[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 27]
[Senate]
[Pages 36339-36341]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, as we celebrate this holiday season 
with our families, as we gather with those we love and give thanks for 
our tremendous blessings, we remember how incalculable the losses have 
been to the families of the 3,888 soldiers who have been killed in 
Iraq. Their losses cannot be tallied, not in the number of Christmas 
nights spent without the one they loved; not in the number of days 
since their wives, husbands, parents, and children left home forever. 
We cannot calculate the strain on the 28,661 wounded soldiers and their 
families, many of whom will be spending this precious time of the year 
in a military hospital, coping with their blindness, living with only 
one leg or arm, sleeping through nightmares of the battlefield instead 
of the beautiful dreams they used to know this time of year.
  As we hold them in our hearts--as well as all of the men and women in 
uniform across the globe who serve to protect the country and to 
promote its interests, for which we have eternal gratitude--as we hold 
them in our hearts and express that gratitude, we also watch our money 
slip away from us in Iraq. That is a casualty we can and must count.
  I have come to the floor over the last 2 months to talk about the 
cost of Iraq to us at home. The lives lost in Iraq cannot have a price 
put to them. Their sacrifice and that of their families have no price. 
The human suffering of those who have been wounded also has no price.
  But there is also a price that is calculable at home, and it is what 
the war is costing not just in dollars from our Treasury and debt cast 
upon on the next generation of Americans, but what it is costing in 
lost opportunities at home. There is a brutal holiday irony that is no 
cause for festive spirit in Washington.
  The irony is this: President Bush and his Republican allies in 
Congress held hostage some key investments we need to make right here 
in our country, in order to extract a promise of more money for the war 
in Iraq.
  They are asking for more than $150 billion more for Iraq next year, 
but at one point they threatened to starve the entire Government of 
funding over a difference in the Federal budget that amounts to less 
than one-tenth of what the President wants to spend on the war next 
year. He was ready to shut the whole Government down over the 
difference of what amounts to less than one-tenth of what the President 
wants to spend on the war next year.
  Mr. BYRD. Shame.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. This holiday season we wondered if President Bush 
wanted to be Scrooge to America and Santa Claus to Iraq. Over the last 
several months I have spoken many times about what the American 
presence in Iraq is costing at home. The true cost of the $455 billion 
we have spent on

