Floor Statements

Thank you, Mr. Schiff. I too want to join my colleagues tonight in thanking you for putting this together because one of the things that we have been trying to do over the last several months as Democrats in the House of Representatives is roll out our vision for the direction that America should go in.

Clearly, the vast majority of Americans today believe that we are going in the wrong direction, and in terms of homeland security and protecting our Nation's borders, that is one of the number one priorities.

And what I would like to talk a little bit about tonight is an issue that is extremely important, given that my State is a peninsula, and that is port security, because I represent the people of Florida's 20th district, which is south Florida, Ft. Lauderdale, Hollywood and Miami Beach. My district borders two ports, Port Everglades and the Port of Miami, and they both serve as a gateway to millions of tons of cargo and people every year.

In 2005, in fact, almost 5.8 million tons of goods came into the United States through the Port of Miami. Nationally, though, only 6 percent of cargo is screened. That is a shocking statistic. That means that just in the Port of Miami alone, over 5.4 tons of goods were left uninspected before they entered our supply chain. That is just an unbelievably alarming statistic.

The administration claims to have cargo security programs, such as the automated targeting system, that mitigate any threat, according to them, that the remaining 94 percent of cargo entering our country without physical inspection may pose.

However, the Government Accountability Office, a third party validator, recently released a report showing shortfalls in these systems. Multiple deadlines have been missed, and key controls are still not in place to ensure the adequate implementation of such programs.

These facts were true when the Bush administration approved the sale of operations at six major U.S. ports, including the Port of Miami, to the United Arab Emirates. That agreement, had it gone through, outsourced American security to a country with a spotty record in fighting terrorism and one that is currently participating in an illegal economic boycott of the State of Israel.

Responsibility for America's security should not go to the highest bidder. History has shown that friends of the United States truly come and go. Thirty years ago Iran was our ally, and 20 years ago Iraq was our ally.

Given the current gaps in port security, we are placing far too much trust in port terminal operators beholden to foreign nations. The companies have access to America's classified security operations. And I can tell you, having toured the Port of Miami, I can at least transmit to you that at the Port of Miami the people who run the terminals, they run their own internal security, and they have intimate knowledge of the security operations in the rest of the port.

So far the divestiture announcement from DPW appears to be nothing more than a diversion that was designed to deflect attention away from this outsourcing of American port security.

The current level of vulnerability at our ports is simply unacceptable. Three years ago, the Coast Guard said that they needed $7.2 billion for port security measures. But the majority in this Congress, the Republicans, have only allowed for the allotment of $910 million since September 11, 2001.

When it comes to our national security and the safety and defense of our homeland, we should be focused on policy, not politics. We should be pursuing legislation to protect our Nation's ports and remedy the systemic weaknesses that facilitated this deal in the first place.

As the Nation's legislators and lawmakers, it is our responsibility and duty to keep America safe, and the Republican administration and Congress is not accomplishing this objective.

Before I close, I want to share with you yet another alarming statistic. And I notice that when you began your remarks you referred to the removal of shoes as we go through our magnetometers in our Nation's airports.

When I went to the Port of Miami, the staff there talked to me about the disparity in port security versus airport security. In the last 5 years, since 9/11, we have spent, this Republican Congress has spent $18 billion more on airport security, which is a good thing. But comparatively they have spent less than $700 million on port security. Essentially we have rested the sum total of our increase in national security on taking our shoes off as we go through the magnetometer. That is about the only thing that most people could say they noticed was a difference between before 9/11 and post-9/11 national security.

Again, I commend you on your effort to pull us together tonight.

You asked why we were unable to vote on the budget. It is simple. Finally, finally, it obviously became clear to many of our Republican colleagues because we were all unified on the Democratic side, there was not going to be a single Democratic vote for this budget because we are not going to put a vote up for increasing the deficit or maintaining the deficit or increasing our national debt. We are not going to put a vote up on that board that makes drastic cuts in education or cuts in veterans health care. We are not going to put a vote up on that board that fails to protect the environment.

This Republican budget would have done all of those things. I have been here 15 months. I am a freshmen. This is my first year. I just completed my first year in Congress, and finally someone found a conscience on the other side of the aisle. Finally, it was not that they just put that bill out there and you saw enough arms being twisted and the board being held open long enough so they could wrench the votes that they needed.

Let's just look at the record here. What we are talking about and what our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would have been faced with is going home for the next 2 weeks and looking their constituents in the eye and having to tell them if this budget had gone forward and they had supported it, that they would be supportive of the five largest deficits in history. The top-ranking deficit in history was in 2004 when we had a $412 billion deficit.

Number two was in 2003 when we had a $378 billion deficit.

Number three was 2006, the current year, when we had a $372 billion deficit.

The fourth largest year is 2007, still a $348 billion deficit.

And the fifth largest deficit, 2005, the year that just ended, with a $318 billion deficit.

Now these numbers jump all over the board, but if you go in order, the deficit is going in the wrong direction. 2006 is when you had the third highest deficit in history.

If, like the President said he was committed and his Republican leadership was committed to cutting the deficit in half, I don't know. It does not appear like it does. Is 318 half of 412? Are any of these numbers half of any other number here? I am not very good at math, but not the math I am familiar with.

Now let us look at the debt limit because we have also been careening every year towards the debt ceiling. You have held up letter after letter after letter from Secretary Snow, the Secretary of the Treasury who begs us, who was begging us recently to please increase the debt limit so the United States of America does not default on its loans, the loans that you were just outlining that cover the country. Can you pull those up?

Lest people think that the increases we are talking about are small and insignificant, let's go through the kind of numbers that we are talking about and the increases we are referring to.

The Republicans have increased the debt limit by $3 trillion since 2002. That is since 2002. This is 2006. In 2002 they increased it by $450 billion. In 2003, May of 2003, by another $984 billion.

In November of 2004, the month I was elected, another $800 billion.

Now, where is the planning? I mean, what is going on? They are spending like drunken sailors. That is what is going. They have no self-control.

Let's go to March 2006, which was just last month. $781 billion. And you know it would be nice if we could have some transparency and some clarity and honesty in this Chamber, which would mean that we would have had a straight up or down vote on the debt limit. But this last time it was tucked into legislation. I bet you most Members, I can assure you, most Members had no idea that the increase in the debt limit was in there.

They do everything, the Republican leadership does everything possible to avoid us taking a straight up or down vote because, oh, my God, I mean, if they have to go home and face the families that they represent, who every day are struggling, Mr. Ryan, to make ends meet and not run up debt on their credit cards, and not spend more than they take in, well, it is a little tough to face your constituents when you don't do that with their money.

There is no regard here for the use of the American taxpayers dollars because it apparently doesn't matter to the Republican leadership here that we are spending more than we have. Clearly, it is baffling. It really is. And this is the party, supposedly, at least in name only, of fiscal responsibility, of smaller government, of reducing spending.

I will be happy to yield.

And when you are dealing with the facts staring you in the face like that, then even their former leader, the chief architect of what was then called the Republican revolution that began in 1994 and the run up to the 1994 election, when he begins to use ``us'' and ``they'' terminology, then you know they have really made some serious mistakes. They, the Republican leadership here has really made some serious mistakes.

And let's just go through what former Speaker Gingrich has said about what they are doing. He cited a series of blunders. Our third party validator for this evening is the Knight Ridder news papers. And Speaker Gingrich was quoted in their papers on Friday, March 31, 2006. He cited a series of blunders under Republican rule, from failures in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to mismanagement of the war in Iraq. He said, the government has squandered billions of dollars in Iraq.

But that is not all he said. He also noted that a congressional watchdog agency, and I will note that I can recall watching Speaker Gingrich on the House floor a number of times, and when he was in the minority, would cite the congressional watchdog either when the facts helped him, and then when he was in the majority, disparaging what the congressional watchdog that he was referring to said, depending on which side he felt like taking.

But in this case he noted that a congressional watchdog agency recently smuggled a truck carrying nuclear material in the country to test security. He said, why isn't the President pounding on the table? Why isn't he sending up 16 reform bills?

And that is the lack of outrage that we have talked about here on the House floor in the 30-something Working Group. Where is the outrage? I mean, if we have nuclear material being smuggled into this country, and no one knows it, where is their outrage? Where is the oversight? Where is the committee hearing?

Another thing he said, here is where he calls them ``they''. In the same article, he says, they are seen by the country as being in charge of a government that can't function.

Now, if the architect of the Republican revolution is calling the Republican leadership and the rank and file here ``they'', then I think it is clear that it is time for a change. It is time that we restore the PAYGO rules. It is time that we restore some fiscal responsibility. It is time that we make sure that actions match words. The American people, in each of their families, they struggle to spend only what they have.

Yes, absolutely.

We have been talking about the pay-as-you-go needs that we have here. Because we are the 30-something Working Group, what we try to do really often is explain the multi generational impact that these fiscal policies and decisions have.

Let's take a look at the economic impact on college students, Mr. Meek. We are talking about, in this chart, you have the average tuition and fees, which is this line here that has gone up and up and up. Yet, the Pell Grant average award has remained completely flat. The maximum award has also remained completely flat and doesn't even come anywhere close to meeting the needs that the students who are trying to attend college and who are struggling to get a higher education need the two to coincide. There is an impact seniors, an impact on college students.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Will the gentleman yield?

Do you know what else we want as Democrats? We just want the Congress to do what American families all across this country do. They only pay for what they have money to pay for. They pay as they go. Now, there are a lot of families, unfortunately in this country that get themselves into trouble. They run up debt on their credit cards. They end up spending a lifetime hand wringing over how much debt they have because they have paid for luxuries on credit that they didn't have revenue in their household coming in to cover. That is what we are doing here. And there is no end in sight.

Yes, be happy to yield.

Will the gentleman yield?

Because I want to illuminate what you just said because actually, we put our action where our words are, because it is not just that we said that we should drop those tax cuts by just a little bit and make sure we could fund port security. Here is the third party validation that we always talk about.

On June 18, 2004, there was an amendment by Representative Dave Obey, who is the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee that Mr. Rothman sits on. He offered an amendment to increase port and container security by $400 million. Republicans refused to allow consideration of that amendment.

