[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20759-20762]
[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 18, 2007, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is recognized 
for half the time remaining until midnight as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it's an honor to come before the 
House once again. I think it's very important to know that we have half 
a week and next week to complete the people's business. We have a lot 
that we are working on right now in the United States, also; 
legislation to redeploy our troops in Iraq, passing a farm bill that 
would help America move forward, to continue to have legislation that 
has already passed this House in the Six in '06 plan that we put forth 
in the first 100 hours of this Congress, getting it through the 
process. We celebrate this week, just yesterday, I believe, the 
increase that started with the minimum wage across the country. 
Americans have a lot to be proud of with this new direction of 
Congress.
  As you know, in any democracy, it has to be a bipartisan spirit to 
get the job done on behalf of the American people. We are trying to do 
that in the best way possible.
  Our friends on the other side of the aisle, on the Republican side of 
the aisle, in many cases are stutter-stepping and slowing down the 
process, but it's very, very important that their voice is heard in 
this Chamber. I think the days upon days and the hundreds of amendments 
that have been offered here on the floor and that have been voted on is 
evident of how this Democratically controlled House has allowed the 
minority party to be able to have access that only they could celebrate 
in the 110th Congress, which we weren't able to celebrate under the 
109th Congress.
  I also want to point out the fact that we have passed over 40-
something major legislation where we have had bipartisan support, and I 
think that's important.
  One issue I want to talk about tonight, since our time is limited, of 
the amount of dollars that we are spending in Iraq as we continue to 
try to redeploy our troops. We know the September 15 date is coming up, 
the second report of progress, or a lack thereof, in Iraq will be due. 
Members of the House are going to have to vote on the defense 
appropriations bill shortly thereafter that will set the tone for the 
remainder of the fiscal year.
  As you know, we passed off this floor on a bipartisan vote continuing 
an emergency supplemental that would allow 3\1/2\ months of funding for 
the war in Iraq with MRAP tanks and other equipment that the troops 
needed.
  I think Members had voted in the affirmative, Members had voted 
against it, both were courageous votes. I think it's time to move in a 
direction of policy. No permanent bases, I understand, will be coming 
up on the floor. We also have other legislation calling for the 
withdrawal of U.S. troops by a certain date. I think that's also 
important and very courageous. I think the debate that is going on in 
the Senate and the House, led by Democrats, are going to help us as we 
move towards the September 15 date.
  As you know, and the Members know, I speak quite often on leaving 
politics behind and putting good policy forward, making sure that we 
don't act as

[[Page 20760]]

Democrats and Republicans politically, I will say that again, rather 
than representing the American people. The American people are way 
ahead of us on this issue of Iraq.
  I think it's important as we continue to share the information as we 
get in. This came from the Congressional Research Service. The cost of 
the war in Iraq is rising per year. You see the number in the billions, 
$120 billion per year, per month; $10 billion per week. We are looking 
at looking at $2.3 billion a day. We are looking at $329,000, we are 
looking at, per hour, as you see it relates per hour; the $13 million. 
I think it's important to look at per minute, $228,938 that's there in 
the thousands, and then we have $3,816 per second. I think it's 
important.
  I think it's also important we look at those numbers, the cost per 
year, we look at the billions. We are looking at $120 billion per year. 
That can actually pay for 4.7 million EMTs and paramedics. When you 
look at it for a monthly cost at $10 billion, which we are spending in 
Iraq, you can actually provide EMTs or paramedics for your local 
community or for the Nation, 395,000.
  When you look at the per-week cost, $2.3 billion, 91,000 EMTs and 
paramedics could be provided for local cities and counties and 
parishes; per day, at $329 million, 13,000; and per hour, $13.7 million 
that's spent that could actually fund 543 new EMTs. I think it's 
important, especially for those cities that are struggling and those 
counties that are struggling and States that are struggling on this 
very issue of how they are going to provide emergency service in their 
local community.
  If you look at the cost of the war, could enroll more kids in Head 
Start. I think it's important for us to look at the $120 billion, 16.7 
million kids can go into Head Start; per month at $10 billion, 1.7 
million kids could go into Head Start; per week, $2.3 billion that's 
being spent in Iraq, 320,000 kids could actually be enrolled in Head 
Start where we have a shortage of funding and every kid can't receive 
Head Start opportunities where kids can start early and be healthy, and 
parents can have kids that will be prosperous educationally.

