[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 26032-26037]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is recognized for 
half of the remaining time until midnight.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We appreciate the 
opportunity to be here again representing the 30-Something Working 
Group. I want to thank Leader Pelosi for the opportunity, our favorite 
uncle, Bill Delahunt, who is here from Massachusetts, also Kendrick 
Meek from Florida, Debbie Wasserman Schultz from Florida, who are also 
members of the working group and will be here in just a few minutes.
  We want to welcome, Mr. Speaker, everyone to the first-ever 30-
Something Live, in which we will be interacting not only with other 
Members of Congress here, not only with the audience, C-SPAN audience, 
but also with our friends in the blogosphere. And we will be 
interacting with them, reading e-mails that they will be sending to us, 
as we have been receiving e-mails from our constituents in our offices 
for years on Capitol Hill.
  But this is the first time ever that there will be interaction 
between Members of Congress on the House floor and at the same time 
constituents and citizens of the United States of America having direct 
access to this Chamber. So we are very, very excited about introducing 
30-Something Live. Being the 30-Something Group, we are trying to take 
our communications to the next level, trying to reach out to the 
American people, because we have said for quite some time that if we 
are going to solve problems in this country, that we have to engage the 
best and brightest talent that is out in the country in order to do 
this.
  So we are not only going to answer your questions, Mr. Speaker. We 
are going to take suggestions as to issues that need to be addressed, 
ideas that folks may have at home. And this is a pretty exciting time 
for all of us.
  We have been joined here with our friend from Florida, Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz. And this is going to be the first ever. So this is pretty 
exciting stuff.

[[Page 26033]]


  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. This is really amazing, and I guess, you know, 
it would not be a surprise. It was an excellent suggestion on your 
part, Mr. Ryan; and we, I think, are trying to make our generational 
working group here innovative. I mean, I think we all, as individual 
Members of Congress basically make our highest priority the ability and 
desire for us to interact directly with our constituents. And the one 
place that we are generally not able to do that is on the floor when we 
are here debating the very issues that impact everyone in this country.
  We can interact fairly well with constituents in committee because 
they can obviously testify in front of us in committee meetings. We 
obviously interact with constituents in our offices. But once we are 
here, this is a very insular environment. This opportunity tonight for 
us to kick this off, 30-something Live, and interact with people who 
will be submitting questions to us online will be historic and 
exciting.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Now, you and I, we are ready to rock and roll on 
this. And when Mr. Meek gets here, he is going to be ready to rock and 
roll. But we may have to break it down for our favorite uncle.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Maybe we need a glossary for Mr. Delahunt.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We can break it down.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If I can just interrupt, I heard that in my absence the 
other night that there were some comments that were made about my lack 
of, well, made about my absence. Could you explain that to me?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I cannot remember exactly which one of us said 
something, but it was to the effect that we had to tuck you in bed and 
make sure that you were getting your proper amount of rest.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, I am part of the 30-Something Working Group. I 
might be a two-fer, though. You know, I mean, I would suggest that in 
my case you get two for one.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The only difference in your definition of 30-
something is maybe it is 30-something by decade.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Something.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And we are 30-something by year.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Exactly. It is a very loose term.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is very loose. Adaptable. But it is good to see 
that you got your nap in this afternoon.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I did. I am rested up and looking forward to 
participating tonight.

                              {time}  2230

  I do concur with everything you said and, again, I want to 
acknowledge your commitment, your creativity, and the fact that this is 
an effort to allow people to participate in our conversation, because 
we want to know what they are interested in, and my understanding is 
there has been a number of questions posed. Maybe the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Ryan) or the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) 
could tell me what the number is.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I believe over 400 e-mails.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. That is going to take some time.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, we are not going to be able to get through 
them all, so we will lay down some basic ground rules here. We will not 
be able to get through them all, obviously, Mr. Speaker. We are going 
to have to take a few and maybe expound on them, but we are going to 
continue, Mr. Speaker, to make our arguments. We are going to lay out 
the case for what we believe needs to happen in the country, what 
direction we need to go in, and as we receive information from the 
public, use that to supplement our arguments that we have been making 
here.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. This is not the last time we are going to do 
this. We are kicking this effort off. So even if we do not get to all 
the questions tonight, which with over 400 we obviously will not be 
able to in the 60 minutes, we will be doing this again.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. This is simply an inaugural effort. It will be 
interesting.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think it is important for us to recognize that we 
want to make cohesive, coherent arguments, and we are asking, Mr. 
