[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23598-23606]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      THE NEW DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Walz) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, today marks the eighth month 
since my colleagues and I were given

[[Page 23599]]

the privilege to enter this sacred institution to represent our 
respective districts across the country. The Democratic freshman class, 
one of the largest in recent history, also came at an historic time in 
changing control of both houses of Congress and leading America in a 
new direction.
  Much has changed in eight months. Much has changed personally for 
each and every one of us. Eight months ago I stood in this very spot 
with my 2-month-old son, Gus, as we were sworn into this esteemed body. 
My 5-year-old was a kindergartner at the time.
  Well, now, 8 months later, Gus is 10 months old, on the verge of 
walking; and that kindergartner is now an experienced first grader.
  Much has changed for us professionally. I had the opportunity last 
week to go back and address the school where I taught. Many of us came 
to this institution from many different walks of life. We were 
teachers. We were newspapermen. We were law enforcement officers. We 
were physicians. We were farmers. We were many different things. But 
each and every one of us came to this institution with a very sacred 
duty: to change the direction that America was going; to listen to the 
American public; and to make sure that this institution was once again 
judged on effectiveness, not ideology. And this Congress has done just 
that.
  This Congress has changed the priorities that have permeated 
Washington for the past 12 years. This new Congress has changed things 
from some of the most historic funding for veterans to the most 
sweeping ethics reform, described as some of the biggest changes since 
the Watergate era.
  We have much to be proud of and much work yet to do. The Democratic 
freshman class was given an opportunity to change the course and to 
change the debate.
  I had the opportunity to speak with some reporters asking what will 
the legacy be? What will this class have accomplished when all is said 
and done? And I think, in looking at this group of people and having 
the sense of pride that I have in serving with them, that the answer 
will not be known for many years. This class has thrown themselves into 
their work with such due diligence that I think the American people 
would be proud. We passed legislation not just on a Democratic agenda 
but on a bipartisan agenda.
  We knew, each and every one of us that got here, that we did not come 
to this institution with an ideological mandate. We knew that the 
American people, when they were speaking last November, were not saying 
that they were enamored with just Democratic ideology. They were 
enamored with the speaking about changing the direction of the country, 
providing a new direction, providing ethics that actually work. 
Providing funding for our veterans, funding for our children, and 
taking this country in a new direction in the war on terror and what 
was happening in Iraq.
  And I am proud to stand here today with my colleagues, and we are 
going to spend a little bit of time highlighting those achievements, 
and it is one that all American people should be proud of.
  This Congress can do nothing with just one party. This Congress can 
do nothing with just ideology. When this Congress works together, 
things get done that would amaze the American people.
  I, coming from Minnesota, have witnessed two of the biggest disasters 
that my State has ever witnessed. Back on August 1, the collapse of the 
I-35W bridge, to see a major interstate, eight-lane highway, crash into 
the Mississippi River. We lost seven people with a hundred injured. 
That tragedy and the response to it illustrates what can be the best in 
America.
  Within 60 hours, the House of Representatives and the Senate had 
passed legislation to rebuild that bridge. It went to the President's 
desk within 72 hours, was passed, and the money is already flowing to 
the State of Minnesota to correct that.
  Last week on August 19, we saw some of the most massive flooding in 
my district that had ever been witnessed, 17-plus inches of rain in a 
24-hour period. We had seven deaths and thousands of homes washed out. 
The response was quick. It was bipartisan. It was professional. And it 
is one that the American people should expect, not hope for.
  While the rains were still falling, I toured the area in the first 
few hours with the Republican Governor of Minnesota. The following day 
I toured with the Republican Senator and a Democratic Senator, and we 
held a news conference together with the Republican Governor. On 
Tuesday, President Bush was in Minnesota saying he would do everything 
he could to support us. On Wednesday, the Governor asked for a 
declaration, a disaster declaration, and on Thursday the President 
approved it. By the weekend FEMA was on the ground and people were 
rebuilding their lives.
  That is what the American people should expect out of government: it 
is effectiveness; not its ideology; its bipartisanship, and it can be 
judged on what we do for the American public.
  Those things have happened. They have happened across the board. They 
have happened in great numbers. And it is a message that I think the 
American people should be proud of.
  As I said, much has changed. Much has changed for me personally. This 
is the first year I didn't start a school year teaching in a classroom. 
But I said many of those years, those 20 years in the classroom, taught 
me something about the next generation of Americans. They are 
optimistic. They believe that the best days are yet to come. They have 
a vision that can extend beyond the next election into the next 
generation. Our young people understand this. The American people 
understand this.
  My colleagues are here not out of anything great that they personally 
did, but they are here and this change is happening because of the 
greatness of the American public. The American public and the system 
knew it needed to self-correct itself. It needed to bring change to 
this institution, and that change is happening.
  So for the next few minutes, we are going to discuss some of those. I 
am privileged to be joined by my colleague from Kentucky, another one 
of the freshmen that came here that sprung up from this greatness of 
the American public and brought a message of change, of optimism, of 
prosperity that all of us can benefit from.
  With that, I yield to my colleague from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth).
  Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Minnesota for 
yielding. And I want to join many of us in expressing my great empathy 
for him and the residents of his State who have gone through so much 
recently. And we all, I think, not only empathize but sympathize with 
what the people of Minnesota have had to go through, and I know we all 
stand ready to help in any way that we can.
  But my colleague is right, Mr. Speaker. When we all came to this body 
last year right after being elected and we all met for our orientation 
and, as freshmen, we met for the first time and started comparing 
notes, it was clear that we all came with pretty similar mandates. We 
were sent by our people to change what was going on in this country. We 
were sent by the people of this country to deal with energy problems. 
We were sent by the people of this country to deal with a dysfunctional 
health care system. We were sent by the people of this country to deal 
with the income and wealth inequality that has put such a strain on the 
great working families of this country and has seen the wealthiest 
people in America have their wealth increased by leaps and bounds 
while, as the census report just mentioned last week, 95 percent of the 
people in this country have not seen their standard of living improve 
over the last 6 years.
  We were sent by the people of this country to do something about the 
education system, to make sure it not only leaves no child behind but 
moves every child forward; that we work with the most gifted kids and 
we work with the kids posing the greatest challenge; that each one of 
them will have the best that our teachers have to offer and have the 
greatest support system that we can provide for them.

