[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 664-671]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     THE 30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Poe). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to come before the 
House of Representatives once again. I want to give a special thanks to 
Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and also Democrat whip Steny Hoyer and 
our chairman, Mr. Jim Clyburn, for leading us in the way that Americans 
are now seeing that we are moving in the right direction.
  Just today, Mr. Speaker, we had an election of Mr. John Larson, who 
has become the vice chairman of our caucus. We are continuing to move 
in this area of not only bright ideas about also a forward lean to make 
America stronger.
  It is also a great day for us to reflect on where we have been and 
where we want to go as a country. And I think it is important to take 
note of what took place last night. We had the State of the Union 
address. We were all there. We paid very close attention to what the 
President had to say, the Commander in Chief, about his vision for this 
country. Also, some of the vision was embraced by all of us. Some of 
the vision was embraced by a few of us. And some of the vision that he 
was saying that he had we heard once before as a vision.
  A reporter called me, Mr. Speaker, and asked me for a response to the 
President's address, and I had to scratch my head for a moment because 
it was a lot of what we heard in the past. Theme language. We have to 
get tough on them before they get tough on us, we heard that before. We 
have to fight them over there so we do not have to fight them here, we 
have heard that before. We have to stay the course, we have heard that 
before. A lot of themes, a lot of slogans. I think what the American 
people were looking for was some direction on where we are going to go 
and how we are going to get there, sending a very strong message to our 
young people, to our middle-aged people, and also to our seniors that 
are out there, also to our troops. And I think it is so very important 
that we pay very close attention to what our troops are learning and 
what they are hearing from this Congress and what they are not hearing 
as it relates to the direction that we are going on the stateside. When 
I say state, dealing with diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan and other 
areas, and also as it relates to something as simple as body armor and 
also continued support for our troops.
  Of course, I did not see anyone say that we do not support the 
troops. We all support the troops. Every American supports the troops. 
I think it is important for us to understand that we have to make sure 
that they have what they need. And, Mr. Speaker, as you know, this 30-
Something Working Group meets constantly to not only promote the ideas 
that are bipartisan in nature but also the ideas that on the Democratic 
side we want to share that not only with the majority side but also 
with the Americans, and I think it is important.
  I think it is important for us to even look at issues as it relates 
to national security. We must stand behind the American military. That 
is what the President said. But I want to make sure that everyone 
understands, here on this side of the aisle and I would even say a 
couple of my friends on the majority side, Democrats were calling and 
have been calling for the last 3 years for implementing plans to 
strengthen and revitalize our overstretched military at this time. It 
is also important for us to understand that we have to be ready to 
fight other wars and other conflicts when they do arise, and we need to 
make sure that we are ready. We need to make sure we have Humvees. We 
have to make sure we have the body armor. We have to make sure that we 
have a clear task and mission so that our men and women know exactly 
what their purpose is, they know what their mission will be, and they 
know when they will be coming home. It is not a big secret to say when 
you are coming home. Maybe it is a secret as to when you are leaving to 
go to war, but when you are coming home is something that I think our 
troops need to know. We hear little words like, well, they just want to 
stop or they just want to cut and run or whatever the case may be. You 
can use your slogans, but what we are now seeing in the polling, Mr. 
Speaker, is that

[[Page 665]]

