[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6410-6417]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          OPPOSE OVERSPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
60 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the honor to address you 
here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, and it 
is always an honor to address you, Mr. Speaker.
  I have spent some of the last hour listening to my colleagues, whom I 
appreciate voicing their opinions as well. I would like to take up some 
of their issues at the beginning, and then I will roll it into the 
subject matter of this next hour that I have.
  But first of all, when a statement was made by the gentleman from 
Tennessee that Rush Limbaugh wants Obama to fail, he didn't say that, 
Mr. Speaker. He can't be quoted anywhere as he wants Obama to fail or 
President Obama to fail. It wasn't his intent at all. You have to 
listen to what he actually said.
  He said he wants his policies to fail. That was a message that's 
clear. It's been reiterated over and over again across the media and 
this country, Mr. Speaker. So I have to come here and raise the issue 
in the beginning that that was a statement that was made, Mr. Speaker. 
Rush Limbaugh said that he wants President Obama's policies to fail so 
that we can go forward and preserve and protect and enhance our freedom 
and our liberties and our free market economy and perhaps, and I hope 
it's not so, perhaps our national defense as well.
  I will stand with him on that. I have opposed these policies of 
overspending. I opposed the stimulus plan, and I opposed the bailout 
plan that came in the previous administration.
  It was clear from where I stood that you simply cannot take money 
from the producers of this country and pour it into a void without a 
plan or a strategy and how it's going to emerge. Still, the U.S. 
Treasury couldn't tell us the results that would come from a $700 
billion bailout plan. The President of the United States can't tell us 
the results that will come from hundreds of billions of dollars, and, 
actually, more than $1 trillion when you add the interest stimulus 
plan.
  And so without a definable goal here, except the idea that spending 
is stimulus--and I disagree with that philosophy, spending is not 
stimulus. But, believing that, then the people on this side of the 
aisle have said, well, this is a comprehensive proposal, it's well 
thought out. We are going to have a

[[Page 6411]]

more responsible budget than George Bush had, and in the end we are 
going to have this economy that is going to grow to the point where we 
will be able to do this magnificent thing called ``cut the deficit in 
half'' by the beginning of President Obama's second term.

                              {time}  1830

  I heard that over here, too, although he really said by the end of 
his first term, which I think is more likely if they keep going down 
this path.
  So the words ``cut the deficit in half'' echo to me. That was a goal 
that was laid out by President Bush. So it seems to me that President 
Obama, Mr. Speaker, is following at least one of the patterns of 
President Bush.
  And I will tell you I was not particularly moved by the idea that we 
could cut the deficit in half in 4 years or 5 years or whatever that 
might be. I didn't come into this political life with half of a goal. 
I'd want at least a whole goal. So if we can cut it in half in 3\1/2\ 
years or 5 years or whatever the case may be, why couldn't we just 
eliminate it? Or maybe we could just double that period of time. If we 
could cut it in half in 4 years, maybe we can cut it in half again in 
another 4 years, and then we'll be down to only 25 percent of this huge 
deficit that we have now.
  But, Mr. Speaker, this deficit is breathtaking. We are looking at the 
current administration's budget of a deficit of $1.75 trillion. And we 
heard him speak to us of having to construct one leg of a multi-legged 
stool to get us out of this economic crisis that we are in. Well, the 
one leg, you have to add the bailout money from last fall and the $1.1 
or 2 trillion from the stimulus plan from just a little over a week 
ago, package that together, and without many of these things that got 
poured into by administrative action, you're at a $2 trillion leg for 
one stool of what, according to the President, is a multi-legged stool. 
So if a leg costs $2 trillion and it's multi-legged, I know it's not a 
milk stool. That would be a one leg. It's not a two-legged stool. I've 
never seen one of those. It's not a three-legged stool or he would have 
said so. So I have to presume that this stool that's going to be the 
rebuilding architecture of this formerly free market economy is going 
to be at least four legs at $2 trillion a leg, which nearly doubles our 
national debt.
  I remember the President's media personnel speaking on the morning of 
the President's address here in the joint session, Mr. Speaker, and he 
said our national debt is 10 percent of GDP, that we have to do 
something about that. It's too high.
  Well, his current budget, the one that's just been defended by my 
colleagues from the other side of the aisle, takes that share to more 
than 12 percent of our GDP. In fact, it's 12.3 percent of our GDP. 
That's the current President Obama budget. So this 10 percent of GDP 
that is national debt today becomes a 12.3 percent of national debt if 
this budget is enacted into law, and a lament that comes from his 
spokesman is we've got too high a percentage of our GDP in our national 
debt.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I think there's another number that we should be 
concerned about. I'm concerned about that. I'm concerned about the 
daily interest rate, that if all of this is enacted into law, the 
American people will be paying $1 billion a year just in interest 
alone, $1 billion a year.
  Now, I hearken back to 1992 when President Clinton was elected. He 
was elected under the belief of the American people that we were in a 
recession, and he convinced the American people we were in a recession, 
and you might go back and look at the definitions and parse that so 
that it was, I'll say, marginally true. But President Clinton came to 
this Congress, Mr. Speaker, and he asked for a $30 billion, that's 30 
billion with a ``b,'' economic incentive plan, and that was supposed to 
put money out into the hands of people so they would spend it because 
the belief was that spending is stimulus. It was going to create, 
though, jobs like the AmeriCorps is today and put this $30 billion into 
this, and it was going to bring us out of this recession that was 
defined during the presidential campaign of 1992. President Clinton 
brought that argument to this Congress, $30 billion. And this Congress, 
being a Democratic Congress, debated the $30 billion, chopped it down 
from $30 billion, finally got it down to $17 billion, and then decided, 
well, we're not going to do it after all. So they threw the idea of the 
stimulus plan over the side in 1993, after having taken a $30 billion 
idea and reduced it to a $17 billion idea, and they pitched it 
overboard because it wasn't a good enough idea. Well, today we have 
budgets that are proposed by the President of the United States that 
brings us to the point where we'll be paying $1 billion a day, not $17 
billion in an economic stimulus plan like 1993 but $1 billion a day. 
So, for example, when the fiscal year kicks in--let me say the calendar 
year. That's a little easier thing to think about, Mr. Speaker. But 
when the calendar year kicks in, if you want to keep track from the day 
you're watching your bowl games on how long it takes for the Federal 
Government to spend as much money on interest as it would take to have 
paid for the entire Bill Clinton stimulus plan, well, from January 1, 
2, 3, 4, on up to the 17th of January, boom, you'd be done. That would 
be economic stimulus freedom day, the 18th of January, if you're paying 
this at the rate of this stimulus plan we have today.
  Now, compare that 17 days at $1 billion a day to pay for the entire 
Bill Clinton stimulus plan to just the interest that we'll have here in 
the Federal Government if we let this all go forward that's being 
proposed out of the White House today. That's $365 billion just in 
interest. That's not a stimulus plan, I'll suggest, Mr. Speaker. I will 
suggest that's anything but a stimulus plan. It works against us. It 
drains capital from the private sector. It drains capital from the 
productive sector of this economy.
  So Rush Limbaugh didn't say he wants President Obama to fail. He said 
he wants his policies to fail because he's about freedom. And I'm about 
freedom. And we ought to be about quoting people correctly. Maybe if 
the gentleman from Tennessee actually listened to the words that Rush 
Limbaugh said, maybe he wouldn't have been so outraged. Maybe he would 
have just said, well, we have a legitimate philosophical disagreement, 
que sera. It would be okay. But that's not what's happening. They are 
seeking to criticize a high-profile individual in America in order to 
demonize him so that that individual can be put up as a poster for the 
things that they want to claim is wrong with their predecessors.
  Well, here's the problem, Mr. Speaker. This has been a Democratic 
Congress for more than 2 years. The 110th Congress was all in the 
control of Speaker Pelosi. She received the gavel up here in January of 
2007. There's no Federal spending in America that doesn't start in this 
Congress by Constitution. So any of the spending that's been initiated 
since that day has been initiated right here on this floor in the end 
in the House of Representatives. And our budgets and our deficits 
become the budgets and the deficits of the Democrats that are in 
charge. That's Speaker Pelosi. That's Leader Hoyer. That's the 
committee Chairs and the people who have been handed the gavel by the 
Speaker.
  And the American people need to understand that this isn't something 
that's driven by the minority today. The minority that we have here 
today has always driven for balanced budgets, fiscal responsibility, 
strong national defense, strong personal responsibility, strong 
families, defended the rule of law, protected the borders.
  So we are today with a President that's going to cut the deficit in 
half by the beginning of his second term, but he's got to create this 
huge deficit in order to cut it in half. So if you go out and start 
biting off chunks of the GDP and grow from a 10 percent deficit of GDP 
to a 12.3 percent deficit of GDP, if you have a President's budget 
that's being proposed that takes a greater and greater share of the GDP 
of America, it isn't just the deficit that counts here. The share of 
the gross domestic product that was being consumed by the Federal 
Government at the beginning of the Depression in the early

