[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18430-18437]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2030
                              THE DEFICIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Sutton) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Ms. SUTTON. I am happy to be here today. We are here with some of the 
other Members of the freshman class, the class of 2006, and I have 
heard some folks on the other side of the aisle in recent moments talk 
about the fact that the American people deserve some straight talk. We 
could not agree more. And that is why we are here today, to talk about 
some of the things that aren't being talked about quite as loudly on 
the other side of the aisle.
  Recently, earlier this week, the administration released its final 
mid-session review of the budget. The new budget document showed a 
record deficit for 2009, confirming that in 8 years this administration 
will have turned the largest surpluses in history into the largest 
deficits in history.
  The dismal fiscal record is, unfortunately, just one aspect of this 
administration's failed economic record. But is that what the 
administration says to the American people?
  Now I just want us to take a moment and look at some of the comments 
that have been coming out, not only from the administration, but from 
the other side of the aisle in this body.
  In November of 2007, President George W. Bush, the administration, 
said, ``Sure, there's some challenges facing us, but the underpinnings 
of our economy are strong, and we are a resilient economy.'' And then, 
in December of 2007, he said, ``This economy is pretty good. There's 
definitely some storm clouds and concerns, but the underpinning is 
good.'' And that was complemented by the leader of the Republicans here 
in the House, who said in July of this year, July 21 of 2008, ``While 
the economy is slow, we are still seeing growth, and frankly, I have 
got to tell you, I am shocked.'' And then he said way back in October 
of 2006, Minority Leader Boehner, said as follows, ``Today's 
announcement by President Bush confirms that the pro-growth economic 
policies put in place by Republicans are working as planned to spur 
economic growth and reduce the deficit.'' That was John Boehner, 
October 11, 2006, Looking forward, trying to suggest that the policies 
that have been pursued by this administration have benefited the 
American people.
  Well, I am really glad that we have this opportunity to have the 
American people join us this evening to talk about the real facts. And 
they are not pleasant because it's a sad fact about some of the things 
that are happening out there.
  You know, these two, the administration, the President, and Minority 
Leader Boehner, they are not the only people out there telling the 
American people that the economy is good. Not so long ago, in the not 
the distant past, we heard a top economic advisor to Senator McCain 
tell us that our problems, our economic problems, they are all in our 
head. In essence, he said that we are suffering from a mental 
recession.
  You know, he called our country a Nation of whiners. Well, I have to 
tell you guys that as a Congresswoman from Ohio in the 13th District, 
that the people I represent, they are not whiners. They have, 
unfortunately, too many of them, felt the painful consequences of the 
failures of the last 8 years of this administration.
  So I am grateful that you're here tonight to help us describe, and 
frankly, the important thing is hold accountable this administration 
for the failures that it is trying to disown.
  The current administration, you all will know, is going to leave this 
Nation with the largest deficit in history. I'm sure my colleagues here 
with me tonight are going to talk about that. And the debt has 
ballooned as well. The economic growth has been, to give a 
complimentary spin, has been anemic, and thousands, thousands of jobs 
have been lost, household incomes have fallen, and the President's 
fiscal policies have imposed an amazingly heavy debt burden on 
America's families.
  You know, I'd like to yield at this time to the distinguished 
gentleman here tonight, Representative Peter Welch from Vermont, who 
has been a tremendous agent of change in this body, and I look forward 
to seeing what this gentleman is going to be able to do, because it's 
going to be a lot when we have more to work with in the next 
administration.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. I thank my friend, Representative Sutton. This 
evening gives us an opportunity to take account, to look at the record, 
and reveal it to the American people. We are in a season close to an 
election, where the American people are going to have to make a 
decision, and it's going to be an extraordinarily consequential 
decision. In the fog of a campaign, there's an awful lot of rhetoric 
back and forth, where those who have not done much try to conceal it 
with claims that they did, and try to shoot down the progress that has 
been made.
  Now we all know that when we get going, and we are going to solve our 
problems, it's going to have to be working together. We have been doing 
our best to do that. But what we have to do tonight is lay out what the 
record has been.
  What I want to talk about briefly are two areas; one is deficit, to 
continue what my friend, Representative Sutton was talking about, and 
the other is on Iraq. The reason I want to talk about them specifically 
is because it is important for the American people to know what they 
can expect from our friends on the other side who have a clear record, 
and it is one that they are accountable for, but it has to be one that 
Americans are aware of.
  On deficits, taking up on what you said, let me just read some quotes 
from members of the administration to remind the American people of 
what was promised, and then lay out some facts about what actually was 
done.
  ``Our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short term.'' 
George Bush, in January of 2003. ``We can proceed with tax relief 
without fear of budget deficits even if the economy softens. 
Projections for the surplus in my budget are cautious and 
conservative.'' George Bush, March 27, 2001.
  ``We are holding down government spending and reforming government, 
and the good news is the deficit is coming down.'' OMB Director Jim 
Nussle, June 22, 2006. ``I don't like deficits, I don't want deficits, 
and I won't pretend deficits don't matter.'' OMB Director Jim Nussle, 
March 12, 2003.
  ``Today's announcement by President Bush confirms that the pro-growth 
economic policies put in place by Republicans are working as planned to 
spur