American people are saying, You have to be a little clearer with us on 
this. You just cannot say, well, stay the course, we will stay there as 
long as we need to be there. Well, that would be great. I am pretty 
sure many of our U.S. city mayors, many of whom just left town, Mr. 
Speaker, would love to hear, with our community development blocks 
grants or what they had with their COPS program that they no longer 
have the funding from the Federal Government. If the President were to 
say we are going to stay the course in those areas and make sure that 
we build small and big communities, that we are going to stay the 
course in making sure that police officers have the dollars they need 
to be able to get the things that they need to fight crime in 
communities and have afterschool programs, that we are going to stay 
the course, they would love to hear that. But fiscal responsibility and 
just simple common sense, Mr. Speaker, would say that you have to be 
able to set some benchmarks. You just cannot say I would like to spend 
billions of dollars and do not ask any questions and if you do, you are 
being a pessimist.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am so glad that Mr. Ryan has 
joined us, and it is so good to be back here in 2006 with the 30-
Something Group once again.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, it is good to be back with the 
gentleman again.
  I think the word that needs to be applied to this conversation is 
``accountability,'' and this is something that the 30-Somethings have 
talked about since we started. Being Democrats, we want to talk about 
accountability. We have a responsibility when we get the taxpayers' 
money that we are not just going to spend it and not ask any questions. 
And if the program is not working the way it is supposed to work, we 
are not for just throwing more money at the problem because that does 
not work. We want to talk about accountability.
  But before we can even begin the conversation about accountability 
with programs and local communities, the COPS program, schools and 
everything else, there needs to be accountability here in this Chamber. 
And I believe that the Republican majority in the House and in the 
Senate and in the White House has really not been held accountable for 
what they have been doing. If you look at the budget deficits that we 
have right now, and the 30-Something Group cares about this because 
this is our generation that is going to have to foot the bill for this 
thing, $500 billion more spent last year than we took in in tax 
revenue. So we borrow it from the Chinese, from the Saudi Arabians, 
from the Japanese. We have borrowed more money in the last 4 years, and 
Kendrick will show this, from 2000 to 2004.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I want Mr. Ryan to talk about this. 
I know it is a chart that I usually speak from, but he is making a 
valid point here and I think that the Members need to be able to see 
it.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate you sharing, and I bet when you were 
in grade school that your teachers put on there ``Kendrick Meek plays 
well with others.''
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. And governs well with others, and that is 
something we want to do here in this Chamber on the majority side. We 
want to move in a bipartisan way.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. In the last 4 years, this President and the 
Republican House and the Republican Senate have borrowed more money, 
$1.05 trillion, than any every other President before him and 
Congresses before this one in the last 224 years. We are borrowing 
money to give rich people a tax cut, period, dot. And when we talk 
about accountability, this is what we are talking about because this 
has long-term ramifications to our potential economic growth because 
the money we are spending to pay down this debt and to pay the interest 
to the Chinese government is money that we are not investing into the 
COPS program, we are not investing into our veterans, we are not 
investing into research and development, we are not investing into 
making sure that every household has access to broadband 
communications. We are not investing that money into public venture 
capital that will lure private investment like they are doing in 
Israel, and they have a lot of innovative things going on in Ireland. 
These are the things that we need to do, but it all starts with 
balancing here in budget in the United States Congress.
  Mr. Meek has two beautiful kids. He cannot ask his kids to be 
responsible and then his example is to be irresponsible. It just does 
not work that way. He works hard and his kids see him work hard. So at 
the end of the day, they are going to learn a lesson from him.
  I appreciate the gentleman's yielding to me. I appreciate his 
allowing me to use his chart because this has been his chart for the 
last few months.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Unfortunately, the burden has been the American 
burden, the American taxpayer.
  Mr. Speaker, I must say that it is very important. Mr. Ryan was 
speaking about this whole honest leadership piece, and I think it is 
important. We know that we have some Members that have made some bad 
decisions, and we are not going focus on that, and past Members. People 
make mistakes. I am just going to fall on the side that people make 
mistakes.

                              {time}  2000

  But when you have institutions such as this one that is making 
mistakes that cost American taxpayer more money, that is when we have a 
problem.
  Now, the good thing about this is in the next 9 months the American 
people will be able to make some decisions. It is something that we 
have in the U.S. Constitution. You know, when you come to the House all 
of us have to run every couple of years. I call it a time where we are 
judged by all of our constituents throughout this country.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. A job interview.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. It is a job interview. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. We 
need to write that down. It is a job interview, where you come, you are 
being interviewed by all of your constituents, and they are going to 
evaluate, is my Congressman doing everything that he or she can do to 
make sure that my life is better? A grandmother, is my Congressman or 
my Congresswoman doing what they should do to make sure that my 
children and grandchildren have better opportunities than what I had?
  Is my Congressman or Congresswoman making sure that my health care 
costs are under control and that I have to with my prescription drugs 
choose between whether I am going to eat or take my medication like I 
should? Do I have a community where we have a sound community? Is my 
Congress passing on unfunded mandates to my local government that I 
have to then pay additional taxes just for general services?
  Those are going to be some of the questions that people are going to 
ask. Is my Congress playing a leadership role in the area of the 
culture, okay, Mr. Ryan, the culture of corruption and cronyism and 
incompetence that permeates throughout this Chamber and throughout this 
Congress?
  This is not the Kendrick Meek-Tim Ryan report. Just pick up Newsweek, 
Time, the Washington Post, the Washington Times. You can pick up the 
Miami Herald, the Chicago Sun. Pick up any paper you want to pick up, 
and there is no secret that there is a culture of corruption and 
cronyism and incompetence.
  Let me just say this: it means more, it means more to the American 
taxpayer, the people that are paying taxes every day, when they have to 
pay more because of certain special interests having worked their way 
into getting sweetheart deals from this Congress. It hurts, because we 
are here to represent those individuals that have sent us here to 
represent them.
  Mr. Ryan, you have heard me say this once before, and I will say it 
again: the American people, all of them, just about all of them that 
participate in the electoral process, woke up early, Mr. Speaker, one 
Tuesday morning, 7

[[Page 666]]