                              {time}  2330

  Per day, look at $329 million; 46,000 kids could benefit. And the 
per-hour cost that we are spending in Iraq at 13.7, 2,000 kids could be 
enrolled in the Head Start program.
  As we start talking about health care insurance for children, I am 
just looking at these numbers as a member of the Ways and Means 
Committee and I am just thinking of how many kids we can actually do 
good things for and Americans. We just pulled a few of these things.
  The cost of Iraq could send more Americans to college. You know the 
numbers by now. As you know, this is the year number at $120 billion, 
and the per-month is $10 billion, the per-week is $2.3 billion, per-day 
is $329 million, and per-hour at $13.7 million.
  But look at this side, on the far side here, Mr. Speaker and Members, 
the numbers of students that could be helped: 21 million students in 
the one year that we spend there. So this means 21 million young people 
would have an opportunity to go to college, that is amazing, for what 
we are spending in Iraq right now; 1.7 million students per month can 
receive an education in the United States and make us competitive, not 
States competitive with other States, but this country competitive with 
other countries.
  I think it is also important if we can tie this chart in with that. I 
think it is also important that 395,000 students can be funded within a 
week of what we spend. I just know that financial aid officers at 
universities and at community colleges and at technical centers 
throughout the country are saying, wow, look at that number; 56,000 
students could be funded per day. 56,000. Think about the kids that are 
paying student loans back that are having to go out and scratch and 
beg, and people that are punched in right now and grandparents and 
parents that have picked up an extra job to put their kids through 
school looking at these numbers as relates to this endless war, as the 
President sees it, in Iraq, we could actually help. And this is almost 
sad when it comes down to per hour. With the $13.7 million that is 
being spent in Iraq per hour, 2,000 students could actually receive an 
education.
  I am going to break out from the charts and the numbers. But if you 
look at the foreign-owned debt and you start looking at countries like 
Japan that are holding a great number of our debt at the 644-plus 
million dollars, I think it is important. We owe Japan this money, we 
owe China money, we owe the U.K. money, we owe OPEC countries money 
because of the mismanagement of the Bush administration and the former 
rubber-stamp Republican Congress. Our kids, our young people, our 
country have to compete economically, have to compete as it relates to 
the level of education so that we can have a workforce that is better 
than the countries that we have borrowed money from, and I am not proud 
of that at all.
  Just to tie in that chart, and I will get back to that Iraq issue, 
this is what is happening here. You have seen this chart before. We 
have updated this chart. Since President Bush has been in office, it 
has doubled the foreign-held debt.
  It took 42 Presidents 224 years to build up $1 trillion in foreign-
held debt. If you look, you have the pictures of the Presidents here, 
we are talking World War I, World War II, the Great Depression, you 
name it, a number of other wars that took place, the Civil War, and all 
of the conflicts that took place, and the hard financial times that the 
United States has gone through, these 42 Presidents combined, $1.01 
trillion. President Bush was elected, had a rubber-stamp Republican 
Congress, and they borrowed within 6 years, we are saying 6 years, more 
than 224 years of history and other financial challenges of the 
country, $1.19 trillion. We are moving, Mr. Speaker, into a pay-as-you-
go effort to be able to knock that down, and we are passing budgets 
that will get us back into.
  Back to the cost of Iraq. And me being a former State trooper, Mr. 
Speaker and Members, I think this is important. Look, we know by now 
and we can see because I have said it about five times, the per-year, 
the per-month, the per-day, and the per-hour costs of the war in Iraq.
  The per year at $120 billion, we can actually hire in this country 
2.6 million police officers that could be community police officers to 
prevent crime, that could be officers that can enforce the law in high-
crime areas, officers that can go out and do the things that they need 
to do to make this country safer. In one month that it costs us in 
Iraq, 221,000 officers could be hired. In one week in Iraq, 51,000 
officers.
  I am talking about folks that are in local communities that are 
literally under lockdown in urban and rural areas in the United States 
that are trying to protect their families and maybe have one or two 
State troopers in an entire county or State police officer in a parish 
or in an urban area. I represent down in Miami where you can go for a 
little while before you see a law enforcement officer. And to learn in 
one day that you can hire 7,000 police officers that it costs in Iraq, 
for the lack of the COPS bill that has been destroyed under the Bush 
administration and the past Republican Congress, that we are pushing in 
our past appropriations bills that we have passed thus far to rekindle 
that program so that we can have community policing, something that 
sheriffs, something that city police chiefs, something that local 
communities enjoy, because they prevent crime before it happens. And 
the per-hour cost, $3.7 million in Iraq per hour, could fund 304 police 
officers.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, it takes a lot of courage, it takes a lot of 
backbone to come to this floor to make sure that we do what the 
American people have asked us to do in making sure that we provide 
opportunities for local communities to fund the necessary needs that 
they have.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished Member from Florida (Mr. 
Hastings).
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, continuing along the lines of