[[Page 18431]]

economic growth and reduce the deficit. Republicans are meeting our 
commitments to the American taxpayers by exercising fiscal restraint in 
promoting economic policies this create jobs, all efforts which have 
produced a strong economy that is working to drive down and eventually 
eliminate our deficit.'' John Boehner, October 11, 2006.
  What are the facts? That is the rhetoric. What are the facts? 
President Bush and congressional Republicans, his allies, have turned a 
projected 10-year, 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion into a projected 
10-year deficit of $3.4 trillion. That is a swing of $9 trillion in one 
Presidency. When President Bush took office, there was a projected 
surplus of $710 billion for fiscal year 2009.
  President Bush's budget will create a $407 billion deficit for fiscal 
year 2009. That is a swing of over $1 trillion.
  Under the Bush administration, Republicans created the five largest--
one, two, three, four, five--five largest budget deficits in American 
history, $378 billion, $413 billion, $318 billion, $407 billion, and 
$438 billion now projected.
  The first 42 Presidents, the first 42 American President's, borrowed 
a total of $1 trillion. That was during wars, by the way; World War I, 
World War II, the Korean conflict, Vietnam, combined. That is the total 
amount borrowed from foreign governments and financial institutions.
  In the 7\1/2\ years of the Bush Presidency, President Bush has 
borrowed more than $1.6 trillion. He borrowed more in 7\1/2\ years than 
42 Presidents did in over 100 years of our history.
  When President Bush took office, we had a national debt that was $5.7 
trillion. During his administration, that has nearly doubled, and will 
reach $10.3 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2009.
  This administration has presided over a fiscal train wreck, and it is 
creating obviously a deep hole that we have to climb out of, the 
American people have to climb out of, and it's a record of rhetoric of 
rosy fiscal scenarios with reckless policies that have caused, in a 
short time, 7\1/2\ years, the greatest explosion in the debt of the 
United States government, which belongs to you and me and the 
generations that will come after us, that we are going to have to 
repay, and it will take generations to do.
  I will yield back my time to the gentlelady from Ohio.
  Ms. SUTTON. That is an amazing record; not a good one, but it's an 
amazing record. It's important that we do share this with the American 
people because we need to know where we stand. What we also know that 
this isn't the end of the story. We know it doesn't have to be this 
way. We can make a change. We must make a change.
  I know that our next speaker, and we have been joined by Dr. Steven 
Kagen, the Congressman from Wisconsin. I'd like to throw it over to 
you. I know you have got some valuable insight to add.
  Mr. KAGEN. Thank you very much for yielding. I must say that Mr. 
Welch has explained it quite clearly. If I could put it in just 
different words that I understand. Back home in Wisconsin, we speak a 
little different that you all do in Vermont.
  We would say it this way. President Bush has done all by himself, all 
by himself, what the Germans and Japanese could not do in World War II. 
He has destroyed this country and everything, everything that he said 
he was, he is not. He is the opposite. He is not conservative, he 
wasn't compassionate. You cannot call it compassionate when the 
President and the Washington, DC, Republicans produce collateral damage 
like the family picture I show you here.
  Now this could be Kimberly, Wisconsin, it could be West Palm Beach, 
Florida, it could be Denver, Colorado, it could be anywhere in Ohio, 
where a family has been dispossessed of their job and their hopes and 
their dreams. This is a hardworking family. This is the Wendel family. 
Don and his wife Ann. He worked at a paper mill for 30 years. And 
because of our trade deals that remain unenforced, unbalanced, and 
unfair, the Chinese paper that came into our domestic marketplace cut 
off the business opportunity for the Kimberly mill. I am talking about 
Kimberly-Clark, where it came from, in Kimberly, Wisconsin.
  He lost his job. He lost his hope and his future. And he has to ask 
this essential question, as do every single voter this fall, every 
American right now has to ask themselves this question: Whose side are 
we on?
  We are on the side of the Wendel family, whose been dispossessed. 
This is a picture of the middle class. And this is what I would call 
collateral damage. We are in an economic battle, an economic war. We 
have to get our act together, not just here in the House, but in the 
Senate and in the White House. We have to work together and have 
judgment, good judgment lead the way. It was poor judgment, after all, 
that took us into war, based on lies and deceptions, and it was poor 
economic decisions by this administration that led to the policy of 
borrow and spend and borrow and spend. I don't have to remind any of my 
colleagues what the first two letters are of borrow and spend.
  We have got to this point in time. It may be dark. The lights aren't 
out yet. We have some ideas, we have got the energy, and we are on your 
side. We are here to help lead us to a brighter future.
  I yield back my time.
  Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman for his very poignant remarks. 
There's a question that has to be answered also, and that question is: 
How many more families? How many more families have to fall out of the 
middle class, lose their jobs, their hopes, their dreams before we 
change direction. But the good news is the opportunity for change is on 
the horizon.
  At this point, I'd like to shift it over to my good friend from 
Florida, a very distinguished Member of this body, a new Member who 
came in charging, has already started to deliver change, and I know is 
raring to deliver more in the next administration, Congressman Ron 
Klein.
  Mr. KLEIN of Florida. I'd like to thank the gentlewoman from Ohio and 
all my colleague here tonight. I'm going to carry this conversation a 
little further about fiscal discipline because all of us elected last 
year, Democrats and, interestingly enough, Republicans, have supported 
fiscal discipline, but got way off track over the last 10 years. It's 
now the Democrats, many of us, who are sort of leading the fight. We 
are the fiscal hawks. We are the ones saying this is totally 
unacceptable for all the reasons you heard tonight.
  I think the gentleman from Vermont already mentioned this, but it's 
worth restating. The Bush administration is responsible for the five 
biggest deficits, and that total is a staggering amount. But I want to 
just take that one step further because this is the kind of change that 
we are going to deliver.
  Given the opportunities over the next couple of years, hopefully in a 
bipartisan way, that is the way we get things done here, but looking at 
this figure here, this is a chart that says: Taxpayer spending on Iraq 
war versus Federal spending on other priorities. This is for last year, 
fiscal year. It has the cost of the Iraq war, $150 billion.