[[Page 23600]]

  And foremost of all these things, the people of America sent us to 
Congress with one overriding thought, and that was to change direction 
in Iraq.
  And it is very interesting because I know that the people on the 
other side, our colleagues in the Republican Party, want to try to spin 
our activities by saying, well, we haven't really accomplished very 
much. Well, I think every one of us knows how hard we have worked over 
the last 8 months to accomplish the mission that the people of the 
United States sent us here for.
  We have dealt with minimum wage, increasing the minimum wage for the 
first time in 10 years. We have dealt with the energy situation. We 
tried to eliminate the great and unnecessary tax cuts that were given 
to the oil companies when they were making record profits. We dealt 
with health care, not just recently by trying to expand the Children's 
Health Insurance Program to cover 5 million more American children, but 
also in trying to save money and make the system more efficient by 
forcing the pharmaceutical companies to negotiate with Medicare in the 
Medicare part D program.
  In every area of our jurisdiction, we have tried to respond to the 
demands of the American people. We have listened to them. We are 
dealing right now with the revision of No Child Left Behind. The 
changes we are making in that program stem directly from what we have 
heard from the American people. We are listening. We are acting. We are 
moving.
  And so it is with not only a great deal of personal disgust but also 
with a sense of outrage that I listened to President Bush make a 
statement when he was halfway around the world in comparing this 
Congress, this body, with the Parliament in Iraq. And I know he likes 
to be cute and that is the way he is, but for him to stand halfway 
across the world before international cameras and international media 
and tout the fact that the Iraqi Parliament has passed 60 bills when, 
according to him, we haven't passed that many in this session of 
Congress to me is an outrage. It's not even factually correct. We have 
sent him 57 bills; he signed 55. We have passed several hundred bills 
in this House.
  But the most important thing is look at what he has done. Look at the 
vetoes he has threatened, the vetoes he has actually made. He has 
already threatened to veto 10 out of 12 appropriations bills we passed 
in this body. After the committees in this body, both parties working 
hand in hand, have dealt with these issues and the budgeting for months 
and months and months, he says arbitrarily, they weren't my budgets, it 
wasn't what I asked for and, therefore, I'm going to veto them.
  For him to criticize the United States Congress for not passing 
legislation is like the Vice President criticizing his lawyer friend 
for getting in the way when he shot him. I mean, if anyone is more 
responsible for retarding and obstructing the work of this body, it is 
the President of the United States and his party. And it happens day 
after day. It happens hour after hour. And the only reason it happens 
is because the Republican Party and the President of the United States 
have run out of initiatives. They have run out of ideas. They know the 
American people have rejected their agenda, and they are looking for a 
new direction, and they just simply don't want to see us succeed.
  But that's not what we're here for. We're here to continue working. 
We're going to generate the type of grassroots support for what we've 
done. We know it's out there. We're listening to the people. They will 
be listening to what we're doing, and they will force this Republican 
Party and this President to move in our direction.
  I am convinced that we are doing the right thing, that we are 
working, we are making progress for the American people. We will 
continue to do that under the great leadership we have in Speaker 
Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer. And I know eventually the Republican 
Party will come to their senses and they will begin to realize that the 
American people want us to act to solve the very demanding, the very 
challenging problems that face this country. We are about that task. 
That's why we came here. That's what we will continue to do as long as 
we are here.
  Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Kentucky. And he sums it up well. One of the things that the American 
public is most frustrated with is the idea of nothing happening or 
obstructionism. And I think some know that there is a difference 
between legislation and politics. But most people in America don't want 
to deal with the political side of it. They want to see the 
effectiveness.
  And I should note 8 months ago on this day a couple of major changes 
were made that we were able to make. We have three branches of 
government, but the business that happened in this House for both sides 
of the aisle can be changed with rule changes. And on that first day we 
made some major rule changes that affect the American public, to 
understand that rhetoric is not good enough, that action is what is 
demanded.
  The first thing that we did is we enacted PAYGO budgeting. No more 
blank checks. No more recklessly spending our children's rightful 
inheritance to this country by putting in fiscal policies that are 
short-term, feel-good tax breaks for very few Americans. PAYGO 
budgeting is exactly what the American people live by. It is how every 
middle-class American has to get by in their own life. And this House 
of Representatives finally put that in. By doing so, we will do 
something that the American people should expect to happen: We will 
balance the Federal budget by 2012.

                              {time}  1730

  But that's not good enough. We have a $9 trillion deficit. The idea 
that this Congress has been able to tell people you can have something 
for nothing, you can give tax cuts to the wealthiest and underfund 
programs, what's happened is this country is using the equity in our 
own country that belongs rightfully to our children and spending it 
now. Those days are over. PAYGO is a rule of this House and it will 
continue to be so as long as the Democratic Congress stays as it is.
  The other major change was one that the American people simply don't 
understand. Many of us who came here didn't understand it, and many of 
us were incredibly frustrated by it, how this sacred institution, the 
most important, deliberative legislative body, democratic institution 
the world has ever seen has an image problem when it comes to ethics. 
Every single Member who walks through this door should be very, very 
cognizant of what this means to the American people.
  So the ethics changes that were taken up 8 months ago, I think the 
American public would probably be hard-pressed to even believe that it 
didn't happen. The difference between 8 months ago and today is simply 
this: Lobbyists will no longer be able to provide one penny in food, 
not one penny in gifts, and not one penny in travel to any Member of 
this body. Now, that's a far sight from golf trips to Scotland and 
special interests that we had seen before. Those who think that the 
election of last November made no difference, look no further than K 
Street to understand the changes that happened here. Ethics changes 
have been sweeping.
  Now, one of the things in standing here and talking about these 
things, I think there is a sense of frustration amongst many of us, the 
game seems to be coming from the other side of the aisle, is to delay 
and slow everything down and to drive the approval rating of this 
Congress as low as it can possibly go. None of us should be happy with 
the fact that when a Presidential approval rating is as low as this 
President's is and a congressional approval rating is as low as this 
body is right now, that's nothing to be proud of. And it's nothing to 
point one finger at each side of the aisle. What we're doing is we're 
undermining the basic tenet of this great democracy. And for those who 
think that this is someplace else, it's full of your neighbors, it's 
full of the people you work with, it's full of the teachers, the 
newspapermen, the law enforcement officers that you sent