Speaker, other Members in this chamber and the citizens around the 
country to help us with that, make points that we feel that maybe they 
feel need to be made.
  Before we get into today, before we get rocking and rolling here, the 
big issue now is the pre-war intelligence. The President has dusted off 
this same old speech that he has given hundreds of times already in a 
hundred different viewing areas regarding the pre-war intelligence. The 
President has said that anybody accusing the administration of having 
``manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people was 
giving aid and comfort to the enemy.'' So if you question the pre-war 
intelligence, you are giving aid to the enemy. So it seems like the 
President is asking us as Members of the United States Congress not to 
even question any of the intelligence or any of the drum beat leading 
up to the war.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if I can, if the gentleman would yield, 
what I would like to do is try to emphasize that these questions have 
been posed by Republicans as well as Democrats regarding intelligence, 
whether it was manipulated, or whether it was used in a selective 
fashion.
  Now, I am going to begin by quoting the former Secretary of State, 
Colin Powell, who back in June of 2004 in an interview had this to say 
about the issue of intelligence: In recent weeks, Powell has apologized 
for at least 2 lapses regarding information about Iraq and terrorism. 
In a recent Meet the Press appearance, Powell said that he had relied 
on faulty intelligence when he told the United Nations in 2003 that 
Iraq had biological weapons. It turned out that the sourcing was 
inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading.
  I want to repeat that this evening, because I believe it is important 
that the American people pay attention to the former Secretary of 
State's use of words here: In some cases, deliberately misleading.
  Now, he does not go on to explain who did the misleading, whose 
responsibility it was to review the intelligence, to ensure that the 
sources were reliable, whether there was manipulation. But what I find 
interesting, Mr. Speaker, is that we are here on this floor asking 
these questions years, years after Democrats have asked for full and 
exhaustive investigations, inquiries, and oversight hearings. We have 
not had a single oversight hearing. Maybe this is simply the by-product 
of a situation, when you have a single party controlling both branches 
of Congress and the White House. But if that is the case, it is 
damning, because it puts before the responsibilities, the 
constitutional responsibilities of this Congress party loyalty, and I 
dare say the American people will not accept that.
  If I can further proceed, Mr. Speaker, a statement that the 
intelligence that was available to him was available to Members of 
Congress, both Members of the House and Members of the Senate. Well, I 
find that very interesting. First of all, that is inaccurate and wrong. 
And to support my premise or the statement I just made, I would refer 
my colleagues and those overhearing this conversation to read a book 
called The Price of Loyalty written by a journalist of some renowned, 
which is basically a memoir of the experiences of the former Secretary 
of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill whom, by the way, is a conservative 
Republican, a captain of industry. He ran Alcoa and was selected by 
this President to serve as his first Secretary of Treasury.
  He relates that in the first National Security Council meeting about 
a week or 10 days after this President was inaugurated, prior, prior to 
September 11 of 2001, that he was taken aback at that meeting because 
he participated in those meetings by virtue of his being Secretary of 
the Treasury, that the focus of the Bush administration was to shift 
from resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue to how this administration 
would deal with Iraq. He was truly taken aback by that.
  About a week later, he is at another meeting where there is a map 
that is

[[Page 26034]]

put forward about how the oil fields in Iraq would be divvied up; what 
countries and what companies would be allocated the development of 
those oil fields.

                              {time}  2240

  Go to page 96 of that book. But what was particularly interesting was 
on page 334. This is Secretary O'Neill, a member of the administration, 
a good Republican with solid conservative credentials.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. He was in the room.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. In the room.
