Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives supporting the goals and ideals of Campus Fire Safety Month, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to address the House.

And to my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle, it sounds like our past colleague Mr. Snyder and his family served our country well, and we appreciate his contributions to our country in serving in public service.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, this is the first night of business, returning back from the Presidents Day break. Before we left we had a week-long debate on the question of Iraq, a nonbinding resolution opposing the troop escalation that the President has put forth at this time.

And the discussion continues, Mr. Speaker, as we start, Democrats and Republicans, molding out the direction that we have to head in in this country. The American people, Mr. Speaker, voted for change and a new direction. And to bring about that kind of change and new direction, there are going to have to be some votes here on this floor that are going to speak volumes back home of how we are going to proceed from this point on and how we are going to assist our men and women in harm's way and how we are going to deal with this issue in Iraq and in Afghanistan and other domestic issues that we have here.

I am very pleased to not only share with the Members, Mr. Speaker, but also with the American people the fact that 246 Members of the House voted in the affirmative to disagree with the President as it relates to the recent troop escalation of some 20,000 combat troops and anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000 support personnel being sent to Iraq, which was announced by the President on January 10 of this year.

I think it is very, very important to note that that was a nonbinding resolution. Even though it was nonbinding, it really set the course for the Congress to play a role.

I think the reason why we are in the majority, and when I say ``we,'' the Democrats are in the majority right now, Mr. Speaker, is not the fact that our message was better than the Republican message in the last election. I think the American people were counting on change and heading in a new direction.

So it is important, and I am encouraging the Members in a bipartisan way, that we work very hard to give the American people what they want and to give the men and women in uniform what they need. I think that is a Congress having oversight hearings; a Congress debating the issues as it relates to troop readiness; a Congress that is willing to take the tough votes when they need to be taken; to be able to provide the kind of leadership from the congressional oversight end.

The President is the commander-in-chief. That is outlined in the Constitution. No one is really trying to bother that or hinder that. We just want to make sure that the troops have what they need when they go into harm's way, need it be Iraq or Afghanistan.

I mentioned a little earlier in my talk about readiness. I think it is important that we identify this, because it is used a lot here on the floor. Being a member of the Armed Services Committee and having had an opportunity to travel to Iraq twice, and looking forward to going back soon and going to Afghanistan and other areas where we have a military presence, readiness is very, very important.

Readiness is almost like if you have an illness and you are going in for a major operation, you want to make sure that that doctor has what he or she needs to be able to carry out your procedure.

I think it is important as we look at our National Guard and we look at our Reservists and we look at our active duty that they have what they need to carry out the mission if they are sent to Iraq. You can't go unless you have up-armored Humvees that are going to match the mission. You should not go and we should not send them if they don't have the Kevlar vests that they need. They should not go and we should not send them if they don't have the kind of backing that they need from a support standpoint that is trained and ready for the mission in Baghdad, need it be door-to-door searches, need it be guerilla warfare, need it be the general equipment one may need to carry out that mission.

There is nothing wrong with the word ``readiness.'' I put it in the category, Mr. Speaker, of responsibility. I think it is important. I think it is irresponsible for us to send men and women into harm's way without the necessary tools that they need.

Now, there are some Members that are saying, well, why do you have Members concerned? A colonel told us or the President told us or I read somewhere in a news release or I saw on the news that they have everything they need, and why would we send them over there in the first place? We all have their best interests at heart.

I am going to share with Members, Mr. Speaker, that being a member of the Armed Services Committee in the last two Congresses and this Congress too, I have seen the Secretary of Defense say they have what they need. ``Anything the troops need, we will give it to them.'' And later I will pick up a news account that they don't have what they need, or go to Walter Reed and talk to a soldier that ended up being blown up in a Humvee because of an improvised explosive device, because that Humvee did not have the up-armor that it needed. It is the total opposite of what I hear here on Capitol Hill and what I have seen at Walter Reed.

Let's take Walter Reed out. I have gone to Germany, Mr. Speaker. I have seen service men and women without legs. They didn't have what they needed. We were told they had what they needed, but they didn't have it.

Just 2 weeks ago, last week during the debate, I think it was on Tuesday or Wednesday, I was at the White House for a meeting and we had an opportunity to ask the President questions and I had an opportunity to ask the President a question. And I shared with the President, we talked the nonbinding resolution. The President agreed he thought that it would pass here on the floor because the votes were there. He has people that are counting these votes.

I said, ``Mr. President, I think it is important as we look at this as being a nonbinding resolution, there will be a binding resolution or a binding supplemental, emergency supplemental for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there will be language in there, and you shouldn't have a problem with it, to say that we should not send the troops unless they are ready. I am not talking about mentally, I am talking about having the equipment they need to carry out the mission and not find themselves in harm's way without having the kind of backing that they need to be able to carry out the mission once again.''

Of course, the President came back in a very roaring voice saying, ``Kendrick, do you believe that I would send men and women into harm's way? I hear about the funerals. I write the letters and I call the families. You believe that I would do that?''

I don't believe that the President would do that. But let me just share this with you: It has happened, and I think it is important that we realize that it is happening.

Yes, if I am talking to a friend of mine and they are saying, well, you know, I know there have been reports of the new car that I bought, that it has some sort of problem with the engine that has come out in the auto report or what have you, but I am going to be okay regardless.

Maybe it is not the best analogy that I can come up with at this point, but we have been told that the troops have what they need, we have been told they are ready for the mission that they are being sent to, and we found out otherwise later.

Now, Mr. Speaker, it gives me no pleasure, and Members, it gives me no pleasure, we are at 3,154 men and women in uniform that are dead now. We appreciate their contributions to our country and we appreciate the way that they have applied themselves on behalf of what we sent them over to do. But I will tell you standing here as a Member of Congress, that some of these deaths could have been prevented if they had what they needed.