[[Page 20761]]

what Congressman Meek has been speaking about, I sat behind him and he 
did not know that I was there. I thought that it would be helpful if I 
would join my very good friend, who is a member of the 30-somethings, 
and have him know that those of us that are the over 30-somethings have 
the exact same sentiments as it pertains to the circumstances as exist 
in our respective communities because of the Iraq war.
  Representative Meek, I wish to just bring to the table one example. I 
won't use the many in the congressional district that I am privileged 
to represent which abuts your district, and we have overlapping 
circumstances in a variety of our communities in South Broward and 
North Dade, and in this case I am going to carry it way west to the 
Everglades.
  For the last 7 years, I have been about the business of trying to get 
a water treatment plant in Belle Glade, Florida for the people of Belle 
Glade, South Bay, Pahokee, and that general area. I won't even talk 
about the hospital; I won't even talk about the police that you have 
already talked about that we have tried to get. And so I thought, well, 
certainly now that we have political circumstances that are favorable 
to the majority, that it would be very easy to get a water treatment 
plant.
  Now, you and I know this: we know that in Iraq we have paid for water 
treatment facilities that have been blown up. We know that we have paid 
for sewers that the materials were stolen. And we know that we are 
building an embassy, I guess we are building an embassy, at more money 
that I can ever contemplate that must have a big bull's eye on it, but 
we are not sure who is building it. We know about no-bid contracts. We 
know about millions of dollars being poured into this situation while 
our communities are suffering. Now, something is wrong with this 
picture.
  I heard you loud and clear regarding the extraordinary debt. And I 
don't mean to take much of your time, I came down here to file this 
bill, but I could not resist. And I yield back to my very good friend 
from Florida.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Congressman Hastings, I am so glad that you did 
come down and that you did share your sentiments. And you are right, 
the point that we are trying to make here is that we are going to have 
to bring an end to this war as we see it now.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is also important for all of the Members on 
both sides of the aisle to realize that, especially under the pay-as-
you-go philosophy that we have adopted as the House in the majority and 
the Senate has adopted, that things are going to be hard back home as 
it relates to getting Federal appropriations back to our districts.
  There is really no need for us to be here if we can't bring resources 
back, if we can't represent the people that woke up early one Tuesday 
morning for representation to provide not only voice here in Congress 
but also action. And without money, it is hard to bring about that kind 
of action.
  I think it is also, Mr. Speaker, very important that Members do note 
that many of the U.S. Governors, and I am not just talking about 
Democratic Governors, mainly Republican Governors, that have raised the 
issue with the Federal commitment to the States, the devolution of 
taxation that has been taking place over the last 6 years, especially 
under the Bush administration.
  I just want to break that down a little further where taxes, quote/
unquote, have been cut here for the very wealthy here in Washington 
prior to the Democratic Congress getting here, and that responsibility 
with the lack of funding, Leave No Child Left Behind. I am not cutting 
the student loan rates in half, which we have already passed in our Six 
in '06 budget. But in the Republican Congress, those States had the 
balance. Here, under the 109th, under the Republican Congress, they 
could continue to raise that foreign-held debt that I talked about. 
They could just say, well, let's just put it on a credit card and leave 