a.m. in some cases, to cast their ballot for representation in the U.S. 
Congress. They didn't cast their ballot for a K Street project. They 
didn't cast their ballot for a corporation who is running an operation 
here on K Street for some sort of agreement which was not an open 
agreement.
  Mr. Ryan, I just started to think about this K Street Project, and I 
can't help but think about what is going on now that we don't know 
about similar to a K Street Project. K Street was fine a couple of 
months ago. Now it is not fine.
  Let me just talk a little bit about the whole K Street piece and make 
sure the Members don't get amnesia as it relates to the K Street 
Project.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Shakedown Street.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. You call Shakedown Street. The deal was, and I 
am not talking about the deal with cards, the deal was, and may still 
be, as far as we know, is that corporations and special interests had 
to hire, okay, quote-unquote, former staffers from the Republican side 
to work in their corporation. The leadership of those lobbying groups 
had to be a Republican person that was trusted by certain Members and 
certain former Members of the majority. So that was the deal. You do 
that, and then you have to make sure that we have a line of 
communications, because we are in this thing together.
  I can tell you it has resulted in a lack of health care policy. And 
now the President is talking about health savings plans, which is very 
interesting, because we already have something similar and it is not 
working, Mr. Ryan. Higher prescription drug costs, okay? Not allowing 
us to negotiate with drug companies.
  I must say, Mr. Ryan, I don't blame the industry. I don't blame the 
industry. I don't want to walk around here and say ``you bad 
industry.'' You made us, or you made the majority.
  No. The majority voted for it, and that is what happened. The bottom 
line is that it wasn't these special interest groups that voted to have 
Members of Congress. They didn't go to the polls. I didn't see a 
special interest group say, well, I am going to go to the poll and vote 
for this Congressman because they are going to serve me when they get 
to Washington. No, an individual American did that. I think it is 
important that we realize what is going on here.
  So now we have the majority saying we are going to disband the K 
Street Project. Well, it was wrong from the beginning, Mr. Ryan, and 
they all knew it, and we knew it. We talked about it.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It has been wrong for 10 or 12 years now.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. It has been wrong for a number of years. Guess 
what, Mr. Ryan? We came to the floor definitely within the last 2 years 
and since the creation of the 30-Something Working Group and brought 
this to the attention of the Members that this is wrong. You even 
called it Shakedown Street. We didn't even want to call it K Street, 
because it promoted too much.
  People laughed in their offices at us saying, look at them on the 
floor. They are talking about it. We are in control. This is no biggie.
  One article that I read, one Member that will go unnamed at this 
moment, we all know, had a little booking office. If you were not in 
the book, you did not get to see me, or that particular Member.
  So I think it is important, Mr. Ryan, that we make sure that 
Americans know and the American people know, no matter where they live, 
that under a Democratic-controlled Congress, and this is the message to 
the Members and the majority, because there are some Members in the 
majority that feel the way we feel, Mr. Ryan, but, unfortunately, the 
majority of the majority doesn't feel that way.
  So maybe we can have a paradigm shift as we start working on this job 
interview that you mentioned, which we call in broader terms an ``aka 
election day,'' that hopefully there be a paradigm shift where these 
Members will say, you know, I think it is important that we work in a 
bipartisan way to benefit Americans, and I think it is important that 
we make sure that the American people feel they are getting their vote 
worth out of this Congress, versus a K Street Project or Shakedown 
Street.
  So, Mr. Ryan, I am glad to report that we, the Democrats, have worked 
very hard in making sure that we bring this honest leadership to this 
Chamber and to this institution to benefit the American people. It is 
nothing against certain individuals and Members that have made bad 
decisions. That is what they have to deal with individually, okay?
  But when it deals with the overall function of this House, and I am 
so glad in our legislation that we have, Mr. Ryan, on the Democratic 
side, that we are doing away with those in-the-dead-of-the-night 
special interest votes while Americans are sleeping because they got to 
go to work in the morning and punch in and work with very little health 
care benefits; that at 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning their Congress, 
their House of Representatives, took their vote, took their confidence, 
and gave it to the special interests.
  We are saying we want to disabuse this Chamber of doing that, we are 
saying we have a plan to do it, and we are saying that we have been 
amplifying this kind of what some may say is illegal activity that has 
been taking place in so many different areas and what has been reported 
in the media, we have been reporting this.
  Mr. Ryan, I would feet uncomfortable saying what I am saying right 
now on the floor of the House of Representatives if we hadn't been 
saying it for months and months and months. Finally there is validation 
that is happening, that it was happening, and that it is time for a 
change and it is time for us to make sure that this country gets its 
votes worth out of this Congress.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I agree. Not only the culture that you talked 
about, let's talk about what the cost is. Let's connect the dots. Let's 
talk about what happens here.
  We talked about the Health Savings Accounts. This is the President's 
idea to solve the health care problem, and it allows individuals to 
take money, extra money that they have at the end of the month, spare 
money, and put it in a side account.
  Well, that is great if you have got spare money at the end of the 
month to put in a side account. We have millions and millions of people 
in this country who do not have that extra money to put in a side 
health care savings account to address the health care issue, so there 
is going to be millions and millions of people.
  I am not saying it is a bad idea. Maybe it is a good idea for those 
people who have money and they can set it aside. Great. But the vast 
majority of the people who live in this country do not have the luxury 
of having an extra $500 at the end of the month to put in a side 
account.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Forty-six million.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Forty-six million don't have anything now, and 
millions of others can't afford it, or can barely afford what they 
have. So our goal on the Democratic side is to figure out how to reduce 
the cost of health care. And we tried to do that, Mr. Meek, when we had 
the prescription drug bill here.
  The Democrats, this bill started out at $400 billion, and later after 
the vote we found out it was $700 billion. But all the seniors that are 
out there, Mr. Meek, will qualify for this, $700 billion worth.
  What the Democrats wanted to do to save the taxpayer money, to be 
accountable for the money that we spend here, the Democrats wanted to 
put two provisions on to that Medicare part D, the prescription drug 
bill.
  We wanted to allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to be 
able to negotiate down the drug price on behalf of all the Medicare 
recipients. We didn't want to create a new program, a new bureaucracy. 
We just wanted to give the Secretary of HHS the ability to go to Pfizer 
and negotiate down the drug price. You want the Medicare contract? 
Fine. We got to talk price. Knock 15 to 20 percent off the cost and we 
will give it to you. Boom, we save

