Floor Statements

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and good job on my name pronunciation. I have a hard time with it too.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to begin the 30-Something Working Group's special order hour tonight. Speaker Pelosi has given us the privilege to come to the floor night after night to talk about the issues that are important to the American people, from our generation's perspective. And it is something that we have appreciated for a number of years because we've had an opportunity to engage the next generation of Americans, who clearly are yearning for their government to be responsive to them, to have their confidence in their government restored.

And tonight what we want to focus on, particularly because General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker came to Capitol Hill this week to talk about the so-called progress, or lack thereof, which is a better expression, in the war in Iraq, we felt it was important to highlight tonight the absolute cost of the war in Iraq and the toll that it is taking on, not just our military troops, but their families and on America as a whole.

And I think there is no more telling statement that could be made than the one that was made by General Petraeus himself in response to Senator Evan Bayh's question, or comment, that there was much ambiguity in Iraq. And General Petraeus conceded that point.

General Petraeus stated this week, in fact I believe it was today, that in Iraq we haven't turned any corners; we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator, he said, referencing President Bush and former Vietnam-era General William Westmoreland's famous phrases.

It is clear that we have made virtually no progress, and that the only things that we are celebrating at this point is that there has been a reduction in violence. I wonder what that has brought us. What has that brought Americans?

Well, let's go through what the so-called progress in Iraq that was described by General Petraeus today and this week, what that's brought us.

We spend about $339 million in Iraq every single day, Madam Speaker. $339 million. And I'd like to go through the actual monetary costs of the war in a little bit. But let me just talk about what $339 million would get us and the investments that we could make in America, domestically, in the event that we were not hopelessly mired in this war in Iraq.

$339 million would get us 2,060 more Border Patrol agents that could be hired to protect our borders for a year.

18,000 more students could receive Pell Grants to help them attend college for a year with $339 million.

48,000 homeless veterans could be provided with a place to live for a year.

317,000 more children could receive every recommended vaccination for a year.

955,000 families could get help with their energy bills through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance program, that's the LIHEAP program, for a year.

Nearly 480,000 women, infants and children could receive nutritional help with the WIC program for a year.

2.6 million Americans without adequate health insurance could have access to medical and dental care at community health centers for a year for $339 million.

More than 100 local communities could make improvements to their drinking water with help from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund for a year.

I could continue on and on, Madam Speaker, listing all the important investments that we could and should be making, were we not spending $339 million in Iraq every day.

Now, let me just make that comparison again. I'm talking $339 million that we're spending in Iraq every day, and the list I just went through details what $339 million would buy for a year.

Now, I went home to my district a couple of weeks ago when we went into recess and talked to my constituents, had a lot of interaction with them. And you know, what was amazing was how top of mind the economy is.

We're less than a week from the April 15 tax deadline, and I'm sure that there are folks out there tonight that are sitting and doing their taxes while trying to figure out how they're going to write that check when they're done, and wondering how they're going to take their child to the doctor if they don't have health insurance, wondering how they're going to make sure that they can put food on the table and fill their gas tank, because now that gas is over $3 a gallon, really over $3.30 a gallon, it boggles the mind of my constituents and I know the constituents of virtually every Member, no matter what party we represent, that we are actually still, 5 years later, in Iraq, with an administration that just doesn't seem to get it; that doesn't seem to be willing to recognize that it is time to bring our troops home; that we have taken too great a toll.

The question that my constituents and that Americans are asking is, how much is too much? At what point do we say the cost is too great?

I think you have to take a look at the toll that this is taking on military families. If we're not going to say that the investments we can't make because we're spending so much money in Iraq are worth the cost, then let's look at what the military leadership is saying about the toll that this war is taking on our troops.

An Army study of mental health, and this is from an article a couple of days ago, April 6 in the New York Times, an Army study of mental health showed that 27 percent of noncommissioned officers, a critically important group, on their third or fourth tour, exhibited symptoms commonly referred to as post-traumatic stress disorders. That figure is far higher than the roughly 12 percent who exhibit those symptoms after one tour, and the 18\1/2\ percent who develop the disorders after a second deployment, according to the study which was conducted by the Army Surgeon General's mental health advisory team.

So we're not talking about organizations conducting studies examining the mental health of our troops that are outside the military process. We're talking about military organizations that are saying that the strain on our troops mentally has really reached a breaking point.

We have combat troops that have been sent to Iraq for a third and fourth time, where more than one in four, more than one in four, show signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress, according to an official Army survey of soldiers' mental health. There is an increasing alarm about the mental health of our troops and, at some point, something has to give.

Again, when do we say enough is enough? When do we say that we have to make sure that we can focus on the needs here in the United States of America?

We are struggling with an economy that is at its breaking point. Yet, the economy in Iraq seems to be thriving. The Iraqi government is actually dealing with a budget surplus, and we are facing a deficit. There's something wrong with that picture, Madam Speaker.

Let me just, I really want to turn, I think people should be given a really clear picture about the monetary cost that we are dealing with when it comes to this war, this ongoing and continuous war in Iraq.

This is from our nonpartisan Congressional Research Service report, the Cost of Iraq War Rising. Here's the breakdown of what we're spending in Iraq per year, per month, per week, per day, per hour, per minute and per second.

If you take a look at the number per year, the amount per year that we are

spending in Iraq, we're spending $123.6 billion per year.

Now, that's a hard number to maybe get your mind around. Billions and millions of dollars are very big numbers that most people aren't dealing with every day in their daily life.

So let's go down to the monthly expenditure that we're making here. That amounts to $10.3 billion.

But if we want to drill down a little bit further and deal with the weekly and daily expenditures, weekly, we're spending $2,376,923,077. Per day we're spending almost $339 million, as I described a few minutes ago.

But hourly, this is really the number, Madam Speaker, that I think will hit home with virtually all Americans. We are spending, hourly, in Iraq, and this is, again, third-party validator, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service report on the cost of the Iraq war and its rising cost. Per hour we are spending $14,109,589 in Iraq.

I don't think it's necessary for me to go down to the minute and the second. I think the point is well made. $14 million an hour. I mean, that is just unbelievable.

How many is too much? When do we say that the toll that this is taking on our troops is just beyond our capacity? Since the start of the war in Iraq, we have had 4,013 brave American men and women in uniform that have been killed. We have an estimated almost 30,000 servicemembers that have been wounded in Iraq, and as of March 1, more than 31,300 have been treated for noncombat injuries and illness.

According, again, to the Army's own mental health advisory team, soldiers who are on their second, third, and fourth deployments report low morale, more mental health problems, and more stress-related work problems.

Now, Madam Speaker, these numbers right here really sent chills down my spine. An estimated three-quarters of a million troops have been discharged since the war in Iraq began, many of whom have had compromised mental and physical health. An estimated 260,000 have been treated at veterans' health facilities, nearly 100,000 have been diagnosed as having mental health conditions, and an additional 200,000 have received some level of care from walk-in facilities. That is just unbelievable.

I can tell you that I have been to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to visit our wounded troops that have come back from Iraq. I've told this story during the 30-Something Working Group in the past. I will tell it again because really, as a mom with young kids, it was so disturbing to me.

I walked into this young soldier's room to talk to him about his injury and to talk to him about what he went through, and his wife and his 6-year-old little boy were in there with him. And I had a nice chance to chat with the little boy. He was very exuberant and excited. It was really a lovely conversation. He was so excited. His dad had just come back from his third tour in Iraq, each of a year. Now remember, this little boy was 6 years old, and the father was telling me he had a stress-related mental health injury, and the father was telling me about how he was supposed to be finished with his tour in August, was still hoping to go back, by the way, which is amazing because these troops that represent the United States of America are just absolutely so committed and so patriotic, and really, I just so admire their bravery.

But what the little boy said when I had a chance to talk to him, he said he was so excited, my daddy is coming home after August. And when he said that, it occurred to me that this little boy being 6 and his father having been through three 1-year deployments in Iraq, this father had missed half of his son's life. Half of his son's life. That just was mind-boggling to me being a mom of 8-year-old twins and a 4- year-old. I just can't even imagine. I have children close to that age, and I can't imagine having missed half their life. I mean, that just takes a toll on families. It takes a toll on marriage.

Madam Speaker, even the time that myself and other parents serving in Congress here are away from our families, I know the toll that it takes on my husband when I'm here just working in Washington and not with him and leaving my kids with him to make sure that he gets them bathed and gets their dinner and the homework is done and all of the things that have to be done on a daily basis with families. It takes a toll that I am here and not with him to help him do that.

