[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4483-4489]
[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 Florida (Mr. Meek) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is once again an honor to come 
before the House. As you know, those of us that are in the 30-Something 
Working Group, we come to the floor to share not only with the Members 
but the American people about what is happening under the Capitol dome 
here, or what is not happening.
  We want to thank the Democratic leadership for allowing us to come to 
the floor again: Leader Pelosi and Mr. Steny Hoyer, our whip, and also 
the chairman, Mr. Jim Clyburn, and our vice chairman in assisting us in 
moving towards a stronger message to the American people.
  I am so glad to be here with my good friend and colleague in the 
struggle for the truth and to make sure that we move America forward in 
many areas, even though we are serving in the minority here in the 
Congress. I think our constituents and also the American people, Mr. 
Speaker, look for us to use every avenue possible to be able to make 
their lives more secure, to be able to make sure we stand up on behalf 
of their health care, that we make sure that future generations have a 
better environment than what they have right now.
  So with that, Mr. Ryan, it is so good to come back to the floor with 
you again, sir. We usually come to the floor and it is dark outside. It 
happens the sun is out; and as you know, the Congress is recessed for 
the week, but we are still here working, sir.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Thank you, my friend. One quick piece of business 
that has been mentioned several times here today is the countdown to 
the Bush prescription drug tax.
  Now, for those Members who do not remember, the Republican Congress 
voted this boondoggle a few months back, told us it was $400 billion 
before we cast a vote on it, and it ended up being $700 billion. The 
real number was actually hidden from Members of the United States 
Congress before they voted.
  What happens is through this bill seniors have until May 15 to sign 
up for the prescription drug plan, and if they do not sign up by May 
15, they are going to be penalized with the Bush prescription drug tax, 
which means that there will be an increase in monthly premiums by 1 
percent for every month they do not sign up. So if they do not sign up 
by May 15, they will not be eligible to sign up, I think, until January 
of 2007 to begin again. That means there will be a 7 percent increase 
if seniors do not sign up by May 15.
  This is a complex plan, a complicated plan; and we are rushing and 
forcing our seniors to make a decision. So we just want to put a little 
X here on Thursday, March 30, a couple days before the Final Four 
begins, so our seniors know that the countdown is on and they have 
several weeks before this President will levy a tax on them.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Ryan.
  Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, many Members of the House had an opportunity 
to witness a strong message again of commitment towards security; and 
those of us that are in the minority party have been working very, very 
hard to increase security here in the United States, especially 
homeland security. We are going to talk a little bit about that today. 
And I think when we were here, I know when we were here the night 
before last, we talked about the fact that just because the majority 
side says that we have security does not really mean we have security.

[[Page 4484]]



