[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14876-14877]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     MORE DEBATE NEEDED ON WAR VOTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Rangel) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, it is 10:40, September 17, 2014. And for me, 
this is an historic event, because I will be able to tell my grandkids 
and those who would listen that on the eve of the House of 
Representatives taking a vote that would expand the war powers of the 
President of the United States, that I stood in the well of the House 
talking to a House that was void of any Member of the House of 
Representatives.
  I make this point not so much to indicate the importance of anything 
I might say this morning, but because I really think that the whole 
country should be concerned about the gravity and importance of the 
vote that we take today, which in my 44 years I cannot think of any 
vote that is more important and certainly more historic.
  It goes unchallenged that the vote today would expose more members of 
the military to bodily harm. It is clear that the administration has 
called this a war on ISIS or ISIL. It is abundantly clear that the 
threat to our national security is subject to a whole lot of debate. 
And while I may not have the answer to whether or not there is a 
threat, to me, I cannot think of anything more important than the 435 
Members of the House and the 100 Members of the other body, at least 
before we vote, to be able to debate this issue.
  I intend to vote against the amendment that would include an 
expansion of our military venture, which means that I will be forced to 
vote against the concurrent resolution. But I think the House Members, 
Republicans and Democrats, should resent the fact that these votes are 
combined into one vote.
  The vote as to whether or not it is constitutional, the vote as to 
whether or not it is a threat to the United States security, the vote 
as to how we

[[Page 14877]]

are going to pay for it, the vote in terms of who is going to make the 
sacrifices, these are the things that should be debated. There is no 
lawful reason why these two issues have to be joined in one vote.
  I do hope I get an opportunity to bring an amendment to the authority 
of the President to use military force by conditioning it to two 
things: that if this Congress and the American people believe that we 
have a threat to our national security, then by all means we should be 
prepared to make the sacrifices to protect our country.
  What are those sacrifices? Well, one is financial sacrifice. Because 
the trillions of dollars that was spent--I think it is close to $6 
trillion since we have been involved in the Middle East--most of the 
profits have been made by the military industrial complex. But the $6 
trillion comes out of our budget, and there is not a war tax. I think 
we need that.
  The other question has to be that we cannot dismiss the military that 
is in Iraq today and those that may be in that area, whose lives are 
endangered. That is less than 1 percent of United States population is 
making the sacrifice. We already lost 6,800 American lives in this war, 
and it is very difficult to explain to their families and friends at 
funerals what the cause was or whether we won or lost.
  But the question should be once we make a determination that there is 
a threat to our national security, we should have the mandatory 
Selective Service Act reinstated. We already have it on the books. We 
should activate it to make certain that if you are voting to put more 
men and women's lives into jeopardy, make certain it is universal men 
and women would be selected to make certain that they provide for a 
national service of some sort.
  So what I am suggesting is that I can never believe that this country 
would be voting this day and that the debates would be that I would be 
talking to an empty Chamber in pleading for the American people that if 
you are going to make a decision that we should really go to war, 
because there is a threat to the security of the United States of 
America, one, that should not be debated just on the question of the 
continuance of support of the budget of the United States.

                          ____________________