Add the stress of your family member being thousands of miles across the world in a war zone, in a war situation, not knowing whether they're going to ever come back, the not knowing when they're going to come back because the military keeps extending these tours of duty, keeps sending them back, does not give them enough rest in between the tours of duty. The Army, over the last several years, has extended the rest, extended the tours of duty from 12 months to 15 months, Madam Speaker, so now we are beyond a year for deployments. And General Petraeus said we may be able, by the end of the summer to pull back the length of the deployments from 15 months to 12 months, but we're still going to be at 140,000 troops once we draw down the amount of the surge. That means there is no difference, Madam Speaker, between where we are now and where we were before the start of the surge. How do you call that progress?

Someone is using a different dictionary than I am if that's progress. I mean, the dictionary that I use to define ``progress'' says that we see improvement, that the quality of life improves, that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, which General Petraeus clearly said we do not see right now.

I want to just quote, and in the 30-Something Working Group, we try to use third-party validators. So it is not just our words that we use to demonstrate the statements that we are making; we try to back up our words with evidence.

So let me talk about the cost to military families from military leaders' perspective.

General George Casey said recently on March 26 in the Wall Street Journal that 15-month-long deployments are impacting on their families, it's impacting on their mental health. We just can't keep going at the rate that we're going.

General Richard Cody, the Army vice chief of staff: Our readiness is being consumed as fast as we build it. Lengthy and repeated deployments with insufficient recovery time have placed incredible stress on our soldiers and our families, testing the resolve of our all-volunteer force like never before.

Let's go down to what retired Admiral William Fallon, the former commander of the U.S. Central Command said: I will certainly tell you that I think our troops are in need of a change in the deployment cycle. We've had too many, from my experience, of several of our key segments of the troop population, senior NCOs, mid- to junior officers, on multiple rotations. He said, I look at my commanders, and some of them have logged more months in Iraq in the last decade than they have at home by a significant amount.

Can you imagine? More months in Iraq over the last 10 years than they have at home. Imagine the cost, the toll that that takes on their families. Let us go beyond the toll on families.

It is pretty clear that we have had a dramatic increase in the cost of fuel and the cost of a barrel of oil just during our time in the last 5 years in the Middle East. We have gone from gas prices being a little more than $1, about $1.26 or so, to now gas prices being well over $3.30 and expected this summer to reach $4 or more.

I can tell you that I am a minivan mom, Madam Speaker, and I regularly drive my kids around our community and car pool with the best of them. The last time I filled up my tank, which was last week, it cost $65. Now, the last time I talked about how much it cost me to fill up my tank, and Mr. Ryan remembers this, I really feel like this is 30- Something redux. I mean, really. It's deja vu all over again. You could roll back the tape to 2, 3 years ago when we were talking about the cost of the war in Iraq and the impact, and we are basically saying the exact same thing. It is just unbelievable.

But the last time I talked on the floor, spoke on the floor about how much it cost me to fill up my minivan, it was about $55. And that's really only been about a year since the last time we talked about the impact of oil prices. And what the leaders that look and examine this information have said is that any time we have extended involvement in the Middle East, you see

a dramatic rise in oil prices that coincide with that.

The price of gas and the price of oil, in this environment and in this economy, is just devastating to American families.

So you have extensions of impact and extensions of costs beyond just the toll that it takes on the troops themselves, the toll that it takes on their families. There's a toll on America. There's a toll on society. I mean, it's so disconcerting and it's so disheartening to listen to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who seem to just be in utter denial. I mean, they just keep saying the same thing over and over.

And we've been talking about the cost of this war, and I'm so glad to be joined by my good friend, Congressman Tim Ryan from the great State of Ohio who I have shared many an opportunity to speak on the floor about the things that Americans care about in the 30-Something Working Group.

It's just shocking that the administration is continuing to expect more of the same and to have there be more of the same and to expect a different result. There really is, and I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

Exactly. A lot of us are saying, it's time, that it is time to begin the drawdown, to begin to bring our troops home.

Many of us that believe it is time to begin the troop withdrawal, we're not talking about precipitous withdrawal. Our friends on the other side of the aisle like to, you know, they're really excellent at using strong language and scare tactics. And it's always interesting to listen to them try to exaggerate beyond all reasonable proportion what it is we're saying instead of actually listening to what we're saying. It would be nice if they would also listen to their own constituents because I have a feeling that they're not hearing anything different than what we're hearing when we go home, particularly when they are staring down the following facts:

Nearly 1.7 million U.S. troops have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since September 2001; 1.7 million U.S. troops. That's 1.7 million different individuals. More than 599,000 have been deployed more than once. More than 782,000 servicemembers, Mr. Ryan, have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan that are parents with one or more children. Forty percent have been deployed more than once. Nearly 35,000 troops have been separated from their children for four or more deployments. And Mr. Ryan, I talked a little bit about that 6-year-old boy that I met when I went to Walter Reed whose dad had missed half his life. And I also talked about the toll that those separations from their families take on the parent who is gone, but particularly on the parent who is home, holding the fort down, making sure that they can move their children's lives and their lives forward by themselves and the stress that that brings on a family and on a marriage. The statistics that we know about say that, according to the Center for American Progress, 20 percent of marriages of deployed troops are headed for a divorce right now based on a

survey done by the Center for American Progress. According to a report, again by the Army's Mental Health Advisory Team, work-related problems due to stress, mental health problems and marital separations generally increase with each subsequent month of the deployment. So the length of these deployments is taking its toll on families.

An estimated 2,100 troops tried to commit suicide or injure themselves last year, which is up from 350 in 2002. That's an astronomical jump. I mean, we've got the facts right under our noses. When do we say that we care about these troops as people, not as fighters, not as defenders of America, but as people? And when do we recognize that there is a limit to their ability to hold down their lives and to be able to return to a quality of life that they had before they left? The insensitivity is mind boggling, and the refusal of this administration to recognize that there is a cost and a toll that is being taken on these families, on the individual troops, on the United States of America and on our economy.

I would be happy to yield.

I think it's clear, and you're absolutely right, I think it's clear that the time has come. And this is not just our opinion, but it's clear that Americans believe that the time has come to shift our focus to the dire situation that we have with our economy.

And I can tell you, anecdotally, when I went home to my district during our recess, I had town hall meeting, and I do at least one town hall meeting every recess; when I did this last one, I actually, Mr. Ryan, had to bring Iraq up myself, otherwise the entire focus of the questions and the comments from my constituents would have been the economy. I actually had to affirmatively talk about the war in Iraq. And there was significant responsiveness on the part of my constituents, who agreed, it is long past time to bring the troops home. But really, at the top of their mind right now is the economy.

And just to illustrate that point, there was a new poll done recently by the New York Times, a CBS poll that showed 89 percent of those surveyed believe the cost of the war has contributed a lot or some to the United States' economic problems. When they were asked, from what you know, how much do you think the cost of the war in Iraq has contributed to the U.S. economic problem, a lot, some, not much, or not at all, 66 percent of people who responded to this survey said that it has affected the economy a lot. And add 22 percent more to make 88 percent who believe that it has affected the economy even at all.

Now, this week obviously it was a big deal that General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker were coming to testify in front of Congress on the progress, or lack thereof, that has been made. There were lots of newspaper headlines with pictures of the general testifying, a plea from Petraeus in the Washington Post, and ``Petraeus Urges Halt in Weighing New Cut in Force'' in the New York Times. The Washington Times, ``Petraeus Warns of Iraq Backslide.'' ``Iraq Troop Levels Left Open'' in USA Today. But arguably, the newspaper in America that most closely focuses on the economy and on the financial health of our Nation is the Wall Street Journal.

This is today's Wall Street Journal, Mr. Ryan. There is absolutely no headlines, nothing on the front page, any article related to General Petraeus's testimony. There is a little tiny entry under ``What's News'' that says ``Petraeus recommended that U.S. troop withdrawals be halted indefinitely this summer, warning that security gains in Iraq are fragile.'' I mean, that's the priority that the Wall Street Journal places on the economy versus the war in Iraq, where every other article, ``Bush to Expand Help on Mortgages,'' ``Subprime Lenders Failure Sparks Lawsuit Against Wall Street Banks,'' those are the things that we should be focusing, like a laser beam, our attention on because our constituents are suffering.

There are folks that I represent who are having their homes foreclosed on that in a million years these middle class folks would never have been in that situation financially if we were not focused somewhere halfway across the world as opposed to getting our fiscal house in order here in the United States of America.

And if folks don't believe what we're saying here, let's use the third-party validators that we always use, Mr. Ryan. I will quote Robert Reischauer, the former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, also a respected institution here that is nonpartisan. He said, contrary to the notion that war spending bolsters the economy, he said recently that the ``domestic benefits of war spending have been muted because spending is stimulating economies elsewhere, not the least being the economies of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.''

I alluded to these numbers earlier, and now I've found them in my notes, the price of oil and the direct correlation to our involvement in the Middle East and the skyrocketing cost of oil. The price of oil has skyrocketed since the Iraq war began. The national average price per gallon of regular gasoline

before the start of the Iraq war was $1.73. Today, it's $3.34 cents, which is an increase of more than 93 percent. And this is predictable.