October 7, 2004 an amendment offered by Representatives Obey and Sabo and Senator Byrd that would have increased funding to enhance port security by $150 million. Republicans defeated this amendment along party lines.

September 29, 2005, just last fall, there was an amendment which Representatives Obey, Sabo and Senator Byrd, again, to increase funding for port and container security by $300 million; all of these proposing to drop the tax cut for the wealthiest Americans by just a small amount of money. The House Conferees, led by the Republicans, defeated this amendment along party lines.

And March 2, 2006, Republicans blocked an effort by Democrats to bring the King-Thompson Dubai port deal bill to the floor, which would have expedited procedures to ensure a congressional vote on the Dubai port deal bill sponsored by a Republican and a Democrat. And Republicans voted against that 197-216. So who is for port security?

It is important to note that this is a matter of priorities. What is sad, and I am the least senior among the five of us, and what I have found the most sad since joining the Congress and joining you all last year, is how far astray we have come from when President Clinton was in office.

When President Clinton was in office and I was in my state legislature in Florida, what I watched Congress debate was what we were going to spend the surplus on. Were we going to use the surplus that we had at that time to shore up Social Security? Were we going to shore up Medicare? We didn't have a deficit. We had a surplus.

And Mr. Meek, I think it would be a good idea for you to get back to really describing the scope of the foreign debt that we have here, because we got you mid map. But we really need to make sure that people understand the stark contrast between what we were able to debate during the Clinton administration and what we are forced to debate now. So I yield to the gentleman.

And that is because we did not come here to just sit idly by and not express the outrage that our constituents communicate to us when we go home.

The chart that you had up there a minute ago, Mr. Ryan, the one with the blue background that says ``Borrow and spend Republican Congress,'' that really says it all because what Mr. Rothman said earlier is that our critics, Democratic critics, like to throw around that Democrats are supportive of class warfare, and I am not going to repeat their message. I am going to make sure that we get across like we do every single night here in the 30-Something Working Group that what is going on here in Washington is a borrow and spend Republican Congress. And it is not true just because we are here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives saying it is true. We have third-party validators that say it is true.

USA Today on Monday, April 3, 2006, headline: ``Growth in Federal Spending Unchecked.'' The borrow and spend Republican Congress. A USA Today editorial on February 21 of this year, the title of it was ``Who's Spending Big Now? The party of `small government.' ''

``Tax cuts, they say, force hard decisions and restrain reckless spending. The last time we looked, though, Republicans controlled both Congress and the White House. They are the spenders. In fact, since they took control in 2001, they have increased spending by an average of nearly 7.5 percent a year, more than double the rate in the last 5 years of Clinton-era budgets.''

Now, what we talk about on this floor every night is the difference between words and actions. They can say that they are the party of small government and more personal responsibility and the claptrap that they like to throw around that are just words.

What you are pointing out is there are consequences to the fiscal recklessness. That is what I have observed for the last 15 months. It is just fiscal recklessness.

The most glaring consequence is right here in front of us with what Mr. Ryan talked about that happened in a town in his district. Twelve hundred jobs gone. Seven point two million Americans today remain unemployed with an additional 4.2 million who want a job but who are not counted among the unemployed. Since this President took office, the economy has posted only 15 months of job gains that have 150,000 or more. That is just the number of jobs that we need to keep up with population growth.

But the most telling, which is the one that is evidenced by what happened in the town in your district, Mr. Ryan, is that there are now 1.3 million more unemployed private sector workers than in January, 2001. The long-term unemployment rate, people who are unemployed for more than 26 weeks, has nearly doubled since that time. And the manufacturing jobs that we have lost literally have reached 2.9 million since 2001.

There are day-to-day policy implications that affect people's lives that result from the fiscal recklessness. There are consequences. The Republican economic disaster is hurting real people.

I just want to give one quick statistic. Here is another third-party validator, the Tax Policy Center. And here is the startling contrast between the tax cuts that Mr. Rothman was talking about that go to the wealthiest few and what the tax cuts have provided for the average working family in middle income America. In 2006, according to the Tax Policy Center, millionaires received an average tax cut of $111,550, while the middle-class American received a tax cut of $750.

When I asked in my town hall meetings, and I represent a pretty middle-income, even middle to upper-middle income district, I have a lot of wealthy communities and a lot of upper-middle class communities and some middle to lower-middle income communities, no matter what kind of room, other than the wealthiest few, that I ask people to raise their hands to tell me whether they got money in their pocket from the Bush tax cuts, maybe in rooms full of several hundred people I will get two or three people that raise their hand.

If this tax relief was benefiting a wide swath of Americans, the broad spectrum of Americans of varied income, in a district like mine you would get more than three hands.

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

I too rise in support of House Joint Resolution 81 to appoint Dr. Phillip Frost of Florida for a 6-year term as a citizen regent of the Smithsonian Institution.

Dr. Frost, who is a medical doctor, is a noted collector of American abstract art and a philanthropist, who, since 1987, as was mentioned, has served as the chairman of the board and CEO of the IVAX Corporation, which develops and markets pharmaceutical products.

Dr. Frost and his wife, Patricia, gave their 113-piece collection of American abstract art to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1986. In another major philanthropic donation, they previously gave a $33 million gift to the University of Miami for its school of

music. Subsequently, the school of music was named after Dr. Frost and his wife, Patricia.

Dr. Frost's broad background in medicine, science, business, and culture will be a valuable asset to the Smithsonian.

And, Madam Speaker, just as a personal aside, I have a personal relationship with Dr. Phil Frost. He is a renowned philanthropic contributor both in the community in south Florida and across this country. I have worked with him on several projects and also would like to note his deep commitment and involvement in the Jewish community in south Florida, and I am privileged to be able to stand before this House today and ask unanimous support for this resolution.

I urge my colleagues to support House Joint Resolution 81 so that this joint resolution can be signed into law before the May meeting of the Smithsonian regents.

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

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

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

I too support H.J. Resolution 82 to reappoint Alan G. Spoon of Massachusetts for a new 6-year term as a citizen regent of the Smithsonian Institution.

I want to mention that my colleague, the Hon. Congressman Barney Frank, joins me in the support of this resolution as well.

Alan Spoon was previously appointed to the Board of Regents by Congress in 2000. He is a member of the executive committee of the board and chairman of the Finance and Investment Committee. As was mentioned, Mr. Spoon is the managing partner of Polaris Venture Partners, an investment company, and was previously president of The Washington Post Company. Prior to that experience, Mr. Spoon also served as president of Newsweek magazine, an impressive accomplishment. He also brings previous experience to the Smithsonian as a member of the National Museum of Natural History's advisory board.

I believe the Smithsonian will continue to benefit from Alan Spoon's financial, marketing, and management background and continuing experience on the Board of Regents.

I urge my colleagues to support House Joint Resolution 82 so that this joint resolution can be signed into law before the May meeting of the Smithsonian regents.

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

Mr. Speaker, as a proud University of Florida alumnus who bleeds orange and blue, I too want to add my congratulations to the Gator men's basketball team on winning their first national championship last night. The University of Florida is renowned and has always excelled in academics, and has been noted for their accomplishments on the football field. Now we can add basketball to the list of accomplishments.

The Gator nation continues to make its mark and make her alumni and the Gator family proud.

Mr. Speaker, I have only one additional thing to say and that is, 2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a dollar, all for the Gators, stand up and holler. Go Gators.

Thank you very much. We were thrilled and I had an opportunity to attend the game last night and it was an incredible experience, and congratulations to the Florida Gators.

Orange and blue. And each and every Gator fan that I know, Mr. Delahunt, bleeds orange and blue.

Thank you so much. But, all lightheartedness aside, I am struck, in following what the gentleman from Florida touched on, I am struck by a collection of facts that really are staring us in the face that are the direct result of Republican policies; today, this moment, not 5 years ago, not 4 years from now, but the direct result of Republican leadership or, I should say, lack of Republican leadership, because they are obviously in charge.

Let me just go through with you some of the things that we have pulled together and that are the economic facts facing this country and that clearly show why, when I go home and talk to my constituents and have done so recently, I did kind of a run through my district and spoke to many different kinds of organizations, many different kinds of groups, Mr. Delahunt, and I am sure that you are hearing the same kinds of things that I am.

Americans' confidence in their government has been so badly shaken. And it is not just that the culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence that hangs over this building is there by itself. It is that, as a result of that corruption and cronyism, the policy that results from the corruption that is so deeply disturbing.

Let me just go through with you some of the things that we have been able to pull together just related to the economy. This is as of March 2006, just last month. 7.2 million Americans remained unemployed. We have an additional 4.2 million who want a job but are not counted among the unemployed.

Since this President took office, the economy has posted only 15 months of job gains of 150,000 or more. That is the number of jobs that is just needed to keep up with population growth. So all this talk about an explosion in job growth and how we are really on the rise in terms of job growth is just baloney.

I know what it is not.

It is not just words in the State of the

Union, because it was very nice to hear the President talk about how he wants to make sure that we can have this.

What I hear from most people today is it is very nice, you can give a whole lot, it is nice to hear the speeches. They want the action to back up the words.

And let us just go a little bit deeper into this whole issue of job growth. So go beyond the 7.2 million Americans that remain unemployed. Since the President took office, only 15 months of job growth, just keeping up with population growth. The Bush administration has the slowest job growth of any administration in over 70 years. Since January of 2001, 2.9 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. There are now more than 1.3 million more unemployed private sector workers than in January of 2001.

And who has been in charge this whole time, Mr. Meek? Have Democrats been in charge during these years that talk about the lackluster job performance?

Who has been in charge?

Oh, the Republicans. Okay. That is what I thought. Congressional Republicans.

They talk about how they want to grow jobs, that making sure people can go to work and earn a decent living is what is important. Then why is it that congressional Republicans defeated a Democratic amendment to increase the minimum wage, which has not been increased since 1997, the longest period of time we have gone without increasing the minimum wage? From $5.15, which is what it is now, we proposed to increase it to $7.25.