                              {time}  1545

  The majority side has said that we are going to make sure that we are 
fiscally responsible, but we found out later and we know now that the 
Republican majority has put us into record-breaking deficits.
  If I can, just to start this off, Mr. Speaker, because I like to use 
visual aids and I know we are going to talk about security, but I think 
it is important because folks just feel we may come to the floor, the 
30-Something Working Group comes to the floor, we go in the back room, 
we just dream up things to say, and this is not the case because, Mr. 
Speaker, unfortunately, there is so much bad news overwhelming the good 
news as it relates to future generations and this generation on how we 
are going to function as Americans and as a country.
  No other time, I must add, before I bring this chart up, has the 
country been in the fiscal situation that it is in right now as it 
relates to foreign countries owning our debt.
  Now I want to put this up, and I think it is important. You have seen 
this chart before. We have said that this chart may very well be in the 
National Archives one day because it will document that there were 
Members on the floor identifying to other Members on the majority side 
because they voted for this to happen. No other time in the history of 
the country have we borrowed $1.05 trillion from foreign Nations in 
just 4 years. Matter of fact, we were not able to do it in 224 years, 
Mr. Speaker. We were not able to do it in 224 years; $1.05 trillion 
just for President Bush and the Republican Congress, it says right here 
below this picture because we cannot leave the Congress out because he 
could not do it all by himself. You have 42 Presidents here going back 
to the First Continental Congress, 224 years, and there they were only 
able to borrow $1.01 trillion.
  Well, folks may say, well, Congressman, we are at war; Congress, 9/
11. Guess what, these 42 other Presidents had the Great Depression, 
World War I, World War II, a number of other wars in between. They had 
all of these issues that were challenging America, but they never sold 
America off to foreign nations.
  Let us talk about who those foreign nations are, and I think it is 
important again. This chart here has nothing to do with the weather. It 
is a silhouette, Mr. Speaker, as you can see of the United States of 
America. Who are we selling our debt off to? Who are we indebted to 
now? Because before this President and this Republican majority took 
over, we were talking about surpluses.
  I am speaking here as a Democrat from the party that, guess what, we 
balanced the budget. We told folks that we would balance the budget and 
that we would cut down on spending, and guess what, we did it. But, you 
know, once again you have the other side, the Republican majority, 
saying: Trust us, we are fiscally responsible. Some folks may say the 
folks on the Democratic side, they like to spend money. Well, who is 
spending now?
  China, Red China, many people in your district in Ohio are training 
people to go to China to do their jobs. Meanwhile, they are trying to 
make ends meet, and they are a part of the millions of Americans 
without health care, and Red China, we owe them $249.8 billion. They 
bought our debt to that point, and we owe them.
  Japan, the little small island of Japan. They own $680.8 billion of 
our debt. Those are the big numbers.
  UK, they own $223.2 billion of our debt.
  This is not by the Democrats now I must add, and I challenge any 
Republican that wants to come down here right here, right now. This is 
not the WWF cage match. I want them to come here right now and explain 
to us, how is this positive for Americans in the future and right now?
  Korea, $66.5 billion that they own of the American apple pie.
  Canada, $53.8 billion of the American apple pie.
  Germany, some of our veterans, $65.7 trillion.
  Taiwan, the small island of Taiwan, $71.3 billion.
  And OPEC nations, now Mr. Speaker, this is very interesting because 
OPEC nations, we are talking about Saudi Arabia, we are talking about 
Iraq, we are talking about Iran, who we have real issues with, OPEC 
Nations, they are a part of the American apple pie; $67.8 billion of 
our debt we owe them.
  Now, anyone, Mr. Speaker, who has been in a financial situation 
before and has made youthful indiscretions on spending knows when a 
creditor calls you and they call in the tab for this payment, they 
disrespect you from the beginning. They do not call up and say, Mr. 
Ryan, I am calling from whoever the lender may be, when do you think 
that you can return payment? No, they call you Tim, because they 
disrespect you from the beginning.
  I am concerned, Mr. Speaker, that we are going to find ourselves in a 
situation where these countries are going to start disrespecting the 
United States of America, not because of something they did. It is 
because we have had a Republican Congress that has been the rubber 
stamp Congress for the President of the United States and not doing 
what they should be doing in Article I, section 1 of the Constitution, 
and that is a fact. They have been rubber stamping everything that the 
President has wanted.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This is President Bush's Congress.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. This is President Bush's Congress.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This is his Congress. They toe his line.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. And the bottom line is, it is like having, Mr. 
Speaker, a board of directors of a bunch of people like bobble heads 
going up and down like this: What do you want, Mr. President? You want 
to make tax cuts permanent for millionaires and billionaires? We are 
with you. You want to give subsidies to oil companies that are making 
record profits while the American people are paying through the nose 
for oil and for gas prices? We are with you all the way. All the way, 
Mr. President, you can count on this Republican Congress because we are 
going to do it.
  Hey, guess what, we are going to put it on the credit card. And folks 
used to say future generations. This is dealing with right now, and so 
just because you see a majority stands up there and they have this big 
chart behind them saying fiscal responsibility, we want to cut the 
budget in half, the deficit in half; that is not true.
  So that is the reason why we are here on this floor today. That is 
the reason why we are sharing with the American people, and I can tell 
you, Mr. Speaker, I would be concerned if I was a Republican Member of 
Congress because I can tell you right now, as a Democrat who represents 
Republicans, Democrats, Independents, I represent Americans. They are 
all coming to me. They are not coming up to me and saying, hey, I am a 
Republican and I have got to stick with Republicans because I am 
Republican. No, they are saying I am an American and I am concerned 
about what is happening in Washington, D.C.; I am concerned about the 
fact that I am going to have to pay more for my grandchild's education 
because we have not done what we are supposed to do in the fiscal way 
to make sure that we are there; we do not cut student opportunities so 
they can train themselves for the next generation. I am concerned, 
Congressman, that the Congress is not investing in innovation so that 
we can have engineers, we can have scientists, so that we do not have 
to raise the visa rate to be able to bring folks in from another 
country to take U.S. jobs because we have CEOs that are begging us for 
the opportunity to have an educated and ready-to-go workforce, and we 
cannot provide it because these kids cannot get into schools, but 
meanwhile, we are standing up for the billionaires in this country, and 
we are standing up for bad policy in this country.
  No one is questioning the whole issue as it relates to Iraq. You 
heard one of our Members just got back, said this is what we need on 
the ground in Iraq. We go to Iraq. We fought for our troops to get them 
what they need. The bottom line is we have to govern, and the reason 
why you see all of these scandals and all of the wasted money, Mr.

[[Page 4485]]