In March 2003, Sung Won Sohn, then an economist for Wells Fargo Bank, not exactly a progressive think tank, noted that ``any time there is conflict in the Middle East, oil prices hit record figures.'' And he warned that the longer the war lasted, the higher prices would go.

We can't take higher prices for gas than we're facing now. We already expect this summer for them to go over $4. When is enough going to be enough?

We are.

Madam Speaker, what I think has been really interesting is observing the struggle that military leaders underneath General Petraeus have been going through in trying to be good soldiers and toe the party line about not being ready to withdraw and for us to leave those 140,000 troops indefinitely in Iraq, which is the decision that was clearly made before General Petraeus came to testify this week. But when they're asked specific questions about the impact on our troops, the truth comes through in their statements.

General Richard Cody, the Army Vice Chief of Staff: ``Our readiness is being consumed as fast as we build it . . . lengthy and repeated deployments with insufficient recovery time have placed incredible stress on our soldiers and our families.''

And we're not talking about retired commanders or retired military leaders, who some people might suggest are retired for a reason. We're talking about the people who are currently fully engaged in our efforts over there.

Lieutenant General Benjamin Mixon, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Pacific: ``We are going to have to change our strategy in Iraq to reduce the numbers of troops and thereby reduce the rotations and increase the dwell time that we get back here at home.'' That was January 27.

Lieutenant General Michael Rochelle, Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G1: `` . . . I should mention that it's clear that the increase in suicide, as well as other measures that we track very, very closely, are a reflection of the amount of stress that's on the force.''

And, finally, Brigadier General Michael Linnington, Deputy Commanding General of the United States Army Infantry Center: ``Money is not the issue . . . They want an opportunity to catch their breath before deploying again and to have some control over their futures. They're tired and their families are tired.''

We have got to reach a point where we focus on the things that we know we need to focus on, like Afghanistan, for example. We have shifted. When we went to war in Iraq originally with the stated notion of pursuing the weapons of mass destruction that supposedly Saddam Hussein had that he clearly never had, we shifted our attention and our focus away from Afghanistan, where we clearly were succeeding, where we clearly had the world community behind us and fully engaged, where we had the American people's full commitment. And when we did that, when we shifted our attention away from Afghanistan and focused on Iraq, we lost tremendous ground in Afghanistan.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, said: ``So should we be in a position where more troops are removed from Iraq, the possibility of sending additional troops to Afghanistan, where we need them, clearly, certainly it's a possibility. But it's really going to be based on the availability of troops. We don't have troops, particularly in Brigade Combat Team size, sitting on the shelf, ready to go.''

The military is obviously stretched incredibly thin. And when I talk to constituents and groups of folks, I'll tell you that I represent a large section of the Jewish community in my State, and I am constantly being asked by members of the Jewish community leadership, What about Iran and what if we face an increasing threat from Iran? What are we going to do then, Debbie?

And my honest answer is, Well, we are spread so thin militarily now that it would be incredibly difficult for us to continue our efforts in Iraq, for us to maintain and not lose ground in Afghanistan, and also pursue the possibility of staving off a significant threat from Iran. And, again, that's not something that I'm saying. That's something that is backed up by military leaders.

I mean it's been 2,399 days, Madam Speaker, since the September 11 attacks, 2,399 days, and Osama bin Laden still remains free. We have gone backwards in Afghanistan since we left and shifted our focus.

In July of 2007, a de-classified version of a National Intelligence Estimate on the terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland concluded that al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the border area with Pakistan has regained its strength over the last few years and has now reached the strength it had before 9/11.

We have put ourselves in jeopardy. The administration and this President talks about the war on terror, the supposed war on terror, and how committed we are to it and how we have to fight terror in every corner of the world. Well, it is incredibly disturbing that a National Intelligence Estimate, not a progressive think tank and not the critics of the administration but our own National Intelligence Estimate on the terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland, concluded that al Qaeda in Afghanistan has reached its strength that it had before 9/11. The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, testified in February that Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai and his government control just one-third of the country now, Madam Speaker. The remaining majority is under control of either the Taliban or local tribes.

We have got to make sure that we refocus our energy and our effort on the priorities of the American people. I know our Democratic leadership, under the leadership of our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is focused and determined to move an agenda that is going to improve this Nation's economy. The economic stimulus package that she was able to negotiate with Leader Boehner to try to inject some stimulus into this economy, checks that are going to be coming to Americans very, very soon, those are the kinds of efforts and energy that we need to be putting in to deal with the crisis situation that Americans are facing. Not continue to insist, as the administration does, that they are right and we are wrong. Not continue to say that we need to keep the same troop strength that we have where we made absolutely no progress between now and before the surge. Basically it's almost as if we have run in place. It's just incredibly frustrating.

So, Madam Speaker, I'm going to end where I began. And that is to say, the toll that this war has taken on the individual troops who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, on their families, on Americans, where our administration's priorities are not focused on what they should be, which should be improving our economy and making sure that we can reduce the deficit and get our fiscal house in order and make sure that Americans have access to health care and aren't having their homes foreclosed on and the skyrocketing cost of housing, and the list just goes on and on. But at the same time, we're taking care of the needs of the people in Iraq. They have a budget surplus. Their housing needs are being taken care of. Their children's schooling is being taken care of. Yet we still have the same 140,000 troops that the administration has committed to leaving in Iraq, as opposed to trying to bring these troops home and end this hopeless war that has not made progress. And at the end of the day, as Mr. Ryan stated, we need to ensure that the Iraqi troops can stand on their own and that they don't believe for generations to come that we are going to carry them throughout history. At some point we have to let them go and stand on their own, and we have reached that time.

With that, Madam Speaker, we appreciate the opportunity in the 30- Something Working Group that the Speaker has given us to talk about the issues that are important to the American people and to our generation and from our generation's perspectives. We hope that the people who have heard this presentation tonight will go to the Speaker's Web site and click on the 30-Something Working Group address. The charts that we have shown tonight are on that Web site, and they can feel free to e- mail us and contact us with any questions they have.

Mr. Speaker, I began my service in Congress fighting for the right to privacy. Above all else, Americans' ability to communicate without the fear of having the government tap their phones, listen to their conversations or intercept their private communication is a right that just cannot be discarded.

Our good friends on the other side of the aisle have said if an American is not communicating with a terrorist, then they have nothing to fear. The manner in which the administration has conducted the warrantless surveillance program has undermined our citizens' confidence in the bedrock belief that we live in a free country where we do not live in constant fear of the government looking over our shoulder.

This is a cherished right that has been arrogantly cast aside by an administration run amok. After a careful review of both classified and unclassified materials concerning the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, I, like so many of my Judiciary Committee colleagues, concluded that the immunity that is proposed by the administration is unnecessary and goes too far.

We must be vigilant when protecting our citizens' right to privacy. It is a rare, unique, and important right that we cannot allow to be subjected to death by a thousand cuts. If the administration has its way and this right falls, what is next? We must stand in the breach and make sure that Americans' right to privacy is preserved.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of this resolution. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle as Members of a coequal branch of government to issue these contempt citations to members of the Bush administration who clearly feel that they are above the law.

Last year, when the Judiciary Committee was legitimately investigating the political purge of U.S. attorneys and conducting oversight into the politicization of the Justice Department, administration officials not only failed to turn over key documents after receiving subpoenas, they didn't even bother to show up to testify.

Madam Speaker, I am deeply frustrated by this administration's continued stonewalling and, frankly, the contempt that it has shown for Congress. As our former Republican colleague Congressman Mickey Edwards told our committee, the administration's actions have been outrageous and it continues to erode the separation of powers.

I applaud Chairman Conyers' patience and his many attempts to resolve this situation short of the manner in which we will today, but I know I speak for many of my colleagues when I say enough is enough.

Madam Speaker, with the death of Congressman Tom Lantos, the world lost an inspiring leader who dedicated his life to religious freedom and human rights.

Now, it has been noted that Tom was the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, and I think it's important to note that with the sun setting on this generation of Americans, he will very likely remain the only Holocaust survivor to have served here.

His leadership and guidance served as the moral conscience of America's commitment to protecting human rights. He lived the concept of ``never again,'' and he stood against persecution all over the globe.

For me, I would like to get a little bit personal myself. As a newer Member of Congress, I can tell you that since I got here, Tom Lantos always made me feel like my grandfather was looking out for me. He always had a word of encouragement, always made me feel good about myself. If I felt a little shaky, I could turn to Tom, and he would tell me, ``Honey, it's okay. Go out and just do your best. You are going to do great.'' He would always offer those words of encouragement. So that was really an incredible feeling to have that kind of support.

As a young Jewish American, I can tell you that we all believed that Representative Lantos served as a role model for what we want public service to be. His dedication to lifting up oppressed people throughout the world

serves as our personal inspiration. And I know that his service was a tremendous source of pride for the Jewish community across this country and for his constituents.