I am dying to make this comparison.

I know. We have 6 more months, and I am not through my list yet.

The minimum wage being $5.15 and the Members that you are talking about that were so fresh faced and exuberant the morning after the election and they were going to come to Washington and do the right thing and not be the rubber stamp Republicans, all of them voted against increasing that minimum wage. And if the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation, today it would be $8.88.

I am certain that none of our Republican colleagues have done this recently because, otherwise, they would have voted for the amendment, but have you driven through a McDonald's recently and ordered a number one, which is a Big Mac meal?

I am kind of a McDonald's fanatic. And since it is quick and easy and when you have got your kids in the back of the minivan, believe me, the quickest thing sometimes is to go through the drive-through. The number one is just about $5.15 at this point. By the time you get the meal and whatever else you need, to make sure that you have got your soda and your drink and your fries, can you imagine that the minimum wage just barely pays for one Big Mac meal? I mean are the American people not worth more than a Big Mac meal? That is really what it boils down to.

I think they are. I want to make sure that my constituents can afford to feed more than just themselves or more than just one kid. Which kid are they going to pick? Which kid do they pick? Okay, who wants to eat today?

Yes. I mean who can live on that?

In our community, Mr. Meek, look at what housing costs.

We are talking about the reality.

Who is the third party validator in the facts that you are citing now?

Do you know why? Because this is a rubber stamp Republican Congress. We had an amazing thing happen today, and my good friend from Florida, Mr. Meek, he has a much bigger rubber stamp that we use to show what is going on in this place.

I feel privileged to hold it, although I don't want to hold it too long, lest it rub off.

But we got today more than 100 of these ``Rubber Stamp Republican Congress'' stamps from bloggers and people in the communities all over the country who are fed up and frustrated and who want us to continue to talk about what is going on here. Because it appears as though, and I mean this respectfully, that when people on the other side of the aisle come in this room, that they are checking, and I don't know whether they are checking their brains at the door or their opinions at the door or their convictions at the door, but we have watched, all of us, the board light up here with yesses and noes, and I know I have had conversations with Republican Members on the other side who say, ``I know I am going in there and I am voting this way.'' Then you watch it, the board, the light next to their name goes from red to green or green to red, and you watch their arm being wrenched behind their back, and out comes the rubber stamp.

Out comes the rubber stamps. We need to throw away the rubber stamps. It is time to be done with the rubber stamps.

What we have been asking, what Democrats have been asking, is where is the outrage? What is their limit? Where do they reach the breaking point, individual Republican Members? When do they say ``that is it? There is a point at which I cannot support the direction that my leadership is taking this country anymore,'' meaning theirs. When do they say, ``I have got to stand up and do the right thing?''

It appears that their tolerance level for being pushed to do exactly as they are instructed is unbelievably high, far higher than my constituents, and I know your constituents, are comfortable with. We have got to make sure that we start moving the country back in the right direction and change some of these facts on the ground here.

Mr. Ryan, how many Americans, do you think, think it is okay to just put all their debt on their credit card and never mind how much money they have coming in?

But I guess the Republican leadership think here it is fine.

No question about it. I want to follow up

on something that the gentlewoman from Texas focused on, because a lot of people in America, even I have a hard time getting my mind around what a billion and a trillion is. It is hard to think about it in everyday terms. So we had it boiled down in very convenient chart form to help illustrate what a billion is.

For example, a billion hours ago, humans were making their first tools in the Stone Age. A billion minutes ago, it was 104 AD, and the Chinese first invented paper. A billion seconds ago, it was 1975, and the last American troops had just pulled out of Vietnam. All of those things, a very long time ago. A billion is a big, big number, clearly, measured in terms of time.

But a billion dollars ago, under this administration and this Republican Congressional leadership, was only 3 hours and 32 minutes ago at the rate that our government currently spends money. That is astonishing. That is what it means when you think about what a billion means under this Republican leadership.

There is no oversight. There is no outrage. There is no conscience. There is no heart. There is no ability of the leadership on the other side to recognize that the country has to move in a new direction and that we have to do something to restore the American people's confidence in their government. When will that happen?

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in opposition of the single holder rule, and in support of Americans pursuing secondary education.

As the law currently stands, student loan borrowers attempting to refinance and consolidate their loans face unfair restrictions from the so-called ``single holder rule.'' This rule limits the search of these students to their current lender for a Consolidation Loan, if the current lender is the holder of all of the Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL) they wish to consolidate.

Mr. Chairman, with tuition prices on the rise, it should be the role of the Federal Government to help those Americans pursuing higher education, not impede them. Competition amongst the lender industry for these Consolidation loans would help lower interest rates for these loans, lowering the cost of secondary education for countless Americans. At a time when the dream of higher education has become farther out of reach for many families, it would be irresponsible for this Congress to stand in the way of the elimination of these restrictive provisions.

Furthermore, we have learned a great deal in recent months of increased competition from overseas in the areas of math and science. In order for our Nation to remain a leader in innovation, and maintain our status in the international economy, we must make educating the next generation of Americans a priority. The single holder rule serves only as a barrier to this critical education.

I do not stand alone in my support of the elimination of the single holder rule. Rather, I am lending my voice to a bipartisan chorus. The Conference Report on the 2003 Omnibus Appropriations Act urged the authorizing committees to repeal the single holder rule to ``ensure borrowers have the best options available to them in order to manage their student loan obligations.''

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to see that both the House and Senate versions of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act to pass out of conference would finally repeal the single holder rule. This rule does nothing more than pander to the student loan industry special interests at the expense of America's students. While I will not be lending my support to H.R. 609 today for other reasons, I applaud the efforts of both Republicans and Democrats to eliminate this harmful rule.

Madam Speaker, in recognition of Women's History Month of 2006, we recognize and celebrate the contributions of great American heroines who have built a legacy for women leadership over the 230 years of our Nation's history.

In celebration of this year's Women's History Month theme, ``Women: Builders of Communities and Dreams,'' I call upon each of us to dedicate ourselves to making the future for all of America's girls and women full of hope and opportunity.

Today I salute the work of two extraordinary women and two exceptional young girls from Florida's 20th Congressional district. But first I would like to commend Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia, who addressed the Congress just last week. She represents the aspirations and expectations of women in Liberia, Africa and women all over the world.

Now I would like to recognize two young women from the 20th District of Florida, Taryn Daley of Davie and Katie Bonilla of Weston, who started 10 lemonade stands to raise money for pediatric cancer research.

Taryn, 12, and Katie, 11, were inspired by their mitzvah project, which is a part of their bat mitzvah requirements of public service and a national program known as Alex's Lemonade Stand, an idea started by a young girl named Alexandria ``Alex'' Scott who was diagnosed with an aggressive childhood cancer.

In less than 2 weeks, Madam Speaker, Taryn and Katie found more than 30 volunteers, enlisted a group of sponsors, and raised $3,000 to fight childhood cancer. These two young ladies are proof that this generation of young women are dream builders. Their courage and compassion gives us all hope for a brighter future. They will inspire more young women to make the world a better place.

Next I would like to recognize the City of North Miami Beach police chief and president of the Miami-Dade Association of Chiefs of Police, Linda Loizzo. Linda is a true trailblazer. She has served the North Miami Beach Police Department for 32 years in a number of capacities: deputy chief, assistant chief of operations, major in charge of administrative services, commander in charge of the investigative division, and supervisor of several special support services units.

Linda was the first woman promoted to the rank of sergeant, the first woman promoted to the rank of lieutenant and major, and the first woman promoted to the rank of chief of police from the North Miami Beach Police Department. Her work doesn't stop there. Linda is also the regional director of the Florida Police Chiefs Association and she serves on numerous organizational boards.

Without question, Linda represents the best of our Nation's first responders. The National Association of Women in Law Enforcement estimates there are more than 16,000 police departments in this country, which is just slightly more than 200 female police chiefs.

Chief Loizzo didn't just break down walls in a male-dominated profession. She shattered and crumbled stereotypes in all professions and particularly those in law enforcement.

Finally, I want to recognize Cindy Arenberg-Seltzer, president and chief executive officer of the Children's Services Council of Broward County. Across the country there are millions of children that long for stability and hope in their lives. In Broward County, the needs of this vulnerable population are vast.

In 1999 there was a critical need for programs to make essential services available to children who face abuse, neglect, or abandonment. Cindy was a powerful voice in leading the charge for a Broward County ballot initiative to designate family program funding. The initiative passed overwhelmingly with 70 percent of Broward voters approving.

Since that time, Cindy has been instrumental in helping to ensure that each child will live in a safe and loving environment and has the resources needed to grow up healthy and strong. Today, Cindy serves as the board's chief executive officer and has led the effort to expand available funding to improve the lives of Broward's children.

Madam Speaker, in a world where the magnitude of problems that face our children can be daunting, Cindy identified and fixed a problem with the system and continues to deftly refine and steer the program. Her leadership and passion for children has made a difference in the lives of many south Florida families and provided thousands of children with a future filled with unlimited possibilities.

These women and young girls are doing what may seem like ordinary work, but they are leading extraordinary lives. Their work and service showcase what the theme of this year's Women's History Month was designed to celebrate and encourage.

On behalf of the people of Florida's 20th Congressional District, I am proud to recognize their uncommon character and motivation in performing the work that successful communities and generations are built upon, and I am delighted to recognize them in the Congressional Record with this honor.

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to be here once again with the 30-Something Working Group, and I want to thank the Democratic leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), for giving us the opportunity to spend some time talking tonight about the priorities of the American people.

I am thrilled this evening to be joined, as we come to the end of Women's History Month, to be joined by my fellow freshman colleague and also my roommate while here in Washington, D.C., the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean).

Madam Speaker, we spend a great deal of time at the end of the day talking about some of the frustrations about this job. The gentlewoman from Illinois and I, two of the few women Members, particularly in the freshman class that we were elected to, as were you, Madam Speaker, in 2004, who are moms with young kids that are trying to balance work and family. We find ourselves at home talking about that a lot.

