[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6471-6476]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Boyda of Kansas). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Ryan) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be 
here for another session of the 30-Something Working Group. We have had 
a very interesting week in Congress this week, and we want to share 
some of that with our fellow Members of Congress and those people 
paying attention for the record on the week of sunshine in the United 
States Congress.
  In the past several days we have, as Democrats, continued to honor 
our pledge to try to open up government, knowing that the more 
information that we share, the more information that we have about the 
inner workings of government, the better off we are all going to be.
  I think we have all seen over the past several years how a very 
closed, secretive government rules and what the end result may be of a 
very closed and secretive government. We are trying to fix that 
problem.
  As you watch the news, Madam Speaker, as you watch the news every 
single day, it seems like we continue to hear stories about problems 
that we knew about many, many years ago, but we never did anything 
about it because you are not allowed to admit you make mistakes.
  What we have tried to do this week is try to prevent the kinds of 
situations we have had with Walter Reed, try to prevent the kinds of 
situations we have had with Iraq, and try to prevent the kinds of 
situations we have had with Hurricane Katrina. All of these things were 
happening behind closed doors, and the people involved at the Pentagon 
or the Department of Defense, or whether it was in FEMA, the problem 
was people in the organization or in the agency or in certain 
departments knew things weren't going well or knew there wasn't a plan 
or knew we didn't have the proper people in place to execute whatever 
the exact role was of that agency, but nobody was allowed to tell 
anybody or talk about it. And if you talked about it, you were fired.
  We saw Hurricane Katrina on TV. We continue to see the war on TV, and 
we see what has happened at Walter Reed. Can you imagine people knew 
about what was going on at Walter Reed and didn't say anything? And 
then getting up in front of the TV cameras and say: We are for the 
troops, and you're not. That is a problem.
  The new Democratic majority has begun the problem of fixing that 
problem this week. We are restoring accountability. This week we passed 
whistleblower protection and other government reform bills so that 
those people involved in the agencies who know how the agencies need to 
be run will not be subjected to the political whims of the day.
  We want them to share with us what the problems are. We want them to 
share with us how we fix the agency or the department or the execution 
of the mission of a specific department. And I think it is important 
politically. As I am joined here by my good friend from Florida, Mr. 
Meek, I think it is important that we recognize what has happened since 
the Democrats have taken over.
  Now we are not here to just say we are the only political party in 
the country and we are the best and this and that. We had a political 
situation in this country since 2000 where the presidency was 
Republican and for the most part the House and the Senate were 
Republican the whole time, and the Republicans have controlled this 
Chamber for 14 years. And a culture of coverup happened, to where the 
Republican majority in the House would not oversee or provide the 
proper oversight to what was going on in FEMA, in the war, and a lot of 
these other agencies.
  And what has happened when the Democrats took over Congress and the 
American people said we need to bring a little balance to this 
situation, just look at what has happened. Walter Reed, who knows if 
that would have ever come up if the Democrats weren't poking around 
saying what is going on with veterans' health care?

                              {time}  1600

  All of the issues in Iraq. Today we passed a supplemental to begin to 
put the framework together to get our kids home from Iraq. And look at 
what is going on with Katrina and the oversight we are providing for 
that.
  These are things that are happening because the American people put 
balance back into the government. And we want to continue to honor the 
pledges that we made previous to the last election. We want to make 
sure that it is not just the whistleblower protection, but it is the 67 
hearings that we have already had, Democrats have already had on Iraq. 
Sixty-seven. No, it's even more.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, it is more than 67 hearings. You meant 
97 last week, but now it is 104 hearings. Three digits.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And what is today, March 14?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. March 15. That's a good thing, Mr. Ryan.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. In a couple of months we've had more hearings than 
the Republican majority had.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Definitely at this point in the 109th Congress, 
in the 108th Congress.
  But go ahead, Mr. Ryan.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think it is important for us to really recognize 
the importance and the results already of what has been happening. And 
I don't know if this is a coincidence or not, but Halliburton just 
picked up and moved; they just picked up and said we're moving out of 
the country.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. That is no-bid contract Halliburton.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yes. And it is a shame that a company that gets 
that much public tax money would pick up and leave the very country 
that they get their money from to have their corporate headquarters.
  But it is important that we are living up to our commitment. We are 
providing the oversight, 104 committee hearings. We are restoring 
accountability with the whistleblower protection; Presidential library 
donation; FOIA requests, where you can actually access documents in the 
government, freedom of information. So a lot of sunshine came down on 
the Capitol this week.
  And I couldn't be prouder of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, 
and Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn and