[[Page 6412]]

1930s was 3.4 percent, Mr. Speaker. By the time the New Deal had been 
implemented by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and we got into the Japanese 
attack on Pearl Harbor, which essentially ended his New Deal, the 
Federal Government was by then taking over 12 percent of our GDP. It 
went from 3.4 percent of GDP at the beginning of the 1930s, and under 
FDR it went to over 12 percent of GDP before you factor in the extra 
spending that had to take place in the Second World War.
  Now, FDR had a significant utility to this country in leading us 
through the Second World War. I do not take that away from him. I 
applaud him for that stolid leadership that he provided. But he didn't 
solve the economic problem. And anybody that can come to this floor and 
engage in this debate and point out for me some data that shows that 
the New Deal, which was profligate spending, unprecedented growth in 
the Federal Government role, consuming from 3.4 percent of GDP up to 12 
percent of GDP, and not having anything to show for it, there's not a 
legitimate debate on the other side. The New Deal did not get us out of 
the Great Depression.
  To be charitable, it may have, and I emphasize ``may have,'' 
diminished the depths to which we might have otherwise fallen. I'm not 
convinced of that, but I will just concede that that could be the case. 
The data may show that if you didn't pour enough government spending 
in, maybe, maybe things would have completely collapsed and we would 
have had to build up from almost nothing or nothing as opposed to 
building up from almost nothing plus one. So maybe the New Deal 
programs diminished the depths to which we might have otherwise fallen. 
It certainly provided some soup kitchens and some WPA programs and CCC 
camps, and the Federal Government stepped in and hired a lot of people, 
competed directly with the private sector, by the way. That's what 
happened with the New Deal. And the recovery process that was needed to 
take place when capital was willing to take the risk again, when 
entrepreneurs were willing to take the risk again, that recovery took 
place through the Second World War.
  This is where I don't see it quite the same way either as the 
President does, Mr. Speaker. I don't take the position that the Second 
World War got us out of the Great Depression. I take the position that 
the Second World War started our recovery from the Great Depression. It 
brought about a massive growth in production in America in our 
industry, and it positioned us that by the end of the Second World War, 
we were the world's industrial power because we had ramped up our 
industrial production here to meet the demands of the world in the 
Second World War. And at end of the war, we were essentially the only 
industrialized country that had maintained our industrial base without 
its being destroyed by war. So we had a comparative advantage, as Adams 
Smith would say, against the rest of the world. And our economy grew, 
and America built more things and sold more things both domestically 
and abroad. And by 1954 the stock market had recovered to where it was 
on the day that it crashed in October of 1929. It wasn't the New Deal 
that got us out of the Great Depression. The Second World War gave us a 
very good start, as tragic as that world event was, but the recovery 
required another 9 years just to get back to where we were when the 
stock market crashed in October of 1929. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had 
been dead for 9 years before the stock market got back to where it was. 
So it's not his achievement necessarily. I think that it actually 
slowed our recovery.
  And now we have, Mr. Speaker, a President who believes that the New 
Deal was a good deal, that FDR essentially lost his nerve and was too 
concerned about spending too much money. So he's concerned that FDR 
essentially backed down, and if he had just kept spending more and more 
money, then he would have been able to have this Keynesian effect, a 
real stimulus effect that would have brought us out of the Great 
Depression before the Japanese attacked us on December 7 of 1941. Well, 
the world will never know. That isn't what happened.
  But the world also knows that there is no historical model for 
bringing about an economic recovery by taxing your citizens to death 
and transferring that wealth to other people and paying people not to 
work and by asking people to go forward and spend money that you hand 
to them. That's a temporary stimulus, if at all. And we tried that 
early last spring, a $150 billion temporary stimulus plan. And you can 
look for the blip in that. What happened to the consumer spending? What 
happened to jobs? It didn't even show. In fact, about 70 percent of 
those $150 billion that were injected into the economy in rebates were 
saved or used to pay off debt. They didn't stimulate the economy. So 
some of it was tax relief and to that extent it was good, but on 
balance it wasn't a stimulating plan. This is a huge plan based upon 
the same philosophy. Spending is stimulus is what President Obama has 
said, Mr. Speaker.