Ms. Bean, when you and I are sharing frustrations and stories about concerns that we have and that our constituents have, I find that we often end up talking about it in the context of our kids and the children of our constituents. I know you have a story that you talk to your constituents about, and you were telling me about the seventh graders in your district that you were talking to. I think that is a really neat story you should share.

I think you need to stress that again. How much is every American's share of the deficit?

We talk about the deficit quite a bit in our 30-something hour, and one of the ways that I sort of try to boil it down, because, you know, when you think about the number 8 trillion, especially, I mean, I imagine you were talking to seventh graders, and 8 trillion is a really big number. Even $27,000 is a big number.

So when we are on the floor here, I often try to boil down what those numbers mean in more simplistic terms. I can tell you that we, what we do is we talk about how it relates to someone's household budget. And you know, of course, families, millions and millions of families across this country struggle every day to balance their budgets to make sure that they are not spending more than they take in. And they are hoping that they are not racking up credit card debt and trying to balance all the needs that their family has, plus, you know, hopefully buying a few things that maybe aren't necessarily a need, but are just a want. I mean, that is something that in America we all strive to be able to accomplish.

But unfortunately, in Washington, when we got here, we found that there seems to be, between the two sides here, an ongoing struggle over whether or not it makes sense, amazingly, to not spend more than you take in.

Just to further explain the concept of PAYGO, we, as Democrats, have repeatedly introduced amendments and other proposals that would reestablish those PAYGO rules, the pay-as-you-go rules, and we have supported them. We have put all of our votes up on the board here that shows where we are versus where our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are, and Democrats have consistently supported returning to pay as you go, returning to the time when we didn't have to talk about a deficit, where we had a surplus, which was just before this, the beginning of this administration's tenure. And it would be wonderful if we could get back to talking about how we were going to spend the surplus, which we wish we had, when now, unfortunately, we are mired in debt and mired in deficit

You just can't have it all. I mean, the other story that I share with people when we are here on the floor during this 30-something hour is it is like when we talk to our kids. You know, sometimes my 6-year-old twins will say, Mom, you know, I really want, we will be in the toy store and they want everything in every aisle. And, you know, gosh, I would love to buy them everything in every aisle. But often, I have to say ``no,'' and then I try to explain to them, you know, our budget, the money that mom and dad earn really only enables us to afford to buy you some of these things. You can't have everything you want.

And, boy, as moms, we certainly have a lot of practice at that.

Tough love is something that unfortunately the word ``no'' gets thrown around a lot more than I would like, than my kids would like to hear. ``No'' doesn't seem to exist in this body, at least under this leadership in the Congress.

I want to go back if you don't mind. I want to go back to the chart that I was referring to earlier.

One of the things that we do try to do, and I am pleased to see that our colleagues from Florida and Ohio have joined us now. But when we talk about $8 trillion, and when we talk about what a billion means, we have come up with a chart that kind of tries to boil that down. This chart will help people; it has helped people understand the notion of how much a billion is.

A billion hours ago, humans were making the first tools in the Stone Age. A billion seconds ago, it was 1975 and the last American troops had pulled out of Vietnam. A billion minutes ago, it was 104 A.D., and the Chinese first invented paper. And then, of course, under the leadership of this Congress, and this administration, a billion dollars ago was only 3 hours and 32 minutes at the rate that the government spends money today. That is a startling contrast, and I have some excellent staff work that went into developing that, that figured that out and boiled down what a billion is.

But when you think about it that way, that means that we are spending money at a startling clip and that given how much in other definitions it took to get, it takes to get to a billion, it is really amazing when you look at it in these terms.

You are absolutely right. And I would like to welcome my colleague, the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Ryan

Absolutely.

We have another chart that we talk about. The amount of debt that has been racked up in just the last few years, just in the last 4 or 5 years is actually greater than all of the 42 administrations before this one. I mean, that is a truly astonishing statistic. I was really incredibly surprised about that.

We also try to boil down the difference between the debt and the deficit. The deficit is related to the fact that we spend more than we take in.

Right. The debt is the amount of money we borrow from other countries in order to remain fiscally solvent. I mean, that is truly amazing that we have so much debt that is owned by foreign nations.

And I don't know if the gentleman from Florida is ready to jump in yet, but he has an amazing chart, as well, that shows the United States of America and the percentage of the debt that is owned by other nations.

It is just, we have got to get a handle on this. We have to restore some fiscal sanity. We have to put on some brakes and we need a little tough mother love. Maybe it is just that we need to bring a few more moms into this Chamber and we will have a little more tough love, because apparently the folks here are either out of practice, or I don't know, maybe the discipline around their homes isn't, you know, is not so strong.

Actually this is a little bit of a leap, but you and I sit on the Financial Services Committee together, and I know that you have been very involved in the data security issue because, in addition to the concern that Americans have over our debt and our deficit, they are also very concerned, and I know my constituents talk to me about this all the time, about the financial information that is out there about them personally is being compromised on a regular basis. And I know that you have really been a leader in that effort, and it would good for you to talk about it.

That is something that, with my 6-year-olds and 2-year-old coming up behind them, my husband and I are already talking about how to safeguard the information that they have access to and make sure we are aware and keep them and their computer in close proximity to us because there is so much out there. The Internet is an amazing thing, but there is so much out there. And whether it is data security or the security of our kids, we really have to make sure that we strike a balance, which is what you have been fighting for, and I have as well and other Democratic members on our committee. We have to strike a balance between making sure that business has the ability to operate and function and that we not unnecessarily restrict commerce on the Internet.

You are absolutely right. One of the most amazing things about having the privilege that we have to represent our communities in Washington is the people that we get to meet and interact with. And you and I, along with the other members of the bipartisan Women's Caucus, had an opportunity tonight to have dinner with former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman ever to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

It was incredible. And I mentioned to her that I was 13 when she was first nominated by then-President Reagan and that my parents raised me to believe that young women, young girls could grow up and truly be anything they wanted to be and that was my first memory that that was the most clear example of that being true. And it was just a thrill to be able to share that with her tonight.

Absolutely. And I think it is only 70 women that serve with us in the House of Representatives out of 435 Members. You boil that down even further, there is only a handful of us who are moms with young children. There are only four of us that are younger than 40 years old. The thing that sticks in my mind from the time that we were elected 1\1/2\ years ago now is that story that they shared with us when we were at our orientation initially. If you recall, there is a statistic that they described there. There have been a little less than 12,000 people in American history who have served in the United States House of Representatives in all the 230-year history. And of that number, only 211 of them have been women and 70 are serving now.

So as we close out Women's History Month, Madam Speaker, and you are one of those women members in the Women's Caucus, and I remember talking with you, Madam Speaker, actually about when we heard that information. It was really astonishing.

211 women out of almost 12,000 people.

It shows you that we have really come a long way, but it really demonstrates why we need to continue to have Women's History Month and how it is so important to show young girls who are coming up behind us that they have the opportunity. They have to reach out and grab it. And it is our responsibility to pull other young women up on the platform with us now that we have been able to have an opportunity like this, not to be discriminatory against our male colleagues whom we are sharing the Chamber with this evening.

And actually the gentleman from Florida is the dad of a young girl who is a wonderful young woman and works hard in school, and I know that especially since you are the son of one of the House of Representatives' most revered women, former Congresswoman Carrie Meek, that surely you have something to add at the end of Women's History Month.

How about the amazing experience we had 2 weeks ago with the President of Liberia, the first woman president of an African nation who addressed the joint session?

It was incredibly moving for all of us. And she didn't mention it during her speech, but it was very fitting that she spoke during Women's History Month. And I am not certain of this, but she is certainly one, if not the only, woman leader to ever address a joint session of Congress, unless Margaret Thatcher had previously addressed a joint session. I have not found anyone who actually could recall a woman addressing a joint session. So it was just really historic in so many different ways.

I really also thought about how we could take several pages from her lesson book because a lot of things that she talked about, making sure that you did not only look out for the privileged and making sure that you thought about the needs of young children and young girls in particular who needed to get an education and have hope and opportunity. In this country so often it appears as though the leadership in this body and in this country now has had a lot of disregard, quite a bit of disregard, for those things. And I am certainly hopeful that our colleagues were listening very carefully to her remarks and took them to heart.

Just to shift gears a little bit, recently we have been talking about homeland security quite a bit, and I am not sure if you had a chance to talk about that with the seventh graders when you were in the classroom with them, but since we just came off a week, and, Mr. Meek, I know that you spent some time talking to your constituents as well, I was really struck when I was home last week during our recess by how many more of my constituents appealed to me to come back to Washington and make sure that I continue to fight to improve our national security, that their confidence in this government's ability to keep them safe has really been shaken on so many levels, not just in terms of protecting them from terrorists and from outside actors, but just generally had their confidence shaken in their government's ability to function.

I mean, the culture of corruption that has been hanging over this institution, sadly, and this administration, really has shaken the confidence, I think, of our constituents to their core.

We really need to return to a time when we can restore that confidence, let them know that not all of the people in this government are in it for the wrong reasons, and that, in particular, we do put a very high priority on our national security.

And that the port deal that was recently proposed, and, seemingly, not had an

interest in even a 45-day security review with a country that had been implicated in some way, in the 9/11 attacks, that is the kind of thing I heard about when I went home.

I heard about how they are really deeply concerned about the lack of port security. I mean, we have invested now, we have third-party validators that we talk about here on this floor.

Mr. Meek, when I went down to the port of Miami after the revelation came about the DPW port deal, the port personnel there, in our home port, talked to me about the $18 billion that has been spent since 9/11 improving airport security, which is a good thing, and they are happy about that, and the less than $700 million that has been spent to improve our port security, the less than 6 percent of U.S. cargo that comes through our ports that is physically inspected, 95 percent not inspected.

The general lack of confidence in our homeland security, in our government's ability to do the right thing on all fronts, is really, I think, at least from when I went home, something that is really disturbing them.

Mr. Meek, the thing that keeps coming to mind when I think about the comparison between the stress that has been put on airport security versus port security, if you ask, if you go out into the country and ask most Americans the difference that they have seen since 9/11 and in security in general, basically about the only thing that Americans could say that they could identify is they have to remove their shoes before they walk through a magnetometer at the airport.

