told it like 
it was.
  The other thing we learned from Harry Truman was about 
accountability. He was kind of an obscure Member of Congress that 
started something called the Truman Commission that began to review how 
we spent massive amounts of money through the war effort, but to do it 
in such a way that was pro-military, to be sure our troops got what 
they needed, to be sure that the taxpayers were getting a fair deal 
with how we were spending that money and that these moneys were being 
accounted for.
  This administration does not want that kind of scrutiny but we need 
that. Eventually, we are going to get that, but it has been delayed and 
put off, but the American people demand that. They deserve that, and I 
think leaders in the Democratic party are going to be sure we get to 
that point.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Especially when Halliburton stock has doubled. I 
mean, all this is going on and Halliburton's stock's doubled.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. No-bid contract.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. No-bid contracts. They just get money thrown at 
them.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Taxpayers' money.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the end result is not a good one. It 
is not an effective use of the taxpayers money.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. They were going to try to pull the same thing in the 
gulf States. They were doing the same thing. They were importing the 
same practices from Iraq that have resulted in this incredible brewing 
scandal. They were going to do the same thing right here in the gulf 
States, but you know what, the American people have caught on and they 
are backing off.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is why we want the independent Katrina 
commission, so we could make sure we figure out what we are doing, but 
we fear that when we start pulling off the onion piece by piece by 
piece, that we are going to end up finding out what is going on in 
Iraq, and it will be a tremendous waste of the taxpayers' money.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, what we need is the Congress to reassert 
itself, coming together on a bipartisan basis and demanding oversight 
because, you know what, this administration is the most secretive 
administration in all of American history.
  Let me make one final quote, to take one final quote from another 
Republican, from the Midwest, from the farm belt, Senator Hagel from 
Nebraska. He had this to say back in 2004. This is not a Democrat. This 
is his language. This administration has seen Congress as an enemy and 
a constitutional nuisance. The world right now is in trouble, and we 
need to have a Congress and a President and an executive branch that is 
working together. Amen.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Amen.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, let me just on another note that I 
know we all share. Our hearts and prayers go out to those tornado 
victims in the Knight Township in Indiana and other victims of that 
tornado. Mr. Speaker I know that the whole House, we are in solidarity 
with hopefully their fast recovery from this natural disaster, and with 
that, I know that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) has the honors of 
the Web site and closing us out.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yes, sir. [email protected]. Send us 
your ideas, your comments, your thoughts. We appreciate them. We do 
read what you send in. We are going to be introducing some new 
methodology in the next week or so. [email protected]. We 
thank our good friend from Missouri for joining us tonight.

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