                              {time}  1845

  I looked back and I read through some of the documents written by 
John Maynard Keynes. This is pure Keynesian economics. It was Keynes 
that said I can solve the world's unemployment problem. We will just do 
this. We will go out to an abandoned coal mine and I will take U.S. 
currency and we will bury it in these holes around this abandoned coal 
mine. Then we fill the coal mine up with garbage, and then we'll turn 
the entrepreneurs in the country loose to go around and dig it up and 
be able to pick up this cash and take it out and spend it.
  He said he can solve all of the unemployment problem in the country 
if you just give him enough cash and they could drill these little 
holes around in abandoned coal mines and then fill the coal mine up 
with garbage and then let the people dig through it. That would give 
them a job, of course, digging up the cash, and then they would take 
the cash out and spend it, and that would solve the economy.
  Mr. Speaker, we are not going to solve an economic crisis until we 
produce. We have to provide incentives, which means getting government 
out of the way and reducing taxes so that people will produce. If they 
produce something that has value, they will take it out and market it 
and sell it and our economy will grow. And that is how you stimulate 
the economy, by increasing production, not by increasing spending. And 
it needs to be competitive production that gives people a comparative 
advantage against the rest of the world.
  Innovations in the area of technology, for example, entrepreneurs 
that start businesses, people that are trading, buy, sell, trade, make 
gain, produce market, be smart about it, but do not punish the 
productive sector of the economy, or you will wait a long, long time 
for a recovery. We know that they waited a long time for the recovery 
of the Great Depression, from 1929 to 1939 to '49 to '54. All of that 
time, a complete and entire more than a generation before they saw the 
recovery that was brought about by two things, the Second World War and 
by the industrial productive might that we developed and the effect of 
that on the world's economy.
  So, if you create, as a President of the United States, Mr. Speaker, 
a huge deficit, and then you say, oh, by the beginning of my second 
term in office I am going to cut my deficit in half, how would that be? 
It would be like the family budget, if I would go out and spend, let's 
say $2,000 more per month than I make, I would have a $2,000 a month 
deficit. And that would then be a $24,000 a year deficit.
  But I could make my pledge to my financial advisor that I am going to 
cut that deficit in half and just cut it down to $1,000 a month. And if 
I needed to really bite the bullet and say, well, I am going to have to 
do more than this, I could maybe increase my spending to $3,000 a month 
or $4,000 a month, and then next year it would be easy enough, I would 
just cut it back to $2,000 a month and say I cut my deficit in half. I 
am still spending the same amount I was, and I still have the same kind 
of deficit I had.

[[Page 6413]]