I think most people really feel today that we should not be resting the sum total of our national security on taking your shoes off as you go through a metal detector. American people expect quite a bit more than that when it comes to homeland security, especially if you live near a port, like my district includes two, Port Everglades and the Port of Miami.

We have so many, so many potential openings around this country, and vulnerabilities. To focus all of our attention on only the ones that are most visible that provide the leadership here, the ability to say, see, we did that, we have taken care of that, and just provide surface reassurance about homeland security, that is the difference between words and action.

It is the difference between nice commentary in speeches and actually backing up those words with action.

Exactly.

Mr. RYAN of OHIO. You guys are from Florida. We are from the Midwest, so we don't have hurricanes.

It was wonderful to have you join us. I will see you at home.

Go Gators.

You know what strikes me when you say that is that we talk about the culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence that has existed for quite some time now and it is only getting worse with every passing day, it is interesting that the administration appears to think that just by changing out a staffer, by swapping one person, a chief of staff, for another, that that is somehow going to magically transform this administration into a competent one.

It is amazing to me that they could get materials into this country if they have been supposedly stepping up their commitment and our ability to keep our Nation secure in the last 5 years. How is that possible if they are running a tight ship like they say they are?

Mr. Delahunt, Mr. Ryan, you talk about A.D.D. and lack of focus in terms of making sure we can keep this Nation safe. Lest people think that the DPW port deal was an isolated incident where we think that that was an anomaly and we are not continuing down that path of engaging foreign governments and the corporations they own to help us with our national security or to be involved in our national security, right after the withdrawal of DPW we learn, and through a third party validator again, the Associated Press, that the administration acknowledged that they issued a no-bid contract to Hutchinson Whampoa Limited which represents the first time a foreign company will be involved in running a sophisticated radiation detector at an overseas port without American customs agents present.

I mean, what is going on?

We are from Florida. The Bahamas is 30 minutes by plane. It is really unbelievable that there is an astonishing lack of concern about the gaping holes in our national security that this administration appears to have no qualms about leaving unprotected.

Make sure we are clear about which part of the Congress is afraid and where the leadership has been exercised on our side of the aisle in terms of that oversight and where it has been shunned on the Republican side of the aisle, Mr. Delahunt.

I just want to piggyback on your observations. I am the least senior of the four of us. I am a freshman, and about 15 months into my first term. We have talked many times on this floor in our 30-something Working Group about the lack of outrage, the astonishing lack of outrage, the deafening silence on the other side of the aisle about all these things we are talking about.

Why no hearings? Where is the accountability? Why aren't they demanding some answers from this administration about the results in Iraq, about how we got into Iraq, about the leadup, about the fact there were no weapons of mass destruction? And how come we haven't had any hearings on the intelligence and whether that was manufactured, or was it shaped around the decision that was already made clearly by this administration? Not one hearing. Not one hearing on almost anything since I have been in the United States Congress.

And what I have noticed, the observation I want to make is that we have had a very slow but now more rapid deterioration of our system of checks and balances. This Congress, the Republican leadership in this Congress could care less about oversight. They would just cede the whole ball of wax to this administration. This administration has run amuck. That is how I really believe the American people feel. This administration has been allowed to go unchecked, unresponsive. No one asks any questions.

You know what was really ironic, what was really interesting, was that it appears as though the outrage has built on the Republican side of the aisle, our good friends on the Republican side of the aisle. I noticed there was a whole lot of outrage that was cropping up all over during the Dubai Worlds Port deal. That sense of outrage on that side appeared to be in direct proportion to the reduction in the President's polling numbers. The lower his numbers got, the more outrage there appeared to be.

I think that it probably would be a little bit more comforting for most Americans if the outrage was more consistent about Katrina and its aftermath, about the war in Iraq, about the deficit, about the debt, about the corruption, about the cronyism, and about the incompetence. This administration has veered so far off to the right. There is a stranglehold that the right has on the Republican leadership in this country. They are so out of the mainstream now.

The far right.

Kicked in the teeth.

Thank you. And what just keeps striking me about all of what we are saying is that it feels enveloped by the stranglehold that is around this administration's neck by the far right and that ideology, that the stranglehold of the far right on this administration and this Republican leadership drives their incompetence, drives their decisions on Iraq, drives their decisions on Katrina, or lack thereof, drives their decisions on the deficit, on the debt.

We talk about incompetence. We talk about corruption and cronyism and incompetence, but you cannot detangle, disentangle their incompetence and their ideology because the two are intertwined

I will close just by saying this. It would be one thing, and the American people, I know, are understanding this and have an ever-growing understanding with every day that passes and they observe this administration and the Republican leadership here.

It would be one thing if they had the confidence that, you know, they could just sub out the Republican individuals here and sub in another, a different Republican and get a more competent person. Unfortunately, it is not just that the individuals here are incompetent or that this administration is led by incompetence. It is that the ideology and the incompetence are so intertwined that it doesn't matter which Republican you swap in.

We have seen the board lit up here where you have moderate Republicans, arms wrenched behind their back when they are trying to express what is supposedly their conscience, and instead they are forced to vote according to the ideological stranglehold that is around the neck of the Republican leadership and the Republican Party. And so it doesn't matter who you swap in and out. If the ideology doesn't change, which it is clearly not going to, then you will just get more the same. Just like you will have more of the same in swapping the individual, one individual for another in the White House, as the President did today, and what you would see if we didn't make the change that is so necessary with the leadership in this country.

I appreciate the opportunity to join my colleagues here again in the 30-something Working Group.

Thank you. Go Gators.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Chairman, Members, I ask your support of my amendment, which will add State fish and shellfish methylmercury notification laws to this act's current list of exemptions.

The gentleman from Georgia outlined that if there is a problem with any food, that we should have national notification so that everyone in America may be notified regarding those concerns. The problem in particular when you are talking about fish and shellfish is that much of the problem deals with recreational fishing. So, for example, in Georgia, you might have a different level of mercury in the lakes and rivers there as opposed to the level of mercury in the lakes and rivers in Michigan. So it is imperative that we have the ability to notify, under a State's discretion the level of mercury poisoning and the caution and concern that those residents should have in that particular State.

Methylmercury poisoning is a growing crisis in our country. The FDA recommends that pregnant women completely stop eating larger predatory fish, because the average methylmercury content per serving is so high that just one male is unhealthy.

The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that children and pregnant women can have significant exposure if they consume excess amounts of fish. Several States have begun to address current mercury levels. In fact, 44 States have issued some form of a methylmercury advisory.

Members, I know you all share my concern for our children's health and well-being. This amendment will not undermine the sponsor's intent. There are other exemptions in this bill. If there is any substance that we exempt and ensure that there can be differing levels of advisories across the country, it is methylmercury poisoning.

Mr. Chairman, I urge the Members support the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, a woman who does not have access to prenatal care, who does not know that she is pregnant, who already has a high level of mercury poisoning in her bloodstream, as many, many women across this country do, and then becomes pregnant and continues to consume high levels of oil-based fish, how is that woman supposed to be advised that she should not continue to eat tuna, mackerel, salmon without going to the doctor? Is she likely to have access to a computer and the FDA's Website to get that warning? I really doubt it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. Chairman, I yield for the purposes of making a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

One of the things I want to point out that I think is important to note is that the petition process that the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal) pointed out, that whole process has been scored by the GPO. They have estimated that it would cost $400,000 per petition.

Should we be creating the obstacles to information that women need? I will give you an example. I have a 2\1/2\-year-old baby girl, and I first found out about the dangers of methylmercury when I was pregnant with her and my OB-GYN told me, do not consume tuna. Do not consume any oily-based fish.

Think about someone who does not have the access to prenatal care that I had. We have absolutely got to make sure that depending on the levels of mercury poisoning in a particular body of water in different States, that each State be able to decide the type and method of information that they provide, and that we not leave only the ability to notify women and parents of young children about the dangers of methylmercury on a Web site put out by the FDA. That would be inappropriate.

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

Mr. Speaker, first I want to take this opportunity to thank House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi for the opportunity for the 30-Something Working Group to talk for an hour about the things that we know are important to our generation, and also to explain and discuss our views on our generation's perspective on a lot of the issues that are important and facing Americans today.

Tonight I am really pleased to be joined during Women's History Month by two of my distinguished colleagues who are also members of Leader Pelosi's 30-Something Working Group, Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth from the great State of South Dakota and Congresswoman Linda Sanchez of California. The three of us make up a very unique body in this group. We are three of only four women younger than 40 years old in the United States House of Representatives.

We are here this evening to celebrate Women's History Month, to remember those who have contributed to our progress, to recognize the women of our generation who are changing communities today, and to highlight the challenges that many women under 40 face as a result of the flawed and failed policies of the Bush administration.

This year's theme, Mr. Speaker, for Women's History Month is Women: Builders of Communities and Dreams. This theme speaks to the legacy that women leaders have built over the generations.

Mr. Speaker, as advanced and progressive as America has been on issues improving the lives of women, our country continues to lag far behind in terms of policies to assist women in their struggle to lead or achieve.

Today women represent more than half the population and are among the most knowledgeable and important thinkers in every field of policy, from science to education, to health care and national security.

As the mother of two young daughters, it is so important to me to see that strong women walk in all walks of life, and I want them to see strong women in all walks of life, particularly so that we can see that those women join our ranks here as policymakers.

I want them to understand that from Title IX to the Equal Pay Act, that they are standing on the shoulders, as we do here, of the courageous women who went before them.

None of the three of us would have had the opportunity that we did at our stage in life without our colleagues who came before us in this body, without their shoulders to stand on, and I want them and other young women and girls to have the same opportunities that we have been given.

Unfortunately, the President apparently does not share those same views because in his 2007 budget proposal he slashes programs established to give young working mothers a leg up, like Medicare, Medicaid, housing, food stamps and child care. He cuts programs aimed at preventing domestic violence and programs that provide domestic violence victims with housing and legal assistance.