I, and countless others, feel a deep sense of loss in his passing, but we take solace in the knowledge that the world is a better place because of this great individual.

Mr. Speaker and Members, colleagues, I am pleased to open this hour for the 30-Something Working Group, look forward to my fellow colleagues joining me as we progress through the hour.

We come to the floor tonight to talk about a variety of important issues. We are proud and pleased that we sent an economic stimulus package that was developed in a bipartisan fashion, in a bipartisan spirit, this evening to the President of the United States. It was a process that was long negotiated and hard fought, but we were able to make sure that we focused on the priorities of the American people during a difficult time economically.

The focus of this economic stimulus package was threefold, and they all begin with ``t.'' First, an economic stimulus package that we passed had to be ``temporary.'' We have to make sure that we can get a temporary infusion of cash into the hands of the middle class and people who will spend that money, and make sure that we can stimulate the economy.

It has to be ``targeted.'' It has to make sure that we were getting it into the hands of people who were actually going to spend that money, not people that were going to invest it, not people that necessarily were going to just pay off bills or sit on the money, but people who were going to use it to spend on items that they needed and get that infusion of cash into the economy so that we can have a short- term stimulus.

And, finally, the third ``t'' in the three-legged stool is that it had to be ``timely.'' We had to do it soon and quickly because in order to either stave off a recession, or address the one that we're in, depending on which side of the debate you're on, on whether we're in a recession or headed towards one, we needed to make sure that we did this in a timely fashion and made sure that we can get that cash into people's hands over the next couple of months. And now we look forward to that happening.

Let me walk Members and others through the process that we went through. This was truly a bipartisan effort. It continued the bipartisan spirit that Speaker Pelosi and our majority leadership have been making an effort at extending our hand across the aisle since taking over the majority a little over 1 year ago.

In December of last year, the House, under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, held a House Democratic Economic Forum to talk about the dire straits that the economy was facing to really hear about what issues Americans were struggling with and to begin to figure out what we could do on a short-term as well as a long-term basis.

After the beginning of December, we had ongoing discussions between the House leaders and the administration through Treasury Secretary Paulson. There were intense and heavy discussions because everyone knew that something needed to be done. The devil is always obviously in the details.

But we came together, the administration as well as the Republican and Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives, we came together and came up with a bipartisan solution.

There was a Democratic leadership letter to President Bush that was sent on January 11 urging the President to work with us and make sure that we could pass an economic stimulus package that was timely and targeted and that we made sure that it got money into the hands of people who would spend it.

We saw that Pelosi had a meeting with the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and he testified in the House of Representatives on January 14 and thereafter, and the message that he sent was that an economic stimulus package was essential and would be helpful in order to deal with the issues that the economy is struggling with.

After that, we had a meeting between Speaker Pelosi and Leader Boehner, and they were able to reach an agreement and move in the direction until we finally reached today where we are able to pass the economic stimulus package, send it to the President, and over the next couple of months, I believe the timing is around May of this year, we will see that those funds get into the hands of people who need it the most.

One of the most exciting things about this package is that it is not going to go to the wealthiest few. It is not going to go to people who are just going to put it into the stock market or sit on it or just pay off bills or use it to pad fat bank accounts. We were able to successfully negotiate that the people who received this economic stimulus, these economic stimulus funds, we were able to stretch it all the way down to people who earn only $3,000. I mean, that is a category of person who truly fits the definition of needing the economic assistance. People who will be able to use those funds to make sure that they can address their everyday needs and spend those dollars so that we can put it an injection of cash into the economy and begin to revitalize it.

We made sure that we also provided some assistance for people who are struggling with housing issues and with mortgage issues by making sure that the FHA has a wider ceiling of mortgages in which they can provide loans to people. We have raised the cap to up over $700,000, recognizing that the range of the cost of housing is wide across the country.

It's good to see Mr. Altmire, and I'm glad you have joined us tonight. I know that the average price of a house in my district, in my community right now is over $300,000, which, obviously, without an economic stimulus package raising that cap would make it difficult for someone to qualify under the FHA's criteria. But we were able to make sure that we raised that cap for 1 year so that we could address in a short-term way the third T, which was ``temporary,'' in a short-term way address the economic problems that people are struggling with right now.

And we have continued the bipartisan tradition through the economic stimulus package because last year, when we began and took over the majority, we adopted the 6 in '06 agenda.

In the first 100 hours of our taking over the majority of the House of Representatives, the Democratic Congress

acted on issues important to Americans, and the Republicans on the other side of the aisle joined with us in a bipartisan fashion.

Mr. Murphy has joined us as well.

Let's walk through some of the bipartisan cooperation that we've had over the last years because there is a lot of words thrown around about how this is an institution that is being run by Democrats and that there is not bipartisan cooperation. Let us just show where the proof is in the pudding here.

We implemented the 9/11 Commission's recommendations which, in previous years, this was a report that was sitting on the shelf gathering dust with the Republicans refusing to put that on the floor and adopt up that legislation. We put it on the floor. It passed 299- 128 with 68 Republican votes.

We had an average of over 60 votes for every one of these bills. Raising the minimum wage, H.R. 2. It passed 315-116 with 82 Republican votes.

The funding for enhanced stem cell research, which unfortunately President Bush saw fit to veto. That was H.R. 3. it passed 253-174 with 37 Republican votes.

We passed legislation to make prescription drugs more affordable, so that we could allow the Federal Government to negotiate for lower drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry which, by the way, is currently prohibited in Federal law. We passed that legislation with 255-170 with 24 Republican votes. And the list goes on.

Cutting student loans in half. That was H.R. 5. Passed 356-71 with 124 Republican votes.

And, lastly, we passed the energy package, which was the effort that we are making to recognize that global warming, yes, global warming, truly is a problem and we are committed to ending our addiction to foreign oil. Adopted the CAFE standards, the first time that we adopted some improved CAFE standard in 30 years.

H.R. 6 passed 264-163 with 36 Republican votes. In that legislation, the CAFE standards was legislation that was passed a few months later. And in this bill we said that we were not going to allow $14 billion in subsidies to be returned to the oil industry so we could make sure that we start to address the high cost of fuel.

So we are very proud of our record, our bipartisan spirit of cooperation, which culminated this evening and will continue, we hope, through the rest of this election year by passing that economic stimulus package.

I'm happy to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

And that's the direction we are going to continue to go in, because that line in the sand that you referred to, we have got to draw one. And the place that we draw it is a real commitment to making sure that we move back into a surplus situation like we were in before this administration took us to hell in a handbasket. I mean, let's take a look at the deterioration that our budget has gone through over the last number of years.

We had a situation where the budget has deteriorated by $8.8 trillion under Republican policies. In the 2001 fiscal year, we had a $5.6 trillion surplus. Literally leading into President Bush taking office, we were in a $5.6 trillion surplus.

Now, over the time of this administration, which is approaching 7\1/ 2\, almost 8 years, we have gone from a $5.6 trillion surplus to a $3.2 trillion deficit.

Now, if there is anyplace that I think that this Democratic majority will draw a line in the sand, it's here, so that we can make sure we take our established policies and adopt a budget and a plan and a blueprint to get us back to a surplus situation.

I would be happy to yield.

Exactly. And let's detail some of those facts, because the mythology that you just laid out, which is that it's Republicans that are fiscally responsible and that it's Democrats that cause debt, let's take the reality of the Bush administration's responsibility and stewardship of our fiscal house over the last several years.

This administration, under President Bush's leadership, is responsible for the five biggest deficits in American history. Now, there was a whole lot of talk, Mr. Altmire, as you recall over the last year or so, from this administration about how they were going to get us out of debt over the next 4 or 5 years. Right? Well, the third highest deficit that exists is proposed in the budget document that President Bush submitted to the Congress on Monday at $407 billion. The only two higher deficits that were projected were last fiscal year and in fiscal year 2004, when it was $413 billion. We're going in the wrong direction.

Mr. Altmire, will you yield?

Thank you. Because we backed out $3 billion in deficit in a $3 trillion budget. The budget this year that he proposed was over $3 trillion.

Will the gentleman yield for a second?

Put the chart back up because I think it's important to note that when we began using this chart, it was actually at $1.03 trillion and the bar was a little bit lower. Now, here on this chart it's 1.19, and it's really $1.33 trillion in foreign debt. The bar is up to the President's chin. It's actually, the 1.33 I think is up to his lips. He's about to drown in the debt right here on this chart. So we really need to make sure, I mean, there are deficits and there is debt, both are significant, both are important, and both really hamper our long-term security.

When we talk about the need for homeland security, economic security for Americans is equally as important. If we can't rely on our government and our leadership in the government to make sure that we make responsible fiscal decisions like we did when we reinstituted the PAYGO rules, when we made sure that the bills that we pass here are paid for and that we, going forward, aren't going to cause more debt and more deficits and saddle that burden of debt on future generations, that's what fiscal responsibility is all about; that's what financial security is about.