[[Page 667]]

money, Democrats. That is our idea. The Republican majority shot it 
down in the dead of night.
  The other idea, we wanted to allow for reimportation of 
pharmaceuticals, to allow these prescription drugs to come in from 
Canada to create real competition in the pharmaceutical industry in the 
United States and drive down the cost. We would save the taxpayer 
money, we would lower the cost of prescription drugs, and maybe we 
could start reducing our deficit and eventually make some investments 
in the education and research and development and other things.
  The cost of the pharmaceutical industry giving the Republicans $100 
million is higher drug prices for average Americans and the taxpayers 
not getting their money spent wisely because there is not the 
accountability here that we need.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, it is interesting, Mr. Ryan, that when you 
started talking about health care, I think it is important that we have 
plans to cut health care costs. We also want to reduce the number of 
the uninsured and provide tax credits for health insurance for small 
businesses.
  Mr. Ryan, there are a number of small businesses in my district that 
say, you know something, Congressman? I would like to offer a real 
health care plan to my employees, Mr. Speaker, but they can't. They 
can't do it because they, A, cannot afford it, and, B, the insurance is 
too high.
  Even when you have insurance, you may call it insurance, but the 
premiums are too high. Also making sure we allow patients to buy into a 
CHIPA program, and also allow Americans age 55 to 64 to buy Medicare, 
and also provide proposals to bring down the cost of prescription 
drugs.
  Mr. Speaker, the President mentioned nothing, absolutely nothing, you 
can check the speech on the White House Web site, nothing on 
prescription drugs, nada, even though we have seniors throughout the 
country trying to figure out where is the cost savings in the bill that 
was passed are. I mean, absolutely nothing. I can see at least like one 
little word. ``Well, I want to address this.'' Just one line. Nowhere 
in the speech.
  So the American people know as far as the majority, the Republican 
majority, you have the Republican U.S. House of Representatives looking 
forward to the status quo. If you are happy with the status quo right 
now, I think you need to stick with it. If you are not happy and are 
concerned, like many millions of Americans are, I think you need to be 
able to put that on that interview you have with your Member of 
Congress.

                              {time}  2015

  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Can I ask a question? I thought of this last night 
as I was sitting right over there as the President was giving his 
speech. It is almost amazing to me, I think, that the speech that was 
given here last night was dealing with the same issues that we were 
dealing with today.
  Last night the President was talking about investing in education and 
research and development, and we are going to make these great 
investments. We came here today and did this Budget Deficit Reduction 
Act that actually increases the deficit, and we are cutting education, 
we are cutting the investments. So that was kind of perplexing to me.
  But I was over there listening to him talk about energy independence 
and how we are addicted to oil. And I thought, wow, he actually said 
it, which I thought was great. It is a big first step to admit that 
there is a problem. So maybe it has taken 5 years, but we have now 
admitted, the administration has now admitted that we have a problem.
  And then I was waiting for, you know, all right, this is it. And he 
says, and we are going to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 75 
percent by 2025. And I thought, my goodness gracious, we went to the 
Moon in 10 years. Where is the urgency?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. The European markets when they opened, they said 
ha. You know, they were concerned because before the speech it was all 
of this talk about what he was going to say. But they did not even 
respond to what the President said, because they did not even take him 
seriously.
  So I think it is important that we understand, that the Members 
understand, it is not about the President of the United States. It is 
about what this House is going to do on behalf of the American people. 
That is what it is about.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is exactly it, what do we do day in and day 
out to improve the lives and improve the position politically of our 
country? And the Democratic idea is to get our idea to become self-
sufficient, self-sustaining with energy in the next 10 years. And you 
cannot tell me that if we marshall all of the intelligence and the 
wealth of this country that we cannot do it in the next decade.
  As I said, we went to the Moon in a decade. And look at not only the 
economic impact that we would have in this country, the jobs that would 
be created with ethanol and biodiesel, and all of the hydrogen engines 
and hybrid cars and all of these things that we could create an economy 
back in the United States that we are actually producing, which I think 
is very positive, but let me make this final point.
  Imagine the political position the United States would be in, the 
Secretary of State would be in, if we told all of those oil producing 
countries we are done. We do not need you. We do not want you. We will 
deal with you and help you along the way, but we are not tied to you. 
We are not addicted to your oil. So we do not need to get in all of 
this international political stuff that we have been getting in for the 
last 30 years.
  It has been nothing but bad for the United States, to be in these 
different countries playing with their internal politics and 
puppeteering who is coming in and who is going out, and Saddam Hussein 
needs to be here because he is a Sunni, and we have got the Shiias in 
Iran. Hey, we are going to take care of home first.
  A stronger America begins at home. And the Democratic idea is to take 
the resources of this country, the intelligence of this country, and 
become energy independent in the next 10 years. And no one can 
convenience me that it cannot happen.
  Got a chart. And this chart is the gasoline prices and oil company 
profits. The bars, the grey bars are the profits starting in 2002. And 
as you can see, every year 2003, 2004, 2005 the profits have 
skyrocketed.
  And look what happens to the price of gas. It has gone up as well. So 
the profits go up, the cost goes up. Unbelievable. These people 
continue to make money off a basic resource that everyone is dependent 
on.
  That is why we got to get away from this. Exxon, I think it was Exxon 
that made $36 billion dollars in their last quarter. $80,000 per 
minute. Come on. It is time for the Democratic ideas to take center 
stage in this country.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, as you know, we believe in making sure 
that we share with the Members that we are prepared, we are ready and 
able to lead. And we are going to present a case every time we get an 
opportunity to have the Republicans join the debate on some of our 
ideas. We are willing to even share some of our ideas with the 
majority.
  And we have offered procedurally to the Republicans our ideas, but 
since we are not a part of the legislative writing, the legislative 
creating, the legislative process here, where we have folks outside of 
this process that are unelected that have more input than our caucus on 
a piece of legislation of significance to the American people, we have 
to make sure that we share our case.
  I want to make sure, I want to make sure that the Members on the 
majority side know that they can go to www.democrats.gov and pull up 
our innovation agenda, Mr. Ryan, pull up our innovation agenda.
  And this is just the executive summary of it on how we are talking 
about how we are going to make America better, how we are going to find 
alternative energy, how we are going to make sure that our next 
generation is ready to lead the world, not the United