I am saddened to say that domestic violence affects far too many women, and an even growing number of young women. Forty percent, Mr. Speaker, of teenage girls ages 14 to 17 report knowing someone their age that has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend, and 26 percent of girls in grades 9 through 12 have been the victim of abuse.

So tonight we are here because training, education, and employment statistics clearly indicate that women still face barriers in pursuing traditionally male-dominated fields. For instance, while the number of women pursuing degrees in higher education has increased dramatically, the rates of women pursuing engineering degrees lags far behind. Recent data shows that women account for only small percentages of students earning engineering degrees, including only 20 percent of bachelor's degrees, 21 percent of master's degrees, and only 17 percent of Ph.Ds.

We are here, Mr. Speaker, because the Republicans' prescription drug plan is a particularly bad deal for America's women. Women are frustrated and confused, Mr. Speaker. And if you think government health and prescription drug care is only for the aged, you should know that 63 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries were between the ages of 18 and 44 in 2001, and 37 percent of women ages 18 to 44 report that they use at least one prescription drug on a regular basis. Those are not senior citizen statistics.

We are here tonight because 36 percent of the 9.4 million women in executive, administrative, and managerial occupations are under 44 years old, and, on average, women are still making about 76 cents for every dollar that a man makes.

We are here because opponents of the Family and Medical Leave Act are working to hamstring that program, even though it is in its 12th successful year, and more than 50 million Americans have displayed their enthusiastic support by taking job protective leave to care for a new baby, a seriously ill family member, or to recuperate from their own serious illness. And the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Sanchez) is going to be covering how the administration's policies have impacted working women and working families in particular.

And we are here because there are not too many of us to speak up, and we must make our voices heard. There are 26 men under 40 serving in the United States Congress, Mr. Speaker. They have several voices. More than several. We are here because if we do not stay late on this floor, if we do not stand up and try to make a difference on behalf of young women and young families and bring these issues that are important to them to the table, the three of us together, 3 versus 26, then who will? That is the question that we would like to answer tonight.

I am happy to yield now to my good friend, the gentlewoman from California.

I thank my colleague, and I will now yield, Mr. Speaker, to the gentlewoman from South Dakota.

Mr. Speaker, as Ms. Herseth was talking, I was struck by our diversity. Our commonality is we are all under 40, but literally we represent the East, Midwest and west coast of our country, California, South Dakota, and Florida. We also represent a very different ethnic and cultural diversity. We have a Midwesterner, a nice Jewish girl from the suburbs, and we have a Latina from the West Coast. You could not have more diversity than what is standing in this Chamber this evening.

What is wonderful about that is that is what the Democratic Party is all about. We are the embodiment of the Democratic Party. We are the embodiment of what Democrats represent and stand for. It is not just amazing that we had the opportunity at the age we were when we each got involved, but it is, I think, particularly notable that we had that opportunity because of the opportunities that Democrats try to provide in terms of diversity. I think if we were attempting to get involved at the point we did in our lives and we were Republicans, it would have been a very different experience and perhaps some very shiny glass ceilings, as you referred to.

I was 25 when I started running for the Florida House of Representatives. I would imagine that in South Dakota it is probably that you have to be fifth-generation South Dakotan before you would think about running for public office, certainly running for Congress. I had only lived in my community for 3 years when I decided to run for the State House of Representatives. For me, that was no different than anyone else who lives in my community. If you are from south Florida now, you certainly are not from south Florida since birth.

The reason I was able to contemplate the possibility of running was because we have had so many of the women we serve with here really provide us their shoulders to stand on because they fought in the 1970s and even some in the 1960s to make it possible for women to bust through that glass ceiling; that I was able to even think about running for office when I was 25, just married a year, my husband and I had just bought our first house. We knew we wanted to have kids. I was raised to believe my parents at dinner table conversation, I would not have to choose. A woman could be a good mom, have a solid marriage and be a hardworking professional, and do all of those things well.

So the generation before us of women, because they made that possible, because they strove to accomplish that, it made it almost if not a no-brainer. It made it so much more

reasonable for someone, for people like us to step up when we were presented with the opportunity. I was able to seize that opportunity when the seat opened up in the State legislature for me because so many women had paved the way before.

The experience I had in my race for Congress was so disheartening. I was successful obviously because I am standing here, but I actually had to deal with an opponent who spent the whole election, and this is Women's History Month, we are in 2006, and she spent the whole election saying that I was a bad mother. She spent the entire election saying she was 20 years older than me and had waited until her children were grown before she thought about running, and basically I had some nerve running with young children. I have twin 6-year-olds, a boy and a girl, and a 2\1/2\-year-old baby girl.

I ran for them. I ran so I could show my little girls that there are so many things that are important that we do here, and that it is imperative that our perspective, our generation's perspective and the perspective of young moms and young women are here in this Chamber.

We deal with issues that I know we would not deal with if not for young women's presence here; women, period.

But the statistic that strikes me is that in history, and I am a freshman, I am the least senior of the three of us, what I learned when I came here, and I know they probably told you this, too, when you came for your orientation, but we have had just under 12,000 people in American history serve in the United States Congress, and of those we literally have had just over 200 women out of 12,000 people.

Absolutely. The thing that I learned that shocked me given that I am from Florida and we have the third highest Jewish population in my community in the country, I am the first Jewish woman to ever represent the State of Florida in the Congress. Our first U.S. Senator to ever represent Florida ever was actually a Jewish man, and that was back in the 1800s when Florida joined the Union. And it took until 2004 for Congress to send a Jewish woman to Congress.

The expression we have come a long way but we have a long way to go is an accurate one. We have so much that we can talk about. I think that the thing that I want to highlight is that we have issues that are important to women and families that would not get addressed if we were not here in the numbers we are here.

Child care, subsidized child care in particular. I was shocked last year when I learned in the President's budget that he put forward last year that he actually proposed a drastic cut in the number of subsidized child care slots that we would fund. We are talking about how it is possible for us to stand on the shoulders of other women and even think about running. We are talking about service in the House of Representatives. It simply is not possible for women to work who are moms, especially single moms, if they do not have the ability to have their children cared for and well cared for. So for each successive budget that I have seen, yet again the President has opposed a cut in subsidized child care cuts.

It is just astonishing to me the priorities that this administration has where it seems to be more important to preserve tax cuts for the wealthiest few at all costs, and never mind the women who need health care, who only get it when they are on Medicaid; never mind young children who receive Medicaid, and that is the only source of health care; never mind moms who need to make sure that they can work and have a place to send their children for quality child care. I just do not understand where their priorities are.

You are so right. You are choking off women's opportunities at every level. Whether we are talking about the freezing of Pell Grants, this President has proposed freezing funding for Head Start. Head Start, the place where disadvantaged kids, kids who it has been proven in study after study get their opportunity to succeed in school in a Head Start program, 19,000 kids would lose their opportunity to participate in Head Start.

We come from three totally different kinds of communities. Like you in your community, I get stopped in the supermarket, I get stopped at my son's soccer games, at dance class, you name it. And the community I live in happens to be one that is sort of middle to upper middle-class, and it doesn't matter whether I am in the poorer section of my district or the wealthiest section of my district, people are scratching their heads. Their confidence in their government under this Republican leadership has been so badly shaken because of the corruption and the cronyism and the tax cuts and the priorities being totally wrong.

It is so sad how we literally now have reached the point in history where every person that you talk to can name a woman that they know that has touched their lives in some way that has fallen victim to breast cancer. One of my close friends, 42 years old, a mom of twin 5-year-olds, just passed away in December, also killed by breast cancer.

You know what is the most frustrating thing, is that we have only just in recent years been able to get NIH funding for women-specific disease study, and yet the President has now proposed a cut in funding for every institute in the NIH.

How are we going to reverse the trend in breast cancer? Breast cancer is not even the leading cause of death in women in this country. It is heart disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death. We only just accomplished having women-specific studies in that area.

Again, the priorities are just startling.

Our colleague Rosa DeLauro from Connecticut has introduced legislation in the area of breast cancer that we still cannot get brought to this floor that would deal with drive-through mastectomies. You have women in this country now who, after having their breasts removed as a result of breast cancer surgery, are forced out of the hospital by their insurance company in 24 hours and less after a radical mastectomy, regardless of what their doctor thinks.

What Congresswoman DeLauro's legislation would do is it would ensure that it is the doctor, in consultation with the patient, that would decide what the appropriate length of stay is. That is legislation I worked on in Florida, and it is one that we should apply nationally. Yet we cannot get a hearing, even a hearing, on that bill under the Republican leadership in this Congress.

That is why it is so important. Listen, I will say this straight out. It is not just important that we have women serving in Congress; it is important that we have women who share the priorities of most women in America, who are willing to come here to the Congress and stand up for the things that we care about.

There is no point in having a woman here if she is just going to vote just like men have for generations, really, because why elect a woman then? We have got to make sure that we make progress, that we go forward. This leadership is not taking us forward. They

are not taking us forward by any measure.

I couldn't agree with you more.

We have been joined by a special member of the Women's Caucus, especially the Democratic Women's Caucus, for us someone who needs no introduction. But the gentlewoman from California has made history by becoming the first woman to lead either party's caucus in the United States House of Representatives. When she was elected as Democratic Leader, she broke glass ceilings that no woman thought was possible. We are so proud to have you join us for our special women's 30-something hour.

Thank you so much for joining us. Normally when we do our 30-Something hour, Madam Leader, we thank you in absentia for the opportunity to spend the time during this hour talking about the things that are a priority to our generation. So it is a privilege to be able to personally thank you for this opportunity that you give us each night. It is an honor to serve under your leadership.

Madam Leader, the way we close our time usually with the 30-Something Working Group is by plugging our Web site, www.housedemocrats.gov/30somethings. We encourage our colleagues and anyone who cares to sign on to that. We have a lot of charts and interesting facts and figures that are important to the next generation.

I want to thank my colleagues from California and South Dakota for joining me tonight and welcome you back any time because we are here every night.

Mr. Speaker, with that we yield back.

If the gentleman would yield for a question, I am sort of the least senior of the four of us here this evening. I am a freshman. I have just gotten here a year ago. I am wondering, you are talking about the four letters that you have shown that Secretary Snow has sent to the Congress asking us, begging us, to increase the debt limit. Would this be the first time under this administration, Mr. Ryan, that that was necessary?