[[Page 6472]]

Rahm Emanuel and John Larson, our leadership and the Chairs of our 
committees for really applying the pressure and really trying to fix 
things and make things better.
  I yield to my friend from Florida.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. Thank you for yielding. So 
kind of you. My good friend from Ohio.
  Mr. Ryan, you know, yesterday when we were down here, we talked about 
the bipartisan votes, the fact that we are allowing an opportunity for 
the Members of Congress to vote for good commonsense, good government 
legislation that they have been denied of voting on for 12 years. And 
now we are in the majority, and we have an opportunity to put 
legislation forth. And as Ms. Wasserman Schultz experienced in the last 
Congress, we had, Madam Speaker, very few bipartisan votes because it 
was the bills that came to the floor that encouraged a lack of 
bipartisanship. As a matter of fact, it encouraged partisanship, to 
keep us divided. And that is not what Americans asked for. They didn't 
say, hey, Congressman, I am sending you to Washington, DC to be a 
partisan. I am sending you to Washington, DC to make sure that we have 
accountability; to make sure that we are fiscally responsible; to make 
sure that we hopefully move in a new direction when we need to move in 
a new direction.
  And I am so happy today, with this whole Accountability in 
Contracting Act, that there were 347 votes in the affirmative. Madam 
Speaker, I am more concerned about the 73. How do they go back home and 
say, well, I don't believe in accountability in contracting; I'm 
against that. You know, I would think that the folks that did vote 
against this very good piece of legislation are probably going down the 
line of saying that I am committed to being a partisan, because it 
wasn't my idea or it wasn't their idea. Well, the good thing that I am 
excited about, because I am not going to focus on the individuals who 
decided not to vote for it, I am going to focus on the 119 Republicans 
that did vote for it and the 228 Democrats that did vote for it. Every 
last Democrat that was voting on that bill voted in the affirmative 
because it was the right thing to do. And I commend the bipartisanship, 
and we will continue to talk about that.
  Whistleblower protection, we talked about that yesterday, such a good 
vote. I am going to say it again, Madam Speaker: 331 voting in the 
affirmative. Bipartisan, the House. The majority of the House voted to 
protect whistleblowers
  Mr. Ryan, someone is in there in an office somewhere here in 
Washington, DC, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, or in a regional office in 
Atlanta and come to work every day saying that this is not the way we 
should be doing things. This is against the law. That individual will 
be protected once we get it through the legislature, once we get it 
through the Senate and hopefully to the President.
  But what I am more concerned about, Ms. Wasserman Schultz and Mr. 
Ryan, is that the President has already said of these accountability 
measures that we are passing that he is willing to veto three out of 
four of them.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. There is a surprise.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Which is very interesting. I don't know of the 
73 that voted against it today, if that is going to be the basis for 
saying that that is the reason why I am going to veto it, because 73 
Members of the House voted against it. But neither be here nor there, I 
am glad that we are here in the majority, Madam Speaker. We have been 
in the minority, but we still have not allowed the majority to get to 
our heads or to our heart.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I will yield, but I was just making a wonderful 
point. I will yield, Mr. Ryan, if you want me to yield.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Okay, make your point.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. We are not letting it get to our heads or our 
heart or the reason why we are here in the first place.
  And the reason why the 30-Something Working Group continues to come 