[[Page 23601]]

here. It is incumbent upon this institution to get the ethics changes 
right.
  So we have passed some of the most sweeping ethics changes. And soon, 
maybe by the end of today, we will see the President sign in more of 
that; tightening up of not only the bans on gifts, but also making sure 
that bundled contributions to campaigns are being shown, that we know 
who's giving money, that we understand who is trying to look at and who 
is trying to influence decisions that are made in this House.
  Now, one of the things I would like to say is that, speaking of your 
own accomplishments, there is a saying in Minnesota, ``Act and let 
others do the speaking for you.'' I want to quote a few things that 
have come out of newspapers basically over the last 30 days of all 
things that are happening here. We have a couple of things here. 
``Democrats who control Congress headed into a summer recess having 
passed several high-profile bills, raising the minimum wage, bolstering 
U.S. security, expanding children's health care. Their top priority, 
ending the Iraq war, remains frustratingly unfulfilled. But the 
Democrats who took over in January were able to go home last month for 
a month-long break having won more support in the U.S. Senate and U.S. 
House of Representatives for bringing combat troops home by next year 
than any time before, marking a significant turnaround from last 
year.'' Reuters of August 5 of this year.
  ``Some non-partisan observers agree, Democrats have reason to boast. 
Democrats have had a good run legislatively over the past few weeks, 
and that does help them going into the recess,'' said Larry Sabato, 
Director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
  ``Congressional Democrat majority made major strides towards 
implementing its domestic agenda before going home. It will face 
hurdles when lawmakers return at summer's end, President Bush being the 
main one. Farm bills, lobbying reform, energy, education, children's 
health insurance, all advanced in the final 10 days, establishing House 
Speaker  Nancy Pelosi as a major legislative player.'' Wall Street 
Journal.
  ``Besides their success on increasing the minimum wage, ethics and 
lobbying, September 11 Commission recommendations, Democrats have moved 
forward with initiatives to expand health insurance for all of 
America's children through the SCHIP program, a shift in U.S. energy 
policy away from reliance on foreign fossil fuels. They have helped 
focus the war debate on the question of when, not if, U.S. forces will 
be pulling out.'' The Los Angeles Times.
  ``I have long been and continue to be an advocate of congressional 
oversight as a fundamental element of our system of government. I also 
have publicly expressed my belief that congressional debate on Iraq has 
been constructive, appropriate and necessary.'' That last one coming 
from Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.
  This Congress is making changes. This Congress is listening to the 
American public. This Congress is taking what it can control in its own 
hands, like rules, and strengthening them, making sure that ethics 
reform is a top priority, making sure that people can once again walk 
in this building, see this American flag, understand the history that's 
been written here, and trust the Members that have been here to do the 
duty of the American public. And in doing so, we have passed some of 
the most sweeping legislation.
  The first one I want to talk a little bit about is veterans issues. 
Now, in serving on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, it's something 
that, of course, is very near and dear to my heart, something that I 
can't say that it's a personal sense of pride, but it's one of a 
personal sense of responsibility. The House historian notified me, 
after a week or two here in Congress, that as a retired command 
sergeant major in the Army National Guard, that I was the top ranking 
enlisted soldier to ever serve in Congress. Now, those Members familiar 
with the military understand that being an enlisted soldier brings a 
sense of responsibility of making sure troops are taken care of.
  So to sit on the Veterans' Affairs Committee and watch the historic 
progress that has been made on veterans issues, I think it's 
interesting to keep a couple of facts in mind. In the 77-year history 
that we've had a Veterans Administration or the Veterans Affairs, in 
that 77-year history there has never been the infusion of resources 
given to that administration as we've seen in the last 8 months. There 
is a group of veteran service organizations led by the Veterans of 
Foreign Wars, the Disabled American Veterans, the Paralyzed American 
Veterans, the American Legion, that each and every year for the last 22 
years have put together what they call the independent budget. And this 
independent budget does something very simple. It takes a look at the 
needs of all American veterans. It determines how many veterans are 
going to need services, whether it be veterans health care, re-
employment, educational benefits, and the gamut of resources that we 
provide our veterans for the service they do this country. They take 
that number and then they figure out the real dollar cost of providing 
exactly those services, services that were promised, services that were 
guaranteed to our veterans when they signed up or were drafted to serve 
this Nation at times of peace and times of war. They take those two 
numbers and they put it in a budget and they send it to Congress. They 
say, you have X number of veterans at X number of cost; therefore, you 
should budget X number of dollars. And for the past 21 years, Congress 
has failed to meet that.
  Congress has so blatantly understated the need that the current 
administration stated 3 years ago, when they made their budget, that 
their determination was that we would see fewer veterans and the cost 
of veterans health care would go down. Most of us will take the bet 
that the sun will not rise tomorrow before that would happen. And guess 
what? It did not happen. So we were left, 2 years ago, with a nearly $2 
billion shortfall in taking care of our veterans. And the decision came 
then, who doesn't get care? Who do we turn away? And the answer was 
simply, turn away Priority 8 veterans. We will prioritize these 
veterans.
  Now, Priority 8 veterans, to the American public, that may not seem 
like too much, but a Priority 8 veteran is this. It's someone in my 
district making $27,701 or more can be thrown off as a Priority 8. That 
can be a combat veteran. That can be a veteran of our conflicts, our 
current conflicts, Vietnam, or World War II, determined mostly on the 
economic scale, not the need, the accessibility, not what was promised 
to them, not what the right thing to do was. But lo and behold, you 
knock off several million veterans, and look, we had a balanced budget. 
That's not the way this Congress is going to deal with it. That is not 
the way this Congress is going to keep their responsibilities. And in 
this budget, we increased $3.6 million in veterans funding over the 
President's request.
  When we passed that piece of legislation by, I believe, and I believe 
this is correct, I may be off by one or two, 409-2 was when this 
passed, and that piece of legislation was being threatened to be vetoed 
in that appropriations by this President. One of the 12 appropriations 
bills which, by the way, for the first time in a decade, all 12 were 
done on time, all were done by the August recess. That, in addition to 
passing nine earlier this year that were not done from last year's 
work.
  So for any American who listens to the rhetoric, who listens to 
people talk about nothing being done, the question would be, can they 
back that up with fact? We can back it up with fact.
  We've made some major changes on dealing with the current situation 
in Iraq and Afghanistan. The signature injuries of this war is the 
traumatic brain injuries and the concussive injuries caused by 
improvised explosive devices. They have become more sophisticated over 
time in the damage that they're doing.
  The care our soldiers are receiving on the battlefield is second to 
none. It is the best care that has ever been given in the history of 
warfare on this planet. One of the problems with that is we