                              {time}  2045

  The cost of NIH funding, that is all the research that government 
does, all the research on cancer and heart disease and Alzheimer's, all 
the things that afflict our families and our communities, it is a 
substantial amount of money. But that figure, plus all the college 
tuition assistance, everything we do to try to make sure that kids get 
into school and get a college education, which we know is so important 
in the world economy, plus the cost of all the children's health care 
we provide in the United States, and all the cost of all the bridge 
repairs and road building and all the things that go on in every single 
one of our communities, sewers, roads, bridges, all those kinds of 
things, if you take the cost of roads and bridges, the cost of 
research, the cost of all the college tuition and the cost of all the 
health care, that total sum is less than what we spent on the Iraq war.
  Now, we debated at length whether the Iraq war is a good war or not 
or has

[[Page 18432]]

accomplished a lot. I personally believe, and I serve on the Foreign 
Affairs Committee, that, unfortunately, the real threat against our 
national security is in Afghanistan. And it still boggles my mind and 
most Americans that Osama bin Laden, who committed the worst crime 
against Americans in our history in the United States, is still free 
somewhere in the world perpetrating additional threats against the 
United States through al Qaeda.
  The problem, of course, is that he and others most likely are in 
Afghanistan and Pakistan, the mountain areas there. Unfortunately, we 
took our eye off the ball. But let's put that issue aside. Hopefully we 
will be able to deal with that in the near future with the next 
President.
  Let's just talk about, we have spent $650 billion. I want everybody 
to remember this number, that is $339 million we are spending each day 
on the war in Iraq, $339 million per day. Let's think about what we 
could do with that money. I mean, we could have a debate at length 
here, and I am sure everybody listening tonight on the floor and 
throughout our country would have lots of good ideas that are 
legitimate priorities for our country. Yet we are spending that amount 
of money.
  Now, is there an answer that the Democrats have put forward? You bet 
there is. What was this war sold to us on in terms of how it was going 
to be paid for? Oil revenues. Iraq sits on the third largest oil 
revenues and reserves of oil in the world; $80 billion, it is reported, 
in banks, some of which is in New York. Eighty billion dollars. That 
money was supposed to pay for the cost of reconstruction of Iraq, the 
cost of our military fuel and the cost also of the retraining of the 
military in Iraq, our military training their military. All legitimate 
things. Yet what has happened? President Bush has refused, the 
Republicans have refused to do that.
  Now, I introduced a bill, H.R. 1111. H.R. 1111. I said it is number 
one, put Americans first. I think most Americans would agree with that. 
Let's take the money that Iraq has, it is $80 billion, and let them pay 
for the cost of their reconstruction, the cost of our men and women 
training their military, and our fuel costs. That is common sense. That 
is what we were told in the beginning. They have got the money.
  Let's get on with it. That is how we can start putting Americans 
first and all the priorities that are so important to fixing our 
economy, getting jobs created, getting an educational system, getting 
health care put back together, Social Security, Medicare, all the 
priorities that make America strong on the inside first.
  So I think that is a very important point, and we finally got a 
little bit of discussion on this. But the reality is this is the kind 
of leadership we are offering and we are providing.
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. If the gentleman would yield, I thank my friend from 
Florida for yielding, because as to the very point you just raised, 
until March 27, 2003, former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz 
said this. You were talking about Iraq paying for its own 
reconstruction and the costs attendant to this war, which is running us 
anywhere between $2.5 and $3 billion a week, which we could use in any 
myriad of ways.
  He said back on that date, ``There is a lot of money to pay for this 
that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the 
assets of the Iraqi people. We are dealing with a country that can 
really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.'' And Don 
Rumsfeld said that ``relatively soon'' could be 6 days, 6 weeks, he 
doubted 6 months.
  Well, we have been there now more than 5 years, longer than it took 
for us to win World War II. And what we have, and I would like to point 
out the chart that is next to me, is we have a problem that has been 
created by the Bush administration, and Senator McCain would like to 
perpetuate.
  So we have the Bush-McCain policies, the Bush-McCain policies being 
let's stay in Iraq. They don't have to pay for anything. Senator McCain 
said it might have to be 100 years. And at the same time, cutting our 
revenues to this government, so we run up the highest deficits on 
record. Under Ronald Reagan, under the first George Bush, we had big 
deficits, a surplus under Bill Clinton and the fiscal policies of the 
Democrats, and then a gigantic deficit under George Bush II.
  What we need, ladies and gentlemen, what I say to my friends, both 
the Democrats and to the Republicans, is we have to have a change. We 
cannot have these same old, tired policies. If we have the same old, 
tired policies with respect to our foreign affairs, such as we are not 
going to charge the Iraqis for their reconstruction or we are never 
going to let them take their own destiny into their hands, we are going 
to have these same old costs and same old losses of life to Americans 
who have been in Iraq now for more than 5 years.
  If we have the same old economic policies, which is what Senator 
McCain would like to have, it is just more Bush-McCain policies. We are 
going to run the deficit to levels we have never seen before, which 
then have resulted in foreclosures and a whole variety of things, 
foreclosures, job losses, et cetera.
  We have to have a change. That change will come in this election on 
November 4th. We started this change in 2006 with the election of a 
Democratic Congress. We have been able to provide minimum wage 
increases to people. We have changed, for instance, the cost of student 
loans, so that more people can take advantage of our higher education 
system. Democrats took on the pharmaceuticals, so that more people can 
have lower priced pharmaceuticals. We have increased veterans benefits 
more in the last year than at any other time in the 70-plus year 
history of the Veterans Administration. This has happened under 
Democrats.
  It is not the same old, failed policies that the Bush administration 
has had for the last 8 years or that the McCain campaign wants to 
perpetuate. We need a change, and that change will come with the 
election of a new President, and that President is going to be Senator 
Barack Obama, and it is going to continue by the Democrats maintaining 
a majority in this House. We cannot have more of the same.
  There is real opportunity out there for this country. And we heard a 
little bit today from the Republicans about drill here, drill now. They 
want to go with the same old, tired energy policy, which just is only 
oil and gas and just drilling here and drilling now. I don't know 
exactly what they mean by drill here and drill now.
  We had a very interesting story about an ethics scandal within the 
Interior Department, where some members of the Bush administration's 
Interior Department, who are supposed to be the watchdogs over the oil 
and gas companies who are supposed to pay royalties to this country for 
all of the minerals that they extract from the country. It said, 
``Investigators from the Interior Department's Inspector General's 
Office,'' this is in the Washington Post today, it said, ``More than a 
dozen employees, including the former director of the Oil Royalty 
Program, accepted gifts, including ski trips, sports tickets and golf 
outings.'' The report alleges that the former director netted more than 
$30,000.
  There was also the fact, they said, ``the government officials 
accepted lavish gifts, steered contracts to favored firms, and engaged 
in illicit sex with employees of the oil companies, Federal 
investigators reported today.''
  So that is the same old thing. We are so hooked on just one 
commodity, which is oil, which obviously is going to be part of our 
energy package no matter what. We are going to drill. We are drilling. 
We are trying to extract this. But we have to have a comprehensive 
energy plan, which is what the Democrats are proposing and we will 
propose within the next couple of weeks, which includes renewable 
energy, it includes coal, it includes energy efficiency.
  Those are the kinds of things that will provide thousands and 
thousands and thousands of jobs in Colorado and in the manufacturing 
areas of Ohio. That is the kind of forward looking, innovative approach 
that we have to