Speaker, is that the Congress is over here doing this.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Bobble heads.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Bobble heads on the other side of the aisle 
saying, we are with you all the way.
  So when they say we stand up to the President every now and then, 
that is not what the Constitution says, Mr. Speaker. The Constitution 
says that we are the House that represents the people of the United 
States of America. If they are in a wheelchair, walking upright, if 
they are white, they are black, Hispanic, whatever the case may be, we 
are charged to represent them, and when we are making history in all 
the wrong areas, borrowing from foreign nations in 4 years more than in 
the 224 years of 42 Presidents, and folks are not alarmed? We are far 
beyond politics right now, Mr. Speaker. We are in a situation to where 
either we have some folks on this floor that are willing to lead on 
behalf of the American people, no longer sell our debt off to foreign 
nations that we have issues with, or we are just going to continue to 
go down this fiscal track, slippery slope, until we get to a situation 
to where we are not going to be the superpower that we have been in the 
past of the work that these the other Presidents and other Congresses 
have done.
  I will be doggone if I am a Member of a Congress where we are not 
trying to bring about the paradigm shift to get us back on the fiscal 
track and make sure that we do the things the way the American people 
elected us to do it when we come up here.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. You are exactly right. Article I, section 1, of the 
United States Constitution creates this House of Representatives. It 
does not say we are going to have a king. It does not say we are going 
to have a President. That all comes later. Article I, section 1, of the 
Constitution creates this body, and when things get so turned around 
that this body is rubber stamping everything, this is President Bush's 
Congress. They have done every single thing that he has asked and 
everything that is supposed to be up is down statistically, and 
everything that is supposed to be down is up.
  Now, since President Bush has been in and President Bush's Congress, 
they have raised the debt limit by $3 trillion. Basically what happens 
is the CEO, the President, the Treasury Secretary, they come to 
Congress; they come to the board of directors and say, hey, we need to 
go out and borrow more money for the business. So the Congress time and 
time and time again says, sure, keep going, we will not even ask any 
questions as to where you are spending it.
  They raised the debt in June of 2002 by $450 billion; May of 2003 by 
$984 billion; November of 2004, $800 billion; and just 2 weeks ago, we 
did it again by several hundreds of billions of dollars. Almost $9 
trillion is the limit the United States can go and borrow.
  As the gentleman from Florida said, we are borrowing it from the 
Chinese, the Japanese, OPEC countries. Can you imagine, we are going to 
the oil producing countries to borrow money? Are they not getting 
enough of our money right now? I think they get plenty of our money, 
Mr. Speaker.
  Now, what did the Democrats try to do to stop the insanity? We have a 
little provision here that was implemented in the early 1990s, and it 
basically said if you want to spend money, you have got to go find it 
somewhere. You have either got to raise revenue or you have got to cut 
spending from another program in order to bring it into balance. It is 
called pay-as-you-go, just kind of like you do at home.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. If a family had this kind of situation where 
they had debt and they were trying to catch up on that debt, the first 
thing when you get out of that or you get a second mortgage or you get 
some sort of loan to consolidate your debt, the first thing that 
lending officer says is, to do what? Cut your credit cards up.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Right.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Because from this point on, you can only buy 
what you can afford, not just continue to put it on the credit card 
because you are going to continue to go into the hole.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is a great point, and I thank the gentleman.
  So, in this Congress, the Democrats have tried to reimplement this 
pay-as-you-go system because Bush's Congress, Bush's House, Bush's 
Senate, President Bush, they got rid of the PAYGO requirements. They 
said we did not need them anymore, and the Democrats, time and time, 
you know, we hear a lot about, well, what is the Democrats' plan? This 
is the Democratic plan: We want to implement PAYGO rules back into the 
United States Congress to rein in this spending. John Spratt from South 
Carolina, our ranking Democratic member on the Budget Committee, tried 
to put a substitute amendment in on the 2006 budget resolution, and 
that amendment failed. Zero Republicans voted to reimplement the PAYGO 
rules.

                              {time}  1600

  We tried again with another Spratt substitute amendment, H. Con. Res. 
393. I am not making this up. This happened. It is in the Congressional 
Record, Mr. Speaker. The Members can go and look and check it out. It 
failed 194-232. Zero Republicans voted to reimplement the PAYGO rules.
  Mr. Thompson from California tried; Mr. Stenholm, a former Member 
from Texas, he tried. Mr. Moore from Kansas, he tried. We have been 
trying to implement fiscal restraint on Bush's Congress, and they 
refuse to accept it time and time again.
  Now, the funny part about it, and not really funny ha-ha, just funny 
peculiar, is that this is the same outfit that campaigned in 1994, Mr. 
Speaker, that they were going to pass a balanced budget amendment to 
the United States Constitution. They wanted to enshrine balanced 
budgets into the U.S. Constitution and make a constitutional amendment. 
Now, 12 years later, they are the most fiscally irresponsible group 
that has run the show in the United States Congress.
  Time and time again, when Democrats have tried to rein in spending, 
we keep butting our heads up against the Republican majority, President 
Bush's bobblehead Congress that just continues to say ``yes'' to every 
single thing that they do.
  I remember, too, my good friend from Florida, time and time again we 
heard about how government needs to be run like a business. And you 
know what, put me in. Sign me up. I agree. I think it should be run 
like a business. But when you apply this scenario to a business model, 
we are the board of directors, the United States Congress, and the 
majority in particular. The President is the CEO. So if the CEO keeps 
going back to the board to say, hey, we want to go borrow more money, 
the board should at least ask some questions, like, Where are you 
spending it?
  And when you hear where they are spending it, in Iraq a $1.5 billion 
a week, and then Halliburton, who is getting the contracts in Iraq, is 
inflating prices and has been fined already for inflating prices, 
basically bilking the taxpayer, Mr. Speaker, is what that is called in 
laymen's terms; yet there is no oversight. Where is the $9 billion 
dollars in Iraq. Where is it? You got it. No, I don't. You don't have 
it? He's got it. Wait a minute, I don't have it. Nobody knows where it 
is, $9 billion.
  This is not an operation that is being run like a business, 
especially in Iraq. Then we look at what happened when Katrina hit. 
That operation, FEMA, was certainly not run like a business, because 
you don't put a horse lawyer in charge of an emergency management 
operation. That is the bottom line. You put people in who will respect 
the operation and respect what needs to be done.
  So if all this is happening, we've got to make some changes. And if 
it is General Motors, the American people do not have a vote as to who 
is on the board or who is the CEO of the company. But, fortunately, my 
friend, in the United States of America, the American people have the 
opportunity to pick a new board, and in November of 2006 the American 
people are going to have an opportunity to pick a new board.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, when you start talking about our 
stakeholders here, and who is a stockholder in the United States of 
America