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are sending soldiers home with horrible injuries, injuries that are 
going to be with them for a lifetime, that is going to take a lifetime 
of care. And what this Congress has done is we passed legislation 
introducing new research dollars, new research centers, five of them, 
to be placed around the country in conjunction with our VA hospitals 
that have our polytrauma centers, the ones that are dealing with these 
concussive injuries. And we're going to put the funding there, we're 
going to put the research there, and it's going to do something. It's 
going to provide care not only to the soldiers, but it's going to 
provide the necessary resources to the families that are going to have 
to adjust their entire lives to deal with the damage that has been done 
by these injuries. This is not something that these veterans and their 
families should feel lucky to have. It's not something that they should 
have to come here, even though that's exactly what happens, and lobby 
this Congress to do that. It's what is the morally right thing to do. 
It is also the best way to show future generations of our young people 
who want to serve this country, who want to defend this country, that 
if they do so, we will be there every step of the way.
  What we're seeing coming out of this conflict is post-traumatic 
stress disorder and suicide prevention. We passed H.R. 327, Joshua 
Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act. That is starting to get centers 
up and running. It's starting to do more identification. We are now 
screening every single soldier who returns from this conflict for 
traumatic brain injury and for post-traumatic stress disorder.
  We are changing the way that we welcome our soldiers home. We are 
changing the way that we treat them and we screen them and we bring 
they and their families into the process of making them whole again.
  We have the Rural Veterans Healthcare Improvement Act. One of the 
things we have a problem with, and this is one the American people 
should be incredibly frustrated with that I, as a veteran, was, our 
veterans who have to travel to VA centers to get health care are 
reimbursed at the 1978 rate of 11 cents a mile. And I have a veteran, a 
first sergeant no less, who saw combat duty in Korea. When he brought 
this up about a year ago to an official, he was simply told to get a 
more fuel-efficient automobile. Now, this Congress has found fit to 
reimburse itself at 48\1/2\ cents a mile. At some point, the American 
public should ask where is the hypocrisy in who we're treating and who 
should receive the benefit. But those have changed.
  We also introduced legislation that changed the GI Bill. We have 
soldiers, in the units that I served with, in the 34th Division who 
served the longest tour of duty in the war of Iraq of any unit in the 
U.S. military, 22 months. These are the same soldiers that, 14 months 
previously, served a tour of duty in support of Operation Enduring 
Freedom, the war in Afghanistan. And the way the GI Bill is written, 
these soldiers have been gone for 4 years. Many of them signed up for a 
6-year commitment. Their commitment is coming to an end, and at the 
same time, their benefits. They would have been able to use their GI 
Bill had they not been out fighting a war to defend America, had they 
not been doing what they were asked to do, and because of that they 
were losing their benefit. Previous Congresses took no action to 
correct that. This Congress did. That's taking care of our veterans. 
That's not only standing in front of them for photo opportunities, it's 
standing behind them.
  I am proud to say this new Congress puts its money where its mouth 
is. It truly supports our veterans. It understands that it's 
bipartisan. And this is a great accomplishment.
  At this point, I would like to yield a little time to my colleague 
from Kentucky to talk about a few more initiatives.
  Mr. YARMUTH. I thank the gentleman.
  I would like to follow up on something to which you alluded because I 
think it's really important. This Congress has not only taken on a lot 
of new initiatives and has tried to deal with substantial problems that 
face this country and our people, but it has also made up for a lot of 
lost ground and a lot of inactivity in prior Congresses. And we hate to 
sound partisan around here, and I know the American people don't want 
us to be partisan, they want us to work together, and I think we have 
tried to work together and to reach out, but the fact remains that over 
the last 6 years the Congress did not do a lot of the things that it 
was supposed to do. We've seen the impact in a lot of ways. We've seen 
the impact on our budget, where we have increased the Federal debt, the 
national debt by $3 trillion, 50 percent over the last 6 years. That's 
because the previous Congresses were not doing their fiscal accounting 
the right way.
  We've seen time after time, program after program, you mentioned 
veterans. We also had situations with education. We've had situations 
with health care where basic research that we were supposed to be 
funding has been cut. A lot of human services have been cut or zeroed 
out in past budgets. So we've not only had to take new initiatives, but 
we've had to make up for a lot of lost ground and programs that have 
affected a lot of Americans adversely. So we've had a lot to do.
  And another area we've had a lot to do, and this is, again, something 
you alluded to, my colleague from Minnesota has alluded to, is that 
we've had to finally provide the accountability for many of the 
operations of government which have basically gone unsupervised for the 
last 6 years. We've seen it time after time after time. We've seen it 
in the reconstruction effort in Iraq. We've seen it in cases of fraud 
and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid situations. We've seen it in the 
enforcement of coal mine safety rules. We've seen it in environmental 
regulations. Across the entire spectrum of government we have seen time 
after time where problems in the operation of government have basically 
gone unsupervised and unaccounted for.