[[Page 18433]]

take. That is what Barack Obama is going to do. We are not going to 
have the same old, tired policies exemplified by the Bush 
administration that John McCain wants to keep going.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. If the gentleman would yield?
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. The gentleman would certainly yield to my friend from 
Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Thank you very much, my friend from 
Colorado. I am glad you brought up this issue that has come up today. 
Really you couldn't write this. You couldn't make a movie that was more 
salacious than the details that are being unveiled today in an article 
you referenced from the Washington Post regarding not only, it appears, 
monetary favors, gifts, meals, trips, but sex and drugs. This is a 
Hollywood blockbuster that is being unveiled here, and it is all on our 
dime.
  What you are saying here is certainly relevant to the question of how 
we are running our energy policy in this country, that we have an 
administration that is so cozy to the energy industry that it is not 
just leases that are being negotiated, but apparently it is drugs and 
sexual favors being negotiated.
  But what we are dealing with really here, Mr. Perlmutter, is a 
government run amuck. This is, I think, symptomatic of a much larger 
problem. We are talking here about the economic disaster that this 
administration has wrought, and you can calculate that in so many 
different ways: wages flat while GDP goes up; deficits running into the 
trillions of dollars.
  But what we also have seen is an administration that just can't run 
government any longer. They are wasting our taxpayer dollars. Now, they 
also happen to be wasting all of the money that they are borrowing from 
foreign banks, but we are wasting a lot of our money too.
  It is incredibly relevant that we are here trying to expose the 
economic disaster that the Bush administration has left us with that we 
are going to change with the new administration. It is relevant that we 
are also talking about this new revelation.
  You have mentioned some of the details, but what we found in the 
Interior Department is what investigators call a ``culture of substance 
abuse and promiscuity.'' Nineteen oil marketers and other employers in 
the office are accused of having personal and sometimes sexual 
relationships with representatives of a group of favorite oil and gas 
companies from 2002 to 2006. Mr. Speaker, this is from the Washington 
Post story today.
  This is what this government has left us with, an economy that is 
suffering, deficits that are rising, and a government that just doesn't 
work any longer, whether it is the misuse of our funds in Iraq. We 
discovered in the Government Oversight Committee that Mr. Welch and I 
serve on that $9 billion was wasted, unaccounted for at the beginning 
of the war, sometimes thrown out of pickup trucks in duffel bags and 
never, ever seen again. Or whether it is our response to Katrina and 
Rita, in which we left thousands, tens of thousands of residents 
helpless and hopeless. And now today we find that we have unbelievably 
inappropriate relationships between the government and the oil and gas 
companies seeking to lease our lands.
  This is an economy that is in trouble because of the policies of this 
administration. This is a government which has simply fallen apart at 
the seams because of mismanagement. And it all speaks to the change we 
so desperately need. No more of the same.
  John McCain's campaign, as we know, is run by the same crowd of 
lobbyists who have run the Bush administration for the last 8 years. We 
need a real change. This Congress with Democrats in charge has started 
it, but it comes to a completion this November. All of it stops, the 
mismanagement of this war, the disastrous response to natural disasters 
and these new revelations about the corruption still endemic in our 
government.
  Ms. Sutton, it can all change this November.
  Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman for his remarks and for his forward 
looking hopefulness. And I think that you are exactly right. Both of 
the gentlemen have done a great job in laying out sort of where we are, 
where we have been and where we can go.
  To that end, we do want the American people to take heart. We look at 
this chart, and this is an important chart to me because it talks about 
obviously the job growth that occurred under President Bill Clinton, 
and it also talks about the disastrous job losses that, unfortunately, 
we have suffered through this administration.
  As the gentleman from Connecticut pointed out, we need a government 
that works. We need a government that works in economic policy and 
foreign policy and energy policy. We need a government that understands 
and is responsive to the cries of the people.