[[Page 4486]]

or a stakeholder that has stock, you know, I am a Member of Congress 
and I guess I put on a suit and a tie this morning and a shirt, and I 
am wearing a decent pair of shoes here today, but that doesn't make me 
a stockholder in America, just the way I dress. This voter registration 
card here does. That is the bottom line.
  Anyone that is carrying one of these, Mr. Speaker, are the folks that 
will be able to speak to us in a way versus another person who is not 
registered to vote. And the real issue comes down to this: Are we going 
to be accountable to the American people? That is one question. Are we 
going to be accountable to those that are not old enough to vote yet 
and carry one of these voter registration cards? That is another 
question. Are we going to be accountable to those Americans that do 
have a voter registration card and know what it means to have a 
responsible government?
  People want governance, Mr. Ryan. They could care less about the 
Republicans did this and the Democrats did that. They want governance, 
they want security, they want to make sure their children are educated 
and they want to be sure we are responsible, being the overseers of the 
Government of the United States of America. And the bottom line is 
this: we have some folks that have gotten confused, Mr. Speaker, on the 
majority side.
  There are some votes that have taken place on this floor, this 
education bill that just passed today that did very little to address 
the issues of innovation in education, even though the majority side 
says we are for innovation; even though we are for education, just a 
little tiny increase here and there, and this is the best bill since 
bills have been passed.
  And, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important for us to just step back 
for a minute and say the reason why we are here. We are not appointed 
here in this House of Representatives. In the other body across the 
Hall, in the Senate, if a Senator was to say, hey, you know, I can't do 
this any more, I am gone. That is it. Hey, it was great serving for 20-
something years, or even 5 years in some cases, but I am not going to 
do this any more. I have to go take care of my grandkids, my mother is 
ill, or whatever case, and they go on. In that particular case, a 
Governor can appoint a U.S. Senator.
  But if a Member of the House, as we all know, Mr. Speaker, says, you 
know, family issues, personal issues, I can no longer come back to 
Washington every week to represent my district, I am gone, there has to 
be a special election set. And that is what holds us to a higher power 
as it relates to representing the people of the United States of 
America.
  It is important that Members realize that folks early one Tuesday 
morning in some given community woke up one day and stood in line to 
vote for some representation. And I can tell you right now, the bills 
that are passing on this floor that are benefiting folks that are very 
powerful in this capital city, that I feel are not really benefiting 
the folks back home, I am concerned about. I know my card happens to 
say Democrat, but there are some cards that say Independent, and there 
are some voting cards that say Republican, and there are some voting 
cards that say Green Party and other parties. And guess what, they feel 
the way we feel.
  I share with some Members sometimes that we have to act as though it 
was our first night being elected, all the things we wanted to do 
before we hit Washington, D.C., until someone started telling us how we 
should vote and how we shouldn't vote. We should have those feelings of 
representing the group of people that have sent us up here. And by the 
fact they have sent us here, Mr. Speaker, many times we have to look on 
behalf of the greater country. We have been federalized once we have 
been sent here to serve in this body.
  So, Mr. Ryan, when we talk about stakeholders and stockholders, the 
stakeholders and stockholders in the United States of America are the 
people we serve. And folks are getting confused about that, or we 
wouldn't see this out-of-control borrowing and spending.
  Folks are coming before the people of the United States of America 
and saying, you know, the President is asked, what about Iraq? Well, we 
are going to be there as long as we have to be there. That is not an 
answer.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is the next President's issue.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Yes, that is the next President's issue.
  Mr. Speaker, we talked about the other night, Mr. Ryan and I were 
talking, and the next thing you know, it is like Mr. Ryan or my 
constituents walking up to me in Miami and saying, hey, Congressman, 
you really need to do something about economic development. Well, that 
is for the next Member of Congress. It is not for me.
  So the real issue is this: Do we want to represent the people that 
have fought that are veterans, and the American people that are paying 
taxes for us to be able to salute one flag here today? Or do we want to 
represent someone that is publicly on the stock market that has an 
issue that wants to use the U.S. taxpayer dollar to carry on their 
business when they are making record profits, when they are doing very 
little as it relates to investment?
  So we have to make sure that the rubber hits the road and that 
everyone understands. Because we know there is going to be a big 
marketing campaign going on later on this year about who is doing the 
best job up here in Congress. And what I am seeing of the polling 
numbers and what people are saying and how they are concerned, the 
party has nothing to do with it. It has everything to do with 
governance.
  And, Mr. Ryan, if they want accountability in Iraq, and if they want 
accountability as it relates to paying as we go, and if they want 
accountability as it relates to us following up and saying what we are 
going to do, and we have all these scandals going on under this 
situation, what will happen? And what would happen if we had real 
oversight? If we had oversight, would Halliburton be able to get a 
blank check?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Here is the choice, my friend. The American people 
will have a decision to make. We can either go and keep following 
President Bush down this unknown path, that I don't even know sometimes 
if the President knows where we are going as a country, or we can 
change course and we can go in a different direction than President 
Bush's direction. Because that direction, as you have seen, has led to 
more borrowing from foreign interests than the previous 42 Presidents.
  We are not making this up. That is from the United States Department 
of the Treasury. And when you look at the interest payments that we 
have to pay just on the interest, and here is a great example, Mr. 
Speaker: for the 2007 budget, we will spend about $230 billion just 
paying the interest on the money that we owe all these other countries.
  So if China loans us money, they loan us the money and then we send 
them the interest. So China takes the interest and invests it back into 
their state-owned companies and wipes out the manufacturing base in the 
United States. That doesn't seem too smart. That is President Bush's 
direction. The Democrats want to take the country in another direction.
  So $230 billion out of the 2007 budget is going to go just for 
interest. Wasted money. Flush it right down the toilet, `cause it is 
done. Then what are we going to spend on education? Fifty billion. We 
have $230 billion on the interest and $50 billion on education. You 
know, 10 or 15 on homeland security, and a pittance, just a little more 
than that, on veterans.
  You know, President Kennedy said: ``To govern is to choose,'' and 
this is the choice that this President makes. The Bush Congress 
continues to reaffirm with their rubber stamp time and time and time 
again. So all we are saying is what we want to do is we want to change 
direction.
  I personally would like to stop following the President, because I 
have seen his track record, and I don't want to follow him. It is just 
like any leader. You are with them, you want to be with them, but over 
time they build a record, and this Republican Congress