                              {time}  1745

  We have taken steps to do that. I hope that the American people all 
have the occasion, for instance, to read the new Rolling Stone where 
there is an article about all of the subcontracting, the private 
contracting in Iraq, and the billions and billions of dollars which 
have been lost or essentially stolen by fraudulent activities by 
contractors in no-bid contracts and in sweetheart contracts given to 
friends of the administration. Nobody was looking at these deals until 
this Congress decided to take action and look at them. And now we have 
tried to implement new contracting laws and new supervision so that the 
taxpayers' dollars are accounted for. This is what the Congress is 
supposed to do. This is what we're doing.
  Again, it comes to me as an incredible affront for the President of 
the United States to stand halfway around the world and say to the 
world that this Congress is not doing what it should be doing and that 
it is not functioning as effectively as the most dysfunctional 
parliament in the world, which is the Iraqi Parliament. I can't imagine 
what the American people would say if Speaker Pelosi or my colleague 
from Minnesota, or any one of our Members went to Australia or went to 
Iraq and compared President Bush unfavorably to Mr. Maliki. There would 
be an outcry unheard like anything in this country. And yet the 
President does it in Australia and criticizes this Congress. I hope the 
American people respond with the same degree of outrage which I think 
they would, and probably justifiably, if we were out there comparing 
him to Prime Minister Maliki.
  I would like to expand on that a little bit, just for the sake of 
having fun, since the President likes to be cute and have fun when he 
makes these statements. Since he was so interested in the Iraqi 
Parliament, let's talk about what the Iraqi Parliament has done with 
regard to some of the benchmarks that they were supposed to make 
progress on. We're going to get a report from General Petraeus in a few 
days. But the Government Accountability Office has already given us a 
report on

[[Page 23603]]

the progress of the Iraqi Parliament, the one that Mr. Bush seems to 
appreciate so much.
  One of the benchmarks, enacting and implementing legislation on de-
Baathification, nothing done. Laws were drafted, not passed. Enacting 
and implementing legislation to ensure the equitable distribution of 
hydrocarbon resources of the people of Iraq, none being considered by 
the Parliament. Enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to 
form semiautonomous regions, that one they did enact a law. Enacting 
and implementing legislation establishing an Independent High Electoral 
Commission, provincial elections law, provincial council authorities, 
and a date for provincial elections supporting laws, not enacted. 
Enacting and implementing legislation addressing amnesty, no law 
drafted. Enacting and implementing legislation establishing a strong 
militia disarmament program to ensure that such security forces are 
accountable only to the central government and loyal to the 
constitution of Iraq, no laws drafted. Nothing done.
  So this is the great Iraqi Parliament that President Bush seems to 
appreciate when he is standing halfway across the world. The fact of 
the matter is, this Congress has acted. It has acted in so many areas 
that I am so proud to speak of and that my colleague has done such an 
excellent job of enumerating. But this Congress continues to work in 
education, in health care, in the environmental issues, and, yes, in 
Veterans Affairs, for the great heroes of our country to whom we made a 
critical promise when they decided to give their service. We had made a 
promise to them, and we haven't been keeping it. This Congress is going 
to make sure that we do keep it, even though prior Congresses and this 
administration is not.
  So again, I am very proud of the record that this Congress has 
assembled over the last 8 months. I am, again, ashamed of the President 
of the United States for what he said in Australia. But I hope he will 
come back. I hope he will realize that his legacy is going to depend, 
to a certain extent, on how he reaches out to us and deals with us over 
the next 15 months.
  The Constitution begins with article 1, which vests the legislative 
authority in this country in this body, not in him. Now, he doesn't 
seem to have read the Constitution. With 700 or so signing statements 
in which he said he is basically going to ignore what this Congress 
does with executive orders, vetoes, and virtually every other 
parliamentary procedure or technical procedure he can use to invalidate 
the work of this Congress, I think basically he has a lot to answer 
for, both to the American people and to us. The Constitution vests the 
legislative authority in this body. We are doing our job. We will 
continue to do our job.
  I ask the President and the Republicans on the other side of the 
aisle and in the other body to recognize that this is our job. We are 
the ones mentioned by article 1. We are mentioned first in the 
establishment of this government, and I think we will continue to act 
first in the interests of the American people.
  Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. The gentleman's point, one of the things that 
is very well taken is that the genius of our system lies in the system 
of checks and balances, the oversight that should have been provided. 
Now, those of us who were expressing grave misgivings about the 
President's plan to basically simply trust him that he had a plan for 
Iraq, to trust him that he had a plan on this, and any of us who spoke 
out and said, the responsibility for enacting foreign policy lies 
between the Congress and the President, carrying out the military side 
of it will always be done with great professionalism.
  But as we ask the questions, what is the step beyond the military? 
What is the step for political gain in Iraq? What is the bigger 
picture, the geopolitical picture, of the Middle East? When we started 
asking those questions for 3 years prior to this Congress coming, we 
were told we were unpatriotic, that we were somehow undermining the 
troops. Forget that we funded them in terms of the VA and everything 
else at a historic level once we got here. We were told that. This 
oversight and this ability to check the executive branch is exactly 
what the American people are looking at.
  I stress it and say it again. I do not believe that the American 
public were enamored strictly with Democratic ideology. But I can tell 
you what they were disgusted with; the belief of the sense of 
righteousness that was coming that there could be no room for debate, 
there was no room to compromise, there was no room to listen to the 
experts, and there was no reason to back off and say, ``Perhaps we were 
wrong.'' That's what we heard. That's what we heard for 6 years from 
this administration. That's what we heard with a Congress that provided 
this President no reason to veto. None. Zero. Why should he? They were 
writing the legislation. The President has been using the word ``veto'' 
in almost every sentence since we came here. That tells me the system 
is working beautifully. That tells me that the system is providing 
those checks and balances.
  In this idea of oversight, there are a couple of important pieces of 
legislation that I would like to bring up and then talk about how bills 
are now being written here, how laws are being enacted, and how the 
rhetoric that gets to the American people is all based on spin and 
politics. It is not based on reality.
  The first of these is the Rail Safety Act. We had a sense in this 
country over time, and it was fought for by our grandparents and by our 
great-grandparents, it was fought for by every generation, to provide 
safe working conditions for our workers, to provide child labor laws, 
to provide good, safe ability of our people to make a living and return 
home to their families at the end of a hard day. The Rail Safety Act 
was to be authorized by Congress to oversee the operations of our 
railroads. Well, for the last 12 years, Congress has basically said, 
``We should just let the rail industry determine their own safety''. 
That is pretty much how we did it with airlines prior to September 11. 
``They'll provide it.'' No thought that maybe the purpose of business 
is to provide returns to their investors. No thought that maybe they 
would try and save a little money by cutting off safety at the expense 
of what might happen. So for 12 years, we have sat around and we have 
done nothing to reenact the Rail Safety Act.
  This year we have already held three hearings. There will be a 
reauthorization of this. I have sat in those hearings in the 
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and watched rail workers 
come up and talk about how many long hours they are being forced to 
work, how their grievance process is held up and never listened to, how 
we are simply running on borrowed time before we are going to see a 
major accident, and how we have seen the data that has shown we are no 
safer. I have listened to people from the railroads testify in front of 
our committee and tell me how safe it was and how the numbers are 
comparable to previous years. And I have to note, ``but your numbers 
only went to October of last year. We had 3 more months that you didn't 
include.''
  ``Oh, yeah, sorry about that.''
  That's the type of thing that went on. The American public doesn't 
expect us to take one side or another. They expect us to stand here, 
look at data, be fair, work with our colleagues across the aisle, hold 
firm to our convictions, disagree on issues, but do it agreeably, and 
come to a consensus that works. Don't try to figure out what the 
talking point is. Don't try and figure out how you can make the other 
side look bad. I spend a lot of time down here watching how much time 
goes in watching my colleagues make sure they say ``Democrat'' instead 
of ``Democratic.'' If it weren't so sad, it would be funny. But the 
problem is that's one small area that is a much bigger problem, that 
it's about the message, not about the effectiveness.
  The second one I want to talk about is a very important one. Maybe 
many Americans don't know about it, but we have been waiting 8 years to 
get a reauthorization of the Water Resources Development Act, the WRDA 
bill. The WRDA bill deals with everything from transportation, clean 
water, everything in this country dealing with how

