[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 1107-1109]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           DEMOCRATIC AGENDA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Campbell of California). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) is recognized for the remainder of the 
time until midnight.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, we again want to thank Leader 
Nancy Pelosi for the opportunity to talk about the things that are 
important to the American people. Again, we have laid out our vision 
for America's competitiveness into the future and how we can keep 
America number one and actually match rhetoric with what the President 
laid out in his State of the Union with action and deeds. You can get a 
copy of this, you can peruse a copy of our innovation agenda, which was 
developed not in Washington, not sitting around a conference table in a 
hearing room in the Nation's Capital, but out in the country, in the 
high-tech centers around this country, with bipartisan input, with the 
leaders and CEOs of some of the major technologically advanced 
corporations across this country that can be viewed at 
HouseDemocrats.gov. That is our Web site where you can get a copy of 
this.
  Again, in addition to broadband access, we are the ones that laid out 
our commitment to growing a new generation of innovators. We committed 
in this document to educate 100,000 new scientists, engineers and 
mathematicians in the next 4 years by proposing

[[Page 1108]]

a new initiative by working with States, businesses, and universities 
to provide scholarships to qualified students who commit to working in 
the fields of innovation.
  But the Republicans could not say that they were going to do that 
because in every successive budget, they have cut student financial 
aid. You cannot make sure that you expand access to higher education in 
the math and sciences and in areas that are significantly 
underrepresented now unless you provide the aid that these students are 
going to need.
  It is not that we do not have the students in these programs because 
there is a bumper crop of wealthy kids that are just not going into the 
math and sciences; it is to make sure that we go into the communities 
across this country and encourage and nurture the desire from the 
smallest children and the youngest ages and across the cultural and 
ethnic spectrum to ensure that people of all colors, of all economic 
walks of life choose to pursue math and science and engineering.
  I read something earlier this morning that talked about China 
graduating 600,000 engineers. I think the number is right, that we 
graduated 50,000. I believe that it is that drastic a difference in 
terms of the proportion.
  We have always been known as the innovators in the world. Every major 
accomplishment scientifically, at least in my lifetime, in our 
lifetime, has been achieved by Americans. But we are slowly but surely 
not going to be the leaders in those areas of science and math unless 
we go back to our traditional financial commitment to ensuring that 
kids can get access to education.

                              {time}  2310

  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Absolutely.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. One of the interesting things when I was over in 
China in August, they were talking about the engineers. And they have 
this tremendous advantage on us as far as numbers go. And so we were 
asking what is the advantage that the U.S. engineers have. And they 
were saying, well, U.S. engineers they are just the best in the world, 
they are the most creative in the world, and they work in teams better 
than any other engineer, any other country. And it is funny, because 
this week, and we have talked about this before, but this week we had 
the school board associations down here. And wouldn't you know, the 
programs that are getting cut because of lack of funding, No Child Left 
Behind, the burden that is being pushed, the bonds that need to be 
noted and the funding that needs to be gathered at a local level in 
order to fund the local public schools across the country, the programs 
that are being cut are those programs that teach our kids how to be 
more creative and how to work in teams better.
  You hear a lot about the art programs getting cut, the music programs 
getting cut, the visual arts getting cut, the performing arts getting 
cut, language arts getting cut in a lot of these schools because they 
do not have the resources they need, or the school districts or the 
school systems are not organized the way they need to be organized.
  And then you also see a lot of pay-to-play: $350. Well, a lot of 
families do not have an extra $350 to get their kids in activities. And 
if you have two or three kids, you are talking about a thousand bucks. 
That is a lot of money, I hate to break it to a lot of our friends on 
the other side who do not seem to understand this. So the very 
advantage that we have, we are cutting off our nose to spite our face. 
And those are the kinds of investments that we need to make, not only 
invest, but restructure and reorganize the way that our education 
system runs today. And I think if we do a couple of these things and 
have the courage to lead, I think we are going to be able to do it.
  Part of this, too, we need the parents involved; we need the parents 
to be accountable. We need the parents to be there with their kids. We 
need to make sure that the parents know that their kids have to do the 
homework. This is going to be a team effort. This is going to be us 
doing our job, the parents doing their job, the local school district 
doing their job, everybody coming together if we are going to be 
competitive in the 21st century. That is the only way this is going to 
happen.
  And I think it is important, one final point here. I think it is 
important that if we are going to ask kids to get involved in the math 
and science and engineering and chemistry and all these things and 
areas of studies that we need them to get involved in, there needs to 
be a goal. And I think, really, the goal for the next generation is 
what Mr. Bartlett was talking about a little while back, about what are 
we going to do with the alternative energy realm; who is going to 
develop the new and the latest technologies? Is this going to be a 
national effort? Not in 2025, Mr. President. Now.
  You know, we went to the Moon in less than a decade. And it is going 
to take us 20 years to figure out how we are going to become energy 
independent so we can get out of these entanglements that we find 
ourselves in in the Middle East and in other countries.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And I mean, forgive me. But, come on, am I the 
only one that felt it was a little disingenuous to hear from this 
President that America is addicted to oil and we need to end that 
addiction? I mean, come on. Where has the commitment to that been? In 
the two energy bills that we were asked to vote on in the last year 
since I have been here, where we were basically giving away the store 
to the energy and oil companies? I mean, where is the financial 
commitment? Where has it been to exploring alternative energy sources? 
Has there been a miraculous transformation in the White House that I am 
not aware of?
  I just do not understand how the administration could not see that 
you have to, in order to get the American people to believe what you 
say and to have faith and restore their confidence and belief in you, 
you have to do what you say you are going to do. And that just does not 
seem to happen on almost any score, particularly not when it comes to 
energy independence and exploring alternative energy sources.
  And you know, I am proud to be a member of the Democratic Caucus, 
because when we say something, we mean it. But when we lay out a goal, 
we back it up with how we might do it were we in charge. You know, we 
would make a funding commitment to exploring alternative energy 
resources. We would invest our energy and effort into the Midwest so 
that not only can we become foreign-oil independent, we can become 
independent from oil, period.
  You know, I am from a State where I do not want to see drilling off 
the coast of my shoreline. None of my constituents want to see it 
either. So we need to explore other ways of generating energy in this 
country that are not dedicated solely to the production of oil, whether 
it is developed here or in another country. But we actually have to 
have a plan that would do that, and have Members who actually cast 
votes in favor of that plan, which just has not happened by any stretch 
of the imagination here that I have seen.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. No.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, we spent a great deal of time 
tonight talking about the challenges that are facing our country, and 
the thing that I have noticed that is the most frustrating for me, Mr. 
Ryan, is in the short time that I have been here, you know, I was 
hopeful that just like when I was in the Florida senate, I was able to 
work effectively across the aisle and on the major issues that were 
important to our State, just like I was hopeful that we would be able 
to do here for the important issues in our country.
  I was hopeful that I could come to the Congress and sit down, and I 
was ready to continue to work with Members on the other side on the 
major issues, not the issues on the margins, because, you know, you are 
able to find individual Members who you can work with one on one or in 
small groups on various issues, but on the hot-button issues, on 
education, on health care, on energy, on prescription drugs, on any