to the floor, Madam Speaker, because some folks thought, Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz, this is just a minority project. Oh, they are in the minority, 
they want to go to the floor, they want to talk about what's wrong, 
they want to talk about what they will do if they ever get in the 
majority, and that will be it. Well, guess what? We are here in the 
majority celebrating the fact that we are doing the things that we said 
we would do. I mean, that is a paradigm shift in Washington politics: 
you run for office and you come here and you actually do what you said 
you were going to do. And now that is being carried out.
  We have always said some of our friends on the other side of the 
aisle wanted to be a part of good government, 6 in '06, implementing 
the 9/11 Commission. We were able to get 299 votes with 68 Republicans 
voting with us on that. Raising the minimum wage, we were able to get 
315 votes with 82 Republicans voting with us. Funding on enhancement of 
stem cell research, H.R. 3, 253, with 37 Republicans, on and on and on. 
And the reason why that is happening is not because Republicans all of 
a sudden say, hey, I want to vote with Democrats and I am going to be 
bipartisan. They are voting because they always wanted the opportunity, 
Madam Speaker, to vote for good legislation.
  Back home, I am going to tell you right now, there are Republicans 
that are saying I wanted the 9/11 recommendations to be fully 
implemented to protect America. They don't care who is the leader of 
the Republicans in the House and who is the leader of the Democrats in 
the House. They want to be secure. And those Republicans that voted 
with Democrats to implement every last one of those 9/11 
recommendations did so on behalf of their constituents.
  So we come to the floor to talk about bipartisanship. We come to the 
floor because we have always said bipartisanship can only be allowed, 
Madam Speaker and Members, if the majority allows it; and we are 
allowing it.
  Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you so much to my good friend.
  First, let me say that that is a beautiful orange and blue tie, Mr. 
Ryan, an excellent choice of colors, and coincidentally, the colors of 
my alma mater which, by the way, is playing in the NCAA tournament 
beginning tomorrow night. And who will be at the White House to 
celebrate the national championship in football? But I digress.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I didn't get invited to the White House.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And we can talk another time about which team 
our team defeated in order to get there, Mr. Ryan of Ohio.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think we have gotten through that.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Anyway, to get back to the matter at hand, Mr. 
Meek referred to the fact that the 30-Something Working Group was 
probably expected to shrivel up and die, to blow away after we won the 
majority, to just not re-emerge because one might think that there was 
no point in our continuing to exist. However, because the United States 
Congress and because we believe Democrats are responsible in the 
leadership of this Congress for accountability, we absolutely need to 
make sure that we use multiple facets of opportunity available to us to 
hold people accountable.
  We had an opportunity the last number of years to use this forum to 
hold our good friends on the other side of the aisle accountable, yet 
we still need to hold this administration accountable. And Lord knows 
that they certainly need it, as they continue to demonstrate every 
single day.
  And I just want to move on a little past the whistleblower act and 
the 104 hearings that we have had on this war in Iraq that have been 
scheduled since we took over the leadership of this Congress to the 
Attorney General, the U.S. Attorney firings that occurred in the last 
10 days or so.
  I just came from a House Committee on the Judiciary meeting in which 
we adopted legislation that will ensure that we reassert the Congress', 
on the Senate side, role in confirming U.S. Attorneys and restore the 
check and balance that used to be in place before a