Every single day Americans have to make sure that they don't spend more money than they take in, and we have families across the country who make sacrifices in order to be able to do that. They know they're in trouble if they go in the opposite direction. This administration has spent like drunken sailors and really, to be honest with you, treated the resources that we have like it's Monopoly money, like it's not real, like it grows on trees. I mean, I guess once you get into the trillions, Mr. Murphy, that's a hard concept to grasp, $3 trillion.

I'm glad you asked that question, Mr. Altmire, because some of these concepts are hard to grasp. I know they're hard for me to get my mind around sometimes. Like I said, $3 trillion, which is the budget that this President proposed this year, and $407 billion in deficit. On top of that, a $1.33 billion foreign debt; that is money that we owe to foreign governments.

Let's look at just who it is that we owe this money to: $644.3 billion of that is owed to Japan. China, almost $250 billion, China, through 11/05. And then China now, $350 billion. Great Britain and the U.K., $240 billion. The Caribbean, right nearby, our neighbors very close by, we owe $68 billion to them; $63 billion to Taiwan. The OPEC nations, where we're trying to move in the direction of weaning ourselves off our dependence on foreign oil, the nice words that the President put in his State of the Union a couple of years ago that we all heard, well, $100 billion of our debt is owed to the OPEC nations. $70 billion to Korea, $53.9 billion to Hong Kong, and $52.5 billion to Germany.

So we have a lot of our debt spread all over the world. And we're supposed to be the strongest and most vibrant Nation in the entire world, and we have a lot of hands all over us world-wide. And it is not a good situation to be in. It's a tenuous situation to be in, and it's fiscally irresponsible. And we've got to make sure, and we're committed as Democrats under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, to move us in the right direction and get us out of that debt.

And sisterhood.

That's exactly right. And it's important to show this debt and the impact of it in different ways because different people think and look at things through a different prism.

So the second highest line item in the budget that he submitted was the interest on the debt. And as you can see, like Mr. Altmire pointed out, we're at about $240 billion, which is the net interest that we're paying on that debt.

Now, expressed comparatively to the other things that we believe are incredibly important in terms of improving the quality of life of people in America and moving this country in a new direction, which is what we were committed to doing when we took over the majority and that we promised the American people that we would do, so we are at $240 billion in net interest on the debt. That is as compared to what we spend on education, what the President proposes to spend on education, which is at about, let's say, a little less than $50 billion, a little bit less than that for spending on veterans health care, and then a little bit less than that on homeland security.

Now, what's mind-boggling is, if you listen to this administration and to this President and to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, you would think that the most important thing on the planet to them is homeland security and making sure that we provide adequate funding for homeland security. Well, if you take education, veterans health care, and homeland security combined, combined those items don't equal the payment of interest on the national debt.

I mean who is for homeland security and who just talks? I mean you have to back up words with action. We do all this right out in the open. People can see where the priorities are because, as the Speaker always talks about, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Altmire, the Speaker always talks about how the budget is an expression of our values. And we are going to show the American people the difference in our values as Democratic Members of Congress, who are the leaders of this coequal branch of government, versus the expression of values that President Bush put forward on Monday, which clearly are dramatically different than the priorities of the American people.

If I could just reclaim my time for one second because different people would have different definitions of ``slash.'' So since we know actually by what percentage he slashed it, let's underscore. The Department of Homeland Security State responder grants that he slashed, he slashed by 78 percent. So we're not talking about just a little nick here. We're talking about cutting the legs out from under a program that provides assistance for homeland security efforts locally, not just for New York and Los Angeles and the places with big tall buildings, but places all over this country which have vulnerable sites that any wise, smart-minded terrorist would love to catch a community sleeping that doesn't have a coordinated effort and a plan to make sure that they can take care of their community and ward off a potential terrorist attack, which could happen anywhere.

All the while with the President's continuing to insist that we make the tax cuts permanent, that we extend permanent tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, to cut more of our ability to make sure that we can fund first responder grants for communities across this country, and all the while having a $407 billion deficit and a $1.33 trillion debt. I don't know. In my dictionary, fiscal responsibility, that doesn't meet any of the definitions in the dictionary that I use. Maybe the dictionary in bizarro world. Maybe there's some opposite universe. I remember when I watched Star Trek, there was a bizarro world, opposite universe episode, and everything that was one way in one universe was the opposite way in the opposite universe. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe that aisle right there, maybe that side of the Chamber is actually a parallel universe, and so everything we believe is the opposite on that side. That's what it is. I figured it out.

Mr. Altmire, can I ask you a question? Because you were going through the details of the cuts that the President has proposed in his budget that he submitted for fiscal year 2009 on Monday.

There was a program that was first implemented and proposed and funded by Congress but proposed by President Clinton called the COPS program, which put 100,000 police officers on the street and made sure that we had first responders, police officers, on the streets, patrolling our communities, making sure that the streets of America were safe. And how much did President Bush propose for the COPS program in his fiscal year 2009 budget?

I have zero, because the number that I have is that he cut the entire program, 100 percent cut to the COPS program, zeros it out, so that there would be no COPS program, no funding to put police officers on the streets in our local communities.

It's just unbelievable. We continue to hear the rhetoric come from this administration. I mean, it's nice, happy talk. It's nice, happy talk that you can stand behind the podium and say whatever you want and live in bizarro world across the other side of the aisle and just ignore reality and squeeze your eyes shut and hope that people don't notice that what you're saying is not true.

Mr. Altmire, I have to compliment you because the people of western Pennsylvania, when they made a decision to elect you, sent a champion for our Nation's veterans to this institution. Since day one, I don't remember a day that has gone by that I have not heard you talk about the plight of our veterans and the importance of not forgetting them, and making sure that we are going to appropriately fund and adequately fund their health care needs, provide for their needs when they come back from their service to our country and continue to take care of them in the variety of ways that we should instead of forgetting them like so much dirty laundry and make sure that they don't get left behind. It is another example of the new direction that the people of America wanted. And when they elected you, that is exactly what you have delivered to them. And I know your constituents really appreciate it.

You mentioned the lecture, which is a good description for what the State of the Union was last week that we got from President Bush, and Mr. Murphy, I would like to say our caucus chairman, Rahm Emanuel, did a good comparison, or timeline, of where we were at the start of the administration almost 8 years ago and where we are now. He did a press conference and talked about, gave a speech, a really good speech on the floor and just showed where we were at the start and where we are now.

So, Mr. Murphy, I know you have some of the information in front of you, as well, just to walk people through where we were then, at the beginning of this administration. At the beginning of this administration, we started with a record $5.6 trillion surplus when President Clinton left office. And President Bush will be leaving behind, Mr. Murphy?

Thank you. And at the beginning of the Bush administration, Mr. Altmire, we were on track to pay down all of our publicly held debt. All of it. I am not sure if you have the chart in front of you right there; but, Mr. Murphy, we were

on track to pay down all of our publicly held debt. And what is the Bush administration leaving behind?

It is really astonishing, the dramatic difference and the swings we have gone through in the last 8 years. Who would have thought that we could go through that type of rapid deterioration?

How about the economy? We are certainly not facing a strong economy right now. At the beginning of this administration, as President Clinton was leaving office, Mr. Murphy, we had the strongest economy in three decades. We had 22 million jobs that had been created. We had a record surplus. We had a thriving economy by any definition. And now that we are wrapping up the Bush administration, what is this President leaving behind?

Absolutely. And as we begin to wrap up, getting back to the lecture that you referred to earlier, Mr. Altmire, that we received from President Bush last week, the matter of transparency is incredibly important. This is a President who talked about how we need to make sure that we disclose earmarks, which we took the lead on when we became the majority and made sure that we put our names next to the earmarks that we get in the appropriations act, and we are the ones that made sure that there was full disclosure and adopted the ethics package that was the most comprehensive in American history.

And with this President's proposed budget this week, let's outline, and we are going to have some of these charts next week that are blown up so that people watching can see, but let's talk about what was left out of the budget, because he talked very nicely about transparency, and make sure that people really understand clearly what we are doing here. He left out of his budget any war costs, any costs for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond the first half of this year. He also left out AMT reform beyond 2008. So all of the millions and millions of taxpayers that we helped avoid be subject to that AMT tax when we passed that legislation at the end of last year, there is no fix for them. And President Bush doesn't even count them as that going forward, which we know we are obviously going to have to do.

It is fake. It is just, again, bizarro world. We can just make stuff up in the budget and hope that people believe that it is true. This was a fairy tale document that he gave us on Monday. The good news is that the Congress actually writes the budget when push comes to shove.