Now, Members can go back and forth on how you feel about leadering up, manning up and womaning up to be able to do what you need to do as a Member of Congress to fight on behalf of these individuals. I am not questioning anyone's patriotism. I am not questioning anyone's integrity. I am not even questioning any Member of Congress' will or desire to make sure that we give the troops what they need.

I believe we all are well-intended. But we have to make sure that when that man or woman leaves their family on a tarmac, need it be at an active duty military camp or at a commercial airport where you have Reserve and

National Guard individuals that are leaving to go into harm's way, it is our duty and our responsibility as Members of Congress that have oversight of the taxpayer dollars to make sure, even though someone has said it is going to be okay, but to make sure that they have what they need. It is that simple.

So, I was not shocked, Mr. Speaker, by seeing the bipartisan vote before we left on President's break. I am definitely not a prophet and I am not a psychic, but I knew, based on the message from the American people, Democrats and Republicans, I am not just talking about proud Democrats kind of got together and said hey, let's do this. We don't have 246 Members here in this House on the majority right now, so it took 17 Republicans to come along with Democrats or to be with Democrats or to be with individuals that understood that message last November from the American people.

As far as I am concerned, in the 30-something Working Group, we don't focus on issues, ``let's go to the floor and make sure we gain a greater majority.'' Not when it comes to national security. Not when it comes to the very heartbeats and the way of life of those individuals that put their lives on the line and those that have put their lives on the line in the past, and I am going to talk about them a little later, Mr. Speaker.

You don't play politics with that. That is national security. That is someone's daddy, that is someone's mother, that is someone's son, that is someone's daughter that may not come home because someone told someone else in Washington, D.C. that it was going to be okay.

Now, there are a lot of folks around here editorializing on what Mr. Murtha is talking about from Pennsylvania, who is an outstanding Member of the Congress and also happens to be the chairman of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee.

I think it is important that we look at someone who is a decorated Marine, that has fought for us to salute one flag, who served in Congress double digit years, that still is willing to serve this country. We have someone that is willing to say I voted for the war, as Mr. Murtha did, and to say that I have been to Iraq, I have had oversight hearings, and I must add that he has had more oversight hearings since this Congress has been active in the last 2 months than they had in the entire 109th Congress with 2 years combined and then some.

And that the committee is hard at work to make sure that when those family members look at those men and women that are going into harm's way, that they know, not maybe, not, well, you know, I am trying to get there.

I heard what the President said. I heard what the Secretary of Defense said. I even heard a member of the brass say it. When they go out on patrol, and I am not a military person and I am not going to represent myself as someone who has served in uniform. I have just been a State trooper and I have been an elected official for 13 years, and I have served here in this Congress for the last 4 years and a couple of months. And I have been federalized by the people that elected me from the Seventeenth Congressional District.

I will tell you this: I know what my job is, and I know what Mr. Murtha's job is, and I know what the job of all of the Members of Congress, including the Members of the Senate and the President of the United States and the people that he appoints, that we need to make sure, we need to make sure beyond 100 percent, we need to make sure 160 percent, if we can, 200 percent, that those men and women that go into war, that their chance to come back to this country the way they left is our paramount duty.

So, I am not really tied up in a debate, Mr. Speaker, and I don't think here on this side of the aisle and even some of the Members on the other side of the aisle are tied up in the debate about the details of the obvious.

The obvious is, Mr. Speaker, the fact that the troops should have what they need when they go into harm's way. Why are we even talking about that? Why are some Members objecting to that being in the emergency supplemental, to say that they should have what they need to go into war? If it wasn't so serious, it would be funny. So I think the Members, we need to kind of put that to the side and say that there are other issues that we have to deal with.

Profiteering of the war, reams and reams of paper, Inspector General reports of how U.S. contractors have been fleecing of the U.S. taxpayer dollar. Our paramount, one of our fiscal paramount responsibilities is to make sure that the Federal tax dollar is not only appropriated, but disseminated in the right way to make sure that ultimate accountability is paramount once again.

So I am excited about what is happening here, Mr. Speaker, I am excited about the debate that is taking place, and I am excited about the forward progress that we are making in that area.

I just want to address one more thing before I turn it over to my colleague, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

Mr. Speaker, I was very disturbed last week and have been disturbed, and here in the 30-Something Working Group, we have been talking quite a bit about our veterans. Now, I mentioned that a little earlier because the veterans, we say we are the 30-something Working Group. A lot of those veterans are 30-something now. Many of them are even 20- something, because of their service. Some of them are 40 and 50- something. And they are coming back.

In the last Congress, in the 109th and 108th, those were the only two Congresses I can account for, because beyond that it was my mother serving here, and I am pretty sure that I can get a good account from her about what happened or I can research in the Congressional Record, we have Members coming to the floor chest-beating, ``Oh, I support the men and women in uniform and our veterans, and I am going to be in the veterans parade and I am going to wave and carry on and I am going to let them know that I love them.''

Well, let me just say this: In the 108th and the 109th Congresses, veteran benefits were cut, period. They were cut. And as we continue to talk about it, as we continue to dissect the President's budget, this document here, as we continue to dissect this budget here, find out what is in it and what is not in it, what is going to be given to the American people and what is going to be taken away, we are going to find out where this administration falls and the old majority in this House falls on the issue of veterans.

Now, I can speak, and I know we can speak, in a very bold voice when we talk about our commitment to veterans. I have a veterans hospital in my district. I have actually two. When I go and visit, I look at those men and women. They could have served back in Korea, World War II. I even met a gentleman who served in Grenada, Haiti, 82nd Airborne. You have these individuals that are there. Vietnam, that are there. Some folks may not know that they served, but we know they served.

Our responsibility in Congress is not to just carry on and talk about how we support the men and women in uniform and those who have served, and we honor them and we appreciate them; but I think it is important that we speak with our dollars and our commitment here as Members of Congress.

In January of 2003, the Bush administration cuts off veterans health care for 164,000 veterans. That is on our Web site.