                              {time}  2100

  We have people who are suffering. We have working families who no 
longer can put food on the table. We're filling up the food pantry 
lines. We're having to put more money into our food banks because we 
need to feed more hungry people. The good news is we're feeding more 
hungry people. The bad news is there are more hungry people and people 
in poverty in this country. The good news, though, about this chart is 
that it can change. It can change. We saw the job growth explode under 
the former administration, the Clinton administration. So there is hope 
for the future.
  Part of that, though, is going to revolve around getting a President 
who understands that the economic policies that we've been operating 
under need to change. The gentleman from Colorado put it very well when 
he said we need to get away from the same old, tired policies, the same 
old, tired path. We have trade policies that are shipping jobs 
overseas.
  We heard the gentleman from Wisconsin talking about the beautiful 
family that is now in dire straits because of the paper company that 
has closed, the paper mill. Well, do you know what? The paper mills are 
starting to close, and they're closing in the wake of the steel mills 
that have closed, and the steel mills have closed because there were 
unfair tactics being used by the Chinese, for the most part, in dumping 
steel into this country, and we couldn't compete because you can't 
always compete with people who are willing to cheat. It wasn't through 
any fault of our own or through that of the workers who worked so hard 
and productively in this country, but it worked so well for those who 
benefited from it in foreign countries with steel that now they do it 
with paper. It probably won't end with paper, so we need somebody who 
understands the need to reform, to make the government work, to make 
sure that when we have trade policies that they don't work against us. 
They can work with us and with our workers and with our country and 
with our industries and with our businesses here.
  The good news is there is hope, but it is important that people know 
where we begin because change is so necessary. The same old, tired 
policies, they won't take us where we want to go. They'll take us 
further down the path where we find ourselves today.
  Mr. Welch, do you have anything to add at this point?
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Well, I do have something to add. I just want 
to go back to the question of Foreign Affairs and the war in Iraq, and 
I want to do what I did the last time when I was talking about the 
debt, which is to lay out some of the explicit statements and promises 
that the administration made about this war and then lay out what the 
specific results have been. It's important. It's vitally important that 
the people of this country compare promises to results. This war, in my 
view, has been a catastrophe, but here is what top officials in the 
Bush administration said:
  ``It is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will 
last. It could last 6 days, 6 weeks, I doubt 6 months,'' Donald 
Rumsfeld, February 2003, a month before the war.
  ``There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. 
taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. 
We're dealing with a country that can really finance

[[Page 18434]]