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that war and the $10 billion per month we continue to spend might never 
be more clear than it is right now, at a time when Congress debated the 
budget for almost the entire Federal Government.
  While we have been here crunching numbers, American families are 
feeling the crunch of a few numbers themselves: the interest rate on 
their mortgage that is about to jump beyond what they can afford, the 
price on the gas pump when they fill their tank, the price of heating 
oil and natural gas, higher grocery bills, fare hikes or threats of 
hikes on public transportation, and the skyrocketing costs of providing 
medical care for themselves and their children.
  The President's consistent threats to veto funding for Federal 
Government operations forced across-the-board cuts to programs and 
services that so many Americans are counting on. This winter, as snow 
and ice fall on roads across America, people are waiting for better 
ways to travel. They are waiting for expanded, affordable public 
transportation, progress on efficiency, and new sources of fuel and 
power. They are waiting for our Nation to fill our energy portfolio 
with something other than the usual energy sources.
  The omnibus spending bill the Senate approved this week would inject 
another $1.7 billion in the development of renewable sources of energy, 
such as solar, wind, and geothermal. It is an important step--but it 
could have been much greater.
  Republicans have consistently objected to bigger steps. They said 
weaning us off fossil fuels is too expensive. Meanwhile, they have 
insisted that oil companies need more multimillion-dollar tax cuts. 
Meanwhile, we spend enough money to pay for that entire renewable 
energy package in Iraq in just 5 days--in just 5 days.
  Mr. BYRD. Five days.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Energy independence for our country, stopping giving 
foreign countries that wish us harm the ability to have the resources 
to make that harm happen, and that we could have funded for 5 days in 
Iraq. Those are the choices that we make.
  Mr. BYRD. Hear that? Five days.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Five days, Senator Byrd.
  Cancer patients going through the dark winter of their illness are 
waiting on lifesaving treatments that only intensive scientific 
research can discover. Congress has a bill before it to fund that 
research, but President Bush vetoed the funding once, and his allies in 
Congress have whittled it down as much as they could. The cost of the 
funding increase for that cancer research, to turn the winter of their 
illness into the spring of possibility? It is $329 million, or less 
than 1 day in Iraq.
  Mr. BYRD. Less than 1 day.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. This winter, while President Bush asked for billions 
more for security for the streets of Baghdad, he says we cannot afford 
to bring security to the streets of our own hometowns. The Senate 
proposed spending $55 million, in part to hire police officers 
specially trained to stop child sexual predators. We have seen the 
fantastic growth of the Internet--and that is great. It brings many 
good things with it. But it also brings challenges. The President did 
not just force funding to stop child sexual predators to be cut in 
half, he sliced it to less than a third of what it was. We could have 
made up the difference and fully funded the program to stop child 
sexual predators with what it costs to be in Iraq for just about 2\1/2\ 
hours.
  Being able to successfully have the law enforcement capability to 
pursue child sex predators versus 2\1/2\ hours in Iraq. Where are all 
the family values we hear talked about so often? What ever happened to 
recognizing the importance of our children, who are truly our greatest 
asset, but also our most vulnerable asset? What are our values? What 
are our priorities?
  There are too many provisions in this big funding bill that are 
absolutely essential, too many to name here. But the victims of the 
cuts that the President and his Republican allies have called for, the 
millions of Americans waiting for clean power that will not be 
produced, the cancer patients who are waiting for research that will 
not be allowed to happen, the communities trying to stop child sexual 
predators who are waiting for police officers who will not be hired: 
These people are also too many to name.
  In that sense, even beyond the lives lost overseas, the cost of the 
war in Iraq has been incalculable. If there is one thing we must all 
acknowledge right now, it is this: The war in Iraq is not free, it is 
not without consequences here at home, and no one should be pretending 
that this war is free.
  The Bush administration likes to parrot the line that we are fighting 
them over there so we do not have to fight them here. But Americans 
have figured out what they mean, and what they mean is: We are spending 
all our money over there so, by the way, we did not have it to spend 
here.
  Above all, this is a question of values. Do we value our children, 
and value protecting them? Do we value our schools and the education we 
want our children to have so they can continue to make America the 
global competitive leader? Do we value the men and women who wear the 
uniform, not just by marching in a parade on Memorial Day or going to a 
Veterans Day service, which we should, but by taking care of their 
health care and their disabilities and taking care of their survivors, 
for those who commit the ultimate sacrifice, as a grateful nation truly 
does? Or will we neglect those and other priorities such as the health 
care of our children and of our families?
  The Democratic budget bill set out for our values a clear and serious 
test. We cannot allow the budget to have a heart as cold as the ice on 
our front steps. We cannot let our financial stability melt away, and 
we cannot continue to let more of our money burn up in a war that has 
taken so much from so many for so long.
  At year's end, we speak of renewal, we return to our families and 
witness a rebirth of hope. This season is about the best in each and 
every one of us. This season, decisions we make are going to test how 
we operate as a government and test what we stand for as a nation. 
There is no better time than now to let the best in American values 
guide our way: generosity, equality of opportunity, cooperation with 
one another, turning to each other instead of against each other.
  We have the power to end unnecessary suffering and waste, and the 
chance to approach these tasks with a fresh sense of urgency that they 
require. As we rest and dream in the company of those we love, let us 
remember that December is the darkest time of the year, but it is also 
the turning point when the sun begins to shine more and more each day.
  Together we offer our wish, our hope, and our prayers that the dreams 
that have carried us so far of peace on Earth, good will toward all may 
yet still come true.


                             Thanking Staff

  Before I yield the floor, I would like to take the opportunity to 
acknowledge the individuals in my now second year here in the Senate 
whom I have seen work incredibly hard, but very rarely get 
acknowledged, all of those who help us as we preside: the clerks, who 
keep all of the documentation that comes before the Senate moving; the 
Parliamentarians, who try to keep us in some degree of order as we move 
along the way; the party secretaries and their staffs, who do such a 
great job on informing us as to what is happening and to try to keep 
somewhat of a schedule in terms of our lives here in the Senate; to 
those in the cloakroom who also produce that service; to the pages who 
have done a great job.
  It was a privilege to have the opportunity to talk to so many of 
them. I think they are going to carry their experiences here with them 
a lifetime, and I am sure that maybe we will see some of them in this 
Chamber in the future.
  To all of those who make this institution the greatest democratic 
institution in the world operate the way it successfully operates, my 
deepest thanks, my best for the holiday season.
  With that, I yield the floor.

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