March 2003, the Republican budget cuts $14 billion from veterans health care. That was passed by Congress with 199 Democrats voting against that measure of cutting the $14 billion.

In March 2004, the Republican budget shortchanged veterans health care again by $1.5 billion. That was passed by the Congress, 201 Democrats voting against that measure.

March 2005, President Bush's budget shortchanges veterans health care again by more than $2 billion. Again, 201 Democrats voted against that. This was House Resolution 95. The vote number was 98.

In the 30-Something Working Group, we actually pull information from the Congressional Record. I think it is important that Members and the American people realize that.

Again, November 2005, the Bush administration as it relates to the shortfall, Democrats fought that summer to be able to get back the $2.7 billion that was taken out. And we have a member

of the Appropriations Committee here, but in the last continuing resolution because the Republicans did not do their job, Mr. Speaker, in making sure that the work was done when the Democratic Congress took over, they couldn't get all of the bills passed. They just kept punting down the street. In our continuing resolution, we retooled Members' projects and other nonissues that weren't a priority because of the thirst that veterans have and the Department of Veterans has to provide the services for our men and women that serve. The Democrats increased the VA health care budget by $3.6 billion in a joint funding resolution. I say all of that to indicate it is important that we do this.

One last point. While we were on break, The Washington Post: ``Soldiers face neglect and frustration at Army top medical facility'' here in Washington, D.C., Walter Reed Hospital. This is a Washington Post article, Sunday, February 18, 2007. It was dropped here on my doorstep in Washington, D.C. I read this, and it was a follow-up article. I think it is important that the American people and Members of Congress pay close attention to what is happening.

You have patients and outpatients that are saying that Walter Reed, they are encountering a messy bureaucratic battlefield that reminds them of the real one that they faced overseas.

It also talks in this article about rats and mice and dead insects in this hospital. Smells and carpet stains.

Again, Mr. Speaker, our job, yes, we say we support the troops. Yes, we say we support veterans. We are supposed to say that. But when we come here and we take our voting card out and we go to these committees, we have to make sure that we follow through on what we say.

So I am excited by the fact that by reading everything that I have read about what has happened in the last two Congresses and beyond, that we have already put $3.6 billion, and we haven't had a full cycle to be able to even dissect the budget and to appropriate. So saying that, I want to pass it over to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), a good friend of mine. I am glad she is here to shed light on our message here tonight.

I thank you so very much for yielding. I think it is important for us to also realize that the next action that we will probably, no probably, we will have on Iraq, Mr. Speaker and Members, will be the $99.6 billion emergency supplemental to the war. And I think it is important that we pay very close attention to this vote that is coming up and what leads up to that vote.

I spoke earlier about making sure that troop readiness, that troops have what they need when they go. I spoke of going to get a procedure done. You have a medical procedure that needs to be done, the first thing you want to check and make sure is the doctor has what he or she needs to be able to complete the procedure, because you do want to get up from that table one day.

This is very, very important. And I think that as we continue to talk about this issue of Iraq, it is our responsibility; we cannot critique the present administration or the past majority in this House if we do the same thing they did and expect different results. That is just not going to happen. We know that those that have come before us, whatever authority they might have been from the executive branch, and said they have what they need, we have the up-armored Humvees, we have all the things that they need when they get there. We were told that. And, better yet, we still have men and women at Walter Reed and other veterans hospitals, military hospitals throughout this country and even in Germany, and I visited twice, that are without legs because they didn't have the up-armored Humvees that they needed.

So saying all of that, the debate is going to be: Are we going to do the same thing that the Republican majority did, saying that we talk a good game about standing up on behalf of the troops and we disagree with the President on certain issues as it relates to Iraq? But if we do what they did, which was very little, then what happened in November will not reach its full potential in making sure that we head in a new direction.

So I think it is important that we take this in a very strong way, and I am glad that we had 17 Republicans join us on a nonbinding resolution before we left here, the last big action that we took before we left on Presidents' break. And I encourage more of my Republican colleagues to be a part of this movement in the new direction. I think it is very, very important. I think there have been a lot of things that have been highlighted. I know that the whole coalition of the willing will soon be the coalition of one, because we are going to be the only country that is left. There is a lot of rhetoric going on, we have to be there because we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here. I don't hear Great Britain saying that. I don't hear some of the other countries that have announced their departure and those that have left Iraq.

I am one to believe, just as a single Member, that there will be a U.S. presence for some time in the region. But at the levels that we are now, over 143,000 troops and counting, it is going to be very difficult for us to continue to sell to the American people that there is a great need to keep those kinds of levels there. And as you spoke earlier about the readiness issue, this is very, very important. This is very, very important. I mean, we wouldn't want to get the word out to the undesirables here in the United States of America to say that law enforcement here is not ready to deal with major crimes here in the United States of America. We definitely don't want to get the word out to the rest of the world that we are not prepared to defend ourselves in a way that we should and need to be prepared to be able to defend ourselves or help our allies in the future.

So I think that is important. It is something not to take lightly. A lot of work has to be done here. A lot of tough votes have to be taken. And we have to communicate with the Members and the American people to not let them fall behind as we go through reforming this House and reforming the legislative presence in this whole debate on Iraq.

Thank you so very much, Mr. Murphy. And I want to thank Mr. Altmire for joining us and also Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I want to thank the Democratic leadership for allowing us to have one more 30-something Working Group hour.

With that, Mr. Speaker, it was an honor addressing the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 675 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman please state his point of order?

Mr. Speaker, I move to table the appeal of the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous materials into the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 6 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 675 provides a rule for consideration of the Senate amendments to H.R. 976, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act.

The rule permits the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce to move that the House concur in the Senate amendments with the amendments printed in the Rules Committee report.

The rule waives all points of order against the motion except those arising under clause 10 of rule XXI.

Finally, the rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided among and controlled by the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today represents a defining historic moment for this House. Members of this body will be faced with the simple choice: Will you vote to provide health insurance to millions of children, or will you vote to take health insurance away from the children who currently have it?