[[Page 668]]

States, but the world. How we are not going to leave our young people 
behind, how we are going to invest in technology so that we do not have 
to come up with special visa programs.
  Let me just break that down. Special passports or credentials from 
foreign countries because we do not have the know-how here in our 
country to do what we need to do as a country, and to continue to stay 
the superpower of the world. If we continue on this track, we are going 
to have some real financial issues, Mr. Ryan, that you mentioned 
earlier. And we are going to have a brain drain, because we have some 
folks that are more interested on the majority side on giving special 
deals to the special interests.
  I also want to add, and you mentioned this, and I just want to refer 
to my notes, but I want to make sure that we are crystal clear, and 
that everyone understands what we are saying here.
  We have an energy independence plan within 10 years, like Mr. Ryan 
said with new investments and clean energy and technology, calling for 
the repeal of the $8 billion subsidy to the oil companies, and use it 
for consumer relief.
  Now, I think that is important. We are going to take $8 billion from 
the special interests. This is our plan. $8 billion. This is not a new 
program like they like to say, this is taking away from the special 
interest programs, Mr. Ryan, our friends who you made mention of, 
record profits, all of the way up. I know you mentioned Exxon and 
Mobil, but there are a number of other companies taking the cookies 
from them because they are making money.
  I mean, it is not like, you know, a small business would love to say, 
well, you know, I made money this year, but I do not even have to spend 
my money to invest in future profits. I will just spend the taxpayers' 
money to invest in my own profits and to my stockholders.
  So folks want to talk about fiscal responsibility, I think it is 
important that we understand that there are people working out there 
that are paying more for heating oil and fuel and LP gas than at any 
other time in history of this country.
  But meanwhile the corporations that are able, that are a part of the 
legislative process here in this Congress, Mr. Speaker, and a part of 
writing legislation over in the White House as we have read reports on, 
they are getting what they want. What about the folks that woke up 
early one Tuesday morning to vote for representation? So there is a 
clear choice. Just like we were talking about the K Street Project for 
2 years, 24 months.
  One member of the K Street project, a substantial member on the 
Republican side admitted guilt, willing to, you know, okay, go spend 
some time in jail. It was all right. And then when he did that, then 
all of a sudden the K Street Project, it is not good. We need to do 
away with it. We have been saying that on the Democratic side for a 
long time.
  It was not only working toward the demise of bipartisanship here in 
this House of Representative, it was working toward the demise of the 
American spirit. And making sure democracy rings, and making sure that 
every individual received the just-due representation that they voted 
for, not the just-due representation of the special interests, the 
just-due representation of what they voted for.
  Yes, Members, it is painful. It is very painful, Mr. Speaker, to come 
to the floor and speak truths. But I think it is important that 
Republicans, Independents, Democrats, Green Party, you name it, Reform 
Party know exactly what is going on under the Capitol dome.
  We were not sent here to be cozy-cozy and buddy-buddy and allow this 
country or the leadership of this country to in many ways turn their 
back on future generations and this generation.
  You mentioned today, the budget once again passed by 1 or 2 votes, 
passed by 2 votes today. That cut substantially student loans and 
student opportunities to our young people, but better yet, the 
President stood up here last night around this time, or last night, an 
hour from when we are talking now, and said we believe in innovation, 
we believe in making sure, because, you know, what the President saw 
our plan and saw that we were talking about, our plan, and heard about 
our town meetings, that we were having as Democrats, about our plan on 
innovation.
  So he decided to talk about it. But he is talking the talk but he is 
not walking the walk. It is not in his budget. It was not in his budget 
last year. And the action by the House today, by the majority that 
voted to set back the clock on so many Americans that work every day. 
Parents work every day, Mr. Speaker. They pay taxes every day.
  I mean they pay the highest taxes because, guess what, they do not 
get the big breaks like special interests get. And yet we made their 
job even harder today in making sure that they educate their children.
  So, Mr. Ryan, I would be uncomfortable in saying what they have been 
saying, and saying what we have not been saying for a very long time. I 
want to remind the Members once again that if we were in the majority, 
when I say we, I am talking about the Democrats, there would not be a 
lot of talk about what we should do or we could do, it will be the fact 
that we are doing, and that we are working on behalf of everyday 
Americans, and if they are a police officer, a teacher, a person 
mopping up the floor at a hotel on the midnight shift, they are 
retired, they are trying to figure out how they are going to make ends 
meet, or if that they have reached the American dream, had a small 
business, it is now a big business and providing jobs to everyday 
Americans, and making sure that they are equally represented. It would 
not be a question.
  Mr. Speaker, it would not be a question, and we would not even have 
to talk about bipartisanship, because we would have bipartisanship, 
because that is what we are supposed to do in this House, and what the 
American people voted us in and expect from us to do is to work 
together, not only on naming post offices and bridges like we do to 
Americans that deserve it, I am not belittling that process.
  We all bring legislation here to honor our constituents and Americans 
that have served our local communities. We all vote for it, with a few 
exceptions, but on issues such as health care, on issues such as tax 
reform, on issues such as the rights and body armor for our troops, we 
should be united on that. It would not be a question if we could or we 
would, we would be doing it.
  So that is the programs that we make from this side, Mr. Ryan. And 
guess what? We have history to prove that we work in a bipartisan 
nature. So when you talk about election time in November, and you 
talking about the fact that people will be coming forward, the American 
people in an interview, as though they are applying for their job once 
again, or we say an evaluation, when they sit down to that evaluation, 
we want to make sure that the Members know exactly what the American 
people, the kind of questions they are going to be asking or what kind 
of action they will be taking.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Absolutely. I think you make several very, very 
good points, and what we are trying to communicate here is that we have 
better ideas and we want to take the country in a new direction. If you 
are perfectly comfortable with the way everything is right now, then 
you probably do not want to vote for Democrats, but if you are having 
some trouble and you think the country is maybe going in the wrong 
direction, just listen to what we are talking about and how we are 
going to actually implement our plan.
  We have figured out in the past 10 years that we have not always made 
the best argument, we have not always presented ourselves in the best 
way. We allowed our Republican friends to define us, and as they 
defined us, they continued to win elections. But over the past few 
years, 4 years, 5 years in particular, they have defined themselves 
through their actions, and we now have the ideas and the commitment and 
the energy to take this country in a new direction and maybe we needed 
that time to learn. Maybe we

