[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 7688]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 EMERGENCY FUNDING FOR THE WAR IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Despite the fact that America has been at war--we are in 
the sixth year in Iraq--the President is continuing to attempt to hide 
the true cost to the American people. He is asking Congress to declare 
an emergency to pay for the troops' salaries, to provide them with body 
armor, ammunition, and other needs in the war. It is certainly not an 
emergency. It certainly could have been anticipated, particularly given 
the fact that he is so stubborn about not setting any plan to get the 
U.S. out of that quagmire. But, to add insult to injury, the President 
says the war in Iraq is an emergency, and $108 billion is what he wants 
to borrow but not a penny more for domestic emergencies or needs; not a 
penny more, the President says. He will veto the bill if any of that 
money is spent here in the United States of America to help Americans' 
suffering, high gas prices, to help my counties and schools that are 
losing their Federal money, to help fishermen who have been deprived of 
their living this year with emergency closures. Those aren't 
emergencies in George Bush's book, but the ongoing war in the sixth 
year in Iraq is.
  Unfortunately, it appears that the Democratic leaders of Congress are 
going to cave in to Bush's strong-armed tactics and his unreasonable 
attitude, and will send him a bill that he can sign instead of putting 
forward Democratic priorities to the President: Extended unemployment 
benefits, a little bit of energy assistance for the American people who 
are suffering because they are being gouged by the oil and gas 
industry, my critical county and school payments, disaster assistance 
for salmon fishers on the west coast, and others. They appear like they 
are ready to cave in to the President on this and send him a bill that 
he can sign. That's wrong.
  As Democrats, we are here to defend the priorities and the needs of 
the American people. We know Bush is there for the corporations. We 
know he is there for his war in Iraq. Let's demonstrate that. Let's 
send him a bill.
  Now, in terms of the county and school payments, the Republican 
Congress and the Bush administration allowed the law to expire. That 
has created a crisis. Last year, we did get emergency spending despite 
Bush's then veto threat to help the counties and schools through one 
more year as we worked on a longer term fix. In December, the House did 
pass a longer term fix. Unfortunately, since the Senate is not a 
democratic institution, 40 Senators--40 Republican Senators--were able 
to strip the critical county and school funding out of that bill. So, 
again, we languish without authorization for payments in the coming 
year.
  So this is an emergency. We are going to see counties that are very 
large, counties in my district almost the size of New England that are 
going to be deprived of sheriff's patrols in rural areas. We are going 
to see jail beds closed and prisoners put out on the streets. We are 
going to see animal control ended. This is a crisis. These counties 
have no alternative. They are more than half-owned by the Federal 
Government. It is the Federal Government's policies that have brought 
them to this place. That was recognized by the former President as he 
put in place a plan to make up for the lost revenue from the changes in 
Federal policies.
  It is time for this administration to agree that those counties need 
some help. I have written to the President. I have asked him to change 
his mind and allow counties and schools to receive at least some amount 
of funding this year as a true domestic emergency, not to draw a line 
in the sand and say he will only borrow money to pursue an open-ended 
war in Iraq, but he will not borrow a penny for the American people.

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