Then in terms of any spending policy details beyond fiscal year 2009, there was nothing detailed in this President's budget. Let's just give you, as I wrap up and then turn it over to the two of you to bring us home, let's just go through last year. In fiscal year 2008, President Bush requested $193 billion, Mr. Murphy, for the war in Iraq. And in the fiscal year 2009 budget he just proposed to us on Monday, he asked for $70 billion. Good news. We are only going to spend $70 billion on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

Wow, that is so exciting. Again, we have to make sure that we are honest, transparent, and forthcoming with the American people. We can't fake it. We can't gloss it over. We have to make sure that we give them the straightforward facts and be honest with them in the budget document and in everything that we do.

Mr. Murphy, why don't you bring us home. It is a privilege to be here again with you and Mr. Altmire, and we miss our colleagues, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Meek, tonight; but the 30-Something Working Group is always here to talk about the issues that are important to the American people, but particularly to our generation of Americans who are going to inherit the results of the decisions that we make here.

Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the opportunity that has been given to us by the Speaker.

Thank you, so much, Mr. Meek and Mr. Ryan and Mr. Altmire.

Let me tell you something else that we are laying down our marker on. We are not going away. The obstructionist Republicans might think that they have our number and that they have been able to block the efforts of this Democratic majority in trying to move this country in a new direction, but they will be sadly mistaken as we gradually turn this ship of State around. It takes a long time to turn a cruise ship around, something that is the size of this government, and it takes a long time to undo the horrendous damage that was done to this country during the 12 years of Republican majority in this Congress.

We slowly have been peeling the film of the culture of corruption that hung over this Capitol before we took the majority back.

We have feverishly worked to move this country in a new direction to expand access to health care, to make sure that we put our domestic priorities on the front burner. Now, we might have done that within the President's number, and that's essentially not what we wanted to do. What we wanted to do is make sure we weren't spending 10 times more in Iraq to continue this war than we were to increase the funding for health care and for education and for veterans health care funding. That's why, within the President's overall budget number, we reordered our priorities. We made sure that instead of cutting NIH funding grants and cutting health care, that we increased funding for the NIH grants. We made sure that we provide access to health care instead of cutting it by $595 million, that we increased it so that we could expand access to health care to more people. We made sure that instead of cutting veterans health care benefits we passed still the largest single increase in the history of the VA, a $3.7 billion increase.

We have a Democratic stamp on this budget. We passed a budget that has our priorities, the American people's priorities, and refocuses attention on the domestic needs that we have in this country, and we will be back after this recess and make sure that we are going to focus on the needs of the American people.

I'll be happy to yield to my friend

If the gentleman would yield on the energy issue, specifically, we're trying to make sure we expand our investment in alternative energy research, that we use renewable energy resources, that we make sure that we reduce the carbon footprint that we have here in America, that we really significantly impact the continuing global warming that we have.

And do you know what our good friends on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Altmire, have been trying to preserve? They've been trying to preserve subsidies for the big oil industry. That's the thing that we were not able to get done because the Republicans in the Senate and here blocked making sure that we could repeal $13 billion in subsidies for Big Oil, the most profitable industry in America.

I'm happy to yield to the gentleman.

If you'd yield for a question.

So in the time that I have been involved in public service, which is over 15 years now, the mantra of our good friends on the other side of the aisle has always been that they are the party of less government, and that they are the party of fiscal responsibility. And in recent history, and in long-term history, my understanding is that it's this President that built up more foreign debt than all 42 previous Presidents combined, and this President that took us from a $3 billion surplus to a $5 billion deficit, in his first term,

Excuse me. Trillion. Forgive me. Trillion dollars. And so who, the question that I have for you is, so which party is the party of fiscal responsibility? Which party can be trusted to make sure that we have a vibrant economy, that we create jobs, that we don't operate in a deficit situation and that we have PAYGO rules that ensure that we don't spend more money than we take in? Which one would that be?

Okay. I wasn't quite certain because if you listen to the rhetoric on the other side of the aisle, they talk a good game. But when it comes to action, backing up the words with action, just like when the President stood in that rostrum a couple of years ago and laid out the notion that we should end America's addiction to foreign oil, but then promptly pushed an energy bill through the then Republican Congress that gave away those $14 billion in subsidies to the oil industry that we're now trying to repeal. That was just unbelievable. And I can't use certain words that I think should be applicable to that situation because it violates the House rules, so I won't. But I think we all know what the definition of saying something and doing another actually is.

In my wrap-up remarks, first of all, I want to thank each of you that are parts of the 30-Something Working Group, and Mr. Murphy, who headed home to his family this evening, for continuing to hang in here and coming out. We certainly could have disbanded the 30-Something Working Group, Mr. Ryan. We could have said, you know, our work here is done. We won the majority and now we can just, you know, go make good policy and go home. But it's clear that our work is far from done. We have a lot left to do on the agenda. We have to make sure that we deal with expanding access to health care, that we continue to push for the remaining provisions of the energy bill that we were not able to get included. We have to make sure that we focus on bringing our troops home. And people need to understand that we're not, we're going to be relentless in continuing to try to make sure we do that.

People should understand that the vote tonight did not pass with, the vote on the funding for the war in Iraq did not pass with a majority of Democratic votes. It passed with a majority of the Republican votes. This is this President's war and this is the Republicans' war, and it will continue to be their war. They are the ones that are leaving our troops twisting in the wind with their families being separated from them with repeated, over-the-top tours of duty, three and four times over there, having more than a year, less than a year between tours of duty.

We've got to make sure that we think about our troops and focus on the fact that it is clear now, even with the reduction in violence, Mr. Ryan, that the Iraqi leadership has made no progress. And they've made no progress because they don't need to because they know right now with the message that this President is sending that we're going to be there as long as they need us. There's no pressure, no incentive, and we need the American people to understand that we will continue to come out here; we will continue to talk about the priorities that they care about. And now that we're in the majority we're going to continue to press to adopt those priorities and shame the Republicans on the other side of the aisle every single day until we get dangerously close to this election and we put some fear in their hearts so that they don't continue to stick with this President who is completely wrong on the priorities that the American people care about.

Happy New Year.

Before you close out, I don't know if you guys did this last night, but we do need to congratulate in absentia Mr. Murphy on his marriage, because he got married a couple of months ago and, you know, he is going to look forward to spending some quality time with his new bride, and so we wish him and his new wife very well.

They get spammed.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life and memory of Congressman Henry J. Hyde, the Representative of the Sixth District of Illinois from 1975 to 2007. Congressman Hyde was a distinguished and well-respected member of this body, serving for 32 years in the House of Representatives.

During his tenure, Congressman Hyde served honorably as the Chairman of the Judiciary and International Relations Committees and contributed much to this Nation. My thoughts and prayers go out to Congressman Hyde's family and friends during this difficult time.

While Congressman Hyde's accomplishments are many, I want to take a moment to share one that is both emblematic of the mark he left and of which I am particularly grateful. During the 109th Congress, I had the pleasure of working with Congressman Hyde to help spur the creation of the first Jewish American Heritage Month.

As the lead Republican cosponsor of the House Resolution, Congressman Hyde was instrumental in garnering the support of the President of the United Sates and Republican leadership in the House, especially that of Speaker Hastert.

With support from around the country, the House and Senate passed resolutions in early 2006 urging the President to establish American Jewish History Month. President Bush then proclaimed the first Jewish American Heritage Month in May 2006 so that Americans could come together to celebrate the many contributions that Jews have made to the fabric of our society.

Thanks to Congressman Hyde's commitment and dedication, American Jewish culture and heritage is now celebrated each May by our Nation. In appreciation of this leadership, and in honor of Congressman Hyde's lifetime commitment to serving his country, I have requested that a tree be planted in Israel dedicated to his memory.

I again express my deepest sympathy to Congressman Hyde's family, friends, and the people of Illinois.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Frank for your hard work on the legislation, and with all due respect to the gentleman from Alabama, I can appreciate what you are saying about the Senate and our negotiations with them, but the Congress of the United States is not a unicameral institution.

The Founding Fathers created two Chambers, two bodies, and the opinions of this body are just as important as the opinions of the other body. And sending a strong message about the reset provisions and about the group life provisions for the policyholders that you say don't care about those provisions is why we have a bicameral Congress.

The other issue that I want to raise is that the life insurance fairness provision in this legislation, which you have strongly supported consistently, can stand on its own. It is not dependent upon group life being included in this legislation overall and it has no ties to that provision.

In the 109th Congress, we passed a bipartisan version of TRIA that included a provision that says that individuals will not be denied life insurance coverage based solely on where they might lawfully travel, and that is included in this provision again. Too often life insurance companies deny the applications of people who express the intent to travel internationally. That's particularly true when people say that they plan to travel to Israel because Israel and 26 other countries appear on the State Department's travel warning list. The life insurance industry is using the State Department's travel warning list as an underwriting tool. It was never intended to be an underwriting tool. Countries don't make that list based on an actuarial analysis. There are political and diplomatic considerations for those appearing on that list. Travel fairness language will protect consumers from unfair life insurance discrimination on the basis of past or future lawful travel, and this provision allows the insurers to price for risk according to an actuarial analysis. It's also fair to the insurance companies because it allows for denial based on war, serious health conditions in the country the person is traveling to, or fraud.