[[Page 6473]]

provision was inserted in the dead of night by the Republicans in the 
conference committee without any committee reviewing it whatsoever. 
They completely changed the way the U.S. Attorneys were confirmed. They 
politicized that process without any Member being able to have the 
opportunity to debate it in the light of day.
  And clearly we can see as a result of the actions of Attorney General 
Gonzales and the fact that he has chosen to throw a staff person under 
the bus rather than have the buck stop with him, seems to be a pattern 
in this administration, i.e. Scooter Libby. We need to make sure that 
Congress reasserts our oversight role, and that is exactly what we just 
did in the Judiciary Committee.
  But let's just recap what happened with the U.S. Attorneys. Eight 
U.S. Attorneys were fired. Now, the U.S. Attorneys serve at the 
pleasure of the President, and we certainly don't deny that. However, 
when asked, when an inquiry was made, as is the Congress' 
responsibility, as to why those eight U.S. Attorneys were fired, the 
answer that we got was, well, the eventual answer we got was that it 
was performance related. Well, of course the eight U.S. Attorneys took 
umbrage at that and some of them came forward and suggested that there 
were actually some lawmakers, our good friends on the other side of the 
aisle specifically, that called and inquired about the progress of 
cases against Democrats in their jurisdiction. And then coincidentally, 
a few weeks later those that had gotten called that weren't responsive 
enough seemed to have been let go.
  Now, in the wake of all of this, in the wake of the Attorney General 
being less than factual in front of a committee of this body and in the 
wake of the clear difference in what he said and what actually 
happened, you have the chief of staff to the Attorney General who has 
resigned. Last week you had another individual responsible for 
overseeing the U.S. Attorneys resign. Now, they say that he was on his 
way out anyway.
  But it is time, and thank God we are able to now exercise Congress' 
oversight role and make sure that we have some fairness, make sure that 
we have justice administered in the way that Americans expect it to be, 
and that we are not politicizing the Department of Justice or the legal 
process that U.S. Attorneys oversee in each of their jurisdictions. 
Without us pointing that out, it would normally have just been swept 
under the rug. The administration would have just tried to ride it out 
and weather the storm. But now that we have a Democratic Congress, they 
can't do that anymore.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. That just happened.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That just happened. And it is funny how the chiefs 
of staff are dropping like flies, first the Vice President's, and now 
the Attorney General's.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, if you would yield. I mean, Ms. 
Wasserman Schultz, we were just talking just the other day about outing 
CIA agents; we were just talking about it. And in the last Congress 
folks were like, why are you all speculating? We are not speculating, I 
mean, someone is not telling the truth. Now a court of law said that 
people did know certain things. And you are right, Mr. Ryan, I mean, 
the most endangered job, especially if you are on the other side of the 
aisle, is to be chief of staff. Now people are looking at the chief of 
staff in a different way than they have done before in the past.

                              {time}  1615

  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If I can make a point.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Make that point.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The Attorney General's office, with all these 
problems, let's think about the role and the mission of the Attorney 
General's office in the post-9/11 era. We now have Senators calling the 
current Attorney General not up to the job, I think was the phrase, he 
is not up to the job, and the other comments that those folks have 
made.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. They actually went farther than that. You have 
a former Chief of Staff of the White House, a U.S. Senator from New 
Hampshire, Mr. Sununu, who said, ``I think the Attorney General should 
be fired,'' period, dot, in the words of Mr. Meek.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The thing is, this has been going on for a long 
time, and it's not until now where the threat of oversight looms, like 
impending danger.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I know Ms. Wasserman Schultz will be returning 
soon, but while we have two high level members of the House 
Appropriations Committee on the floor at the same time, since you share 
with me how important the Appropriations Committee is, we need to talk 
about what's going to happen next week, because I think it's important 
that the Members understand that we are carrying out a great mission 
here.
  On Tuesday, I know the House will meet at 10:30 for morning business, 
and we will consider suspension bills, what have you, but we are going 
to have on the floor next week H.R. 1227, which is the Gulf Coast 
Hurricane Housing Recovery Act. That is going to resolve many of the 
issues that gulf coast States and States in the future will face, and 
will allow us, allow the Federal Government to work in an appropriate 
way versus an inappropriate way of not being prepared for the needs of 
the American people.
  Then on Wednesday we are going to deal with U.S. troop readiness and 
accountability act, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health and Iraq 
Accountability Act. Mr. Ryan, you and I were talking about this 
yesterday, and you were marking it up, or you have marked it up in the 
Appropriations Committee.
  I think it's important that we share with the Members, as they break 
to go home back to their districts, that the real story within this 
bill is that it has accountability, that it is protecting the troops in 
a way that the Department of Defense has said that they should be 
protected, using their own rules and regulations for readiness.
  Now, what does that mean? That is to assure, Mr. Ryan, as you 
mentioned yesterday, that they have what they need when they go into 
theater, that it is already there before they get there. They have 
things that are simple like Kevlar vests, up-armored vehicles, to make 
sure that they have appropriate downtime before they are put back into 
the theater. These are Department of Defense regulations. These are not 
regulations that we came up with here in Congress, this is Department 
of Defense regulations. So we took those regulations and put it into 
this legislation.
  Looking at holding the Iraqi government to the benchmarks that the 
President spoke about, when he spoke of his escalation on plan, it's 
holding the President and also the Iraqi government accountable for 
benchmarks as it relates to continued funding. Also, I mentioned the 
strategy of redeployment of U.S. troops by 2008. I think that is very 
important.
  Yesterday I read some poll numbers, Mr. Ryan, that the American 
people are far ahead of the Bush administration on this issue. Guess 
what, we are helping the American people make sure their message makes 
it into law, makes it into this great emergency supplemental that has 
teeth in it and that has benchmarks for accountability and fiscal 
responsibility.
  Also, when we look at refocusing military efforts on Afghanistan and 
fighting terrorism, it's in the bill. What is also in the bill is 
expanding funding for veterans health care and hospitals. Our track 
record is clean on this, $3.6 billion went into veterans health care 
prior to the Walter Reed story breaking, prior to this emergency 
supplemental, and the continuing resolution that we passed almost a 
month ago.
  If we can talk a little bit about this legislation, the legislation 
is coming up next week, but talk about the significance, not only of 
housing for individuals who are in gulf coast areas, but also the U.S. 
Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health and Iraq Accountability Act. You all 
just had a great discussion on it today.