  That is the kind of smoke and mirrors language that is coming out of 
the White House today, and the American people, Mr. Speaker, are 
sitting there accepting it. They are accepting the idea that if you 
spend a couple trillion dollars, if the White House spends a couple 
trillion dollars appropriated here, out of the beginning of the 
spending into the House of Representatives, and that $2 trillion in the 
stimulus plan is going to, get this language, save or create 3.5 
million jobs.
  All right. Have we lost our senses? Don't we see through that 
clearly? I mean, this isn't any kind of blurry, opaque lens we are 
looking through. This is crystal clear in focus. Save or create 3.5 
million jobs. Not new jobs, not defined jobs, not in any particular 
sector. Not create jobs. Save or create.
  So, I guess I could go back to a pretty low educational level and ask 
maybe one of our children, figure this out. If you are going to save or 
create 3.5 million jobs, and if you have got a workforce of about 142 
million here in the United States, let's just say that it is really 
clear that President Obama is going to accomplish that objective. I can 
guarantee that President Obama will accomplish the objective of saving 
or creating 3.5 million jobs, because, first of all, they aren't new 
jobs, and second of all, if you don't create a single one and you still 
have 3.5 million jobs left in America, you have met your promise.
  These are carefully parsed words and pieces of language. This isn't 
something he is speaking off the cuff and bouncing around in between 
other meetings. It isn't like he was ambushed by the press. This is the 
speech writers carefully putting this language together. It has been 
repeated over and over again.
  As far as I know, the press hasn't said, Mr. President, isn't it true 
that if there are 3.5 million jobs left in America, you will have kept 
your promise? That is what the promise is, Mr. Speaker.
  There are also many other promises. One of them is we are going to 
have a carbon tax. So we are going to tax energy. Well, everything that 
we have in America takes energy to produce or deliver. A cup of coffee 
takes energy to heat it. It takes electricity to fire up the coffee 
pot. It takes energy to transport it. Everything we have takes 
transportation. It takes trucks, it takes rail, it takes trains. All of 
that burns energy. Almost all of it takes energy, hydrocarbon energy 
that comes from petroleum.
  So if we are going to tax the carbon that is petroleum, if we are 
going to tax that we are taxing everybody in America. They are going to 
tax your light bill and your gas bill. That is your heat bill. Your 
gasoline bill as well. And this tax isn't going to be something that is 
put on your invoice. It is going to be something insidious. It is going 
to be something that creeps and sneaks into your bills so you don't see 
it. It will be immeasurable.
  I can just guarantee you if this happens, there won't be any study 
done in this Congress or anywhere else that is official at least by 
government that will tell you what it costs you to pay this carbon tax. 
But it is so far measured at $646 billion, the carbon tax.
  We are going to pay a tax on carbon. Why? Because we have some 
scientists who have decided that they want to tell us all that we are 
suffering from global warming. Climate change now is the word. And I 
will just say, pay attention to language. We have gone from global 
warming, well, actually we have gone from ice age. I remember ice age 
in the seventies. There was one scientist that was a lead scientist on 
predicting that we had a coming ice age, and he has now shifted over to 
the other side. Now he says no, the Earth is in global warming and we 
should backpedal from that as it was as we can.
  But we have gone from ice age to global warming, and now global 
warming is kind of hard to hold because the Earth has been cooling for 
the last 10 years, so we have to change the language to climate change.
  Now, if you have to fix the climate change problem, you will be able 
to do that forever. In fact, we always complain about the climate 
changing on us on a regular basis, wherever we come from. In Iowa, the 
climate is changing all the time. Just wait 5 minutes, it will change, 
we say. I talked to a fellow in Mississippi this morning. He says the 
same thing.
  Climate change is going on all over America in little microcosmic 
ways. But you can address that and say we are going to fix it with 
government. We are going to fix it with a carbon tax. We are going to 
tax your energy.
  If you tax our energy, you are taxing every single component of 
America's economy. You can't turn on your computer without taking 
energy. You can't light up your Blackberry. You can't make a cell phone 
call. You can't turn on your lights. You can't get in a taxicab or on 
the Metro or drive your car. I suppose you can't ride your bicycle or 
go out to the farm and pitch a couple bales. But they have already 
figured out it takes energy to do that, and they are measuring against 
ethanol. A farm worker takes 4,000 calories a day to go out there and 
do the work. Now, I think he is overeating just a little bit. But they 
have measured it. Calories are energy. Human consumption of food is 
energy. Everything takes energy. Energy is based on carbon, and they 
want to tax carbon to the tune of $646 billion. Then, to make sure it 
really goes to the right place, the White House wants to tax oil and 
gas directly, $31.5 billion dollars.
  And, by the way, if you thought you made a pretty good living and 
maybe jumped through all these government hoops and were able to 
establish an estate, then we have it set up so we were seeking to get 
completely rid of the death tax. But President Obama is convinced that 
they are going to come back with the death tax and eliminate the 
loopholes, so now you can't even hope to die for free.
  That is all going on. And on top of that, we are in two wars, Mr. 
Speaker. Two wars. There is still a conflict going on in Iraq, and I am 
transitioning into that, and there is clearly a conflict in Afghanistan 
which President Obama has ordered a surge.
  Now, it seems a little odd to me that the President of the United 
States would not admit that the surge worked in Iraq, but he would 
order one in Afghanistan, even though they are two different countries, 
I agree, and it is a tough battle going on in Afghanistan, and I am 
going to stand with him on the orders he has given.
  There are many more components to it, and I trust the White House is 
going to build out the State Department side of this, the economic side 
of this, and the strategic neighbors, and hopefully put together a more 
cooperative approach to this so that we can have a broad and complete 
solution in Afghanistan. I will stand with him on that, as tough as it 
is.
  I will not walk away from our military. Not our military. I stand 
with them and I stand with their mission. Their mission has been in 
Iraq, and everybody serving there in the last few years not only 
volunteered for their branch of the service, but they volunteered 
knowing that they would be likely called up to go to Iraq. Many of them 
volunteered for that mission. That is our military; selfless, noble, 
self-sacrifice, bravery like the world has never seen. The best 
trained, the most disciplined, the best equipped, the best armed 
military the world has ever seen.
  Yet on the floor of this Congress, Mr. Speaker, in the 110th 
Congress, the previous Congress, there were more than 40 votes brought 
to the floor that were designed to unfund, underfund, or undermine our 
troops while they are at war under orders to face the enemy. And they 
face them in a way that was a 360 degree battlefield. You never knew 
when they were going to be hit, there was no one that was in a safe 
zone, some safer than others.
  Yet in all of this, President Bush took a look and decided he did not 
want to capitulate to the other side. And even though the advice that 
he was getting from many of his top military officers was essentially 
we are not in a position to win this war, Mr. President, and the 
implication was that he should just simply order a withdrawal, let me 
put it this way, a cynic would say declare victory and leave, but you 
can never declare victory and leave and call it a victory in a war.