The freedom to travel is a right that we cherish, and no American should have to choose between their children's financial security and having the right to travel freely. And that is what we are forcing Americans to do if we don't pass this travel fairness language as a part of the reauthorization of TRIA. If we allow insurance companies to deny coverage based on the notion of where a person might travel, we are giving in to the terrorists who wish to change our way of life.

Life insurance companies have been using the State Department warning list as an underwriting tool. It was never meant to be utilized that way. I urge the Members to support the House-passed version of TRIA.

Madam Speaker, on December 4, 2007, I missed the following rollcall votes due to illness: rollcall vote No. 1123, H.R. 3998, passage of America's Historical and Natural Legacy Study Act; rollcall vote No. 11124, passage of H.R. 3887, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act; rollcall vote 1125, the Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. 2082, the Intelligence Authorization Act; and rollcall vote No. 1126, passage of the Charlie W. Norwood Living Organ Donation Act.

If present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall Nos. 1123, 1124, and 1126, and I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 1125.

Mr. Speaker, in August I urged my colleagues to vote against an unconstitutional Senate bill. Simply put, that bill trampled on our constituents' constitutional right to privacy.

Today, I am proud to rise in support of the RESTORE Act, a bill that provides the intelligence community the tools it needs, but that restores the constitutional rights of Americans.

Mr. Speaker, we can be both safe and free, and this bill strikes the right balance.

This bill permits surveillance of foreign-to-foreign communication. It allows us to listen in on Osama bin Laden or any other terrorist who threatens our troops or country. This bill will keep us safe.

But this bill also requires a warrant from the FISA Court in order to eavesdrop on the communications of ordinary Americans, and it requires a court review of targeting procedures to ensure Americans' rights are protected. This bill restores our civil liberties.

Mr. Speaker, our colleagues across the aisle would rather play politics with this bill and unleash arguments of mass distortion, so let me be clear: nothing in this bill gives our constitutional rights to terrorists.

Our Republican colleagues create this smoke screen in order to hide the fact that they have taken away those same constitutional freedoms from Americans.

We need not choose between our secure and liberty. With the RESTORE Act, we can have both.

Thank you so much, Mr. Altmire. It is a pleasure again to join my colleagues in the 30-Something Working Group. And I'm so glad that our newest members of the Working Group, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Altmire, have been holding down the fort for the last little while talking about spending priorities, because that is actually the most glaring difference between the Republicans and the way they handled this institution and the Democrats and the way we are handling it.

Let's take the problem that we're facing here now that you've been talking about, and that is that the President vetoed the Labor Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill. And I am proud to sit as a member of the Appropriations Committee with Mr. Ryan. And I can tell you that the difference in the overall spending plan that the President put forward versus our 12 bills combined amounts to $22 billion. Now, $22 billion might sound like a big number, but let's put it in context.

Twenty-two billion dollars is approximately what we are spending in Iraq in 2 months. That's the difference between what Democrats in Congress are proposing to spend for all 12 bills combined, the difference between the President's proposal and the Democrats' proposal. That problem underscores the fact that the President only has one spending priority, and that is the war in Iraq. The problem is that the only spending priority that matters to President Bush is the war in Iraq. It's not even the war in Iraq and Afghanistan because he has so clearly shortchanged what was going on in Afghanistan when we started, which is where the war on terror, or the pursuit of bin Laden was ongoing that we abandoned when he shifted the focus of America to the war in Iraq, that it has blocked out the sun. His spending priority, his only one, the war in Iraq, has blocked out the sun and made it impossible for us to move forward on things like education, like expanding access to health care for children, like making sure that we can pass a stem cell research bill that the vast majority of this country supports.

I will just give you an example of one of the things that resulted from the veto of the Labor-HHS bill and that is the increase in Ryan White title IV funding for AIDS programs for families. We have an explosion of AIDS in this country. We absolutely need to make sure that we get a handle on it. There hasn't been an increase in title IV funding in years. Now that we are in charge and are making sure that we move this country in a new direction, we are focusing on the domestic priorities of Americans. Americans want us to withdraw our troops from Iraq in a responsible way and focus on things that they care about when it comes to their everyday lives. That is literally what the Labor-HHS appropriations bill does. It is an expression of our values. And our values reflect the needs of Americans when it comes to their health care, when it comes to their education, when it comes to their environment at work. And the priorities and values reflected in the Republicans' agenda is the war in Iraq.

Now, I think the American people clearly stated what their intentions were and what they wanted Congress to do last November 7, and we have repeatedly, and we did again tonight just before we came on the floor this evening for the 30-Something hour, they have repeatedly urged us in Congress to begin a responsible withdrawal of our troops, to stop sending the troops over for tour after tour, the same men and women, the same strain on their families, sending them over there without the equipment that they need, sending them over there without the proper training, with tours of duty that are beyond the appropriate length of time, stretching families, causing divorces, causing strain, psychological impact on children, but they don't care. It just doesn't matter. The President's priority is Iraq, and everyone else's opinion be damned.

I will be happy to yield to the gentleman.

Thank you, Mr. Altmire.

Here is the bottom line. There is a dramatic and stark difference between the Republicans' priorities and the Democrats' priorities. There is one priority, and only one that you will ever hear from the other side, and that is to continue to fund the war in Iraq, continue to put our troops in harm's way, continue to have their families separated from them, continue for them to have longer and longer tours of duty,

more and more strain, more and more tours of duty.

Here are our priorities. We passed the largest increase in veterans benefits in the 77-year history of the VA. We passed legislation to increase the minimum wage. We passed legislation to expand access to health care for 10 million children. We passed legislation to cut the student loan interest rate in half. The list goes on.

And what do you hear from the Republicans? Nothing. You hear, let's put more money into the war in Iraq. Let's lengthen the time that the men and women fighting on our behalf spend there. Let's send them over there for more and more tours of duty. Do you ever hear anything from that side of the aisle in terms of an agenda, in terms of getting anything done? All I hear is ``no.'' All I hear is, ``not going to do that.'' All I hear, again, is, ``Yes, Mr. President. Whatever you say, Mr. President.''

Our criticism of them, Mr. Meek and Mr. Ryan, if you remember, in the 30-Something Working Group in the 109th was that they were the bobblehead Republicans who did nothing more than shake their head up and down and do whatever the President said. And nothing has changed. Well, guess what. A year from now, which is just about a year from now, they will be called to account just like you said, Mr. Meek, and we will see just how many fewer Republicans there will be here that serve in this chamber, because I think the American people have had it up to here.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

If the gentleman will yield. What is clear here is there is a threat of panic running through the caucus on the other side of the aisle because we are up to 16 of their incumbent Members who have decided to bail and who recognize that the ship is listing and has been listing badly and is in danger of just completely going down. There doesn't appear to be any likelihood of the ship righting itself in the near future. They aren't expected and aren't expecting to get their act together and focus on an agenda that the American people support because they have been a one-note, tunnel- vision party for far too long.

So you have 16 that have decided to retire already, with, we are sure, more to come. It's just not surprising because they do not share the priorities of everyday working families, Americans who want the Congress to focus on a new direction and not give them more of the same.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3845) to establish a Special Counsel for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction within the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, to improve the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, to increase resources for regional computer forensic labs, and to make other improvements to increase the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute child predators, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, just last week we learned that police arrested a senior executive at the National Children's Museum right here in Washington, DC, for distributing child pornography over the Internet. This headline floored me, but it is a good example of a problem that has gotten completely out of control.

The Internet has facilitated an exploding multibillion dollar market for child pornography. Tragically, the demand for this criminal market can only be supplied by graphic new images, and these can only be supplied through the sexual assault of more children. I rise today to urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3845, the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2007.

This bill addresses an issue that is central to the goals of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the New Direction Congress, and one that should be at the top of everyone's agenda, the protection of our children. Our children deserve a future that is healthy, prosperous, safe, and bright, but our children are vulnerable when they are on line. If this bill becomes law, we have the potential to save many thousands of children from sexual abuse and exploitation.

I want to start by thanking my friend and colleague, Joe Barton of Texas, for working with me on this bipartisan legislation, and for his counsel, his very good counsel, as the lead Republican sponsor of the bill.

In the last Congress, Congressman Barton, then the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, conducted a series of hearings on this topic. Not only did those hearings expose the dearth of Federal resources devoted to investigating and prosecuting child exploitation crimes, but they also brought together an extraordinary group of parents who formed an organization called the Surviving Parents Coalition. In June of this year, I had the opportunity to visit with this very special group of parents.