[[Page 4487]]

refuses to break free from what the President is doing here. And this 
is President Bush's Congress, my friend.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, I just want to also share the fact 
that we both serve on the Armed Services Committee, and we feel very 
passionate about what our men and women are doing. And we know that in 
Iraq, Mr. Speaker, you watch the Secretary of Defense and you watch the 
press conference with the President and you would think that it is 
another beautiful day in Iraq, and it is not.
  First question: Is there a civil war in Iraq? That answer usually 
comes back ``no.'' There is a civil war going on right now. As sure as 
today is Thursday, there is a civil war going on in Iraq right now. 
Will it get worse? It probably will get worse. Is the coalition getting 
bigger or smaller? Well, you know, we are talking to people, and the 
indicators of the indicators are saying. And they are not making any 
sense whatsoever.
  And the reason they get away with this, Mr. Speaker, is we are not 
nailing them down as a Congress on the tough questions so they can 
answer in a truthful way and guide them in the right direction. It is 
not the Congress's responsibility for the day-to-day operations of war. 
The President would say it is not his responsibility either, that it is 
the commanders on the ground.
  Well, we found from past commanders and some present that have 
slipped and said a few things every now and then that we did not have 
all that we needed to go into Iraq; that we did not have the body armor 
and equipment and a mission and a plan; we did not have a real 
coalition when we went into Iraq. We had a number of main countries, 
but when you look at it, you had the U.S., you had contractors, and 
then the Brits. And that was a huge deficit as it relates to numbers.
  The Brits have said they are leaving this year, and a number of the 
other countries that were sending 50 to 100 troops there, or technical 
advisers that were part of our so-called coalition are leaving. Because 
they are willing to take the training wheels off the Iraqi Government. 
They are willing not to get into a situation, Mr. Speaker, of a 
continued borrowing from other countries. You know why they are doing 
it? Because they know they cannot weaken their country.
  The U.K., I am going to snatch them off this map here, $223.2 billion 
of our debt. I mean, they have it so good they can buy our debt and 
still operate their country and continue to do what they are doing.