its own reconstruction and relatively soon,'' Paul Wolfowitz, former 
Deputy Defense Secretary, March of 2003.
  Of course, our friend from Florida has outlined the truth that the 
Iraqi money is in U.S. banks. Treasury money is going over to Iraq to 
finance things.
  ``My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators,'' Vice 
President Dick Cheney. How bright he was, yes. March 16, 2003.
  ``It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide 
stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would to take to conduct the war, 
itself, and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his 
army. Hard to imagine,'' Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
  ``I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't 
care. It's not that important. It's not our priority,'' President 
George Bush, Commander in Chief, March 2002.
  ``If we're an arrogant Nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble 
Nation but strong, they'll welcome us [in Iraq],'' George Bush.
  We know the facts. The war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the 
U.S. involvement in World War II. Four thousand one hundred fifty-five 
Americans have been killed in Iraq, and more than 30,000 troops have 
been wounded as of September 7 of this year. No weapons of mass 
destruction were ever found. That was the whole pretext that George 
Bush used to justify this war.
  More than $600 billion has been spent, none of it on the books 
incidentally, all on the credit card. Some projections estimate that 
the war, when all of the expenses are paid, including what we have to 
pay to provide health care to our seriously injured soldiers, will 
exceed $3 trillion.
  The Iraqi Government has now forced the Bush administration to accept 
something that many of us have been arguing for four years, a 
timetable. It took the President of Iraq to force the President of the 
United States to get real and to understand that what we can expect of 
the American taxpayer and what we can expect of the American soldier 
has its limits and that it's time to start asking the Iraqis to step up 
and to take on the burden of their own future.
  America's military is stretched thin. There is just no dispute about 
this. It weakens our ability to respond to other threats. The chairman 
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Michael Mullen, has stressed that the 
need for more troops in Afghanistan is great, but due to the war in 
Iraq, they're not available. The Bush administration has grossly 
neglected Afghanistan and has failed to acknowledge that that is a 
major threat.
  These are promises, the cavalier disregard for the hidden 
consequences, the consequences beyond your control when you embark on a 
war, on a thoughtless war, and disregard the need to build up alliances 
like George Bush's father did in the first Gulf war, and you cavalierly 
go off with promises, reckless promises, irresponsible promises by 
people in positions of great trust. The greatest trust that they have 
is that they have a duty to use due deliberation in the protection of 
the lives of the American people and of the American soldiers. They 
have to use due deliberation, careful thought, responsible analysis in 
committing American power abroad and in committing the lives of our 
soldiers abroad. They cavalierly made predictions. Vice President 
Cheney will go down in history as just having been totally out of 
touch.
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. Would the gentleman from Vermont just yield for 30 
seconds?
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. I will yield, yes.
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. In your litany of things where they made promises, 
made promises, made promises, none of them turned out to be accurate or 
true.
  One of them that just still boggles my mind is, just a few weeks 
after the invasion into Iraq, George Bush was on that aircraft carrier, 
saying, ``Mission accomplished.'' John McCain was saying, ``Mission 
accomplished.'' All of these guys were saying, ``Mission 
accomplished.'' We are now 5-years plus since that time.
  Now, our men and our women have been doing an unbelievable job. 
Initially, their equipment was not proper. Their vehicles weren't built 
in a way that was safe. We've changed that. We've helped them because 
they've done a job that has been above and beyond the call of duty, but 
it's the Commander in Chief and the judgment of the Commander in Chief 
who is in place today that we have to question, his judgment and the 
judgment of whom we want to be Commander in Chief.
  Who has the right judgment? Who can really take our reputation from 
what's now down in the gutter internationally and raise it back up? Who 
has the judgment to get this country working again? Who has the 
judgment and the energy and the ability to renew the strength of this 
country, to call on all of us to make the sacrifices and to meet the 
challenges that we've got ahead of us that we know will lead us back to 
the great Nation that we are and to the great people that we are?
  It's not the same old administration. It's not the same old people. 
It's not the Karl Roves of the world. We're going to have to finish 
this change because we can do much better than we've done.
  So, with that, I'll yield to my friend from Wisconsin.
  Mr. KAGEN. Thank you, Mr. Perlmutter. I couldn't agree with you more. 
It really begs the question about not just whose side we're on, but 
what are the lessons that we've been learning.
  I have not been in politics. I was in student council in 1966, and 
now I'm in Congress. I was a physician. Still am. I had a nice medical 
practice, but I got involved in this line of work because we were 
headed in that wrong direction we've been describing. We have taken 
since 2007 in January a positive change. We've been making incremental, 
small, little changes. It is so frustrating having come from the world 
of business to the world of government where changes are so slow, but 
it's so necessary. One would think that the President took office to 
prove what government could not do, and it's really incumbent upon us 
to prove that good government could really make a positive difference 
in everybody's lives.
  The two lessons I've learned since getting into this world of 
politics is that people will believe a lie if it's presented with great 
skill on television. People will believe a lie if it's presented over 
and over with great skill. The other lie is that--well, it's not really 
a lie. It's a lesson. Politicians will determine who lives and who 
dies. It's politicians here in this Chamber. It's politicians in the 
White House who will determine who has access to health care and who 
does not, who will determine who gets a great education and who does 
not, who will determine whether or not we truly become an energy 
independent Nation or if we do not or who will determine if we ever go 
to war again based on lies and deceptions.
  That is why I emphasize the fact that we need in the White House 
today people with good judgment, people who can think things all the 
way through, someone who will sign a bill to guarantee access to 11 
million children who are in need, someone who will sign that bill, not 
veto that bill. I'm referring to the change, to the positive change, 
that we really need.
  When you talk, Mr. Welch, about the war in Iraq, does anyone question 
that that war was a war of choice, not of necessity? Does anyone 
believe that it had not something to do with oil? Has the price of oil 
gone down since we've occupied and have invaded Iraq? Not at all. Quite 
the contrary.
  So what we have to do in this Chamber is to begin to find a way 
forward to become fiscally responsible and to stay true to our beliefs 
that we are also progressive-minded and that we really do care about 
the middle class. We need to resuscitate that middle class as soon as 
possible. In the next several days, that is why we are going to take up 
an energy independence bill, a comprehensive national strategy to 
become energy independent once again. That's what this Chamber has the 
responsibility of doing in a bipartisan way, and I look forward to 
doing that in the next several days.

[[Page 18435]]

  Thank you, Mr. Welch, for bringing up the subject of war.
  Again, as Mr. Perlmutter pointed out, it is our soldiers, the men and 
women who have volunteered to serve in our Armed Services, who are 
paying the price for our continued and seemingly endless occupation in 
Iraq. Those are the soldiers who have covered our backs in battle, and 
we owe it to them to cover their backs when they return.
  I yield to Mr. Klein from Florida.
  Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Thank you to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Just to pick up on your point on our men and women serving and our 
veterans, I'm from Florida. Every one of us in our districts has a huge 
number of veterans--some from World War II, some from the Korean war, 
some from Vietnam. Many of our Vietnam veterans today are hurting. 
Whether it's Agent Orange or just age, itself, it has really begun to 
impact them. Now we're creating a new generation of an upwards of 2 
million new veterans. We don't want to create that next generation of 
homeless. We know there are huge post-traumatic stress issues 
associated with it, but I'm particularly proud in working with our 
local veterans' organizations and national veterans' organizations 
which gave our leaders the recommendations of what they need in order 
to eliminate the backlog, to make sure that the care was in place for 
evaluations of post-traumatic stress or to recognize that, of the many 
men and women coming home today, back in the Vietnam war, they wouldn't 
have lived with their damage and with their injuries. That's right. 
Today, they're coming home, and we have a responsibility. I say this 
and people understand. Americans understand. We stand up for our men 
and women who put the uniform on. That's something we feel very 
strongly about, but we have to recognize that we will have to provide 
for them for the rest of their lives and that we will have to support 
their families as well. That new GI Bill is key. It was the right thing 
to do. For many of the people who don't even know this, it even allows 
the balance of those benefits to go to the spouse and to the children. 
Isn't that the right thing to do for the families?
  Mr. KAGEN. Yes.
  Mr. KLEIN of Florida. I mean that's the ``thank you'' that Americans 
want to give the men and women who serve us, but when we are asked to 
serve in our military, we need to make sure it is the right place and 
the right time and for our national security interests, which is, 
unfortunately, what went wrong.
  The gentlewoman from Ohio, you have led the fight in this Congress on 
jobs. I'm from Ohio originally. You and I talk about that. I grew up in 
Cleveland. Now, as a Floridian, I know we have a different set of 
economic issues in Florida, but they're very similar in terms of jobs 
being lost overseas. I want to point this board out real fast here 
because it talks about jobs created through August in President 
Clinton's years.
  There were 1.47 million jobs created under President Clinton. In 
President Bush's 8 years----
  Mr. KAGEN. In 8 months.
  Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Excuse me. In 8 months. Thank you. In these 
last 8 months, 605,000 jobs were lost under this administration. You'll 
hear in the Presidential election on the Republican side the same thing 
again and again and again, the same economic plan. It's an old plan. 
It's not getting us anywhere.
  I just want to point this out because we can do better. It's one of 
those areas again. This Congress has already done a number of things, I 
think, that are very positive. We've passed the biggest increase in the 
Pell Grants in years. For those who aren't familiar with Pell Grants, 
it's those scholarships for great students to get into college. The 
kids in our communities want to get those great college educations. 
There are Pell Grants and other types of financial incentives for kids 
to get into schools.
  We recognize foreclosures are a big problem in many of our 
communities. My district in Fort Lauderdale has a huge number of 
foreclosures. It's not just the individual person who is foreclosed on; 
it's the neighbors who are impacted, and it's the depression on the 
value of homes, and it's the communities that are impacted and all of 
the things that go with it.