  ```In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would 
characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction,' O'Neill told 
Time, referring to Time Magazine. `There were allegations and 
assertions by people, but I have been around a hell of a long time and 
I know the difference between evidence and assertions and allusions or 
conclusions that one could draw from a set of assumptions. To me there 
is a difference between real evidence and everything else and I never 
saw anything in the intelligence that I would characterize as real 
evidence.'''
  ``In response, a top administration official tried to dismiss O'Neill 
as out of the loop on weapons of mass destruction intelligence. `That 
information was on a need-to-know basis. He wouldn't have been in a 
position to see it.'''
  Just imagine this. We have the President saying that the intelligence 
was available to everybody. Yet a top administration official in 
response to the assertion by Secretary O'Neill that he never saw any 
evidence had this to say: ``Oh, it wouldn't have been available to 
him.''
  That to me is just inexplicable. I think we deserve an answer from 
the President. We deserve an answer from the administration as to what 
actually happened. And I would like to hear from Secretary O'Neill 
sometime. I think it is important.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Then one of the questions we have here, Mr. 
Speaker, from Hayward, California asked, What is our mission in Iraq 
other than being targets for anyone with a weapon? That is really what 
we are saying. If you try to ask the administration why are we there, 
what is going on, when are they coming home, we get called unpatriotic. 
If we ask these questions that a man like Robert Veloza asks, Mr. 
Speaker, we get called unpatriotic. These are the questions. We have 
got a lot of questions that people ask, what are we still doing there? 
What is the plan for getting out? A lot of these. We have got 400 or 
500 of these now. A lot of people are asking us, Mr. Speaker, what are 
we doing? If we try to say to the President, Mr. President, what are we 
doing, we are unpatriotic now?
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Both of my colleagues are absolutely right. 
The President has some nerve questioning our patriotism. That is what 
America is all about. I happen to be in the middle of reading 
Washington's biography. The Founding Fathers created this country so 
that there could be an opportunity for a vocal minority to express 
dissent. The farthest thing from their mind when they created this 
country was that opposition would be unpatriotic. Of course it is 
certainly understandable given the climate that the Republican 
leadership has created here where they do not allow or expect either 
members of their own party to disagree with them and certainly have 
structured the rules so that it is virtually impossible for us to voice 
disagreement or make a significant impact on the process once the 
process reaches here. Mr. Speaker, the people that have communicated 
with us have caused me to ask this question. Not only has the President 
called into question the patriotism of those of us who have questioned 
why we are still there and when are we going to have a plan to 
withdraw, but he has also implied that Democrats who have objected to 
the way we got into this war and the misrepresentation or misallocation 
of the facts that led us into this war, he has also suggested that 
those same Democrats saw the same intelligence that the President did. 
No, they did not. That is factually inaccurate.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Neither did Paul O'Neill, the former Secretary of 
Treasury who served on the National Security Council.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The bottom line is that every morning the 
President gets an intelligence document that we are not privy to. He 
gets massive amounts of intelligence that they do not widely 
distribute, even though we have security clearance, widely distribute 
to Members of Congress. So they were able to be, one would think, Mr. 
Speaker, selective in what they released to the Members of Congress 
when we were in the throes of making the decision about whether or not 
to support, and I was not here at that time, but when those of you that 
were here were in the throes of deciding whether to support the war.
  I just want to read this question that brought this all to mind. You 
have Mr. Lehman from Goshen, Indiana, who said to us, Since the Iraq 
war and tax breaks for the wealthy have devastated our Federal budget, 
why can't the Democrats invoke procedures to semi-close down Congress 
as this is an emergency situation which is affecting our national 
economy when the money could be better spent on domestic social 
programs including hurricane relief. Cut and strut.