[[Page 6414]]

  In a way it is like a street fight. The person that is standing there 
when it is over is the one that wins. And if you don't occupy the 
territory you fought over, you don't get to say we won that war, we 
just got tired of it and left and when home. The world knows that, 
history knows that, President Bush knows that.
  That is why he had the vision and the leadership to give the order 
for a surge. It was a well-researched strategy that had many components 
to it, not just the military tactical, but many the other components to 
it as well. And as that strategy was put together, and I made a number 
of trips over there and met with our top officers while this was being 
put together, I was sold on the strategy before it had a name, I was 
sold on the strategy before it was actually shaped. But we see now what 
has happened.
  President Bush ordered the surge and we swelled the troops up to over 
150,000 there. He made the order. And, of course, our troops nobly 
complied and they carried out their mission in a fashion that still 
amazes more than half of this Congress, most the country and even more 
of the world.
  But, today the Pelosi Congress has established 18, 18 benchmarks that 
needed to be achieved in Iraq before they would be willing to support 
the efforts and the spending that is going on there. I took this in the 
middle of those 40-plus votes that were designed to unfund, underfund 
or undermine our troops, I took those benchmarks that were essentially 
imposed upon the Iraq effort to be setting the bar so high that it 
could never be achieved because so many were invested in defeat in this 
Congress.
  Yet of the 18 benchmarks, 17 of the 18 benchmarks have been wholly or 
substantially achieved in Iraq. And I don't have that list in front of 
me, but I can tell you the one that is not yet been achieved, and that 
is the benchmark that requires the Iraqi Security Forces to be 
completely independent from U.S. military support.
  So, that would be that the 613,000 Iraqi Security Forces that are in 
uniform today that have been trained and equipped by our military, 
standing up a military from a beginning takes years, but of those 
613,000, by that 18th benchmark they would all have to be able to 
operate independent of U.S. communications, U.S. logistical support, 
U.S. training, U.S. intelligence, the list goes on of all the things 
that we are providing them and helping them with today.
  I think that is a generation away before they reach that level. I 
think the 18th benchmark was completely unreachable, although they have 
made substantial progress. But I won't say it has been substantially 
completed or wholly completed at this point. So 17 of 18 benchmarks, 
and the remaining one is an independent Iraqi Security Force. Seventeen 
of 18 benchmarks have been achieved, Mr. Speaker.
  I am introducing, I have today introduced a resolution that addresses 
this. The resolution is a resolution that acknowledges and recognizes 
the achievements there. Seventeen of 18 benchmarks have been achieved. 
That is one point.
  Another is American casualties in Iraq. Since the 30th of June, 2008, 
we have lost more of our military to accidents than we have the enemy; 
more to accidents than we have the enemy, Mr. Speaker. That is a 
measure too of a war that is going in the right direction.
  The civilian deaths in Iraq have gone down by 90 percent and the 
ethno-sectarian deaths in Iraq have dropped by 98 percent.

                              {time}  1900

  There's a long period there where you had no sectarian deaths, where 
statistically so low that they were not reportable.
  And yet, I remember, some of my colleagues over here and some of our 
Senate friends saying the war in Iraq is lost. It can't be won. We've 
been defeated. It's a civil war. There are sectarian deaths. It's out 
of control, and we need to get out people out right away, just maintain 
enough of a rear guard so that they don't get shot in the back as they 
retreat from Iraq. That's essentially the message that came from a good 
number of people over on this side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, and a 
number of them in the Senate as well, and that was part of the debate 
on these 40-plus votes that were designed to unfund, underfund or 
undermine our troops.
  But what's happened is there has been substantial achievement in 
Iraq. We have achieved a definable victory in Iraq. And I've introduced 
a resolution today that lays out the history on how we got there, the 
authority that was invested in the President of the United States by 
this Congress to engage in military action if he saw fit, and the 
responsibilities that he accepted and that our military accepted, as 
well as the things that went wrong, and then the things that went 
right.
  But three elections almost, the last election was so successful there 
wasn't a single significant security event involved in the last 
election in Iraq in the last weekend of January, this year. And so they 
ratified a constitution. They've had three successful elections, they 
have an effective central government. And Maliki has become a powerful 
and influential leader that had the courage and the temerity to order 
his own troop actions to go down into Basra last year, and that turned 
out to be something that seemed to be tenuous but turned out to be 
successful, and it was a key component in establishing Baghdad and the 
central government as being in charge in the country of Iraq.
  So however we measure this, by any complete objective measure, there 
has been a definable victory achieved in Iraq.
  That's what this resolution does, Mr. Speaker. And it thanks and 
honors our military for their sacrifice of life and limb and blood and 
treasure and time away from their homes and having their destiny 
changed. No one served in that country without having the destiny of 
their life turned in one way other. Some of them lost their lives. Some 
of them lost their limbs. All of them were affected in a way that it 
changed them, in a small way some perhaps, and in a very large way, 
others. It caused the breakup of some families. There were divorces 
because of the long deployments. There was a price paid by wives and 
husbands and children.
  And yet, in this country, we bicker here trying to undermine an 
effort. And now, this Congress has a chance to say thank you for all of 
that sacrifice. This Congress has a chance to ratify this resolution 
and put it into the Record, in the Congressional Record for all time.
  And some of the language in this resolution, Mr. Speaker, follows 
like this: The United States House of Representatives extends its 
gratitude to all those within the military and civilian departments and 
agencies of the United States Government who were responsible for 
directing the implementation of the surge strategy, including General 
David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
  The U.S. House of Representatives recognizes the importance and 
significance of victory in the Iraqi theater of the larger global 
struggle against radical Islamic jihadists terrorists.
  And the United States House of Representatives commits itself to 
working with President Obama and his administration to continue the 
progress that has been made on the ground in Iraq since the surge 
strategy was implemented, recognizing that a definable victory has been 
achieved in Iraq, and that history will judge President Bush's 
successor by his ability to maintain his predecessor's victory.
  That's what's been achieved in Iraq today, Mr. Speaker. And I stand 
with President Obama in maintaining and in building upon the 
achievements that have been made in Iraq.
  This resolution is about honoring the accomplishments to this point. 
And it's about asking and actually challenging all of us to stand with 
those who have sacrificed so much so that price has meaning, so that 
the destiny of America, the destiny of every individual that served 
there was changed by their experience there. The destiny of America 
then needs to be changed also, as the benefit from the price that's 
been paid.