it for the next generation and this generation to pay for it. But we 
decided here, in the Democratic leadership and society, that we are 
going to move in a responsible way and not leaning on the backs of our 
children and our families that exist now as we compete against other 
countries, not only in the area of technology, but also in the area of 
financial strength.
  And I think that the posture that we are in now, Mr. Speaker, of what 
I showed on that chart on foreign-held debt, this chart illustrates the 
posture that we are in right now: $1.19 trillion. And these are not my 
numbers; these are the numbers from the U.S. Treasury. So this is not 
something that I sat down my staff and said, Let's see what looks good 
or sounds good, because we know as the 30-something Working Group that 
I would like to add my colleague here Mr. Hastings that I am a part of 
the ``something'' of the 30-something. But I think it is important for 
us to point at that and take note to it.
  Now, if you are a conservative Democrat, Republican, Independent, you 
have to have issue with fiscal irresponsibility. If you are someone 
that feels very strongly as it relates to the supporting of the troops, 
I think it is important that you pay very close attention to the amount 
of money that is being spent in Iraq with the lack of accountability, 
only now that the Congress started holding hearings under the 
Democratic-controlled House, holding hearings to check the issues and 
the questions of the no-bid contracts, the lack of oversight over the 
years. There are a number of things that are coming to light now, Mr. 
Speaker, because the committees are having committee hearings, 
subcommittees are having hearings asking the tough questions, let's 
just say questions in general about the war in Iraq.
  I don't want to be in a position, Mr. Speaker, to say, I told you so. 
I want to be in the position to say that we were able to prevent the 
taxpayer dollar from being spent in an irresponsible way. There are a 
number of things that have taken place. I am looking forward, Mr. 
Speaker and Members, going to Iraq in the next 6 weeks prior to the 
September 15 report to bring about my own assessment of what is going 
on there on the ground.
  Mr. Speaker, I went in my district to the Federal Reserve Unit of the 
Combat Engineer Unit 841 that is actually being deployed into Iraq and 
will be there at the time that I visit Iraq. My talk with them, Mr. 
Speaker, was that I hope that this would be their last deployment to 
Iraq, and something that we need to hold close to us.

                              {time}  2345

  And now, Mr. Speaker, I want to point this out because when I talk 
about a bipartisan approach, I want to make sure that we talk fact not 
fiction here on the floor, and I don't want in any way to paint some 
sort of butterscotch cloud world.
  But I think it's important that we take issue with the fact that this 
House and the Senate passed legislation that had benchmarks in it, 
legislation that had redeployment dates in it, legislation that had an 
end date for combat troops to patrol the streets of Iraq and other 
areas, and leaving that responsibility up to the Iraqi Government.
  I'm mentioning combat troops because I think it's important that we 
pay very close attention to it. Right now, as we speak, Mr. Speaker, 
there are troops right now, marines, soldiers, other branches of the 
armed services that are going through door-to-door checks, not only in 
Baghdad but throughout Iraq on behalf of the safety of the people of 
those towns or province or what have you.
  And every door we kick in, Mr. Speaker, because, as you hear, the 
President doesn't speak of coalition anymore because the coalition is 
gone. The coalition, in their own way, as small as the coalition was, 
found a way to start redeploying their troops out of combat into the 
periphery that we speak of so much to provide support where their 
troops will not be in harm's way, where their money commitment will not 
be at the level of our money commitment of the numbers that I called 
off a little earlier. And I