  That is a really good point. If the American people are asking what 
are we doing in Iraq when we have so many needs here, when we have 
literally hundreds of thousands of people in our gulf coast twisting in 
the wind literally because we cannot get them the assistance they need, 
yet we are sending millions of dollars, billions of dollars as the 
gentleman from Ohio has detailed in the charts we have here in the last 
few weeks that we have been talking about this, the administration has 
literally chosen sending assistance, infrastructure rebuilding 
assistance, to the Iraqi people and we are not able to provide that for 
our own people. All the while, today, they may still be in the 
committee meeting now, our own Ways and Means Committee is marking up 
the tax reconciliation bill, $70 billion in tax reconciliation to 
supposedly balance out the budget deficit, the budget deficit reduction 
act which is a total misnomer that they could not pass last week. The 
reason that they could not pass it and the reason that it makes no 
sense is because if you are passing $70 billion in tax cuts and $50 
billion in spending cuts, that still leaves $20 billion. That is the 
kind of thing that the people who are communicating with us are asking, 
just like Mr. Lehman from Indiana.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is absolutely right. Let's get this straight 
out. I want to kind of lay some things out here because all the 
rhetoric that we are now hearing and the administration is really good 
at getting in the huddle and then breaking the huddle and everyone goes 
onto the TV shows on Sunday and everyone starts singing from the same 
hymn book and trying to convince the American people that the world is 
really not what everyone thinks it is. They find a way to try to spin 
it. I just want to go back just for a couple of minutes for all of us 
to recognize who we are dealing with here and what their track record 
is.
  The CIA leak where Scooter Libby, the chief of staff of the Vice 
President of the United States, was indicted on five counts for lying 
basically, obstruction of justice, false statements, everything else. 
This is right from the indictment. On July 10 or 11, Libby spoke to 
Karl Rove who advised Libby of a conversation that he had. Rove talked 
to Novak, Bob Novak, the columnist, and Novak said that he was going to 
basically use Joe Wilson, the ambassador who went to Africa to find out 
what was really going on with uranium and everything else. So Rove 
tells Libby that Novak is going to write about Joe Wilson's wife. That 
was in July. Okay?
  Then we find out, here it is, 2 months later, in September, Karl Rove 
denies even knowing anything about a CIA leak or outing Valerie Plame. 
So he told Libby that Joe Wilson's wife was going to be outed in July 
and then in September ABC News asks him what is up with this and he 
says, ``I don't know.'' He lied to the American people. Scooter Libby 
lied to the American people. The Vice President of the

[[Page 26035]]

United States in the same indictment told Scooter Libby about Joe 
Wilson's wife and then 2 months later he did not give all the facts on 
Meet the Press.

                              {time}  2250

  We have to be very careful with the Rules of the House when we deal 
with high-ranking administrative officials. Okay. So this is the outfit 
we are dealing with here. This is the group that has failed to be 
honest.
  Now we go through the war. Remember what we heard prior to the war? 
We are going to use the oil for reconstruction. We are going to be 
greeted as liberators. They had weapons of mass destruction. All not 
true.
  We even got a little piece of information, it will be interesting to 
see how this comes out with the use of phosphorus in Falujah. We were 
told months ago there was no phosphorus being used. Phosphorus they use 
in the military. We are not using any of that stuff. If we are using 
it, we are just using it to light the sky.
  Then we find out on November 10, this is quoting from the BBC. This 
is not the Meek report, the Wasserman Schultz report, the Delahunt 
report. This is the BBC. ``We have learned that some of the information 
we were provided is incorrect. White phosphorus shells which produce 
smoke were used in Falujah, not for illumination but for screening 
purposes.'' That was in the March and April, 2005, issue of Field 
Artillery Magazine; and it was used as a potent psychological weapon 
against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes.
  Now this is the use of a chemical weapon. Now I do not know if it is 
true or not, but what I do know is that they said they were not using 
it, and now they are saying they used it.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. We do not know. But you know what is sad is that this 
Republican majority in Congress will not allow us an oversight hearing 
to determine whether this report is true or not. There has not been a 
single hearing in the House of Representatives in terms of the Iraq war 
and all of the issues that we have raised here, not a single hearing; 
and I would submit that that is just a total abdication of our 
responsibility.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. In that vein, we actually have an e-mail from 
one of the folks out there in blogger land who wants us to talk about 
and ask the question, Mr. Speaker, are the rules that have been enacted 
for the operation of our U.S. House of Representatives constitutional? 