Is it unprecedented? If we raise the debt limit this year, is it something that was an anomaly, was it something that had not occurred before?

I just want to share with you, because that is billion with a B.

And trillion with a T.

When I am home and you all are home, we talk to our constituents, and they ask me, sometimes they ask me questions that makes it clear that it is hard for anyone to get their mind around what a billion is. So we spent some time, we did some research to try to help put what a billion is in terms that people can understand better.

So let us just translate it into some things that maybe people can think about, you know, more in the way they deal with things on a day- to-day basis. A billion. How much is a billion dollars? Well, a billion hours ago, humans were making their first tools in the stone age. That was if we were talking about what happened a billion hours ago.

If you are going on to a billion seconds ago, let us start with seconds, a billion seconds ago, it was 1975, and we had just pulled the last troops from America out of Vietnam. That was a billion seconds ago.

Let us try to break it down a little bit more. A billion minutes ago, it was A.D. 104, and the Chinese first invented paper.

Well, so now let us talk about what a billion dollars ago was. Under this administration, a billion dollars ago was only 3 hours and 32 minutes at the rate that our government spends money.

A.D. 104, 1975, the stone age, and 3 hours and 32 minutes ago.

Because the third-party validators that we use on this floor is for the purpose of showing that others who have fact- checked, experts who have fact-checked what is going on internally in this institution report on what they see.

And so if we are going to talk about accuracy and clarity, it is the third-party validators who the American people are going to listen to. You know, quite honestly, although I really feel privileged to be able to come and join you on this floor every night, a lot of people would just chalk up what they say and what we say on the floor as noise, you know, as partisan noise.

And so third-party validators are important. And so let us talk about what USA Today said about who is in charge and what they are responsible for and what they could have done about it. This is just last week, February 21, about 10 days ago.

USA Today editorial. The title of the editorial was Who is Spending Big Now: The Party of Small Government. Tax cuts, they say, force hard decisions and restrain reckless spending.

The last time we looked, according to USA Today, the last time we looked, though, Republicans controlled both Congress and the White House. They are the spenders. In fact, since they took control in 2001 they have increased spending by an average of nearly 7\1/2\ percent, 7\1/2\ percent a year, more than double the rate in the last 5 years of Clinton-era budgets.

I mean, the truth hurts.

That is factually accurate information by an outside source.

This is not by people who have D and R's next to their name in this Chamber. There is a better way.

Mr. Ryan, we had a better way that Democrats were responsible for with

their votes, some who lost their offices in casting their votes for the PAYGO rules that we used to have here. You have another third-party validator chart up there right now that talks about the education investments that we make here.

You have picture after picture and week after week of new revelations about the shocking aftermath of the response of this administration to Katrina.

Last week it was the videotape evidence that when Max Mayfield, who is based in Miami at the National Hurricane Center, clearly warned the President and the Secretary and those assembled from the administration's team, that it was quite possible that the levees in New Orleans would breach, and then on Tuesday, 2 days later, you have the President declaring that there was no way that anyone could have anticipated a breach of the levees.

I mean, how do they look at themselves in the mirror? How does he look at himself in the mirror and go on each day?

I know the gentleman from Florida wants to go back to PAYGO, but what I heard today in a meeting earlier in the afternoon, I heard the feeling and the sentiment that you described this way: Whether you are talking about the aftermath of Katrina, and quite honestly in my community the aftermath of Wilma, or you are talking about this port deal, the bottom line is that the homeland is not secure. The homeland is not secure.

We have port security that has been essentially undermined by the Republican leadership here, and I know we will talk about that in a little bit, but the American people's confidence in their government has been shaken. We continually have to increase the debt limit and we have a solution, Mr. Meek, that we have been pushing over and over and over again repeatedly. Yet, it falls on deaf ears.

What we advocate is going back to the PAYGO rule, and again, to translate that into terms that most people understand and deal with every day, you do not spend more than you have. You make sure you have the revenue coming in for the money that you are going to put out.

Listen, there are people in everyday life in America that struggle with that every single day, but most people think it is totally irresponsible. Even if they are engaging in it in their own house, they think it is the wrong thing to do, to spend what they do not have. I do not know in America that anyone has the ability on their own to raise their debt limit in their household. Can you imagine, you reach a point in your day-to-day life and you are going along and you have a certain amount of money that you earn. You have a certain amount of credit. Let us say you have a couple of credit cards. When you reach the debt limit on your credit card, the maximum that the credit card company will allow you to put on that card, unless you ask permission from the credit card company, you cannot do that usually, depending on your track record.

If you compare the track record of the United States of America recently, you know, we are not doing so good because we are not getting a handle on this. Most credit card companies would say, no, we are going to stop you at a certain point and not let you raise your debt limit.

And, Mr. Ryan, if you would yield, this is also the party that tries to represent themselves as the party of less government and more personal freedom. And in my time here, just in the year that I have been here, we don't even talk about the Terry Schiavo case last year anymore because so much else has happened that is disturbing in terms of their leadership that that seems like a

distant memory, but that was not even a year ago. We are coming up on the year anniversary of that.

The beginning of my first year in Congress you have the bookends of Terry Schiavo's tragic case, where this Congress, this Republican leadership inserted itself into one family's private angst-ridden tragedy. Then you have Katrina, you have the debt limit increase, you have the largest deficit in history, you have the refusal to go back to the PAYGO rules, and you have the port deal. This is the party of less government and more personal freedom? No, it is not. The evidence does not lie.

The funny thing, and I have heard Mr. Meek say this at home in Florida a lot. Just because you say it over and over again does not make it so. Things do not come true just because you say them a lot. The facts do not lie.

Thank you.

Even in the case of rape or incest.

But your point is, and the point we have to make here is, there is a radicalism in this Republican leadership; that they have reached new heights. Schiavo, South Dakota, the Alito confirmation. There is just a growing list.

And now this port deal, where the President literally saw nothing wrong with allowing a foreign government-owned corporation to take over the port terminal operations at six major ports. No alarm bells were set off to trigger a national security review, a 45-day national security review that can be triggered under the law. It defies logic.

Right. Not the least of it was that he did not even know about it.

Six White House offices were part of the committee that reviewed this port deal. I asked in Financial Services. I am on the committee. I am on the subcommittee where we had a hearing last week, and the President still didn't know.

Oh, most definitely, just to take off from where you have launched. Really, the facts are laid bare.

It is evident who is for security and who is just kidding. And if you look at this chart here, this pie chart, the source is Fox News, that is our third-party validator, so we are not talking about a liberal bastion, who is for security and who is just kidding? Less than 6 percent of our U.S. cargo at our Nation's ports is physically inspected. That is 95 percent not inspected. We will say 94 percent not inspected and 6 percent inspected, but I think actually the number is just a little lower than that.

The difference between the increase in security at airports and the increase in security at ports since the 2001 9/11 attack is $18 billion, Mr. Ryan, increased airport security, compared to a $700 million increase in port security.

Now, I heard one of our colleagues bragging about the $700 million increase and trying to detail how much of an increase the six ports received that the port deal, the DPW port deal, was involved in, as if that was some fantastic accomplishment.

There is a $6 billion difference between what the Coast Guard has said they need, a $6 billion difference. The Republican Congress has shortchanged port security by $6 billion, according to the Coast Guard. They have requested $7.2 billion.

Not Mr. Meek, not Mr. Ryan, but the Coast Guard has requested $7.2 billion and gotten $910 million in congressional appropriations. That is a commitment right there to national security.

Mr. Delahunt, the point is the issue is so much bigger than this one port deal. This is emblematic of the tremendously significant problem. You cannot say even if this problem gets addressed, this port deal gets addressed, which it should, you cannot say, okay, we are done. It is so much deeper than that. Democrats have been constantly fighting for increased port security, and Republicans have not, plain and simple.

It is a pleasure to join the gentleman for our 30-something Working Group hour.

When I have been home in the community you and I share, I noticed, and this feeling is so palpable among the average voter, the average citizen in America, and I have been to several different cities in the last number of weeks, and to a person, regardless of party, Americana' confidence in their government has been badly shaken, and badly shaken because they look to the leadership here, the Republican leadership, because we do not control a thing. They have the Presidency, the House and the Senate. So when I say that their confidence in their government and leadership is badly shaken, it is essentially the fault of the Republican leadership. It is so disturbing.

I have only been in the Congress a year. I could list countless examples and share with people who have expressed their frustration and their sadness and their angst. My first year in Congress was capped by the bookends, starting 10 weeks into my service here, with the Terri Schiavo case and ending the year with the confirmation of Judge Alito, now Justice Alito, to the Supreme Court who obviously we fear will further erode the right to privacy that we began the year eroding with the Terry Schiavo case.

If you look in between, sandwiched between those bookends, we have Hurricane Katrina, this port deal, we have the deficit. You have the debt, you have now the debt limit that we are struggling with, the budget reconciliation bill, the countless irresponsible budget cuts and the privatization of Social Security, the Medicare prescription drug fiasco, who the senior citizens that the gentleman and I represent, they are just in tears. They do not know what to do. Just in our community alone, there are 43 different plans offered by 18 different companies. It is pure insanity.

So it is no wonder that our constituents and the American people are frustrated. Their confidence in their leadership is badly shaken. Our responsibility over the next several months is going to be to help restore that confidence because we have that ability. We have an agenda and the things that we would do if we were here would restore that confidence, and those are the kinds of things that we talk about on this floor.

I am a freshman, and I have only been here a year, and I see this chart in between us. I am wondering, is this potential increase in the debt limit unprecedented? Is it the first time it has happened? Just illuminate for me what the history of debt limit increases is, if there is one.

I have another question. In looking over our third party validators, I am wondering if you have got the Secretary of the Treasury setting off alarm bells and really saying that there is fire in the theater, why is it that we have not seen an increase in the debt limit on the floor? Could it perhaps be that that is something that the Republican leadership thinks is unwise to have their Members vote on? Is it that this is not the first time, as I asked you earlier, that the debt limit has been increased?