                              {time}  1615

  But they have better sense to know they have to take care of home 
first.
  The President can boldly say, because he has the bobble-head 
Republican majority here that says whatever you say, Mr. President, we 
are with you.
  For a minute there, I was concerned that maybe we could move in a 
bipartisan way. But, of course, when it came down to the whole Dubai 
Ports World issue, we had folks that said we stopped that from 
happening. But the environment was set up for it to happen, that the 
under secretaries in each department could make a unilateral decision 
that we will sell our ports off to a foreign nation. Somebody objected, 
and all of a sudden it became a situation where we had to do something 
about this after the whole country was in an uproar over the issue.
  The Democrats, we were the first ones on the floor saying, what do we 
need 45 days for? What is there to think about, that we are going to 
outsource our ports to a foreign nation that there is a question mark 
concerning where the financing for the 9/11 attack came from. We are 
going to give them six of our ports on the east coast? What is to think 
about? 45 days for what? What does the President of the United States 
say? ``We gave them a handshake. We have to move on with this. You can 
have your 45 days, I am still going to do what I want to do.''
  The Republican Congress was pushed with their back against the wall. 
But does the Republican Congress have to be pushed to the wall before 
they stand up and say, excuse me, Mr. President, we don't agree with 
you, and we are not going to do it.
  The same thing happened, Mr. Ryan, when we came to this floor night 
after night, in some instances 2 hours a day on this floor, talking 
about the President's Social Security plan. He was going to privatize 
Social Security. Many of the Members on the majority side were with 
him. Ho-hum, private accounts, big press conference.
  It took the American people to rise up in over 1,000 town hall 
meetings on this side of the aisle to bring to the attention of the 
American people that they were going to lose under private accounts, 
and then the President finally said okay. He flew all over the country 
and burned all kinds of jet fuel at taxpayers' expense and kind of did 
the Potomac two-step kind of thing.
  Why can't we, as a bipartisan body, because people want leadership, 
and we are here sharing with the American people that we are ready to 
lead. We have plans to lead. We have led before in the past, be it war, 
be it making sure, and I want you to talk about Bosnia a little bit, be 
it planning to move into an area. I think it is important because 
yesterday we not only unveiled but said for a second time in many cases 
our security plan, our real security plan that people can get. They can 
read it online. They can get it on HouseDemocrats.gov. They can get a 
copy of this plan.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, you have to be tough, there is no 
doubt about it, but you have to be smart. What we are doing now is not 
smart. We talked earlier about the debt and deficit and everything else 
we have now. In 1993, a Democratic House, Democratic Senate and a 
Democratic President balanced the budget in the United States. It led 
to the creation of 20 million new jobs. The Democrats know how to 
govern.
  We had an incident in the late 1990s with Bosnia. General Clarke, a 
Democrat; Madeleine Albright, a Democrat; President Clinton, a 
Democrat; we went into Bosnia with a coalition of countries around the 
world to help us stop basically what we said was happening in Iraq. We 
went in there, and we did not lose one American soldier. The Democrats 
know how to administer governments, and the Republicans, quite frankly, 
do not because the numbers do not bear it out. The budget is 
ballooning. They have raised the debt ceiling by $3 trillion. They are 
borrowing money from Japan, China and the OPEC countries, and whoever 
else will loan them money. The deficit next year is projected to be 
about $500 billion. Tuition costs have doubled in the past 4 or 5 
years. The gap between the wealthiest people in our society and the 
poorest people in our society has grown to a point we have not seen 
since pre-World War II, and Iraq is a mess. $1.5 billion a week. We are 
losing soldiers every day, and there is absolutely no end in sight. We 
did not go in with enough troops, and whether you supported the war or 
not, you want to make sure that you succeed, for God's sake.
  Mr. Speaker, we have not seen the rebuilding effort in Iraq that we 
need to see in order to get out of there.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ryan and I were both in Iraq. 
We were in Iraq together. We were in these meetings with the commanders 
and the troops. You ask a question, sometimes folks lose eye contact 
with you because they are trying to do what the commander in chief said 
that we need to do. And there are a lot of stump speeches going on, and 
the President is flying and folks are standing behind him and clapping 
and all. And we are all supportive of the commander in chief, but when 
you are riding down the railroad tracks and you are saying, is that the 
light at the end of the tunnel or is that the train? Is that a train or 
is that the sun? When you start getting indicators, when you hear a 
horn and the rails start shaking on the train track, I think you start 
saying, I think that is a train.
  Tough talk: The President throws out statements, talking about folks, 
we are going to get them and track them down and all this kind of 
stuff, it makes things even worse. So when we talk to these commanders, 
and some of them lose eye contact because they know we do not have what 
we need.

[[Page 4488]]