[[Page 6474]]

  Can you share it with the Members so they know exactly what they are 
voting on next week? You know, in the 30-Something Working Group, we 
hate to see Members that don't fully understand what they are voting 
on, because when they go back home and a veteran walks up to him and 
says, Congressman, Congresswoman, why didn't you vote for additional 
funding for veterans health care, or when they go to a military base, a 
Reserve unit, National Guard or Active duty, and they say, well, 
Congressman, Congresswoman, why are you putting me back into the 
theater and I just left the theater 120 days ago? That is against 
Department of Defense regulations.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Can I share a story with you? I know I have 
shared this with you before, but I think it's worth repeating.
  Right before we debated the Iraq war resolution a couple of weeks 
ago, I took the opportunity to go to Walter Reed and visit our wounded 
soldiers, had a chance to meet with six or eight of the finest young 
men that I have ever encountered. One of them was a young man who 
suffered from an inexplicable illness and was recovering at Walter 
Reed.
  When I met him, his wife and his 6 year-old little boy were there. 
The gentleman explained to me that he had been in the middle of his 
third tour of duty, and he had a 6-year-old little boy. Each tour was 1 
year, 1 year.
  Now, if you do the math, that means that he missed half of his little 
boy's life. The overwhelming sadness that came over me was almost too 
much to bear. I mean, this little boy was so sweet, his wife was so 
understanding, they were so committed to his dad's service, her 
husband's service. The little boy said to me, just spontaneously, you 
know, as 6-year-old little boys are, I have a 7-year-old little boy so 
I know, he spontaneously burst out, he knew his dad was supposed to 
finish his tour in August, and he was going to come home forever in 
August. We forget this is about families and people, and we are 
destroying the fabric of these families.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I have to run to the whip's office for an 
important meeting. I am a member of the Ways and Means Committee. Maybe 
you all will get a call. I know you are all important, you may get a 
call as members of the Appropriations Committee to go to the Democratic 
whip, office of the majority whip, but let me just say this very 
quickly, the men and women in uniform are standing by for us to sling-
shot them in. They want us to stand up for them.
  Mr. Ryan, I told you the other day a great Ohio saying, you have to 
have these sayings in Washington, DC and in politics, where they said 
that we have to remember that the field mouse is fast, but the owl can 
see at night. It's important that every Member of the House remember 
why we are here in the first place. People voted for us, you mentioned 
families, people voted for us to stand up for them, not stand up for a 
political party or to stand up on behalf of, oh, well, my President is 
in the White House.
  Guess what, the President is the President for the entire country. I 
don't say your President, he is my President too. When we have issues 
such as this and we have supplementals, the President said we had a 
nonbinding resolution, it's nonbinding.
  Guess what, this is binding. For folks who are looking for a binding 
document, this will be a binding document with accountability measures. 
I hope the two of you as members of the Appropriations Committee can go 
into it further, because we do have some Members that are on the fence, 
and we want those Members to vote on behalf of the continuing emergency 
supplemental so that the troops get what they need. They want us to 
stand in for them. They want to make sure that we make sure that we 
sling-shot them in for a win for a change, and this is on behalf of the 
men and women in uniform, our veterans have been waiting for them.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman will yield, there is no better way 
to support the troops than this supplemental bill that just passed out 
of our committee, and it will be on this floor next week. If you want 
to talk about sling-shotting the troops in, what we have done, and the 
Democratic leadership, and Mr. Murtha, Mr. Obey has been absolutely 