When I sat down with Mark Lunsford, Erin Runnion, Ed Smart, Marc Klaas, Mary Kozakiewicz, and other founders of the Surviving Parents Coalition, I was not prepared for what they had to tell me. They shared with me their own horrific stories of how their children were abducted by sexual predators. As we all know, some of these children will never come home. As the mother of three young children myself, their stories broke my heart, and as a Member of Congress I felt compelled to act.

What surprised me most about these brave parents was their message about child pornography and child exploitation. What they said was this: If you

want to prevent predators from hurting other children like ours, the way to do that is to go back through the Internet and get them.

As we learned last month with the apprehension of a child predator in Las Vegas, Nevada, for the first time we have the technology and the evidence not only to find these predators, we have the technology to rescue their victims as well. A 2005 Justice Department study found that 80 percent of child pornography possessors have images and videos of children being sexually penetrated. Another 21 percent possess images of bondage, sadistic abuse, and torture. The children depicted in these photos are very young. Eighty-three percent of child pornography possessors have images of children younger than 12, and another 19 percent possess images of infants and toddlers. There are even Web sites that provide live pay-per-view rape of very young children.

Let me be clear. This is not about obscenity or pornography; these images are crime scene photos, created by a thriving industry that uses children as a sexual commodity.

I want to thank Chairman John Conyers for holding a hearing on Internet predators in October. At that hearing, Special Agent Flint Waters of the Wyoming State Police, a highly respected child exploitation investigator, testified that right now there are nearly 500,000 identified individuals in the United States trafficking child pornography on the Internet. That's half a million people right here in the United States. And law enforcement knows who they are, and they know where they are.

But what shocked me the most and what compelled me to get involved in this issue is that, due to a lack of resources, law enforcement is investigating less than 2 percent of these known 500,000 individuals. Less than 2 percent.

What was even more shocking is that it is estimated that if we were to investigate these cases, we could actually rescue child victims nearly 30 percent of the time.

It is clear that our current efforts are not working. We need a national campaign with everyone joining the fight: that means the full weight of law enforcement, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Congress, the executive branch, parents and victims advocacy groups and Internet service providers.

Alicia Kozakiewicz, whose testimony at the October Judiciary hearing moved us all, is a living, breathing reminder of the lives that we can save. Alicia is not just a victim; she is a survivor.

Alicia told us how over a period of months she was groomed by a 45- year-old predator pretending to be a teenage girl. When Alicia, who was 13 years old at the time, agreed to meet her cyberfriend in real life, he kidnapped her from her suburban Pittsburgh driveway and held her captive in his Virginia dungeon, where he performed unspeakable sexual acts upon her day after day and broadcast it over the Internet. Just when Alicia told us she had given up all hope, she was finally rescued by FBI agents. The FBI found her because the Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children task force, or ICAC, had the technology to lift the digital fingerprints of this perpetrator's crime and to discover the location where he held her captive, chained to the floor.

The PROTECT Our Children Act will help provide the safety net we so desperately need by creating statutory authority for these highly successful ICAC task forces which support State and local law enforcement agencies. It will supplement this local effort with hundreds of new Federal agents who will be solely dedicated to crimes against children. It will also provide desperately needed forensic crime and computer labs so agents can uncover troves of electronic evidence, locate these perpetrators, and bring them to justice.

Finally, the bill will create a special counsel within the Department of Justice who will be responsible for planning and coordinating our child exploitation prosecution efforts across the Federal agencies.

At the October Judiciary Committee hearing, a representative from the FBI told us two things, Mr. Speaker, that boggled my mind. First, he told us that the number of agents being exclusively assigned to these cases is actually shrinking; and, second, that they are giving millions of dollars that Congress has appropriated to combat child pornography to programs that have nothing to do with child protection. Should we be shrinking critical staffing power and diverting badly needed funds at a time when we are investigating less than 2 percent of known traffickers of child pornography? We can do better, and we must do better.

Mr. Speaker, the time has come to reorder priorities at the Department of Justice, and the PROTECT Our Children Act will do just that. Our mandate here is clear: we must prevent predators from hurting our children.

Again, I want to thank Ranking Member Barton for his leadership, his concern, and his compassion for our children and their safety, not just on this issue but on the Pool Safety bill that we worked together in the 109th and the 110th Congress, and I truly appreciate his leadership and effort on this bill and many others.

Mr. Speaker, this is what Congress can do when we come together in a bipartisan fashion. And maybe it's our children that can be the catalyst for the change that we need in America.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield as much time as he may consume to the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Just in response to Mr. Goodlatte regarding the Special Counsel, I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton). Special Counsel is an essential element to this legislation because right now you have no less than eight different entities and agencies that have something to do with the grants and the coordination and the prosecution and the pursuit of child exploitation crimes and particularly child pornography.

It is imperative that we have a single go-to entity, a single leadership position in the Department of Justice to ensure that there is someone who is responsible to Congress for the accountability, for the coordination, to make sure that it is elevated to the highest level of priority at the Department of Justice where clearly right now it is not.

And I again want to thank my colleague Mr. Barton for working with us on this legislation. This is an issue that transcends party. It is an issue that transcends process. When you have 500,000 known individuals out there pursuing our children on-line, Internet predators, any of our children could fall victim just by a click of the computer.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell you I have a 4-year-old who goes on-line with the most basic of Web sites, and you just never know, and we need to make sure that we have a massive effort to coordinate and put resources into going after child exploitation and child predators.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, December 7th marks the 40th anniversary of the mass movement for Soviet Jewish freedom, and the 20th anniversary of the Freedom Sunday Rally for Soviet Jews on the National Mall in Washington, DC. To honor the movement, I am proud to co-sponsor H. Res. 759, a resolution celebrating both of these milestones. We remember these moments to commemorate all of those who struggled and died for their freedom and to celebrate the efforts of advocacy groups that tirelessly campaigned for Soviet Jewry.

Twenty years ago, on December 7, 1987, more than 250,000 people rallied in Washington, DC to support freedom and amnesty for Jews living in the Soviet Union. The human rights campaign resulted from more than two decades of human rights violations and utter lack of freedom for Jews in the Soviet Union. The governmental policy on Soviet Jews violated even the most basic of human rights, including freedom of religion, freedom of movement, and the freedom to study ones culture, language and heritage. Soviet Jews were at risk of arrest, exile to Siberia and harassment for exercising their right to practice their religion or celebrate the Zionist movement. However despite the odds and risks there were many brave Soviet Jews, who worked clandestinely and tirelessly to spread Zionism, and raise Jewish consciousness among Soviet Jewry.

The movement to raise awareness of the Soviet Jewish plight became a global effort in the 1980s due to the work of many American advocacy groups. My heart is warmed by the work of groups that organized protests, petitions, demonstrations, and rallies in United States and all over the world. Through these united efforts, we have witnessed historic progress over the past 20 years, successfully opening the doors for millions of Soviet Jews who had been held as virtual prisoners within their own country. The movement also helped to cement Jewish solidarity, raise charity and unite Jews from all over the world.

However, the struggle for religious freedom continues today in many other countries. Activists labor tirelessly in the United States and abroad to fight anti-Semitism and religious discrimination wherever it exists. It is incumbent upon us to remember the lessons from the movement for tolerance and religious freedom in the Soviet Union as we continue the fight for religious rights around the world. I commend Congressman Waxman for this timely and important resolution recognizing this milestone, and I support the ongoing efforts of those promoting religious freedom worldwide.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the Homeowners' Defense Act of 2007.

Over the past few years, most Americans have witnessed devastating images of natural catastrophes strike our fellow citizens, from wildfires in California, tornadoes in the Midwest, to the hurricanes hitting the Gulf States in Florida, and wondered if they might be next. Even as the recovery begins after these disasters, for many, a new nightmare of rising insurance rates and dropped policy coverage begins. However, thanks to the sponsor of the Homeowners' Defense Act of 2007, Congressmen Ron Klein and Tim Mahoney, many homeowners across America will be spared a similar nightmare. This bipartisan bill, and it is good to see my colleagues on the other side of the aisle from Florida here as well, this bipartisan bill provides a critical tool that will help provide a fair and equitable solution to this crisis.

I cannot think of an issue that is more important to the economic survival of the homeowners of my State of Florida than dealing with the homeowners insurance crisis. Thank you, Congressmen Klein and Mahoney, and thank you to Chairman Barney Frank for bringing this bill to the floor today. It has been a long time in coming.

I urge Members to support it.

Madam Speaker, on October 31, 2007, I missed the following rollcall votes because I was attending to personal family matters in my District: rollcall vote No. 1024, the McCrery substitute amendment to H.R. 3920, the Trade and Globalization Act, rollcall vote No. 1025, passage of H.R. 3920, the Trade and Globalization Act; and rollcall vote No. 1026, the motion to instruct conferees on H.R. 3043, the Fiscal Year 2008 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill.

If present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall Nos. 1024 and 1026 and ``aye'' on rollcall No. 1025.