Today, over 45 million people living in this country woke up without health care. Millions of them are children whose families make too much to be eligible for Medicaid but not enough to purchase their own insurance.

Studies have shown that the number of uninsured children jumped by 710,000

last year. That is unconscionable; and under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi and the new Democratic Congress, we have begun to change it.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, currently provides health care to over 6 million children; but the program will expire in just 6 days unless we act to reauthorize it.

Historically, the SCHIP program has enjoyed bipartisan support. The bill before us today represents a careful, bipartisan compromise that enjoys the support of people like Senator Chuck Grassley, Senator Orrin Hatch, Congressman Ray LaHood, and Congresswoman Heather Wilson.

Frankly, Mr. Speaker, the bill before us does not go as far as I would like. I prefer the bill this House passed a few weeks ago. The House-passed bill not only expanded the SCHIP program to 1 million more children than the bill we'll be voting on today; it also leveled the playing field by adjusting the reimbursements for the Medicare Advantage Program, a program that is in dire need of reform. But I will not and I cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the very good, and this is a very good bill.

Under this agreement, health insurance coverage will be provided to millions of children who do not have it today. Quality dental coverage will be provided to all enrolled children. The agreement ensures that States will offer mental health services on par with medical and surgical benefits covered under SCHIP, and the bill also provides States the option to cover prenatal care, ensuring healthy babies and healthy moms.

Now, contrary to the White House rhetoric, the bulk of the children who would gain coverage are poor and near-poor children who are uninsured, not middle-income children with private coverage.

The President would like to suggest that SCHIP is Congress's way of socializing medicine and undermining private health insurance plans, which is interesting, considering that just yesterday this bill was endorsed by America's Health Insurance Plans, the Nation's largest insurance lobbying group. It is also important to note, Mr. Speaker, that this bill is fully paid for. This represents a sharp change from earlier bills that the President enthusiastically supported from the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill to the Republican energy plans to his tax cuts for the rich, which were all financed by massive amounts of deficit spending.

The President has threatened to veto this bill, Mr. Speaker. That takes my breath away. He didn't veto billions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies that were gouging people at the pump. He didn't veto billions of dollars in no-bid defense contracts. But he will veto a modest bipartisan bill to provide health care coverage for millions of low- and moderate-income American children?

Now, some of my friends on the other side of the aisle would say that we should simply extend the current SCHIP program, but what they won't tell you is that the spending level supported by the President is not enough even to provide continued coverage for all the children who are currently enrolled. In other words, Mr. Speaker, those who support the President would take health care away from over 800,000 kids who have it today. That is not acceptable. That is cruel.

As the Catholic Health Association has said, ``Temporary extensions and/or inadequate funding levels will lead to children losing coverage. That would be an enormous step back for our Nation and a retreat from our collective commitment to cover uninsured children.''

Mr. Speaker, this is a defining moment for this Congress. With a ``yes'' vote on this bill, we can improve the lives of millions of children and their families. A ``no'' vote is a vote to take health care away from some of the most vulnerable members of the American family.

The choice is clear. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the underlying bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to our next speaker, I just respond to the gentleman from Texas by saying, he talks about this Republican vision for health care; but if my memory is serving me correctly, the Republicans were in charge of the Congress for many years, too many years, if you ask me, and they had the President of the United States of the same party while they were in control of both Congresses.

What they presided over with all their control, this Republican vision that the gentleman from Texas talks about, resulted in more and more and more, millions and millions more Americans falling into the ranks of the uninsured. And many of them are children. Too many are children. We are trying to fix that here. We think it is unconscionable in the richest country on the face of this Earth that millions of children go without health insurance.

Let me just say one other thing. The gentleman made an allusion, too, that this bill would make it easier to enroll illegal immigrants. I want to ask my friend from Texas to read the bill. Section 605, no Federal funds for illegal immigrants. Nothing in this Act allows Federal payment for residents who are not legal residents.

Now, I know that immigrant bashing is the last bastion of the politically desperate, but the fact of the matter is facts are facts. And on documentation, only my Republican friends would argue that poor children should have passports as though they are jetting off to Paris for the spring fashion shows.

The bottom line is, what the gentleman is raising on that level is totally unwarranted.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Loebsack).

I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question of the gentleman from California.

We have all of our time scheduled. I'm sorry.

We are literally filled up.

Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry that the gentleman from California wasn't impressed with the names of the Republican legislators that I met who, I think, have impeccable conservative credentials. But this is a bipartisan effort. In fact, unlike when he was the chairman of the Rules Committee and his party was in control of Congress, bipartisanship now means more than just one Member of the opposing party.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert in the Record a letter that's in enthusiastic support of this bill sent to Speaker Pelosi signed by 16 other Republicans, and there are many, many more who I hope will support this bill.

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, September 19, 2007.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Speaker, House of Representatives, The Capitol, Washington,

Mr. Speaker, let me just say a couple of things with regard to process. The gentleman knows, everybody else knows, the gentleman should know that his Republican colleagues in the Senate blocked a motion to go to conference.

The SCHIP program expires in 6 days, and we don't have time for a House version of a filibuster. A dozen States will run out of SCHIP funding if we do not act. Now is the time to act. So if you want to make sure that those currently enrolled continue to get the health care coverage, then you've got to vote for this. And if you want more children to be enrolled, then you have to vote for this.

On the issue of legal immigrants, I agree. I think all of us here agree that the legal immigrants should be included. The reality is there were not enough Republicans who agree. The Republican leadership has been awful on this issue. And the Republicans in the Senate have said that adding a legal immigrant provision would have killed the bill in the Senate. That is the gentleman's party.