phenomenal as to what we have been able to do; $1.7 billion more than 
the President's request for defense health care. I don't know how you 
could vote against us; $450 million for post-traumatic stress disorder; 
$450 million for traumatic brain injury care and research; $730 million 
to prevent health care fee increase for our troops; $20 million to 
address problems at Walter Reed, and almost $15 million for burn care; 
another $1.7 billion in addition to the President's request for 
veterans health care, $550 million to address the backlog in 
maintaining VA health care facilities, which has been a huge problem; 
$250 million for medical administration to ensure sufficient personnel 
to support the growing number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are 
coming back so that they can have the level of service that they need.
  Now it's one thing to say you support the troops and then you turn 
around and you vote against a bill that has $4- or $5 billion in it to 
support the veterans and the troops coming back. It seems quite 
apparent to me that this is something that we need to do.
  Believe me, nobody wants to get out of war faster than me. I want to 
be out this afternoon, tomorrow morning. Let's come back. This has been 
foolish to begin with, but there is a certain reality on logistical 
needs and diversity in the country of how we should do this.
  So what we have done today was create a real framework for our kids 
to come back home, to let the Iraqis stand up, and put these 
benchmarks. I just want to talk for a minute about what these 
benchmarks are. Some people say, well, you are tying the President's 
hands, you are trying to micromanage more. We are not. That is not 
true.
  The facts of the matter are these, the President and the Pentagon 
have benchmarks. So how many Iraqi troops need to be trained, what does 
the political situation need to look like? Have they achieved their 
political and military benchmarks that have been set by the President? 
All we are saying is that you have to show some progress towards those 
benchmarks by July.
  Now, granted, we have already been in this war longer than we were in 
World War II. So by July you better show some progress as to meeting 
the benchmarks. If you are not showing progress, we will begin to 
redeploy out.
  But if by July you are showing some progress, you will then have 
until October to actually meet the benchmarks. If you don't meet them 
by October, we redeploy. If you do meet them by October, we redeploy, 
because you have met the benchmarks.
  This is just bringing this war to a reasonable end. What we have done 
today, I think the end is in sight.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I am so glad that you went through those 
benchmarks and stressed that these were the President's benchmarks that 
we used. The President, on January 10, outlined the benchmarks for 
success, that he felt were imperative that we need.
  Those were that we must give the United States the authority to 
pursue all extremists, we must rein in the militias and have Iraqis 
step up to the plate to enforce security. They have to decide how their 
oil revenues are going to be distributed. That is a very important 
benchmark that has to be accomplished, and they have to pass 
reconciliation initiatives to keep their country together. Their 
country is essentially about to fall apart. They are in the midst of 
civil war and are absolutely at the breaking point.
  Besides those benchmarks that we had in that supplemental that we 
passed out of the Appropriations Committee today, and besides the 
incredibly necessary emergency funding that the troops need and that 
our veterans need, we also put provisions in that legislation to make 
sure that our troops can catch their breath.
  I referred to that soldier who I met in Walter Reed, whose little boy 
just wanted him to come home, and who had missed half his little boy's 
life. We

[[Page 6475]]

have soldiers, many, many soldiers, who have completed three tours of 
duty, are about to go on their fourth, who are deployed for 365 days 
and then that deployment is extended.
  The language we put in that bill ensures and says to the Army that 
they need to make sure that those deployments are not beyond 365 days.