And as long as this Republican majority is here bobble heading with the 
President saying, Mr. President, we are with you. And they have special 
breakfasts over at the White House. And, of course, Mr. Ryan, we are 
not invited because we may say something to the President he does not 
want to hear. We all know that the President does not take good to 
those who disagree with him, and I guess that rule applies to some of 
our Republican friends on the other side of the aisle because, 
obviously, we do not have the kind of uprising we need in the majority 
to be able to say, Mr. President, we are really going to have to start 
talking about this Iraq thing. We have to do something about it.
  The Iraqi government, you go over there and you have some of the 
Members of their government, be it elected or appointed, they are 
sitting up there like they have 10 years to do whatever they have to 
do, they have 20 years to do whatever they have to do. And guess what, 
it is at the U.S. taxpayers' expense.
  Meanwhile, Mr. Ryan, we have schools that do not have what they need. 
Meanwhile, we are here on this floor talking about cutting lunches for 
poor children just because they so happened to be born into a poor 
family. I have mayors coming to me saying, Congressman, these unfunded 
mandates for homeland security, I am having to spend all of this money. 
I have to take money out of parks and rec and decrease the quality of 
life in my city. The Federal Government just cut the COPS program, but 
meanwhile, we are building schools and roads and water treatment plants 
and the President said we were not going to be into nation-building 
over in Iraq.
  Mr. Speaker, we want to be able to mold the clay and to be able to 
let the American people know if you are walking down a tunnel, which 
they know, it is just commonsense, if you are walking down a tunnel and 
you are walking on some train tracks and you are stepping on those wood 
slates and you are saying, is that the sunlight or a train, and then 
you hear a horn and the tracks are shaking, I do not think that is the 
sun, I know it is a train.
  What this majority has to do, and if the American people want us to 
be able to bring this President into accountability and bring the 
Department of Defense back into accountability and oversight, you are 
going to have to have a Congress, in this case a Democratic Congress, 
that asks the tough questions.
  When you sit down for a job interview, you have to have a good 
resume. You cannot say, in my last job, I agreed with everything that 
the other guy who was sitting next to me said because I was told to say 
yes. No. People elected us to lead. People elected us to have plans. 
People elected us to have plans in all areas to make sure we have 
accountability for our government. People do not care if it is a ``D'' 
or ``R'' behind the name; they want leadership. We talk about real 
security. Real security is making sure that we protect America before 
something happens.
  I do not want a 9/11 or an 8/11 or a 7/11, I do not want those dates 
to come up and say, oh well, now an event has happened and let's 
legislate to make sure that we move from 5 percent container checks at 
ports to 100 percent. Why do we need an event for that to happen?
  The reason it is not happening, to be brutally honest, is we have the 
bobble-head Republican majority Congress that is saying ``yes'' to the 
President at every turn. Not all Republicans because I do not want to 
generalize, but enough to allow the President to continue doing what he 
is doing. And the only way we switch and have the change that you are 
talking about, Mr. Ryan, is if we have a Congress that is dedicated and 
bonded, ready to work in a bipartisan way, unlike what we have today, 
and bringing in the very few Republicans on the other side of the aisle 
that think the way we do, and say we are willing to represent. We do 
not care what your party affiliation is, we are willing to represent on 
behalf of the American people.
  We are willing to tell the special interests that we notice you have 
issues, but we have something at hand. We have other issues such as 
innovation, such as homeland security, such as making sure that our 
troops have a clear plan in Iraq. The tough questions need to be asked, 
and we need to act on them. Some of them are being asked in some 
places, but they are not being acted upon.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. From a security perspective, we need to be tough; 
we need to be smart. We need to have our act together, and we have a 
comprehensive plan. You know, these bumper-sticker solutions to complex 
world problems do not work. They just do not work. They have gotten us 
into the situation we are in now.
  If you look at the plan that the Democrats have, we talk about 100 
percent of the ports. Right now, we are only inspecting 5 percent of 
the ports here. The Democrats have tried. Let us get those charts out 
about all of the amendments we have offered to try to increase funding 
for port security.
  We only check 5 percent of the cargo coming into the United States 
ports. That means 95 percent is not checked at all because of the 
failed leadership on behalf of President Bush's Congress.
  What have the Democrats tried to do? Some people ask: What are the 
Democrats doing? Here is what we are doing.
  In June of 2004, Mr. Obey tried to put on an amendment right here in 
Congress to increase port and container security by $400 million; 
Republicans refused to even allow a vote. That was for $400 million, 
and we need $6 billion worth to actually do the job. That is what the 
Coast Guard says we need. We only asked for $400 million, and could not 
even get a vote on it.
  October 7 of 2004, another amendment by Mr. Obey, Mr. Sabo and 
Senator Byrd to increase funding by $150 million. That was shot down.
  We kept trying, we kept going. On September 29, 2005, Mr. Obey, Mr. 
Sabo, increase funding for port and container security by $300 million. 
The House conferees defeated this amendment along party lines. 
Democrats for, Republicans against.
  Again, March of 2006, Republicans blocked an effort by the Democrats 
to bring the King-Thompson port deal bill to the floor.

                              {time}  1630

  Again, Republicans voted against the bill. Time and time and time 
again, the Democratic minority tried to get President Bush's Congress 
to support these deals, to support increases in funding so we can get 
it from 5 percent to 100 percent. We should check all of the cargo that 
comes into the country. So that is one issue. We need to check the 
ports. Okay? But there is not one little bumper sticker we could say we 
are going to have, we are going to put it on all our cars, then the 
problem is going to be solved. That is just one component.
  We believe, in the Democratic Party, that if we do not have a long-
term alternative energy proposal where we are going to reduce our 
dependence on foreign oil, we will continue to be in these squabbles 
and these entanglements in the Middle East, time and time and time 
again. So the Democrats want to fund the ports. We have made efforts to 
do that. We want an alternative energy program. We need to get the oil 
man out of the White House in order to do that. And not only are we 
trying to take on the oil companies, the Republican majority in the 
energy bill gave the, check this out, gave the oil companies $12 
billion in corporate welfare. So not only are your gas prices going up; 
your public tax dollars that you send to Washington, D.C., the 
Republican majority is also giving that to the oil companies on top of 
what you are already giving them.
  The first day we take over, next January, we will implement the 9/11 
Commission's report, make sure we put that thing front and center and 
we do what the bipartisan commission has told this country that we need 
to do.
  The COPS program that you mentioned, our first responders, that 
program is gone. It is gone. President Clinton had a goal of putting 
100,000 cops on the street. And the Republican Congress has almost 
nearly eliminated that program, if it is not all gone already.