[[Page 23604]]

we work with one of our most precious natural resources, our lakes and 
rivers. In my State of Minnesota, one of the most important assets 
economically, environmentally and culturally is the Mississippi River. 
It is something that is so inherently ingrained in who we are as 
Americans and those States that are on that river that how we treat it 
and how we deal with it is critically important. Well, the locks and 
dams that make Minnesota a major shipper of our grain in the 
breadbasket of America are over 70 years old. They're in decay. We need 
to invest in the upkeep of these. That can only be done, the locks and 
dams on the upper Mississippi, through the Water Resources Development 
Act. We need to pass that. We need to move it forward so that our 
economic vision will extend to our children.
  For 8 years, nothing was done. Nothing was invested in. And now, 
today, taking it one step further, I sat in a hearing in the 
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee dealing with the state of 
the bridges in our country. Now, it's obviously very timely. It has 
obviously been driven by the catastrophic and horrific collapse of the 
I-35W bridge in Minnesota. But when you see a map highlighting the 
thousands of structurally deficient bridges across this country, and I 
watch the administration's representatives say, ``We've got plenty of 
money to take care of this. We don't need to find a new revenue 
source,'' the aversion to speaking together and taking something off 
the table before we've had a chance to debate it is absolutely 
something the American people will no longer tolerate. This Congress 
has said, ``We need to figure out how to get these bridges funded.'' If 
it is through a Federal gas tax, then let's talk about it. And if it is 
through public-private partnerships, let's talk about them. If it is 
through reprioritizing how we use the resources we have, let's talk 
about them.
  But we don't get that. What we get is slogans and radio ads talking 
about Democrats want to tax. Democrats don't want to tax. Democrats 
just want a country that works. This new Congress wants to have that 
discussion. We have sat here and watched bill after bill after bill go 
through subcommittees, committees, the full House, and minutes before 
we are to vote on it, the other side brings up a motion to recommit, 
which means a new piece of legislation. Most of the time, I have 
already got it down pretty well, is this one immigration or is this one 
felons? Which one are they going to bring up? They bring these up so 
they can go to the American people and tell them, ``They didn't vote 
against giving benefits to illegal immigrants.'' Well, one of the 
reasons we didn't do that was because they're not telling you the whole 
story. First is, it's already illegal and it doesn't happen. Secondly, 
the little part of the line that they don't say is, it would totally 
gut the funding of the piece of legislation we put out there.
  That type of politics has the American public frustrated beyond all 
belief. Those two pieces of legislation, Rail Safety Act and the WRDA 
bill, should be absolutely nonpartisan. They should have maybe some 
philosophical differences on how you administer that or possibly how 
you pay for it. But here was the solution we had: ``Let's not regulate 
it. Let's not provide oversight. Let's let the corporations themselves 
do so. That's the best way to do that.''
  Well, the American public has rejected that. The American public has 
said, no. The American public says, We're not against regulation. We're 
against excessive regulation.