Let me also remind Members of this House that you had an opportunity to vote for an SCHIP that covered legal immigrants. That is what we voted on here in the House, and you all voted ``no.'' You voted ``no'' on that. You voted not to extend coverage for those legal immigrants in this country, those children of legal immigrants. So I'm not quite sure what you're trying to do here, other than trying to delay this process so we don't get this bill passed.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

(Ms. MATSUI asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, let me remind my colleagues that this program expires in 6 days and that the Republicans in the Senate blocked a motion to go to conference. That's why we are here. The other reason why we are here is we want to make sure that 10 million children in this country get health insurance.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee (Mr. Rangel).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).

(Mr. LANGEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying that this is a proud day for the House of Representatives. If we can pass the bill and send it to the President, that will guarantee 10 million children who don't have health insurance currently that they will get health insurance. That is something we can be proud of. That is an accomplishment. That is results.

We have heard a lot of excuses from the other side. A lot of my friends say, ``I love SCHIP, but I just don't want to vote for it. I love all of our children in this country. I believe everybody should have insurance, but I am not willing to vote to make sure that they have insurance.''

Well, Mr. Speaker, that doesn't cut it. The American people are sick of the stalling tactics. They are sick of the excuses. They are sick of the lack of results that they have seen in the area of making sure that everybody in this country gets health insurance. And that is one of the reasons why, I should tell the gentleman from Texas, why his party lost in the last election, because it was perceived by the American people that his party wasn't responding to the real challenges and the real needs of the American people, that they were indifferent to the plight of uninsured children across this country.

It is time to do the right thing, Mr. Speaker. As I said in the very beginning of this debate, the choice really is very simple, will you vote to provide health insurance to millions of children, or will you vote to take health insurance away from children who currently have it? This is the choice. Voting ``no'' or voting for all the procedural motions that the gentleman from Texas has put forward will basically result in children currently who have insurance losing that insurance, because the President's plan doesn't provide nearly enough money to cover those who are already enrolled in the program. But we need to do better.

The bottom line is that we are the richest country on the face of the Earth. It is unconscionable that every person in this country does not have health care. It is even more outrageous that our children don't have health insurance. It is, quite frankly, outrageous that the President of the United States is holding a veto threat over this bill, a bill to guarantee that more of our children have health insurance. Of all the things he could possibly veto, this is where he draws the line in the sand when it comes to making sure that our kids get the health care they deserve? It takes my breath away when I think that this is the issue that he chooses to have a fight over, health insurance for our children. I am grateful that there are Republicans who are going to join with us on this vote.

So, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, today is a defining moment for an insatiable appetite that the new Democrat majority has for spending, spending taxpayer dollars and going well beyond the mission statement of SCHIP. And that is what the day is all about. It is a defining moment with the new Democrat majority seeking a way to have single payer-funded health care for all America. And that is the road that we are defining and beginning again today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this completely closed rule that fails to even provide the minority with a motion to recommit, and to the underlying legislation that the minority did not receive until 6:30 last night.

When I came to the floor in the beginning of August to oppose the previous version of this legislation, I explained my opposition to the way that it had been brought to the floor without a single legislative markup. And, unfortunately, again today that fact has not changed. In fact, neither Republican leadership nor Republican members on the House Energy and Commerce Committee had an opportunity to participate in the crafting of the 250-plus pages of legislative language this entire House was provided with just a little bit more than 12 hours ago.

Despite the terrible process surrounding this legislation from start to finish, I would like to once again thank the Democrat leadership for one thing: By cramming this bill through the House for a second time, they are giving every single Member of this body another opportunity to go on record regarding which vision they have for the future of our Nation's health care system that they truly support.

The first vision for our future is to slowly shift away as many Americans as is possible into a one-size-fits-all Washington bureaucrat-run program. And, if nothing else, I congratulate the Democrat leadership for their clarity, because that vision is embodied in H.R. 976.

Rather than taking the opportunity to cover the children who cannot obtain coverage through Medicaid or the private marketplace, this bill uses these children as pawns in their cynical attempt to make millions of Americans completely reliant upon the government for their health care needs.

H.R. 976 also increases government spending and dislocates the private marketplace, leaving taxpayers holding the bag for these increased costs. This bill generally raises the income threshold for eligibility and allows States to qualify anyone receiving these funds, including childless adults and people making over $80,000 a year, despite the fact that this diverts these much needed funds away from helping our Nation's most poorest children.

It would also allow illegal immigrants and aliens to receive these benefits by forcing States to accept nonsecure documents as proof of citizenship for purposes of receiving these funds. I find it both ironic and unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, that the party of Hillary Clinton and bureaucrat-run health care would float a proposal in which law- abiding citizens are made to show proof of insurance as a condition of employment, while this legislation would open the door for ineligible and illegal immigrants to receive federally funded benefits, no questions asked.

All of these problems exist on top of a current system which we know that some States already abuse. This bill grandfathers in New York's standard, which provides Federal assistance to those making four times the poverty level, and in New Jersey at 3\1/2\ times, while allowing every other State to expand coverage to three times the current poverty level.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the crowd-out effect created by this big government bill that replaces private insurance with a government program will not provide coverage to more kids. By the CBO estimate, it simply will shift 2.4 million children out of private insurance and into a Federal program that hurts doctors and hospitals by forcing them to deal with government bureaucrats that short-change both patients and providers by undercompensating them for medical services.

If Democrats were serious about ensuring that every American had access to inexpensive and high-quality health care, we would be talking about a different vision today for our health care, one that tackles the system's real underlying problems and revolutionizes our health care system to provide us

with better results. This other, Republican vision for improving health access to health insurance includes allowing families to have access to tax exemptions up to $15,000 a year for health care, not just those who work for large employers.

The Republican vision includes giving Americans the ability to purchase health insurance across State lines, because healthy insurance options should not be limited to the State you live in or your zip code. It also includes having Congress act to ensure that those who can't get insurance in the marketplace have access to coverage through high-risk pools and low-income tax credits.

Mr. Speaker, I am not here to oppose the idea of SCHIP. It was a Republican-controlled Congress that created SCHIP, and I support its original, true mission. But H.R. 976 is a camouflaged attempt at slowly siphoning Americans from insurance plans into a Washington, D.C., bureaucrat-run system.