[[Page 1109]]

of the issues that are really significant to the American people.
  It is like those issues are radioactive somehow, and there seems to 
be an impenetrable wall around the Republican Conference, where it is 
virtually impossible to get any Member from the other side of the aisle 
to sit down with a group on our side of the aisle and try to hammer out 
compromise.
  I just do not come from a place where I was used to dealing with my-
way-or-the-highway rules of engagement. And you know, maybe now that 
there is new leadership in the Republican Conference, things will 
change. Certainly we are hearing words to that effect. It remains to be 
seen whether those words will be backed up by action. And I look 
forward to that possibility. I know you do too.
  Do you want to talk about the Web site and tell people how they can 
get in touch with us and reach out to us?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Absolutely, I do.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We have a new Web site, Mr. Ryan. We revamped 
it, and it has a lot of new cool bells and whistles.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yeah. We are getting really high-tech here. 
www.housedemocrats.gov/30something. The innovation agenda that you 
mentioned will be available so you can hear the new ideas that the 
Democrats are coming up with. And I think if you look through this, I 
mean, this is exciting stuff. And you know, I am not just toeing the 
party line here. I am very, very excited about what we are offering and 
what we get to talk about over the course of the next year. As we ask 
the people of this country who put us in charge of the House of 
Representatives for oversight purposes, with the war, and everything 
else that is going on, we need to make sure that there is balance in 
government, and I think that the folks at home and the folks, Members 
of Congress and their offices, will be able to come to the Web site, 
see what we are talking about.
  www.housedemocrats.gov/30something. You go to the bottom, you can see 
all the posters that we have up. You can see our innovation agenda. We 
have got a lot of really good things going on, and we are going to keep 
plugging away over the course of the next year to try to let the people 
know at home that we have good ideas that we want to help move this 
country forward.
  And one final point that I would like to make regarding all of this 
is that the country of China has 1.3 billion people. The country of 
India has over a billion people. And we have 300 million in this 
country. The Democratic agenda, whether we are talking about energy, 
investments, education, health care, we are about pulling our country 
together as a community, as a family and moving forward and knowing 
that you cannot compete against that many people and not be unified. 
And what the Democratic innovation agenda, our agenda on health care, 
energy independence, whatever it may be, is about pulling everybody 
together, making sure that every kid in the country has a quality 
education, has health care, has an opportunity to live and work and 
create wealth in the United States and live the American Dream as they 
see it. So, again, www.housedemocrats.gov/30something.
  Got to give a shout out to our guy from Florida who was not able to 
make it here tonight, Mr. Meek. It is never the same without him. 
Sometimes it is never the same good, sometimes it is never the same 
bad.

                              {time}  2320

  But we miss him here tonight.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you. We do miss our good friend from the 
great State of Florida, who is in the neighboring district next to me.
  I do want to point out to people who might have seen this tonight 
that they not only can find all of the posters that we use usually on 
the next day once we have first introduced one on the floor, but they 
can also submit questions and comments to us through our Website. We 
want to make this as interactive as possible and get their feedback and 
input, and we want to know what their concerns are.
  The leader has given us this opportunity to speak to the American 
people, and our generation is often underrepresented in terms of the 
things that we care about in this country. And it is a privilege to 
serve in this body with you, Mr. Ryan, and under the leadership of 
Nancy Pelosi.

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