[[Page 4489]]

  So what we are saying is, real security is an opportunity for all of 
us to have a comprehensive plan, implement the 9/11 Commission's 
report, make sure that we secure the ports and fund the funding level 
that the Coast Guard recommends, not Kendrick Meek and Tim Ryan, what 
the Coast Guard recommends. Let's develop an alternative energy policy 
in this country so that we are not reliant on oil from the Middle East 
that gets us entangled in all of this stuff. And let's make sure we 
fund our police and fire and our first responders, the first line of 
defense here.
  So be tough, but be smart and make proper investments that are going 
to yield value and protect the country, not where did the $9 billion go 
that we are spending in Iraq that no one knows where it is.
  Be happy to yield.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, you know, Mr. Ryan, I believe that America 
is protected best and freedom is protected in advance. We look at 
homeland security.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Prevention.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Prevention. When you talk about prevention, you 
are talking about before. When you are talking about reactionary, we 
are talking about after.
  So dealing with this container thing, I don't want the Members to 
take it lightly, Mr. Speaker. You may say, well, you know, I am in the 
middle of America. I live in Sioux City, Iowa, and we don't have ports 
so I don't need to worry; that is not my issue. Well, it is your issue 
because those containers that are coming in from overseas and from 
countries that are in question, some may say suspect as it relates to 
their commitment to the United States of America, they get on those 
little trucks and trains that I was talking about a little earlier, and 
they go right down into your community. And if there is a dirty bomb or 
some sort of substance that will hurt your community and your family, 
now it is your problem. And I think it is important that we point that 
out, because I don't want folks to get confused and say, well, I am not 
from a coastal area; Members who say, you know, well that is not my 
issue.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Just like you get your food, just like you get the 
toys that shipped to the local store that you are going to buy, same 
thing. Those all come in through the ports.
  Now, here is what is interesting, Mr. Speaker. And I think this is 
something that really makes your ears perk up when you hear about this. 
On March 28, just a day or so ago, Senators said that a report, this is 
from Bloomberg News, Senators said a report that investigators smuggled 
enough radioactive material to build two dirty bombs into the United 
States called into question the Bush administration's efforts to secure 
the borders.
  Now, check this out. A sting operation that was described in one of 
three Government Accountability Office reports, now this is the GAO, 
this is not a partisan deal, said, they released a report. The report 
accused the Bush administration of being slow to deploy equipment that 
would detect radioactive materials, and they say corrupt foreign border 
officials and poor maintenance of detection devices have left the U.S. 
vulnerable to terror plots.
  Enough material for two dirty bombs to go off in the United States 
was snuck in by, you know, through a sting operation that we were 
trying to figure out what is going on. We are not doing enough.
  Now, third-party validator, which the 30-somethings like to promote. 
We don't want this to be all our opinion here. This is from a retired 
Coast Guard commander who is now a senior fellow at the Council on 
Foreign Relations. He says: ``Both the opportunity for terrorists to 
target legitimate global supply chains remain plentiful, and the 
motivation for doing so is only growing. We are living on borrowed 
time.''
  We are not here to scare anybody, but the reality is, when you only 
check 5 percent of the cargo coming into the country, and your own 
folks are sneaking in enough nuclear material to set off two dirty 
bombs, and we are giving tax cuts to billionaires and not funding port 
security, when we are giving $12 billion in corporate welfare to the 
oil companies, when we are giving billions in corporate welfare to the 
health care industry, and we are not funding our national security 
priorities, when we are spending a billion and a half in Iraq a week, 
and $9 billion of it no one can find, and we have these kinds of 
situations, we have an obligation. When we come here the first part of 
every second year and we swear our allegiance to the United States and 
the Constitution and everything else, we have an obligation to oversee 
what is going on. So we have an obligation to come down here and be 
critical of things like this and provide solutions, which we have time 
and time again.
  Now, President Bush's Congress has not taken any of our 
recommendations, and they are up for a job review in November; and I 
hope that the American people, Mr. Speaker, take a good look at what 
has happened over the past 4 or 5 years and hope that our plan on real 
security, which you can find on our Web page, housedemocrats.gov, you 
can get the whole deal and you can see our comprehensive plan to try to 
do this.
  You can also check out our plan on innovation, how to get the country 
moving economically again. Periodically, we will have unveilings of 
different ideas that we have. But we have tried on port security. We 
have tried on PAYGO. We have tried on school funding and we continue to 
get shot down by President Bush's Congress. So we have got the plan; we 
just need the opportunity to implement it. For Members who are in their 
offices and would like to send us e-mails or anyone else, 
www.housedemocrats.gov/30something. All the charts that were here that 
we used will all be on the Web site so you can go back and reference 
them all.
  Yield to my friend.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. I just want to let you know 
that it was a pleasure coming down to the floor with you again. We got 
out a lot of good information.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Before we go, I know you have a Florida team in the 
Final Four this weekend, and I want to wish you the best of luck.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, we need it.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I hope you guys pull it off. Since there is no Ohio 
team, with a good conscience I can root for Florida.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Thank you. With that we want to thank the 
Democratic leader. We want to also encourage everyone to go to our Web 
site, housedemocrats.gov. We want the majority to go on our Web site, 
housedemocrats.gov.
  These are our plans. As it stands right now, in the state of homeland 
security is the majority's plan. It is already there, already being 
carried out. We have a plan to make things better, more secure here in 
the United States of America, not only here in the House but also in 
the Senate.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, it was an honor addressing the House once 
again. I yield back the balance of my time.

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