                              {time}  2115

  And we passed something that the Congresses in the past should have 
done in the last few years to prevent this from ever happening in the 
first place. We actually did some things now to help get people back on 
their feet and fix that.
  But look what happened last week again. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, 
another multi billion dollar bailout. And why are they doing this? 
Well, they have to do it is what we're told.
  But the bottom line is again, a legacy of very, very bad economic 
planning, very bad policies that this administration and previous 
Congresses were not able to do anything or had no will to do anything 
about.
  The bottom line is, though, we are a resilient people as Americans. 
We have a resilient economy, and we will get beyond there.
  So I'm all for the education part; I'm all for the job training part, 
our community colleges, our universities, our scholarships, the job 
training, the skill sets to get everybody back to work and the 
recognition that if we are going to do some economic stimulus thing, 
let's get our infrastructure, let's go out there in the community.
  Mr. KAGEN. Would the gentleman yield? Thank you for yielding.
  On that front, the single greatest fiscal economic challenge we are 
going to be facing is a health care crisis. It is the number one fiscal 
challenge for our budget in the Federal Government. It's also the major 
challenge of every business, be it small or large business. It also 
challenges city governments, whether it's a town or a county government 
and every family across America. And that is why I believe we have to 
begin to have a discussion about making a marriage between our 
Constitution and health care.
  Now, if you read the Constitution, as I have, it doesn't say anywhere 
in here that we have a constitutional right to health care. But we do 
have a right that protects us against discrimination. We have to apply 
that right that guarantees us protection from discrimination to health 
care, to the health care industry, so that all insurance companies will 
lose their opportunity to discriminate against you on the basis of a 
pre-existing condition. If we don't stand up for our rights, we're 
going to lose them, every single one of them, every single one of them.
  So I look forward in this session and the next, working with a 
President who understands that discrimination is taking place today in 
the health care industry. We must end discrimination and put it where 
it belongs, into our past.
  Mr. Perlmutter.
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. I thank my friend from Wisconsin. I'm going to take a 
step back from the health care, talk about the GSEs, the Government 
Sponsored Entities, the Federal National Mortgage Association and the 
Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, which were, in effect, taken 
over, placed into conservatorship.
  And sometimes I charge my friends on the Republican side of the aisle 
with not doing what needed to be done. But in this instance they did, 
back in 2005, pass legislation that would have prevented, or at least 
somehow dealt with these GSE problems, this takeover that we had to 
have in the last few days.
  And it was Mr. Oxley who was the chairman of the committee at the 
time. There was a piece of legislation passed. He was an Ohio 
Republican who headed the House Financial Services, this is from the 
Financial Times of yesterday, until his retirement at the mid term 
elections last year. Blames the mess, meaning the takeover of Fannie 
Mae and Freddie Mac, on ideologues within the White House, as well as 
Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve. He says, he 
fumes about the criticism of his House colleagues. All the hand 
wringing and bed wetting is going on without remembering how the House 
stepped up on this. He continues, ``What did we get from the White 
House? We got a one-finger salute.''

[[Page 18436]]