[[Page 6415]]

  The destiny of America can be defined by the course of liberty and 
the course of freedom. And we have watched freedom be expanded around 
the world. I've watched it in a number of ways. Sometimes we've just 
fought them to a draw, and sometimes we expanded freedom dramatically. 
Free market capitalism expanded freedom around this world probably more 
than any war that there ever was. But those things fit in conjunction 
with each other.
  The Second World War expanded freedom. If it hadn't been for that, we 
would have been either under the control of the imperial Japanese or 
the Nazis. And yet, we defended freedom. We expanded freedom.
  Still, February 11, 1945, at Yalta, Winston Churchill, Franklin 
Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin drew a line on a map, and the line 
on the map was the line west of which people would live in the free 
world and east of which they would live in the slavery of communism. 
When that line was drawn, February 11, 1945, that set the destiny for 
people for more than a generation to come, 2 generations to come.
  But by November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. This Cold War 
that we'd fought for all of those years, along that line that was drawn 
at Yalta by Stalin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, 
that line fell, that was the Iron Curtain. It came down literally with 
a crash, beginning November 9 when the Berlin Wall started to come 
down. And freedom echoed for a time, all the way across Eastern Europe, 
all the way across Asia, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. That was the 
result of this victory in the Cold War.
  And the Yeltsin era came in, in Russia, and the satellite states for 
the Soviet Union declared their independence, and most of them are 
essentially independent today. But freedom has diminished back across 
that vast land of Russia. It's not what it was during that era. Most of 
the institutions of freedom have been diminished or eliminated by the 
Putin era within Russia.
  But we advanced freedom, we advanced it in the Second World War 
dramatically. But the line was drawn, drawn between the east and the 
west, the line of the Iron Curtain. Then the Cold War was won and the 
Iron Curtain came crashing down, and hundreds of millions of people 
breathe free that would not have otherwise.
  We found ourselves, though, in a conflict in Vietnam, which was the 
last direct military conflict between freedom and communism.
  Now, the problem with losing your nerve and losing your will when it 
comes to foreign policy cannot be measured in, well, it's no longer 
convenient to support a war in Iraq. I'm unhappy and uncomfortable with 
the cost or the casualties that are there, so I'll make an objective 
decision to rationalize and pull out. That's something that was going 
on. That was some of the thought process that's going on by many of the 
people that are on staff today at the White House.
  But there is a destiny of the free world that America leads that has 
to be attended to. It's our duty and it's our charge, and so, I'll 
submit this, Mr. Speaker, that America was viewed as the superpower of 
the world. We viewed the Soviet Union as the other superpower. We 
called them that. But much of the rest of the world saw us as the only 
superpower in the world. And we had never lost a war. The world didn't 
expect us to lose a war.
  But when I picked up this book, this is a book, Vietnam's top 
military strategist tells how we won the war by General Vo Nguyen Giap. 
This is the general that commanded the North Vietnamese military during 
the Vietnam War. And General Giap, G-I-A-P, he writes in here some 
things that are illuminating.
  Now, this isn't a very good book, and I don't recommend, Mr. Speaker, 
that people go out and buy it. I can give you the essence of it here in 
just a little phrase. And again, the title of the book is How We Won 
the War. The commander of the North Vietnamese, and he says here that 
the U.S. had already begun its decline from the position as the only 
superpower. This book is copyrighted in 1976, so it was written right 
after the fall of South Vietnam. General Giap said the U.S. had already 
begun its decline from the position as the only superpower. He viewed 
us as the only superpower in the 1970s and in the 1960s. That's one way 
to look at it. But he said the U.S. failure to win in Korea was the 
turning point.
  So, Mr. Speaker, here's the lesson. We had a Korean War, and we 
negotiated a settlement rather than press for an all out victory. I'm 
not commenting on what was the right thing to do then from a military 
tactical standpoint. I am commenting on this: Settling for a negotiated 
settlement in Korea resulted in an inspiration for the North 
Vietnamese, that America didn't have the will to press for a victory in 
Vietnam, so they fought a war of attrition. They fought a war of 
attrition that went on for more than a decade. And the price for that 
was 58,000 American lives, hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese 
lives. And this Congress voted to shut off all funding, not just to 
support American troops who had already been pulled out of South 
Vietnam. If you remember Vietnamization. The Vietnamese were taught and 
trained and equipped to defend themselves, and they had stepped up, and 
they were doing that.
  This Congress shut off all funding. And I went back and read the 
legislation. And it says, no money, none of these funds or any funds 
heretofore appropriated shall be spent in Vietnam, North Or South 
Vietnam actually, and in Cambodia or Laos, on the skies overhead or the 
seas beside these countries. In other words, whatever money was in the 
pipeline to go help the Vietnamese boys defend themselves, as I think 
that was the language that they used at the time, that money was shut 
off too. Money that I was already appropriated by a previous Congress 
and already sent by a Commander-in-Chief was shut off by this Congress, 
along with any other appropriations. When that happened it starved the 
defense of South Vietnam. No wonder they capitulated. They didn't have 
anything to fight with. And the legacy is left that the United States 
walked away from one of our friends and our allies.
  Well, it started with Korea, a negotiated settlement, and we got to 
Vietnam.
  And then, Mr. Speaker, I find myself sitting in a hotel in Kuwait 
City, waiting to go into Iraq the next day. The date was June 11, 2004. 
And I didn't know at the time, I don't think, about General Giap's look 
at Korea as his inspiration. But I was watching Al Jazeera TV, and I 
couldn't understand what they were saying, but they had English closed-
caption. And I heard this, I think, in Arabic, come out of the mouth of 
Muqtada al-Sadr, who said, if we keep attacking Americans, they will 
leave Iraq, the same way they left Vietnam, the same way they left 
Lebanon, the same way they left Mogadishu. And I wrote those notes down 
when I heard that. But it also was branded into my memory, Mr. Speaker.
  Our enemies in Iraq and our enemies around the world are inspired if 
they see lack of resolve. General Vo Nguyen Giap was inspired when he 
identified lack of resolve in a negotiated settlement in Korea. And our 
subsequent enemies in places like Lebanon and Mogadishu were 
inspirations as well to Muqtada al-Sadr and our current enemies that we 
have. These are all the terrorists worldwide. They talk about this. I 
mean, this is not something that is an original thought of Muqtada al-
Sadr. This is something that's being voiced around the world to 
encourage and recruit our enemies.
  And I'll say, America didn't, they couldn't win in Korea. They 
couldn't win in Vietnam. They pulled out of Lebanon. They pulled out of 
Mogadishu, and they will pull out of Iraq, is what they were hoping.