                              {time}  1630

  The President can waive that provision by submitting a report to 
Congress detailing why that unit's deployment is in the interest of 
national security. But that is the kind of accountability that we are 
inserting to protect our troops, to make sure that the President 
certifies that that deployment, that extension is absolutely essential 
to protect national security, despite the assessment that the unit is 
not fully mission capable.
  Our readiness is shot. We are spread so incredibly thin, and we are 
talking about the impact on human beings' lives.
  How about the length of deployment? The language in our bill requires 
the Defense Department to abide by its current policy and avoid 
extending the deployment of units in Iraq in excess of the 365 days. We 
have to make sure that those units are fully mission capable, and the 
time between deployments is essential as well.
  The Defense Department would be required to abide by, again, its 
current policy and avoid sending units back into Iraq before troops get 
the required time out of the combat zone and training time, 365 days 
for the Army, and 210 days for the Marines. And the President can also 
waive that provision in the interest of national security. He just has 
to certify to Congress that that is the case.
  And that is the kind of accountability that the American people 
insisted upon on November 7. They asked us for a new direction, in the 
6 in 2006 items of our agenda that we have already passed, and they 
insisted that we move this war in a new direction so that there would 
be an end in sight, so that the President would no longer have a blank 
check, and so that we could make sure we could protect our men and 
women in uniform who are protecting us. And I would be happy to yield 
to the gentleman. And I am going to have to take my leave of the 
gentleman because I have constituents that are in town that I need to 
speak with. I look forward to you carrying on
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I look forward to the old team being back down 
here. And I just want to continue as to what we are doing to try to fix 
this problem.
  As I said, with the benchmarks and making sure the Iraqi soldiers 
stand up, but a key component of this, as Ms. Wasserman Schultz has 
just mentioned is that we are saying that our troops can't leave here, 
the United States, and go to Iraq if they don't have the requisite 
level of equipment and training. And I don't think there is anybody in 
the country who would want to send one of our soldiers or lots of our 
soldiers off to war knowing, and the legal term is mense rea, you know, 
with intent, send kids that don't have the proper equipment and 
training.
  And the training part is something that Ms. Wasserman Schultz was 
just talking about. We have a readiness crisis in the Army. We are not 
capable now of handling another situation, military situation.
  Now, I think if you would ask the American people are we 
overstretched, they would all say yes. And if you talk to the military 
families, they say, yes, we are overstretched to the point where we 
have kids in battle who don't have everything that they need. And that 
is unacceptable. And so in our supplemental bill, we are saying that if 
you don't have the training and the equipment and the proper amount of 
rest, you are not going.
  Now, we put a waiver in there so that the President could waive it if 
there is a national security interest involved. But we don't like it. I 
know I don't like it. I shouldn't speak on behalf of everybody.
  But the bottom line is, the President is the President. He is the 
Commander in Chief. He won the election in 2004. So we are left to deal 
with the situation.
  And if you look at some of the polling in the country, 76 percent of 
Americans favor requiring U.S. troops returning from Iraq to have at 
least 1 year in the U.S. before being redeployed. That is a Gallup 
poll. Seventy-seven percent favor requiring U.S. troops to come home 
from Iraq if Iraq's leaders fail to meet promises to reduce violence 
there. And 76 percent of the American people don't think the Bush 
administration has done everything they could reasonably be expected to 
do to care for the needs and problems of veterans.
  But the bottom line is the American people want accountability, and 
the American people want to change course. You don't see the kind of 
tidal wave election that we had in November without a message that 
comes with it. And the message is, we need to change direction. And the 
Iraq supplemental bill that passed out of the Appropriations Committee 
today and will pass off the floor next week is that change in 
direction.
  Is it everything all of us want? No. Are there things in there that 
we don't like? Yes. But we have to change direction in this war. It is 
not going well.
  And you talk to the families and, you know, as a Member of Congress, 
I have made the phone calls, other Members of Congress have made the 
phone calls to parents. We have been to the funerals, and it is not 
good. And quite frankly, I don't want to go to any more. But I found 
out yesterday that I have got to go to another one.
  This war has got to end, and it has got to stop. And what we are 
doing is the quickest way for us to go about bringing a reasonable, 
thoughtful end to this war, and that means getting our troops out of 
the middle of a civil war in Iraq.
  There are only 2,000 al Qaeda members in Iraq. The war on terrorism 
needs to move back to Afghanistan, the country that harbored Osama bin 
Laden. And in this bill there is 1.2 billion additional dollars from 
the President's request to focus back on Afghanistan, because now 
Afghanistan, we are starting to lose our way in Afghanistan now because 
of the lack of focus.
  So I think it is very important that the American people recognize 
what is in this bill. There are benchmarks there that the Iraqis need 
to meet. And if they don't begin to meet them and show some progress, 
we start moving out.
  We have had 4 years for them to get their stuff together. And for 
whatever reason, they haven't. And think, contrary to what some of my 
friends on the other side have been saying, and the President has said, 
and people who have kids and everything realize this, this is very 
basic, that the President is saying, well, if you give them a 
benchmark, then they are just going to wait us out, and then we leave, 
and then they will take over, like everything is great right now, and 
then it will get bad. But it is bad right now.
  What we are saying is if we communicate to the Iraqis that we are 
going to stay there indefinitely, then they will never get their stuff 
together because they are always relying on us. And what we are saying 
is, we are not going to be there indefinitely; you better start getting 
along with each other.
  And I hate even saying that because I didn't want this war to happen 
in the first place. Now we broke them and now we are saying, get your 
stuff together.
  But the bottom line is this, we are where we are, and they need to 
get together. And the political and religious factions need to get 
together. And if they don't, we need to leave. And if they do, we need 
to leave.
  I think we have spent enough money, 400, going to be $500 billion in 
Iraq. $500 billion. And 3,100-plus lives, 20-some thousand soldiers who 
have been amputees, brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder. 
Enough is enough. Enough is enough. It is time to bring this war to an 
end. And that is what our supplemental ultimately does.
  And so, in closing, I would just like to say, Madam Speaker, that the 
last 3 weeks we have had hearings in our Labor, Health and Education 
Subcommittee, and we have had great people testifying on health care in 
the