  He finishes, ``We missed a golden opportunity, we, being the United 
States of America missed a golden opportunity that would have avoided a 
lot of problems we're facing now if we hadn't had such a firm 
ideological position at the White House and the Treasury and the FED.''
  We now have had to take over these entities that have supplied money 
to help us all buy houses for decades and decades and decades, and it's 
as a result of a White House that didn't believe in any kind of 
regulation. We talked about it just a few minutes ago, with these guys 
over at the Minerals Management Service and the frat house that they 
ran where they were getting gifts and they were getting sexual favors 
and all of that kind of stuff.
  This administration could have cared less about regulation, and this 
country has been damaged because of it. We can't have these same old 
policies anymore, ladies and gentlemen. We can't afford it. This 
country can't afford it. We're too great a Nation. We're too great a 
people. Our neighbors, our friends, our families sacrifice too much to 
have this kind of approach by people, whether it's not regulating big 
government entities or sleeping with the people you're supposed to 
regulate. We can't have that anymore. We can't have more of the same.
  We need a change. We need a new direction. That new direction is 
going to be Barack Obama, it's going to be the Democrats. We've got to 
finish the change that was begun in 2006 with the election of a new 
White House with new policies that are going to renew this Nation. And 
we can do that. And I know that, by all of us working together, there 
really is hope for this Nation, and we're going to take the action that 
brings about jobs and health care and, really, a return to what we know 
is great about this Nation.
  Mr. KAGEN. Together we will.
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. And so I'd like to turn it back to the President of 
our class, the Honorable Betty Sutton from Ohio.
  Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman from Colorado, and you put it so 
well. You put it so well. Our country deserves better, and we need to 
deliver better with a new president. And Barack Obama has the potential 
to make that happen, and we are ready, and we want to work in a 
bipartisan way to help him get us where we need to go, where we know we 
can go on all of these issues with the economy, with health care.
  Health care has been a tragedy. The President, the Bush 
administration started out, the President saying America's children 
must also have a healthy start in life. And a new term will lead an 
aggressive effort to enroll millions of poor children who are eligible 
but not signed up for government health insurance programs. He said 
that in September of 2004.
  But nearly 1 in 9 children does not have health insurance. And the 
President vetoed the expansion of SCHIP that he called for in 2004. And 
House Republicans voted to sustain that veto, leaving millions of 
children without health insurance.
  We also know that health premiums have increased 78 percent since the 
administration took office. And the number of Americans covered by 
private employer-provided insurance has decreased 7 years in a row. It 
is a competitiveness issue as well for our businesses. Our employers 
cannot bear this burden and compete effectively. This is a national 
emergency.
  But again, the good news is that if we deviate away from the path 
that has been trod by this administration, the Bush and McCain policies 
of the past, we can do right by our Nation's children for health care. 
We can do right by the people out there who are fighting for jobs, who 
are fighting for access to that which they need for their families, who 
are just fighting to keep a roof over their heads. And these people are 
doing things right. They're doing everything right. And yet, this is a 
country, when you do things right, you ought to be able to make it. And 
we can do that again. And we can, working with Barack Obama in the 
White House, it will make all the difference in the world.
  Mr. Klein, would you like to share with us your thoughts and perhaps 
wrap up here a little bit?
  Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Well, I think it's really been an honor and 
privilege to be with my colleagues tonight. It's been an honor and 
privilege to serve as the freshman class, as Democrats and serving with 
our Republican colleagues as well. This is a great institution. Our 
country is a great country.
  We've pointed out, as you said from the very beginning, where we're 
starting from. That's the reality. I mean, as decisionmakers, if you're 
in business or you run your household, you always have to know where 
you start from in order to make good decisions going forward.
  And unfortunately, our next President and this next Congress and our 
country is going to be saddled for a little while with debt. And that's 
something we can start to dig our way out. And one thing that we did in 
this Congress, Democrats leading the charge here on our fiscal 
conservative policies is PAYGO. And that's a principle that everybody 
operates. You may not know what that means. PAYGO, pay as you go. It's 
the most simple principle. If you have a checkbook, you can't spend 
more money than what's in your checkbook. Or if you have a credit card, 
you can't spend more money than you can afford to pay back every month.
  Well, why should Congress, in the last 6 years under the 
administration, operate under this principle of because we can print 
money, they just keep printing?
  Well, fortunately last year a new principle is involved here. And 
now, when we pass a bill, unless it's an emergency, we have to make 
sure the money is in the budget. No, based on speculation that in the 
next number of months we're going to have all this new revenue in here. 
Things have slowed down a little bit, so we have to be realistic. 
That's exactly what the American people expect, and that's the kind of 
leadership we're delivering.
  So I am pretty excited about the fiscal policies under this Congress, 
and we're beginning to get them where they should be. A new president 
with new policies, not tied to the old policies as we've been talking 
tonight will deliver on that on our health care, on Social Security, on 
Medicare, veterans' benefits will continue to be the highest priority 
and understanding that comes first.
  Getting our foreign policy, which I serve on the committee, and many 
of you do, getting that re-established in a way that we earn the 
respect and work well with our partners around the world to really make 
sure that our national security is protected. And most importantly, get 
our economy, our American families in Ohio, in West Virginia and 
Wisconsin and Florida, in Seattle, everywhere, all over the country, 
that we will get them back in shape and give those Americans the 
opportunities that they've always had. And every generation, that 
principle of every generation having it a little better than the last 
generation. It's what my parents fought for. It's what my grandparents 
fought for and it's what we fight for our children.
  So I thank our President, Madam Betty Sutton from Ohio, Peter Welch 
from Vermont, Mr. Perlmutter from the great State of Colorado, Dr. 
Kagen from Wisconsin, Mr. Murphy from Connecticut. It's just a small 
representation of a great group of people that really are working very 
hard to do the right thing by Americans and get our country back on 
track.
  Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.
  Ms. SUTTON. I think that was a great wrap up. I'd like to just, if I 
could, point it back over to Representative Kagen from Wisconsin, 
because I think, again, what we're talking about here are the faces in 
that picture and the opportunity and the potential that we know that 
this country is full of and we have to help unleash so it works for the 
people in that photograph and people all across this country, and 
certainly the people in Ohio's 13 District.
  Dr. Kagen.
  Mr. KAGEN. You're looking at the face of America, from the middle 
part of the country in Northeast Wisconsin,

[[Page 18437]]

and they may have lost their job, but they will not give up their hope.
  We're all working hard here to bring about the changes, we need like 
knocking down the price for energy and gas and heating fuel, like 
bringing on the higher-wage jobs that we need just to put a roof over 
our head and guarantee that our children have an opportunity to get the 
great education that they require.
  And most importantly to me, as a physician and a legislator, we're 
going to provide access to affordable care for every citizen everywhere 
in these United States. The face of America, keep hope high. We're here 
to help you.
  Ms. SUTTON. I yield back.

                          ____________________