                              {time}  1915

  Well, Mr. Speaker, there is no military tactical reason to pull out 
of Iraq to avoid the conflict that's there, because much of our enemy 
has been mopped up by U.S. and Iraqi forces working in conjunction with 
coalition forces that are still there.
  We must maintain this victory that has been achieved. I have defined 
it tonight, Mr. Speaker, for you. We must

[[Page 6416]]

maintain it because this is the point where we turn the destiny of 
America again at the price of the destiny of hundreds of thousands of 
military who have served in that country. Now we can turn the destiny 
of America toward the positive side again, and we can hand to the next 
generations the world's only superpower, who may have lost its will in 
Vietnam, who should not have pulled out of Lebanon in the stage that it 
was in, who should not have left Mogadishu, but who did stick it out in 
Iraq and who did ensure that the Iraqi people had their chance at 
freedom, that they had their chance at liberty, that they had their 
chance to be as they are quickly becoming: a moderate Muslim state that 
is our ally in the Middle East in an ideal strategic location for them 
to influence the Middle Eastern part of the world and in an ideal 
tactical location.
  The Iraqi people on our side are understanding this: We didn't ever 
go there for their oil. We didn't ever go there to occupy. We went 
there to end the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, and that happened.
  Whatever you argue about whether the full spectrum of all of the 
reasons were intact or not, the fact remains that the President had to 
make a decision based upon the information he had. He made that 
decision. Once it was made, we stood with our troops and with their 
mission. Their mission has been wholly or substantially completed and 
will be, but we've got to remember that this is a fragile definable 
victory that has been achieved, and we cannot squander it, and we need 
to honor the Commander in Chief who gave the order of the surge, and we 
need to honor the people who brought it about. That does include the 
Iraqi people. It includes the Sunni awakening. It includes the 
commitment by them in understanding that, again, we didn't go there for 
their oil, and we didn't go there to occupy. We went there to give them 
a chance at freedom. They have their chance, and they will continue, 
and they're actually reaching harder and stronger than maybe they have 
the capability of doing.
  When I sit in these briefings, I get this, and this wouldn't be a 
classified component. It's a concern that the Iraqis have maybe a 
little more confidence in their military capability than they actually 
have. Well, that's the right place for them to be, to be stretching and 
pushing this thing and to be asking for as much of their own military 
autonomy as we can give them. We've given them much. We've given them 
at least all of the security in at least 14 of the 18 provinces and 
maybe more, and I might have missed one or two. We handed over to them 
Anbar province, a place where 2\1/2\ years ago I couldn't go because it 
was too dangerous, a place where, in downtown Ramadi, there was not a 
building that was not shot up. It was a rubble. It was a city of rubble 
that had been fought over so many times--a city of death.
  I went shopping in downtown Ramadi and, additionally, in Fallujah 
where I've been several times. By the way, the mayor of Ramadi sounds 
like the mayor of Peoria. He says, ``Get Baghdad to send me a little 
more money down here. I need more sewer, water and lights. We're 
rebuilding this town. We've got to get everybody off the dime. Why is 
it stuck? We need to go to work.'' That's what they're doing and what 
they've done.
  In Fallujah, the mayor of Fallujah says, ``We are a city of peace, 
and we are going to repair every building in this city so there's no 
sign of war.''
  If Fallujah is going to be known as the ``city of peace,'' well, Mr. 
Speaker, that's what has been accomplished over the last number of 
years and especially since the surge was ordered.
  This resolution that I introduced today is a resolution that calls 
upon this Congress to recognize that and to honor the price, the 
sacrifice, the accomplishments, and the achievements. It also asks the 
President: Hold this together. Nurture this along. Let's not make a 
political decision on the deployment of troops out of Iraq because it's 
a promise that you made 3\1/2\ years ago when you were a State Senator. 
Let's make sure that this is a tactical decision and also a political 
decision and an economic decision and a strategic decision. If you're 
going to make decisions like that, when you make an announcement that 
all of the combat troops are going to be out by the last day in August 
in 2010, as a Commander in Chief, you've fenced yourself in 
politically. What's the point? You can order those troops to be 
deployed out of this and can have all of our combat troops out by the 
last day in August of 2010 without having to tell the world. Just start 
that progression.
  We've already started it, and it makes some sense to do that. It may 
even make a lot of sense to do that. It just should never, ever be a 
political decision, and there is no need to announce it. Then also to 
announce that, by the last day of 2011, all of our military will be 
completely out of Iraq, that's actually what the Status of Forces 
Agreement says, but it also says that we can renegotiate this.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I'll submit that we've accomplished a lot in Iraq. 
We have accomplished so much that we've achieved a definable victory 
there. This Congress needs to celebrate the achievement of the 
definable victory in Iraq. We need to applaud everyone who has served 
there in uniform and especially those who have given life and limb and 
their families. It is a noble, noble act by a noble, noble people.
  It is best expressed, I think, at the Korean war memorial where it 
says, ``This Nation honors our men and women who answered the call to 
serve a country they never knew and a people they never met.''
  It has happened over and over again from the United States of 
America. It has happened again in Iraq. It's happening in Afghanistan. 
We need to preserve those precious victories. We need to end this 
legacy of not having the will to complete the task that we've started. 
We need to end this propaganda that's coming out of the mouths of our 
enemies that says, well, we'll leave Iraq the same way we left Vietnam, 
Lebanon and Mogadishu. We can't have Osama bin Laden sitting in his 
cave up there in Pakistan, saying, ``Well, they will leave Afghanistan 
the same way they left Vietnam, Lebanon, Mogadishu, and Iraq.'' If that 
happens, we've got a much larger enemy that we have to face and a much 
more determined enemy that we have to face.
  They know they've lost in Iraq. They've said so. It says so in this 
resolution. We have quoted some al Qaeda leaders in this resolution 
that they have recognized they have lost tactically the war in Iraq. 
They don't have the ability to engage in any kind of an organized 
military way. They can cause some trouble, yes. There are a few of them 
left in pockets, particularly in Mosul, and they're being mopped up as 
we speak, but there has been a tremendous amount that has been 
accomplished.
  If the President can make the charge that he inherited a $1 trillion 
deficit and somehow then the responsibility for this economic crisis 
that we're in all falls back on his predecessor because he has 
inherited a $1 trillion deficit, never mind he has offered a $1.7 
trillion budget--but if he can take that position over and over again 
that he inherited a $1 trillion deficit and this economy, by 
implication, is all going to be on the shoulders of George W. Bush, 
then at least, Mr. Speaker, he can accept the responsibility of Iraq 
and the state that it's in and can preserve the definable victory that 
has been achieved.
  That's what this resolution does. That's what it asks for. It's what, 
I think, the will of this Congress ought to be. I'm going to be asking 
the Speaker to allow this to come forward to the floor.
  Right before I close, Mr. Speaker, I would yield to the gentleman 
from Nebraska so much time as he may consume of which I don't think 
there's a lot.
  Mr. FORTENBERRY. I thank the gentleman from Iowa, and I always 
appreciate your passion and your willingness to engage in the most 
profound issues facing our country. I didn't mean to interrupt. If you 
were concluding, I was hoping you would yield time to me for about 6 or 
7 minutes on another topic that I'd appreciate your listening to.