And if not, what is the remedy for that? There is a person from 
Vermont. Can a lawsuit be brought about legal or unconstitutional House 
rules?
  In other words, all Americans must have representation in their 
government, Mr. Speaker; and if Democrats are ignored because of House 
rules, not allowed hearings like the ones you are talking about, not 
allowed to offer an amendment on the House floor to legislation when we 
are duly elected in the same way, putting our pant legs on one at a 
time just like they do, or a skirt, like I do on occasion, because of 
House rules that give full power to a majority political party, half 
the country does not have representation in the day-to-day business of 
our own government.
  That is the bottom line. We are shut down. And this is not about 
whining. This is not about, gee, we cannot get in our say. This is 
about that we were duly elected just like every one of the other 434 
Members of this body, and it is not like that in the U.S. Senate. In 
the U.S. Senate, the minority is treated with respect. It does not 
always go their way, but they can at least make an impact. It is truly 
enough.
  What is more unfortunate is how the Republican leadership in this 
Chamber misrepresents how the process works here, as if we are allowed 
to call hearings whenever we want to or have subpoena power in the 
Katrina committee that was created a few weeks ago. They really, 
consistently, at least since I have been here from the beginning of 
this year, if you recall during the Schiavo case, facts were not 
relevant. They just made it up if it suited their argument.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And they will not have a hearing. They are afraid of 
transparency and accountability.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And they protect themselves with the rules. 
They hide behind the rules.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. They are eroding the confidence of the American people 
in this institution; and I would hope that they would reflect, stop, 
and change course. Because if it continues, it is demeaning to this 
institution, and it is eroding our democracy.
  If I can, just for one moment, let me hold up this chart. The 
gentlewoman earlier talked about the monies that have been expended by 
American taxpayers in Iraq. There are an abundance of reports from a 
variety of sources about Iraq reconstruction. The biggest corruption 
scandal in history.
  I serve as the senior Democrat, the so-called ranking member on a 
subcommittee of International Relations that ought to be looking into 
these assertions and allegations. I do not know if they are true.
  We have had colleagues that have corresponded seeking to have 
hearings. This is just some of the quotes.
  ``It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history.'' This is the 
Iraqi finance minister speaking about more than $1 billion missing from 
the Iraqi Defense Ministry.
  ``This country is filled with projects that were never completed or 
were completed and have never been used.'' This is a U.S. civil affairs 
officer who asked not to be identified.
  ``We were told to stimulate the economy any way we can, and a lot of 
money was wasted in the process.'' That is Captain Kelly Mims, part of 
the Army liaison team in Falujah.
  ``We were squandering the money we were entrusted to handle. We were 
a blind mouse with money.'' That is Bill Keller, former deputy advisor 
to the Iraqi Communications Ministry, referring to reconstruction 
projects.
  ``I presume that some of them are ghost employees, but we paid 
them.'' That is Frank Willis, former Coalition Provisional Authority, 
regarding the payments of salaries to 2,400 people who did not exist.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Would the gentleman read that one again about the 
ghost employees?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. ``I presume that some of them are ghost employees, but 
we paid them.''
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are paying ghost employees in Iraq, and we are 
not allowed to question the validity of what is going on over there?
  How about ghosts paying some of my Adelphi workers who are going to 
get their salaries cut by 60 percent? Does this administration want to 
ghost pay some of them?
  Do we have enough money to pay people for not doing work in Iraq?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. We have wasted billions of dollars of taxpayers' money 
in Iraq, and yet not a single hearing. And I do not want a hearing 
where some administration official comes up and presents a 5-minute 
overview and we have 5 minutes to question. I am talking about a 
thorough, exhaustive investigation done by staff on both sides of the 
aisle and by serious Republicans and Democrats who find this kind of 
waste and scandal abhorrent.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are joined by our good friend, the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Meek), who was getting an award tonight. I 
congratulate the gentleman. Welcome to the inaugural 30-something Live.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I thank the gentleman very much. It is always an 
honor to be here on the floor, not only addressing the Members of the 
House but also sharing with the American people what is not happening.