                              {time}  1800

  We are against regulation that doesn't make sense in terms of safety 
and the ability of our railroads to profit. But somehow because we are 
asking for these pieces of legislation to go through, that we are not 
supportive of economic growth, is ludicrous, especially on the WRDA 
bill.
  Everybody agrees that the WRDA bill will be a major economic driver. 
It will put billions of dollars into the economy in terms of rebuilding 
and rehabilitating the locks and dams and other resources, as well as 
speeding up the transportation time. The Mississippi River has such a 
bottleneck near St. Louis that we can barely move cargo through that. 
We have an aging infrastructure, bridges that are unsafe, roads that 
are clogged.
  The solution from the administration, they are talking about 
congestion pricing. That means we will charge a higher toll on roads 
that are busy in order to force people off them. I guess they assume 
that some of us are just driving around in the mornings, not taking our 
kids to school, not going to work; that we just like driving and 
clogging the roads. So the best thing is those of us who can't afford 
us, get us off the roads so those lanes will be nice and wide open for 
the people who can afford to pay to go down them.
  The American public said that is not a solution. Get something else 
and debate it. That is what we are trying to do.
  Now I would like to take a minute to explain to you how I believe and 
what I have seen and what I was hoping when I left that high school 
classroom, when I came to this building, when I came to this sacred 
floor, how I was hoping legislation would work. I live in southern 
Minnesota. It is one of the most productive agricultural lands in the 
Nation; in the world, I should say.
  The county I live in is called Blue Earth County. People on the 
prairie are pretty literal. When they call towns Plainview, that is 
because that is what you see. When they called that county Blue Earth, 
that is because the soil there is so black and so rich that when the 
sun shines on it on the summer days, it literally looks blue. This is 
land that can produce 200 bushels an acre of corn. This is land that 
feeds the world.
  The farm bill is an important piece of legislation to that district 
but also across the country. The farm bill is a big piece of 
legislation that has historically been very, very bipartisan. That is 
because 66 or so percent of the farm bill deals with nutrition 
programs; how we feed our children in schools, how we feed our seniors, 
how we feed those who are not fortunate enough or need to use food 
stamps or other programs. That is 66 percent of it.
  About 12 percent deals with the safety net that keeps our farmers in 
business, that provides this country the cheapest, most abundant, 
safest form of food at the least expensive disposable income of any 
nation in the world. That farm bill does that. It also provides things 
like rural development. It also provides conservation measures.
  Well, here is how the farm bill was written. When I got here to 
Congress and was placed on that committee, we were given the 
instructions by the chairman of that committee in January to spend the 
next 2 months going out and listening to everybody, holding sessions, 
holding hearings, soliciting information, doing whatever you could to 
let people start writing that farm bill, because here was the 
directive. The farm bill would be written by the people through the 
subcommittee, to the full committee, to the House of Representatives, 
and then we would get a piece of legislation that we could be truly 
proud of.
  So we did it. I went out and held 14 listening sessions throughout my 
district. It varied in attendance from maybe 50 to 150 people. It 
varied from teachers to social workers, of course farmers, agribusiness 
people. And as they came there, they came with a lifetime of ideas. 
They came with a vision of what agriculture should look like in 
America, and they wanted to be part of the process.
  So they came and told me this: Congressman Walz, the average farmer 
in the first district is 58 years old. We are getting old and our 
children are leaving. It is very difficult to get into farming.
  So groups as diverse as the American Farm Bureau and the Land 
Stewardship Project and the Farmer's Union got together, and each of 
them had proposed different ideas on beginning farmer and rancher 
legislation. Their members came to these meetings and explained the 
need for this.
  We, myself, my staff, the ag committee staff, got together and helped 
write legislation. That legislation was taken into and offered up in 
the subcommittees as amendments to the

[[Page 23605]]