[[Page 6417]]


  Mr. KING of Iowa. I'd be very happy to yield the balance I have.
  Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you.
  Mr. Speaker, today, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon 
Brown, spoke strongly and eloquently before this body of our Nation's 
specialness of our shared history, traditions, as well as our values. 
He also spoke of the past, present and future challenges confronting 
our partnered nations.
  I respect this long, historic relationship that Prime Minister Brown 
laid out. There were many principles of his speech with which I deeply 
agree, such as the defense of human rights worldwide, nuclear security, 
a sustainable energy future, and human rights in addition to the fact 
that he also proposed a broad, vast, new array of new ideas that can 
help bring about a new day and mantle of leadership in this essential 
area of need for our world's poor. However, he also proposed a ``global 
new deal,'' a new deal that is not clearly defined but that is pointed 
toward a vast, new, international arrangement.
  With regard to the current financial difficulties in our developing 
global economy, it is indisputable that our economic challenges affect 
the rest of the world. America has a long history of meaningful trade 
with other nations, especially with our partner Great Britain, but 
America also has an entangled relationship pertaining to our national 
debt. We have borrowed from the United Kingdom, China, Japan, and from 
numerous countries in the Middle East to finance our burgeoning debt 
and to accommodate our deficit spending. Much of this has been discreet 
and out of the public eye, but the implications of foreign ownership of 
Federal debt instruments are greatly significant.
  Approximately half of the total public debt is in foreign ownership. 
At some point, Mr. Speaker, global investors may grow weary and may 
decide not to take the risk of buying our debt. We would consequently 
be faced with the choice to stop borrowing to finance our deficit 
spending or to raise interest rates in order to attract investors. If 
any of these countries chose to quickly sell their U.S. holdings, a 
tumultuous devaluation of the dollar could quickly ensue.
  As Prime Minister Brown said, we are all seeing how certain 
``financial instruments have spread contagion throughout the world.'' 
This is certainly true, and I appreciate the Prime Minister's calls for 
further transparency and accountability. However, I challenge his 
presupposition that a greater global consolidation of financial systems 
is in our national or in the international community's best interest.
  Financial consolidation, extreme volatility and speculation in world 
markets, reckless use of exotic financial instruments, liberalized 
credit have certainly contributed to the current collapse. The global 
scale of the credit crisis and confidence should give us pause to 
consider that our profound economic connectedness may actually cause 
more problems instead of prosperity. The increasing concentration of 
wealth assets into fewer and fewer financial institutions will increase 
our financial vulnerability. One of our greatest concerns right now is 
how to stabilize banks and financial entities that are deemed ``too big 
to fail.''
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I believe we need a paradigm shift, a new 
paradigm. We should be asking: Are these financial systems too big to 
succeed? Now is the time to reconsider an essential component of 
Western philosophy--the great potential of the individual in solidarity 
with one's community. I believe that America, the United Kingdom and 
the other strong financial powers in Europe should take this time to 
empower individuals and communities to provide for themselves through a 
network of strong local and regional economies.
  As the Prime Minister added, America is a nation of extraordinary 
capacity, and to spur growth, I believe it is imperative that our 
government's efforts be targeted toward helping small business 
entrepreneurs whose successes will be the bellwether of economic 
progress.
  Recent data from the Commerce Department shows that small businesses 
have generated 60 to 80 percent of new jobs over the past decade. By 
enacting good commonsense initiatives to benefit entrepreneurial 
growth, we may create local jobs and new opportunities to stem the tide 
of economic difficulties in our communities, our State and nationwide.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe that it is local financiers and local 
businesses who best know the needs of their communities and who are, in 
the very essence, more transparent and accountable. This is the motto 
we should return to, and it is the proper motto for us to help lead in 
building sustainable local economic connectedness for the world's 
developing nations.
  I thank the gentleman for the time.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman, and I would yield back the 
balance of my time.

                          ____________________