[[Page 669]]

needed that time to figure out exactly what needed to be done, but we 
are talking about, on the Democratic side, making sure that every 
household has broadband access in the next 5 years, that the country is 
energy independent in the next 10 years, by taking some of the savings 
that we will generate through the prescription drug program, by doing a 
couple of the things I talked about earlier by saving money, by making 
government run more efficiently and not being afraid quite frankly to 
ask Bill Gates to pay his fair share in taxes.
  The President said again last night, make the tax cuts permanent. I 
will agree with a part of it, making the middle class tax cuts 
permanent, but let us ask these people who have been making money hand 
over fist over the past 10 years, we need your help. You think we want 
to ask you for more money? You think we like it? No, but we need you to 
help us. The country is running a $500 billion deficit. We could either 
ask you for it or we could borrow it from the Chinese, which is what we 
are doing now.
  So if we ask you for it, we get it and we hopefully balance our 
budget, lower interest rates, and that will lead to economic growth. 
Right now, we are borrowing the money because the Republican majority 
does not have the guts to ask the wealthiest people in the country for 
money, and we are borrowing it from the Chinese.
  It is that simple. We are not making this up. This is not a 
complicated process. We are spending $500 billion more than we are 
taking in. So we have got to get it from somewhere, and if you run a 
deficit at home, you go to the bank and you borrow it and they charge 
you interest. That is what we are doing right now. We are borrowing 
money from the Chinese bank, the Japanese bank, and we are paying 
interest on it, and that is money that we cannot invest, that interest 
payment. We cannot invest that into education.
  I told this story earlier on the floor as we were debating the budget 
reconciliation, and it really hit me. I had a meeting last week with a 
school board member from Youngstown, Ohio, Youngstown City Schools, and 
I asked him as we were sitting there what is the poverty rate for these 
kids that go to Youngstown City Schools, a pretty simple question. 
Ninety percent of the kids of the 8,000 kids that go to Youngstown City 
Schools live in poverty. I do not even know why I asked him because it 
does not really make sense to ask this question, I asked how many 
qualify for the free and reduced lunch. He said we do not even pass out 
the form anymore because so many kids qualify, it is more expensive to 
administer the program by passing things out and trying to figure out 
who we can give it to than it is to just give it to everybody in the 
school. Can you imagine that?
  What we are saying here is that these budget deficits and these tax 
cuts and these cuts to education and this not funding the No Child Left 
Behind and not funding Medicaid, which provides health care for those 
kids, by not funding those programs, these kids do not have a chance. 
We will have certain kids that pop up and they go against the odds to 
be successful, but these kids do not have the opportunity that every 
single American should have.
  What the Democrats are saying is that we want an opportunity because 
you know why? I will sit here for 10 hours. I have 12 years of Catholic 
school in me. I could make every moral argument for doing that that is 
necessary in the book and in the good book, how many times Christ 
talked about helping the poor and poverty. We could make all those 
arguments, but let us set them aside.
  How are we going to compete with 1.3 billion Chinese workers, 1 
billion workers that live in the country of India, the massive 
advancements that are going on in Ireland and Israel and some of these 
other countries? How are we going to compete if we have a school 
district and 90 percent of the kids live in poverty? We need those kids 
to be on the field with all of us competing in a global economy, as 
mathematicians, scientists, chemists, engineers, computer programmers, 
entrepreneurs, artists and musicians. We need them on the field. We do 