Mr. Speaker, today we fail to address one of the most serious issues facing our Nation: how to make our health insurance system more affordable and accessible for all Americans. And by focusing on the wrong vision for our future, this bill does nothing to address either problem. It ignores the fact that our Nation has produced the greatest health care advantages in the world, many of which have come as a result of our competitive insurance market.

The American survival rate for leukemia is 50 percent; the European rate is just about 35 percent. For prostate cancer, the American survival rate is 81 percent; in France, it is 62 percent; in England, it is 44 percent.

Rather than trying to emulate Europe and its outdated socialized approach, we should be working on a vision to give every single American an opportunity to take part in our competitive insurance market. I encourage my colleagues to oppose this rule and the underlying legislation to drag America into a one-size-fits-all European model.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield to the gentleman from San Dimas, California, the ranking member on the Rules Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) 6 minutes.

(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ennis, Texas, the ranking member on Energy and Commerce (Mr. Barton).

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, a father and a patriot (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to oppose the previous question so that I may amend the rule to allow for consideration of H. Res. 479, a resolution that I call the ``Earmark Accountability Rule.'' It seems like we need a lot more accountability. We had to learn today that through a loophole that evidently we don't have to have all earmarks to be accounted for in the bills that come to this floor of the House of Representatives despite what we were told just a few months ago.

Last night in the ``Graveyard of Good Ideas,'' which is the Rules Committee, I made a motion that would have the Democrats enforce their own earmark proposal by allowing points of order regarding earmarks to be raised on this legislation. As expected, the vote failed along party lines with every Democrat member present voting to waive their own earmark rules for this bill. I am greatly disappointed in that outcome. So today I am giving the entire House, not just the nine Democrat members of the Rules Committee, whose word we are expected to take that this legislation contains no earmarks, an opportunity to correct that mistake.

This rules change would simply allow the House to debate openly and honestly about the validity and accuracy of earmarks contained in all bills, not just appropriations bills. If we defeat the previous question, we can address that problem today and restore this Congress' nonexistent credibility when it comes to the enforcement of its own rules.

I ask unanimous consent to have the text of this amendment and extraneous material appear in the Record just before the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, today, once again, we have a rule that is on the floor of the House of Representatives that is neither open nor I think passes the standard of accountability to the American people nor fairness that they spoke about. Last night, the Rules Committee and minority received this bill just 1 hour and 15 minutes before the Rules Committee was to meet. It involved no feedback from Republican Members, especially those who have jurisdiction over this from the Energy and Commerce Committee.

I am disappointed. I am disappointed that, once again, we have to come to the floor of the House of Representatives after asking a straightforward question last night to the chairman of the Rules Committee, ``Are there any earmarks in this legislation? We think we found three,'' only to come to the floor today and find out, oops, no, we got a loophole, had to find a loophole.

This is crass. It is really politics over policy. I know many people want the United States House of Representatives to be higher in the polls. We are at 11 percent right now. People scratch their head and wonder why. Well, with the way that this House is running, not living up to their word, even the word in committee among colleagues who have been with each other for 9 years that I have been on the Rules Committee where a person looked right at me and said, ``There is nothing in that bill,'' I think we can do better.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

If the gentlelady would yield for a moment, let us also think about what this message is to those that would sign up for this volunteer military force being sent to defend our country overseas. Not only is this unconscionable to those who have sacrificed everything to fight for this country in Afghanistan and Iraq, but think about those who we are asking to join the Armed Forces. We don't have a draft any more, and many people are thankful for that. We rely on the decisions by courageous men and women across this country to join voluntarily our Armed Forces.

So when they see people coming back from these wars, being treated without the basic dignity that any of us would expect those men and women to be treated with, I would think, I hope it doesn't, but I would think it might give pause to those that would join our military.

So I think of this from a point of conscience deep inside me, and I also think about it from a standpoint of national security. What kind of signal are we sending to those who are going to be the next generation of troops when this is how we treat them when they come back.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Altmire. Your veterans in your district and veterans across this country have you to thank, along with others, that you helped rally to the cause to make sure that the continuing resolution that we passed here, which is effectively the Act that keeps the government operating, that provides the resources to different agencies, including the Veterans Administration, you made sure that that bill had the proper resources in it for our veterans.

Here is the good news. We are talking about what is past and we also have to talk about the prologue as well. A new sheriff is in town, and the good news for veterans and for the American people is that we are going to make those investments in veterans health care. We are going to change things in this Congress. Mr. Altmire and I ran in part to make those changes, and Mr. Meek and Ms. Wasserman Schultz stood up here night after night after night making the case for that change.

If the American people spoke out about many things, one of them certainly was that part of our change in foreign policy had to be doing justice to those veterans. So I hope that when people hear us talk about some of the bad things happening within our veterans system here, they understand that we are only saying it because we are part of the movement which is going to change that.

The Disabled Veterans of America were in my office today, and they shared with me a pretty remarkable statistic, and I hope I get it right. In previous foreign conflicts, the ratio of those killed to those that were wounded in battle was 3 to 1 wounded to killed in action. In this conflict, it is 16 to 1. Now, that is great news, that we have made advances in protection for our soldiers, in armor, in the ability of our medical professionals to intervene on the battlefield that we are saving that many lives. It is a tragedy that one is lost, never mind the 3,000.

The stress, though, that that puts on our system is a great one. We have more and more wounded, more severely wounded coming into our hospitals, and it means that we have to step up to meet that new obligation. We are so lucky to have people coming back that can still go on to lead productive lives, but only if we provide them with those resources.

The other story that they told me was of the number of young soldiers just back from this war who are ending up in in-patient care in our State veterans hospitals, those that have been afflicted not just by the physical wounds, but by the mental wounds as well.

Our obligation has to be not just to treat the broken bones, the damaged bodies, but also to the mental stress that these brave men and women have come back with.