farm bill. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle debated both for 
and against this piece of legislation and offered secondary amendments 
to change it, which we debated, accepted some, rejected some. When we 
were done, we had a piece of legislation that was heralded by most farm 
groups as a major step forward in making agriculture accessible to 
future generations.
  That piece of legislation got added in. It was not written by special 
interest; it was written by people who care about this. Did special 
interest have their say? Of course they did. Our job was to sort that 
out.
  Well, that piece of legislation in the farm bill happened in all the 
subcommittees, and that piece of legislation was debated in the full 
committee and that piece of legislation passed out of the full 
committee and came to the House floor. My colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle, I can guarantee you this, many of them, especially those in 
farm country, said this is a good piece of legislation.
  Bipartisan groups, groups that were on the spectrum of politics about 
as far apart as you could get from one another, from environmental 
groups to production ag groups, were saying: You know what, I think 
they got it right. And then as we brought it to the floor, one of the 
things that we had to do was figure out how this thing is going to be 
paid through the whole process. Because commodity processes have been 
high in past years, we did not pay about $60 billion in subsidy 
payments, whether it be direct payments, contra-cyclical payments.
  So what happened was when we budgeted under PAYGO, our budget for 
this year's farm bill was $60 billion less. So when we got to the end 
it became apparent, because Democrats wanted do make sure we did 
something as simple as this, we let the Food Stamp Program, senior 
feeding programs and some of our nutrition programs that had been 
underfunded for years, we wanted to do something as simple as boost 
them up to a level that people could get the caloric intake they needed 
to have a healthy diet, and then we wanted to peg it to inflation to 
make sure that what we put in the bill this year isn't eaten up by 
inflation next year. Doing any budgeting without considering inflation, 
to me, seems disingenuous.
  So we did that. The way we came up paying for it was a suggestion 
given to us by President Bush and his budget director. They had 
identified several years ago approximately $7\1/2\ billion in 
uncollected taxes from companies, in the President's own words, that 
were inappropriately using the U.S. Tax Code to shift their tax burden 
by shifting profits to offshore entities, mainly in the Caribbean, 
Bermuda being the one, meaning foreign corporations doing business in 
America, making a profit here, shifting that profit to Bermuda and 
reporting zero in tax liability.
  The President said it was inappropriate, as did his budget director. 
We agreed with him. We closed that loophole, asking them to do the 
thing that is most American of all, pay your fair share and take that 
money, put it in to enhance our nutrition programs.
  Well, that was unacceptable because now that is considered a tax. 
That was the rhetoric that was coming. So now a decision has to be 
made. Are the American public, when they listen to this farm bill that 
needs to pass, and, by the way, we told them in January that we would 
have it done by the end of July, and there wasn't a single person that 
thought that was possible. Well, it was done. It was done by the end of 
July. We took it home.
  I went to Farmfest, Redwood Falls, Minnesota to wide acclaim for this 
piece of legislation. It is not perfect. Nothing here is. It is a 
compromise. But it is a good one. It is good for rural America. It is 
good for our nutrition programs. It is good for our economy.
  Well, that thing is now under a veto threat by the President. So the 
President has a decision. He can stand in front of the American public 
and say ``I am going to veto a really nice piece of legislation that 
was worked on from the grassroots level,'' exactly how you would hope 
the American democratic system works, ``and I am going to veto that 
because I believe that those foreign corporations have the right to 
avoid paying their taxes,'' or he can tell the American public, ``You 
know what? This was worked on bipartisanly, this was done correctly, 
and we should vote together on this.''
  We should tell the American public, this isn't about politics. This 
isn't about trying to get a campaign ad that says the Democrats are 
trying to raise taxes. This is about doing the right thing that we can 
all take credit for. That needs to happen. Now I would say the ball is 
in the President's court. The ball is in his court when it comes from 
the Senate to do exactly that. This Congress will continue to do that.
  The last thing I would like to talk a little bit about is this new 
direction. One of the things that I think Democrats are rightfully 
proud of, it is the first piece of legislation many of us got to 
cosponsor, that was the small business tax relief and the raising of 
the minimum wage.
  This piece of legislation, we know it has been over a decade since we 
saw a raising of the minimum wage. Some of my colleagues say, what's 
the big deal? I have got many names and many stories I could tell them 
why it is a big deal to raise the minimum wage, why the 3 million 
children living in families with parents with minimum wage, it is 
probably a pretty big deal to them.
  But part of the story is focusing on the small business tax relief. 
The rhetoric that will come out is always one or the other, either/or, 
the false dichotomies. ``Well, Democrats are for raising the minimum 
wage, but they are not for helping business.'' Nothing could be further 
from the truth. In fact, we passed this and it was signed into law.
  Here are a couple things that it did, just to let you know. It was 
endorsed, by the way, by the Chamber of Commerce and the National 
Federation of Independent Businesses. I don't hear my colleagues on the 
other side talking a whole lot about this. I think they should. It 
would be a good one for them to talk to their constituents about.
  It extends a tax provision that lets small business owners write off 
more equipment each year for use in their trade or business, 
understanding that small businesses have a need for the infusion of 
capital purchases and things that they need to get started with their 
business, making sure they are able to write those off. Absolutely 
appropriate, absolutely the right use of the Tax Code, and absolutely a 
sense of investment in the future.
  If we give these tax cuts, and some of them are pretty substantive, 
about $4.84 billion total, it ensures married couples who jointly own a 
small business both receive credit for paying Social Security and 
medicare taxes.
  I am at a loss to understand why over the last 12 years of Republican 
control that was never fixed. This is a pretty important fix, and it is 
one that small businesses understand is important. It includes enhanced 
tip credit to ensure employers don't lose current tax benefits when the 
minimum wage goes up; S Corp provisions to keep tax benefits of being a 
small business even as they grow and expand; and extends the Work 
Opportunity Tax Credit through August of 2011.
  These are things that are going to impact positively on small 
businesses. Seventy percent of our jobs are created in small 
businesses, employers with 50 or less employees. Those are the things 
that we have taken to do.
  So those who would say nothing positive is being done, this Congress 
is not moving anything forward, would be remiss to look at the facts, 
what the facts have been. The most significant increase in veterans 
care that we have seen in the 77-year history, probably I think it is 
safe to say in this Nation's history; an ending of a 10-year period 
without a raise to the minimum wage for millions of American workers; a 
small business tax package that is going to enhance their ability to 
compete in the world; an ethics reform package that independently has 
been hailed as one of the most significant since Watergate, to bring 
back the dignity, to bring back the trust of the American people in 
this institution.
  You heard some of the things about energy, focusing on energy 
independence. We have got a farm bill that is

[[Page 23606]]

going to be one of the best we have seen. And when the President 
decides he is going to choose our farmers over foreign companies that 
avoid paying taxes, we are going to get a great farm bill.
  We have got a Water Resources Development Act that is going to 
enhance our ability to compete in the world while adding billions of 
dollars in investments to our infrastructure.
  We are going to clean up the Rail Safety Act. We have seen packages 
to education to make college more affordable, the most significant 
increase to Pell Grants. We have cleaned up what has been an absolute 
debacle in private lending, moving away from government-subsidized, 
low-interest loans to get our children through college by saying, gee, 
we have this vast pool of American kids who need to go to college to 
compete. Why shouldn't we profit from that? Why shouldn't we let 
private lenders make a whole bunch of money of them? That would be a 
good thing to do.
  Now, that is quite a difference from what she said when I went to 
school, when future generations invested in me and said we are going to 
keep college as affordable as possible. We are going to make sure we 
use grants as much as we can, and we are going to make sure that the GI 
Bill can be used by these young people who are willing to sign up and 
they are able to get their education. That was wisdom. That was vision. 
That was nonpartisan.
  Many of those accomplishments can be attributed to ideas coming from 
the Republican side of the aisle. Unfortunately, for the last few 
years, that hasn't been the case. But we have got a new direction. We 
have got a new optimism.
  As I started speaking today, I talked about the changes each one of 
us have seen. We have been here for 8 months. In my home State of 
Minnesota, I am happy to tell you that I think I have witnessed change 
that all us want to know.
  On August 19, as we talked a little bit about it, my district saw 
some the worst flooding that they have ever seen; 17 inches of rain in 
a 24-hour period. We had entire towns wiped out, towns of 2,500 to 
3,000 people. I went into that town riding on a boat as people were 
leaving their second story windows as people were picking them up. We 
have seen catastrophic displacement of large numbers of people.
  As I said, on Sunday, the rains were falling, and I was there with a 
Republican Governor. On Monday, a Republican Senator and a Democratic 
Senator, a Republican Governor and a Democratic Congressman toured 
together and promised to do everything that was possible. On Tuesday, a 
Republican President was in Minnesota pledging to the help of the U.S. 
Government. On Wednesday, a Republican Governor requested that help. 
And on Thursday, the administration delivered on that. By Sunday, FEMA 
was in the district caring for our people, taking care of the needs, 
and showing that, you know what? When we work together, there is 
nothing this Nation can't accomplish.
  I am proud to be a member of this new class. It has been 8 months of 
change. The new direction we are going in is one that the American 
public wants.

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