[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 28613]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                PRESIDENT DEMANDS BLANK CHECKS FOR IRAQ

  (Ms. WATSON asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. WATSON. Madam Speaker, last week President Bush requested an 
additional $42 billion from Congress for the wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, bringing his total funding request for the upcoming year 
to $190 billion.
  Also last week, the Congressional Budget Office released a report 
concluding that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost $2.4 
trillion over the next decade. That's nearly $8,000 for every American.
  Just imagine if we rejected the President's plan to continue the war 
in Iraq for another decade and worked instead to responsibly redeploy 
our troops out of Iraq within the next year. Rather than spending $2.4 
trillion over in Iraq, we could instead invest it here with our own 
people. This would be more than enough to provide every college 
freshman in our Nation with a free 4-year education at a private 
college or university. We could also use that money to provide health 
care coverage to every American for a year or could pay off 26 percent 
of our national debt.

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