I just want to talk for a minute about who we are talking about here, because we have fought previous battles in a very different way. We have relied largely on our enlisted men and women to fight these wars, and I think we need to remember who we are asking to go over to Iraq and to Afghanistan to fight because no longer is it just our enlisted men.

We are treating our National Guard basically like they are our normal Army today. Sometimes we forget that. It is good we are the 30- something Working Group here because sometimes young people that have only seen this conflict think that that is how things are, that the National Guard and the Reserve are sort of like everybody else and they get sent over there, and that is what they signed up for. Well, that is not what they signed up for. That is not how we have conducted our military interventions in the past.

We have zero active duty or Reserve brigades in the United States right now that are considered combat ready. We have 84,000 members of the National Guard and Reserve that have been deployed two times or more since 2001. The average mobilization for a Reserve or National Guard member is 18 months, and now, as we are learning that the President is once again going to rely on National Guard forces to be part of this new escalation in Iraq, we are finding out that these forces, as they get ready in their hometowns and their home States, are not even close to combat ready in terms of the equipment they need.

The Oklahoma National Guard reports that one-third of their members do not have the M-4 rifles.

We are talking about the best of the best. If anyone was able to operate and achieve under the strain, it is the men and women in our Armed Forces, and so we expect a lot of them because we know the training they have been through. We know the kind of people they are, but we have asked so much of them that we can ask very little more.

We do differentiate at some level between our enlisted men and our National Guard and Reserve troops, and I think it is appropriate because when you are talking about them, you are talking about ripping somebody out of a family, out of a community.

These are not just fathers and mothers. These are small businessmen. These are employees. These are employers. These are members of the PTA. These are members of the Elks Club. These are people who hold communities together. That is the type of people that our members of the Armed Forces are. Those people that sign up for the Reserve and National Guard do that because they have this commitment to their community, and it does not end with their commitment to their military service. They are part of the community in ways that a lot of other people are not.

So when you talk about bringing people out two or three times to serve in the Reserve and National Guard, you are breaking up families and communities. That is why we had an enlisted service.

I think one of the discussions that we will have going forward, and one that I think will be bipartisan agreement on, as there has been with most everything we have done here, is that we need to have an honest conversation about increasing the troop strength of our military, increasing numbers of troops that are enlisted and doing this as a permanent job, because it has gotten to the end of the limit of a lot of the people who are serving in our National Guard and our Reserve.

I thank you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I just want to bring up one other topic here as well before we yield back to Mr. Meek, and that is also, when we ask our men and women to go over there and fight, and then when they come home and they are not taken care of, we also need to remember who we are sending over there, our Reservists and National Guard, but who is joining them over there. This is a tangential but important topic. President Bush has talked a lot about this coalition of the willing, and we need to understand

that the American people, when they hear about the allied forces over there, know who they are now, because people are jumping ship faster than the evening news can keep up with it. Great Britain, Poland, Lithuania, South Korea. By the week, somebody else walks away. And as we make decisions in Iraq, like this plan for escalation in which there is not even a pretext of reaching out and forming some international consensus, remember when we went into Iraq in the first place, at least we tried to pretend that we were going to go through some international decision-making process. At least we sort of gave some faint illusion of using the United Nations as a forum for which to have this discussion. You didn't even hear a conversation about trying to reach out to our allies with this plan to escalate this war. I mean, we didn't. Because why? Because we knew if we asked Great Britain or Poland or South Korea or Lithuania to be part of this force, the answer would be pretty simple.

If you sort of listen to the rhetoric coming out of the administration, you would think this grand coalition has, what, 50 percent American troops, 60 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent? No. Ninety-two percent. Ninety-two percent of the troops on the ground in Iraq are American forces. We went from a high of coalition troops, those are non-American troops, of 25,000, and now down to almost below 15,000 troops and dropping by the day.

So I think that is just a point of information that we have now decided on a path that isn't even going to have a hint of coalition- building. We have decided to go this on our own. And, frankly, I think that has grievous consequences for what is happening on the ground in Iraq, frankly has just as important consequences for the future of foreign policy when we have gotten to a point where we don't even talk to our allies about our strategy there.

And I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Florida.

I think the real lesson from Mr. Altmire's story is that he is like a Boy Scout, he is always prepared. He has the information at his fingertips that his constituents need. You can learn something every day from our colleagues.

To get in touch with the 30-something Dems, the e-mail is [email protected]. And then on the Web site where a lot of the information we are talking about here tonight and in previous nights can be found is www.speaker.gov/30Something. And with that, I will yield for final thoughts back to Mr. Meek.

Thank you so much. It is a pleasure to join my 30-something colleagues, Mr. Meek and Mr. Murphy.

Mr. Meek, you started talking about the travesty that was revealed by The Washington Post just before last weekend about what is going on at Walter Reed Medical Center and the campus and its facilities.

I had the privilege of going to visit our men and women that are at Walter Reed who have come back from Iraq injured. Almost every soldier I met with was an amputee and went through a devastating experience, devastating injury. But the ward that they take you through, like this article says, is spit-polished and brand-spanking clean. There is not a shadow of what is described in this third-party validator, which is how we refer to our information that we bring out here to demonstrate the facts.

I want to read just a paragraph from the article. I want to highlight some of the things, and we have been joined by our good friend Mr. Altmire from Pennsylvania.

This article hit me like a ton of bricks: ``Life beyond the hospital bed,'' and this is what is going on at Walter Reed that is not what they show us as Members of Congress and that they show the President and Vice President about what is going on at Walter Reed. ``Life beyond the hospital bed is a frustrating mountain of paperwork. The typical soldier is required to file 22 documents with eight different commands, most of them off post, to enter and exit the medical processing world, according to government investigators. Sixteen different information systems are used to process the forms, but few of them can communicate with one another. The Army's three personnel databases cannot read each other's files and can't interact with the separate pay system or the medical record keeping databases. The disappearance of necessary forms and records is the most common reason soldiers languish at Walter Reed longer than they should,'' and it goes on.