  I came here and I actually picked up an e-mail here. Has there ever 
been a President who has presided in a bigger increase of the country's 
national debt and has not vetoed a single spending bill during his term 
in office?
  I can tell you that from what I know, just from my knowledge of what 
I have been reading recently, I can't remember a President outside of 
the President that we have right now. And I am pretty sure as we start 
talking about national debt, we can also talk about the fact that this 
administration, along with this majority, has led us in just 4 years, 
$1.05 trillion in money we borrowed from foreign nations.

[[Page 26036]]

  Now that is not my number. That came from the Department of the U.S. 
Treasury.

                              {time}  2300

  That is more than 42 Presidents combined. Mr. Speaker, 42 Presidents 
only were able to get to the point of $1.01 trillion, and that is over 
a period of 224 years.
  A lot of folks say, well, why are you alarmed? Well, you should be 
very alarmed, and if the Republican majority allows that kind of 
borrowing to take place, especially from foreign countries, I guarantee 
you that the President could not do it on his own.
  I guess one of the things that is quite disturbing, I could not help 
but on Veterans Day turn on the television and watch our President of 
the United States attack other Americans for being American. I could 
not help but think that it must have been some sort of coordinated plan 
in operation, look over there from over here, from what is actually 
happening.
  I can tell you, when you are dealing with the issue of outing CIA 
agents and indictments and then you say, well, I am going to start 
attacking Members of Congress that question my policy, maybe we can 
make that the discussion for the week, I think the American people and 
also the Members of this House are far more intelligent than that, to 
think that just because this is your message for this week, it does not 
necessarily mean that the American people are going to follow you in 
that message.
  You see the majority following suit because it seems to be a message 
machine. The President spoke of sending the troops mixed signals. Well, 
I could not help but reflect on that, being a Member of Congress and 
seeing what is happening right now.
  We have a budget amendment that is supposed to come to the floor 
pretty soon. I guess they did not have the stomach to pass a budget 
amendment that would have cut VA benefits to veterans, that would have 
instructed the Veterans Affairs Committee to cut over $767 million in 
services to veterans and march in the Veterans Day parade. I guess that 
was just a little too much for some of the many Members on the majority 
side, and I want to thank some of those Members who said they were not 
going to vote for it. I hope they still stand by their convictions this 
week because that budget resolution has not changed a bit. What they 
felt last week, they should feel this week.
  Also, I should say the President is saying we are sending mixed 
signals. Well, I guess it is mixed signals when we have over 50 million 
Americans without health care. What kind of signals are we sending 
them?
  I guess it is mixed signals when we have our men and women who are 
fighting in harm's way right now, but better yet, when they become 
veterans, we do not have the same passion for their health care and for 
their needs.
  I guess it is mixed signals when you have to look at our generation 
and parents that are trying to pay for their child's education and you 
cut $40 billion and change out of student loans and student aid. That 
is mixed signals.
  I hope that the President can get just as passionate when it comes 
down to cutting free and reduced lunches in this country, get 
passionate about that.
  We talk about winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people and 
people abroad. How about winning the hearts and minds of Americans that 
pay taxes every day?
  One other point I just want to make, another mixed signal, as we 
speak now the Budget Committee is meeting. I guarantee that they are 
ready and meeting, and on the majority side, the Republican side, to 
protect people who make over $500,000 to be able to receive their 
$80,000 tax cut. That is sending mixed signals to the American 
taxpayer. So, if anyone that raised their hand and said they uphold the 
Constitution of the United States, you need to be passionate about 
those Americans that know what it means to punch in and punch out every 
day.
  Last week, one of the Members on the majority side came to the floor 
and said, well, we are giving tax cuts to the productive Americans. I 
am assuming that I guess if anyone makes under $500,000 they are not 
productive in America.
  The bottom line is, is that I am not disappointed in what the 
President said. I am just a little taken aback because my constituents 
work every day. Your constituents work every day. There are Americans 
out there trying to make ends meet.