[[Page 6476]]

United States, education in the United States, very interesting stuff. 
But there are two things that have really hit home to me as I was 
sitting through these committees with all these experts.
  And we had the education experts saying to us that this may be the 
first generation of Americans who will not have the standard of living 
or improved standard of living, compared to that of their parents. That 
was one hearing.
  And then the next hearing came in and it was the health care experts. 
And the health care experts were saying that this generation may be the 
first generation of Americans that do not exceed the life expectancy 
level of their parents because of the crisis that we are having in 
health and obesity in the United States. Literally, your parents may, 
if you are a kid, your parents may live longer than you live. First 
time.
  And when you look at the money that we are spending to destroy and to 
kill, as opposed to the money that we spend to create and to build up, 
it is tragic. It is tragic. And I hate voting for this stuff, but we 
have to because we have got to get out of there.
  But the bottom line is this, we are spending hundreds and hundreds 
and hundreds of billions of dollars, and the Head Start program that 
helps kids get off the ground is being cut by $100 million in the 
President's budget. We are going to fix that. That is not going to end 
up that way.
  But when you look at we are spending hundreds and hundreds of 
billions of dollars and flatlining funding on programs like Gear Up and 
TRIO that help young kids get into colleges and that we are not 
covering enough kids with children's health care, I hope we all 
remember this when we get through this war and it is time to make the 
proper investments in our country.
  We only have 300 million people in this country. China has 1.3 
billion. India has 1 billion. We need everybody on the field playing 
for us.
  Let's put this war to an end. Let's bring our kids home with dignity, 
and make sure that when they get home these veterans have the proper 
health care that they need and that they deserve, and then let's start 
making some investments into this country so that we can be the best 
that we can possibly be.
  Madam Speaker, you can e-mail us at [email protected], 
or visit us at www.speaker.gov/30something and comment. All of the 
charts that were seen here are on display on the Web site.
  And with that, we conclude our 30-something for the week, and we will 
see you next week.

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