That is just unbelievable. A mountain of red tape and bureaucracy is what our troops come back to the United States to and have to deal with. I thought we well established after 9/11 that interoperability and communication between systems was an obstacle that was intolerable.

How could we allow this to happen and just let our veterans, who fought for us so valiantly, and the analogy I will make is while our troops might not come home, and thank good they are not coming home to the same reaction as our Vietnam veterans came home to, how is this not as bad? It is actually worse, in a way, because instead of just having to suffer the wrath of their fellow Americans, which was a travesty and certainly hurtful and harmful, instead they come home and suffer the wrath of their government, the benign wrath of their government. ``Benign'' meaning not specifically intended to harm, but it is like death by a thousand cuts.

Thank you. That is a very important and valid point.

I want to read a quote, and that quote is this: ``So let's get something straight right now. To point out that our military has been overextended, taken for granted and neglected, that is no criticism of the military, that is a criticism of the President and Vice President and their record of neglect.''

Who do you think said that? I will tell you who said that, George W. Bush, as a candidate, said that on November 3, 2000, in an interview on

On that point, just to focus on the National Guard and how correct you are about how they are being treated versus what they signed up for, there are now 14,000 National Guard troops being deployed earlier than they were originally scheduled to meet the demands of the President's proposed plans to escalate the war.

National Guard and Army units are being called up sooner than previously scheduled, and that is even though some of these units do not have the equipment that they need. They do not have the training, and some of them are having to go over there foregoing the training.

Mr. Meek and I are going to be meeting with our general, who is in charge of our National Guard in Florida very soon. I just saw the request today, and I am looking forward to meeting with him. I met with him in my district in Florida as well last year, and the conversations that I have had with him and with others about the condition of the equipment, not just the condition of the equipment that is going over

there, but what happens to the equipment once it comes back because we are not replacing the equipment and sending them new equipment after it has been through 5, 6 years of an Iraq War.

So the equipment that they are working on and that they are utilizing has been through war literally. I mean, we are not making sure that they have the equipment that they need. We are sending them over there two, three and four times now.

When I went to Walter Reed a couple of weeks ago, every single guy I met had been through three tours, three. One of the guys I met, his little boy was there, and literally his dad had been on three tours. His little boy was six, which means that this dad missed half of his child's life already, half. I mean, that is just inexcusable. That is not what our volunteers sign up for. I mean, even if you signed up for the regular standing Army, it is unreasonable to expect that they would have to have that kind of pressure, physical, mental, emotional pressure put on them as well as their families, especially in the middle of the situation in a war that we are involved in under dubious circumstances to begin with.

I do not know if Mr. Meek wants to jump in here now, but he is still sitting so I imagine not. So I will go back to Mr. Murphy.

I want to follow up on what you are saying and emphasize and demonstrate what we are doing to our best, and I do mean doing to our best and brightest once they have come back. You have been an eloquent champion of our veterans.

I think it is important to recall a private conversation that you and I had on the floor during the run-up to the adoption of the supplemental. It happens that I am a member of the whip team, and you were my assignment that day. I had an opportunity to talk to you about whether we could count on your support for the supplemental and how important it was.

Your answer, which was the appropriate answer, was, well, Debbie, the answer is no, unless you can assure me that there was an increase for veterans health care. Because at that moment, I could not assure you because I did not have the information at my fingertips, I had to get back to you and was proud to be able to report that we did provide a significant increase that we were able to bump up beyond the continuing resolution significantly the health care we are providing to our veterans. But it is to your constituents' credit and the veterans that you represent that you do that.

But let us just go through some facts that we know. The percentage of Army servicemembers receiving medical retirement and permanent disability benefits back in 2001 was 10 percent. The percentage of the same Army servicemembers receiving medical retirement and permanent disability benefits in 2005 down to 3 percent. Army Reservists receiving medical retirement and permanent disability in 2001, 16 percent; same group in 2005, 5 percent.

Let us go to the case backlog at the Veterans Administration on new benefit claims in fiscal year 2006. 400,000-case backup. This is from the Army Times, third party validator. Average length of time veterans wait before receiving monthly benefits, 6 months to 2 years. That was in the Los Angeles Times.

The number of soldiers at Walter Reed navigating the medical and physical evaluation process since 2001 has doubled. The average length of time it takes for Army soldiers to convalesce and go through the military medical and physical evaluations, nine to 15\1/2\ months.

The increase in the Army's physical disability caseload since 2001, 80 percent. The number of veterans from the global war on terror expected to enter the military and veterans health care systems in the coming years, 700,000. And I will just read the quote again from Candidate Bush: ``So let's get something straight right now. To point out that our military has been overextended, taken for granted, and neglected, that's no criticism of the military; that is the criticism of a President and a Vice President and their record of neglect.''

Well, it sure is. And these statistics from the time that this President has been in the office are evidence of that.

I would be happy to yield to one of the three gentlemen here.

If the gentleman would yield for a question. It is somewhat rhetorical, but if you know the answer, feel free to tell me what it is. Do you know what percentage of the troops that are over in Iraq that we will have as a Nation once Great Britain pulls out?

Thank you. Just to quickly help close us out,

the bottom line is that our veterans come home and face devastating treatment from their government. We have outlined that tonight. We send them over there with equipment that in many cases is faulty. We are not adequately preparing them and giving them enough time to be well trained to do their best over there. And they are doing their level best given the assignment that we give them. We are not providing them with the resources, and we are not providing them with the equipment. And, fortunately, we have a Democratic Congress now that is not going to give this President a blank check any longer, not going to let him run roughshod over our duty to be a check and balance on the administration. And that is what the 30-something Working Group is designed to outline. We are going to make sure that we get the message out and that we help our colleagues and anyone who might also hear this conversation between us understand what is really going on.

Mr. Murphy, I would yield to you to give out the Web site and Mr. Meek for closing.