[[Page 20762]]

think that is very, very important for us to pay very close attention 
to that.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it's important to note that when this House 
acted, and we passed legislation, and the Senate acted and they passed 
legislation in a bipartisan way, before that bill could even get bound 
to take to the White House, the President called some of our Republican 
colleagues down to the White House. They had a lunch and they came out 
of the White House. And it's not one Democrat in this picture here, and 
said that we're going to make sure that the President is able to 
withstand an override of his veto by the Congress.
  Now, I'm not judging Members for going down to the White House and 
saying that. But I just want to make sure, because I believe that a 
number of Members have gone back to their districts and, you know, I'm 
not trying to call any names or party affiliation, but I'm just telling 
you, not one Democrat went down to the White House to stand with the 
President on his troop escalation plan.
  But I think the November election was all about a new direction. And 
there's a difference between making sure that the men and women have 
what they need while they're in harm's way. There's a difference when 
it comes down to the fact that we here in the Congress have to put 
forth policy and parameters on the taxpayer dollars to make sure that 
it's being spent appropriately.
  You heard Mr. Hastings, who's a member of the Intelligence Committee, 
also is involved in many of the European talks and is a leader in one 
of the largest parliamentary councils in Europe that were a part of the 
coalition that made his statements about what we know and why we're not 
bringing about the accountability that's needed.
  I hold this picture up because I want to discourage Members from 
going to the White House on behalf of party. And I think it's important 
that we look at it from that standpoint. As I come in for a closing, 
Mr. Speaker, as we proceed over the next week and a half, we're going 
to spend many hours here on this floor. We're going to have a number of 
amendments. Tomorrow, as we mark up and start to put together the 
Children's Health Insurance Plan in the Ways and Means Committee, there 
will be a number of amendments, as we start looking at the Medicaid and 
Medicare benefits, who's going to get what when and how it's going to 
happen, there are going to be a number of amendments. And it's nothing 
wrong with amendments and dialogue and discourse.
  But I believe that the issues that we have to tackle as a Congress, 
we're going to need that Republican bipartisan support, along with this 
Democratic leadership.
  Minimum wage never would have been increased if it wasn't for the 
leadership of the Speaker and a number of the Democratic Members that 
held to their guns to make sure that everyday people that punch in and 
out, Mr. Speaker, while we're here on the floor, those individuals that 
are bussing tables, those individuals that are cleaning offices, those 
individuals that are working shift work, as a security officer or as an 
individual that's trying to provide for their families.
  And even for salaried workers, Mr. Speaker, I think it's important 
when you look at the increase in minimum wage, it helps salaried 
workers because they'll make more money and they will be able to pay 
more for health insurance, additional insurance if they're insurance at 
their job doesn't provide what they need; and it also takes a number of 
families over the poverty line.
  But as we look at this, I think it's important, there's only so many 
times that Republican Members can go down to the White House and say, 
Mr. President, I stand with you, versus standing with those individuals 
that have said that they want something overwhelmingly, like the 
minimum wage and other areas. We still had Members that voted against 
the increase in minimum wage, which I can't understand, still today.
  So with that, Mr. Speaker, I look forward to continuing to share with 
the Members, not only the costs in Iraq, but also our responsibility 
here in Congress. I'm glad that, from the Speaker on down to the newest 
Member of Congress, that we have a philosophy that we have to push 
forward, that we have to make sure the American people not only have 
voice but action in this House.
  I encourage my Republican colleagues to be along with us in that 
spirit and have the kind of paradigm shift that we need to put this 
country on the right track and to make sure that our men and women have 
what they need.
  And I can tell you, from the families that I saw at the 841 who were 
moving on into Iraq, from what I picked up, if you want to help the 
troops, let's bring them home. And that's what it's all about.

                          ____________________