not need them in a cycle of poverty.
  If this Republican leadership, if they do not have any new ideas, 
then give us control. Give us the keys to the car because that kid 
should have access to broadband. That kid should have three square 
meals a day. That kid should have art programs after school and should 
have the opportunity to play in an intramural league after school.
  That is how we are going to move the country forward. We are stagnant 
right now because we are not investing in kids, and Katrina took the 
veil off this. We all drive around, go through the suburbs and try to 
do our thing, go around these outer belts and try to stay away from 
that. Katrina took the veil off that, and I think that that is not only 
a moral issue, it is an economic issue that needs to be addressed.
  We have plan after plan after plan after plan to fix that. The 
Democrats have ideas, and we just need the opportunity to implement 
them.
  I did not mean to get all worked up, but I tell you, when I think of 
8,000 kids in my district and there is more because I also represent a 
lot of other school districts, living in poverty and not having the 
kind of opportunity that they should have because they are born on this 
soil here. It gets frustrating.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. If you are not passionate, if you did not have a 
special place in your heart and your mind, then something would be 
really wrong. You are one of the Members of Congress that knew and 
appreciate what it meant when someone or a constituent of yours went to 
go vote for representation. That is what they voted for. They voted for 
someone that was willing to stand up for them, even if they get strange 
looks by certain Members the next day or right after we leave the 
floor.
  That is what this thing is about. That is the reason why we serve. 
That is why we make sacrifices, to be here on this floor after everyone 
else has gone home and flipping cable channels saying, well, you know, 
today I have done my part.
  We still have an America out there that is suffering, and I am not 
talking necessarily about poor people. I am talking about folks that 
work every day. I am talking about small businesses trying to figure 
out how they are going to control their health insurance costs. I am 
talking about victims of natural disasters in our Nation. I am talking 
about families of troops, men and women in harm's way, that are 
concerned about their loved ones and the lack of vision and leadership 
and direction that we are not providing and sending the signals to 
other governments and taking the training wheels off of them and saying 
now, listen, there has to be an end or a strategy to bringing our men 
and women home and saving the U.S. taxpayer money. That can be 
accomplished and protect America at the same time.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we speak truth to power 
when we talk about those kinds of things because you cannot let 
statements just float saying that we just stay as long as we have to 
stay. What does that mean? Stay the course, what does that mean? It is 
not giving the very men and women that have sand in their teeth as we 
are speaking here on this floor a piece of mind on our vision as a 
Congress and as a White House. I think that is important.
  The reason why you were speaking so passionately, I just want to 
reflect on tax cuts. As we start talking about them, I can tell you 
right now I was in the State legislator, Mr. Speaker. I voted for a 
number of tax cuts. Yes, I did, for people that worked every day, for 
small businesses that were trying to make a way out of no way, helping 
them achieve the American dream, even for some large businesses that 
wanted to create more jobs. I did it. I did even a hearing in this 
House as it relates to tax cuts for middle class families, and so did a 
number of colleagues on this side even had proposals that would help 
small businesses more than the majority proposals would help small 
businesses or recommended helping small businesses.
  I think it is important for us to look at when we talk about tax cuts 
and

[[Page 670]]