  Better yet, we want to scream at Members of Congress talking about 
rewriting history. Let us talk about putting this country in a debt 
that it will be very difficult for us to get out of. Let us talk about 
record-breaking in 4 years of an administration and this majority 
allowed this President to do $1.05 trillion in borrowing from foreign 
countries, like China I must add, more than Democrat, Republican and 
Whig party Presidents was not able to achieve. I have to go all the way 
back to the Whig party, 1776.
  Folks say, oh, well, hard times. Well, World War II happened on this 
side of the chart. World War I happened on this side of the chart. The 
Great Depression happened on this side of the chart.
  Challenges are not new to leadership in Washington, D.C. If people 
want to borrow and spend, then that is okay if they do it with their 
money, but when they do it with the American people's money, it is 
another thing.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, one of the words that our President 
used was irresponsible; it is irresponsible to question what is going 
on. Is that responsible, that kind of fiscal undis-
cipline, reckless disregard for a budget in the United States? That is 
irresponsible?
  And what else is irresponsible? Cutting money for student loans, that 
is irresponsible.
  How about Karl Rove telling Scooter Libby about Joe Wilson's wife and 
then going on TV a couple of months later and saying he did not know 
anything about it. I think that is kind of irresponsible to say that to 
the American public. I did not hear the President say Scooter Libby was 
irresponsible.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I know the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Delahunt) is standing by there, but I want to just share this with you.
  I have one message for the majority and for the President: Get 
passionate about the right issues. We are all passionate about the war. 
We are all concerned about our men and women in uniform, but I tell you 
one thing. We have American cities that are trying to make ends meet. 
We have children that are trying to do the best they can under the 
circumstances. The Leave No Child Left Behind Act is known by the 
States, and States are suing the Federal Government for a lack of 
funding. Meanwhile, as we speak here on this floor, the Ways and Means 
Committee is meeting to make sure that the tax cuts are permanent for 
millionaires.
  So I am glad that some members of the Senate last week said I cannot 
vote, at the same time that I am cutting Medicaid for poor Americans 
free and reduced lunch for children, veterans benefits and then within 
the same time period, within a couple of days I am going to vote to 
give millionaires a permanent tax cut?
  What I am saying is that there are things that we should get 
passionate about, and there are some things that we really need to be 
passionate about. I can tell you right now, there are a number of 
issues not being addressed, and like you said, the outing of a CIA 
agent is just like someone running over and telling the enemy about the 
Marines are going to be on this beach at this time and this day; I just 
wanted you to know that because I know it. That is what it is like.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is irresponsible.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. And it is setting us back. My message for the 
majority and also for the President is get passionate about the right 
issues. You want to get passionate about some of the actions in the 
White House, it is happening right there under your nose. Passion stops 
at we will just give an ethics course on not sharing national secrets 
with the press. You have to go far beyond that. Too many people have

[[Page 26037]]

died. Too many veterans right now need assistance to just go use the 
restroom right now to give that speech.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if I can for a moment, I want to take 
issue with the President's statement relative to support the troops and 
that asking questions somehow undermines that support. That is false. 
That is inaccurate.
  There is not a Member in this House on either side of the aisle, I 
cannot believe there is an American anywhere in this country, that does 
not fervently pray that these young men and women come home, come home 
without wounds, but I will talk about support for the troops because I 
believe that if there is a grade to be given for supporting the troops 
by this White House, it is a failure. It is a failure.
  How many letters have we, and again, not just Democrats, but 
Republicans, sent to this White House complaining about the lack of 
vests, complaining about the unarmored humvees that so many of our 
young troops have been killed, permanently maimed, and yet we still 
have problems? It is an issue that has been lingering for years, not 
just for months.
  I am not suggesting that that was intended, but it is a demonstration 
of the incompetence of this administration, and underscores, if we are 
talking about supporting the troops, the lack of that support.
  You referenced earlier about veterans. It is easy for the President 
to wish the troops well as they march into war, and yet it was this 
White House, this administration, that submitted a budget for the 
Veterans Administration that was $2.5 billion less than hopefully the 
budget that this Congress will pass.
  Let me suggest to the White House that that demonstrates callousness 
and turning your back on those young men and women in Iraq, and it is 
absolutely a stain on our national honor.

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