In looking at this chart just in the last few minutes, I notice that in June of 2002 the debt limit was increased by $450 billion. And who was President then?

I believe President Bush was in office then. In May of 2003, the debt limit was increased by another $984 billion, with a B. In November of 2004, the year of the election, $800 billion. We have a $781 billion increase pending now, with a total increase of $3.015 trillion.

When President Clinton was in office, I was in the State legislature then, for a time until you were elected to Congress you were too, we had a system in place called PAYGO, pay-as-you-go, which it is my understanding is similar to the way people prefer in America to run their households, where you do not spend money that you don't have, unlike what is going on under the Republican leadership where they appear to enjoy spending like drunken sailors and ``no'' doesn't appear to be possible under this administration, unless, of course, it is to talk about continuing tax cuts for the wealthiest. We say ``yes'' to that. We say ``yes'' to anything politically that they want to advance. The ``no'' is to people who can't afford health care, cutting Medicaid. The ``no'' that they propose to say is to people who are struggling to pay for higher education.

So, if we went back to PAYGO rules, which we have proposed time and again and they have rejected time and again, then we would be again in a situation where it wouldn't be necessary to increase the debt limit because we would be only spending money that we have.

Here is another third party validator, which is the Congressional Record. In 2006, in this budget resolution, of course it was defeated, 228 Republicans voted against it, it was defeated 264-165 when we proposed to return to the pay-as-you-go rules. Then again last year, it was defeated 232-194 and 224 Republicans voted against it.

So, to me to break this down in more simple terms, because PAYGO and billions and trillions and debt limit is something that if you are not dealing with it on a daily basis, it is somewhat difficult to understand, one of the things we like to do here is break things down for people that may be listening into regular terms, into the things that they deal with every day.

So I thought, Mr. Speaker, it would be a good idea, because a billion is a very big number, a billion is a hard concept to grasp, because most people don't deal in the billions when they are dealing with their everyday normal activity, so let's try to define what a billion is in the way that people think about things in their daily life.

Broken down, a billion hours ago, for example, humans were making their first tools in the stone age. That is how much a billion hours ago was, if you are thinking about what a billion means.

Let's think about what happened a billion seconds ago. A billion seconds ago it was 1975 and the last American troops had just pulled out of Vietnam. That is how big a billion is. We are in 2006. That was 30 years, 31 years ago.

A billion minutes ago it was 104 A.D., Mr. Speaker, and the Chinese first invented paper. That is how long ago it

was, if you think about a billion in terms of minutes.

Then a billion dollars ago, under this administration and under the Republican leadership, a billion dollars ago was only 3 hours and 32 minutes at the rate that the administration and this Republican Congress spends money.

So we have a billion hours ago, it was the stone age; a billion seconds ago, it was 31 years ago; a billion minutes ago, it was 104 A.D. and we were first talking about the invention of paper. But under the Republican leadership and this administration, a billion dollars ago was only 3 hours 32 minutes at the rate of spending under this administration and the Congressional leadership. It is just astonishing, it really is, if you think about it, broken down in this way.

All the American people want is their confidence restored. All they want to see is that the people here in this Chamber are using their heads and applying some common sense and thinking about the budget and the money that we spend in the way they would like to think about their own household budget, spending the money that we have, spending it wisely, spending it on things that they care about, not giving away the store, which unfortunately, it appears to be the direction that we have been going in.

We are giving away the store in so many ways. Like the port deal, for example. We represent Miami, both of us. I represent Fort Lauderdale. I have both Port Everglades and the port of Miami abutting my district.

I went down to the port of Miami, you and I have both been there, it is one of the six ports that the Dubai Ports World deal impacts, and for the people that I have talked to in our community and the calls and communications I have been getting, it defies logic. They really just cannot believe that the President does not understand why people are so deeply concerned that we would have a foreign government-owned corporation running the terminal operations at six of our major ports.

This is not just any government, this is a government that just 5 years ago was involved directly, indirectly, in both tangential and more substantive ways in the 9/11 attacks.

There were 58 references in the 9/11 Commission Report to the United Arab Emirates and their involvement, either through allowing the 9/11 financing to be funneled through their banks, or just the fact that two of the 9/11 terrorists lived in the United Arab Emirates.

But the astonishing thing is that there were no national security reviews triggered under the law when the administration's committee that reviewed these deals took a look at it. There were no alarm bells set off. And that is even more astonishing because it is not even like we are checking the vast majority of containers and goods that come through our ports. Less than 6 percent, if you take a look at this chart, less than 6 percent of U.S. cargo coming through our ports is physically inspected, Mr. Speaker. Ninety-five percent is not inspected, 5 percent is inspected.

And that is in spite of the fact that Democrats have repeatedly proposed increasing the funding so that we can ensure more of the cargo coming through our ports is inspected. Literally what I learned when I went to the Port of Miami, Mr. Meek, is that in the last 5 years we have increased our security funding at our airports by $18 billion, which is a good thing. I mean that is absolutely essential.

And we have increased our port security funding by $700 million. Now, if you remember, I just went over the difference of what a billion means. So $18 billion on airport security, less than $700 million on port security.

I mean, you cannot rest our Nation's security on taking your shoes off as you go through the magnetometer at an airport. That cannot be the sum total of the additional security that we have increased since 9/11. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

It has just been astonishing to me. I literally have had more calls in a shorter period of time on this issue from constituents, and not the organized calls, not the calls that groups generate, that they, you know, send an e-mail out to their members and say, call your Congresswoman, here is her phone number.

This is Joe and Jane Average Constituent who saw the news or read the newspaper or listened to the radio and called me and said, you know, what is going on here? Do these people not get it? How could they not get it? I have had little old ladies crying on the other end of the phone in my district office because the flames that have been fanned so much by this administration on the terror threat and national security, which is understandable because we really needed to raise the level of concern in America about being conscious of our own security. That is understandable.

But for the President to be shocked by the American people's reaction, that is what is so astonishing, that they are really the victims, I guess. Their decision is really the result of their own magnification of this issue. And, you know, that they have not responded with the funding that we need to enhance port security is just truly shocking.

There is a $6 billion gap between what the Coast Guard says they need and what the Republican Congress appropriated.

What is amazing, and you are so right, what has happened in the last several weeks is there has been an effort by the Bush administration since this DPW port deal has come to light to portray this as people who have a problem with Middle Eastern countries and even have gone so far as to say, well, why are you concerned, because Federal agencies control and conduct all port security.

I learned and knew this, but it was illuminated even more clearly when I went to the port that that is not the case. Yes, on the external port properties the government body running the port, in our case, in Miami it is the Board of County Commissioners in Miami, they are responsible for external security. But at a terminal in the Port of Miami Terminal Operating Company and under the five other terminals that DPW would take over, they are responsible for their own internal security. They will have intimate knowledge of the external security on the port property, and they are responsible for security internally.

This is a foreign government-owned company. This is not a private company from a foreign country. It is a foreign government-owned company.

Would it be okay with anyone in this country, not the least of which should be the Bush administration, if the same situation occurred in an airport? Would we let a foreign government-owned company run a terminal in our airports? Would we let them control loading and off-loading passengers or cargo coming into an airport? Not in a billion, no pun intended, years. Really.

Why are they so unconcerned about port security?

Let us look at what the Coast Guard is responsible for. Again, third- party

validators. The Coast Guard on a typical day saves 15 lives, assists 117 people in distress, protects $2.8 million in property, interdicts 30 illegal migrants at sea, conducts 90 search and rescue cases, seizes $21 million worth of illegal drugs, responds to 11 oil and hazardous chemical spills, and boards and inspects 122 vessels.

There are 361 ports in this country that they are responsible for, and we have 95,000 miles of coastline. And the difference between what the Coast Guard has said they needed, $7.2 billion to really complete their mission in terms of port security, and what the Republican leadership here has appropriated, $910 million, is $6 billion. There is a disconnect from the top to the bottom here. It is shocking.

The thing that we did not mention yet that is the most outrageous is the President in his budget that he just proposed actually eliminates direct port security grants. He literally says, no, no, no, we do not need to directly appropriate grant money to individual ports for port security. I have a bright idea. He has a bright idea. He wants to let ports compete for security grant funding with railway stations and airports and have any one of these transportation-related entryways to our country compete for security grants.

I mean, I do not understand that. He proposed it last year, and the response from the Republican Congress was a $910 million appropriations for port security. And now he is proposing it yet again.

Where are their priorities? If we are going to propose cuts to try to get the budget deficit situation under control, do we start with port security? I mean, when they are sitting down around the table in the Roosevelt Room, I really want to be a fly on the wall sometimes. Who in there is saying port security grants, that is what we should, that is how we are going to solve the deficit? Medicaid funding, we have got all the poor people covered with health care; who are the people the most in need, where are our most significant needs, let us cut those. It is astonishing.

There is also specifically related to this Dubai Ports World deal a way to deal with it. There is the bigger issue of port security, and then there is this deal. What is it that is so darn important about this deal that it caused the President to threaten his first veto that if, God forbid, the Congress would do something crazy like pass legislation to stop it, to slow it down to conduct the national security review that should be done? I have the legislation that I have introduced on the House side and Senators Menendez and Clinton and Bill Nelson from our State that have introduced on the Senate side that would say that we should not allow foreign government companies to own or lease ports from us in this country and we should stop this deal and we should review the other foreign government-owned terminals that currently already are in the United States and give congressional oversight in that area.

UAE.

There is a very simple solution: we return to PAYGO rules. We return to the days when we spent what we had, like people in American households try to do every single day and struggle to do. But we have the ability to establish a rule. We have the ability to follow a rule that says we will only spend what we have. We have advocated, as Democrats, restoring the PAYGO rule, and we have been repeatedly rejected by the Republican leadership because they just want to continue to borrow and spend, borrow and spend.

Mr. Meek, the point I want to add is this body has openings for people of courage, and we encourage them to apply for those jobs over the next several months.

There are job openings for people of courage. We need a few more people of courage. There are a couple on that side, but we need a whole lot more.