urge the Congress to make the tax cuts permanent, okay, well, let us 
break that down. Let us put that in English. That is another theme. 
That is a slogan. That is an old Burger King theme, have it your way. 
There are a couple of other themes that are out there: Stop by, we 
leave the lights on. Those are themes. Those are slogans. That is a 
marketing campaign. That is not governance. Let us just share this for 
a moment.
  Let me just translate for the President. What he is talking about, 
and the majority of the House of Representatives is talking about, the 
extension of capital gains and dividend tax breaks were provided to the 
top 1 percent tax cuts up to $14,361 in 2010. Meanwhile, using the same 
timeline, middle class, low-income families would only get $41. I can 
tell you, either everyone in America has to be part of the top 1 
percent to enjoy the majority's vision on the Republican side or else. 
That is it. Either you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, 
Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Green Party and Reform Party 
members, or you get the $41. That is just where it is. You get what 
kind of tax cut? $41. It almost costs $41 to prepare your taxes. So the 
tax guy takes that right off the top. You do not even see that. It is 
just enough to prepare your taxes and report to this government.
  I think it is important that we break this thing down for the 
American people, that they understand exactly what is going on and that 
we let the majority side, as we did with the K Street project, as we 
talked about the Republican culture of corruption and cronyism and 
incompetence, I cannot say it enough because there is no better 
vindication than being right.
  I tell you, some people wait years. Some folks say, well, maybe 10 
years from now they will realize what this Republican majority has 
embraced as doing business in Washington, D.C., but there is a higher 
power that will reveal to his people what is going on in this 
government that has he ordained. You say you have 12 years of Catholic 
school. I have got about forty-some years of Mount Table Missionary 
Baptist Church in me, and I have been in the neighborhood where when 
folks pray hard, they pray hard. I have been in street revivals. I have 
seen evangelists on television. I have seen them under a tent, but the 
bottom line is whether it be Christian or a Jewish person or a Muslim, 
I am going to tell you right now, regardless of what one's faith is, 
right is right and wrong is wrong.
  I would tell you, if we make things permanent and totally lock in 
middle America, poor people in this country into what the President is 
talking about, we better all try to be part of the 1 percent because if 
you are not, you are going to get shortchanged. Not only are you going 
to get shortchanged, your child is not going to have the education 
dollars that they need to even prepare themselves to be a part of the 1 
percent. That is where it comes down to.
  Members need to understand that the American people are going to have 
to make a choice, and they will make a choice in the coming months. You 
said it and I will say it again. We are ready, prepared, we have our 
chin strap buckled, Super Bowl coming up, to lead, not next year but 
right now. If the majority side wants to have a paradigm shift and say 
that we want a bipartisan working group on making sure that we do 
things the way we are supposed to do it here, then, fine, we can get to 
work now.

                              {time}  2045

  But as long as the Republican majority feels that they need to hold 
us down, Mr. Ryan: oh, we got to keep those Democratic ideas down; oh, 
we have to procedurally not allow them to bring ideas to the floor; oh, 
we need to gavel them down in committee when they try to present these 
ideas because we don't want our Members to vote for them because they 
may be judged by their constituents, I can tell you, and I am so glad I 
thought of this, Mr. Ryan, and I know you have the next hour, but let 
me just say this real quickly.
  A perfect example: vindication within our lifetime is wonderful, 
within our political lifetime of the 109th Congress. Social Security. 
The President last night said, Well, you know, we have to work on 
Social Security. Well, the Congress stopped the President and the 
majority side from the privatization of Social Security last year.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Democrats.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Democrats. Democrats. And Mr. Ryan, in the 30-
somethings we like to tell the truth, so a few Republicans, just a few 
in this House, stopped the Republican majority. And guess what? And 
everyday-working Americans, Mr. Ryan. The millions of Americans that 
wrote their Members of Congress.
  But on the Democratic side we had hundreds of town hall meetings 
informing Americans about what this Congress was going to do to them on 
behalf of special interests. The only guarantee was special interests 
were going to get their money off the top and their benefits were going 
to go down.
  But, guess what? Now the President is saying that because it takes a 
little blood and fire in this thing, oh, maybe we can put together 
another, and another, I think it is the fourth or fifth so-called 
bipartisan commission to look at Social Security.
  I'm going to tell you, Mr. Ryan, the only way we fight, the only way 
we win as Americans against special interests, coupled with the 
majority side, is by fire and through commitment and the American 
spirit.
  I must say that I am very excited about the fact that we have 
energized Members on this side of the aisle that are not willing to 
take it. Now, I'm saying some people might say take it any more, but we 
never took it. We are making sure we bring the fight to the majority 
side. If they want to work against the will of everyday American 
people, we are going to give the American people the voice. Even if 
they are Republicans, even if they are Independents, even if they are 
part of the Reform Party, they are Americans. We have been federalized 
to represent them, and they will receive their representation.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate that, my good friend from Florida. We 
are about to wrap up, and I think what we are saying is, we want a 
chance. We want an opportunity to lead this country. As we close here, 
Mr. Meek, I just want to say that our caucus had an election today.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I have already mentioned it.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Have you?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. But go ahead.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, I just wanted to personally congratulate John 
Larson of Connecticut, who is our new vice-chair of the Democratic 
Caucus. We had a great race. It is sometimes difficult within the 
caucus. Jan Schakowsky from Illinois and Joe Crowley from New York both 
ran great races, both great members of our caucus. But this was 
something that really got everybody's juices flowing and ready for the 
next year.
  I want to give our e-mail address out. 30-
[email protected], so the Members can give us a holler, if 
they want to. That is 30, the number, [email protected]. 
Send us your e-mails and let us know what you think. You can go to the 
leader's Web site and find out about our innovation agenda; you can 
find out about what the Democratic plan is to lead this country in the 
next few years and in the next few decades. It is exciting stuff, it 
really is, and I am proud to be a part of it. I want to thank Leader 
Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and Mr. Clyburn as well.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Ryan, for joining us. We are 
going to spare the great staff here in the Chamber. It was a long night 
last night. We are going to call it a night with this hour. We will not 
take our second hour. We want to once again thank the Democratic 
leadership for allowing us to have this hour, Mr. Speaker.

[[Page 671]]



                          ____________________