Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, Arlene Kaplan, a resident of Randolph, Massachusetts, was elected president of the National Ladies Auxiliary, Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America on August 19, 2005 in San Diego, California, during the organization's 77th Annual National Convention.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Ms. Kaplan was the eldest of the late Sally and Larry Tattlebaum's four children. After graduating from high school, she attended Hickox School for Business Skills and Quincy College for Business Courses. At age 19, she married Sumner ``Sunny'' Kaplan, a Navy veteran of World War II. Together, they raised three children, and are the proud grandparents of six grandchildren.

Once her children were in school, Ms. Kaplan began working for the Esselte Pendaflex Corporation, a Fortune 500 company. When her husband was elected JWV Department of Massachusetts Commander, Ms. Kaplan played a vital role in reorganizing Auxiliary 302, and served as president for its first 2 crucial years. She continues to be active in her auxiliary today.

She has served the JWV Department of Massachusetts in various capacities over the years, including as its president from 1996 to 1997. She has been a member of the JWV National Ladies Auxiliary Advisory Board and has chaired several of the organization's committees. Arlene and Sunny Kaplan have been members of Temple Beth Am in Randolph for more than 50 years.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Sagemont School on the occasion of their 10th anniversary celebration.

The Sagemont School is an educational establishment in my district that provides a nurturing and stimulating learning environment that inspires each student to think critically, reach his or her maximum potential and grow into a valuable citizen of our global community.

The Sagemont School's academic program is a rigorous college-prep curriculum that includes a variety of Honors and AP courses. Sagemont is second to none when it comes to integrating state-of-the-art technology, Internet use and even additional coursework at their ``virtual school'' education partner, University of Miami Online High School. Sagemont also meets the needs of students with specific learning disabilities through its Mountain Peak Academy, a program that mainstreams with the school's regular program.

The Sagemont School operates two campuses in Weston, in addition to its Virtual School known as The University of Miami Online High School. The Sagemont Lower School serves students in pre-K through grade 5; the Sagemont Upper School serves grades 6 through 12. The faculty and staff at Sagemont are dedicated to parent-teacher relationships in a high- tech learning environment. With multiple computers in the classroom and an average class size of 17 students, children are learning the skills they will need to be successful both in school and later in life.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to acknowledge the achievements of The Sagemont School over the past decade. It is my sincere belief that the Sagemont School will continue to instill in each of their students the joy of learning, personal growth, and a sense of personal and community responsibility for many years to come.

Mr. Speaker, on August 19, 2005, David L. Magidson was elected to a 1-year term as National Commander of Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America, during the organization's 101st Annual National Convention in San Diego, California.

Mr. Magidson's military service began when he joined the U.S. Army in 1968. He graduated as a 2nd lieutenant from Infantry Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He also served as the Operations Officer for the Miami Field Office of the 111th Military Intelligence Group. His active duty service ended in 1971.

Mr. Magidson has held numerous positions in Post 243, including Post Commander. Additionally, he has served as Judge Advocate for the JWV Department of Florida, and as the organization's National Judge Advocate since 2001.

Mr. Magidson also serves his Jewish heritage, and is currently a member of the Commission on Social Action of the Union for Reform Judaism. In 2000, he completed a 2-year term as president of Temple Judea in Coral Gables, Florida.

Although a native of New York City, Magidson was raised in the Washington, DC, area, the son of a Department of Defense civilian who headed the Claims Division for the U.S. Marine Corps. He earned his undergraduate degree in Spanish at Franklin and Marshall College, and went on to earn a Master's degree in Latin American History from the University of Florida.

Upon his release from military service, he attended the University of Miami Law School on the G.I. Bill, and received a law degree. He also studied international law at the Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico City. A family man, Mr. Magidson has been happily married to his wife, Carol, for 35 years, and they have two adult children, Ben and Rebecca.

Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, February 25, 2006, Ronald L. Book was awarded the Anti-Defamation League's Torch of Liberty Award, which recognizes outstanding individuals who have exhibited humanitarian concerns and whose efforts bring together people of all races, religions and ethnic backgrounds.

Mr. Book serves as a member of the University Outreach Development Council at Florida International University and is Board Member Emeritus of the Memorial Hospital Foundation and the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital & Foundation. He is chairman of the Dade County Homeless Trust and its executive committee and serves as outside advisor

to the Broward Community Partnership on the Homeless.

He is also an active participant in South Florida's business community. Mr. Book is a trustee and Council of 100 members of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and was the Director and Special Counsel for former Florida Governor, Bob Graham's Cabinet.

Mr. Book earned a Juris Doctorate at Tulane University and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science at Florida International University. He currently practices in Aventura and Tallahassee. Of all his accomplishments, Ron and his wife, Pat, are most proud of their children, Lauren (20), Samantha (18) and Chase (13).

For his exemplary and inspirational work, reflecting the goals and aspirations of the ADL, I congratulate Ronald L. Book on this distinguished honor.

Will the gentleman yield?

Because, Mr. Meek, what you are saying here, it is not simply a matter of fact. It goes beyond just factual accuracy that you are talking about. There is risk when it comes to this much debt being owned, this much of our debt being owned by another country. And then that doesn't even take into consideration whether the country that owns that debt, how friendly they are towards us.

Let us just talk about some recent comments by some of the leaders of the nations that own our debt. The Japanese Prime Minister, obviously Japan is an ally of ours and not one that we have to do a lot of hand wringing about, but Prime Minister Hashimoto just recently, I think this was a couple of weeks ago, stated, ``We hope we don't have to succumb to the temptation to sell off U.S. Treasury bills.'' And later that same day the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 192 points, one of the largest declines in points in history. So there is real risk to accumulating that much debt in each of these nations economically in our country and economically across the world.

I have heard many of our colleagues, very flippantly on the other side of the aisle, write off the issue of debt as if it is not a big deal. Debt, in someone's household individually, would be a big deal. When we talk about the deficit and deficit spending, which is obviously a separate issue, that is a very big deal. Debt is something that we should begin to move away from. Yet, instead of that, what Secretary Snow has been asking us to do is continually increase it. And what did they do recently, just during that February 16 letter when the Secretary indicated that the debt limit needed to be raised again? Because the Congress has not done that, he had to dip into the pension fund. He actually had to, because something has to give. If Congress is not raising the debt limit, then he has got to cover that debt somewhere.

What I have found ironic for a very long time is that the Republicans like to throw around the L word when it comes to us and that we are tax-and-spenders. Honestly, first of all, that certainly is incorrect. But beyond that, what has been equally, if not more, irresponsible since they have been stewards of this economy is the borrow-and-spend philosophy that they have engaged in, because during the Clinton years there was a surplus. We were

only arguing over what we were going to do with that surplus. And now we don't have the ability to talk about that. So how much we are borrowing and dipping into our reserves, so to speak, other people's reserves, is really inappropriate.

Thank you, because, you know, the concept of the debt and the deficit is kind of hard to get your mind around sometimes because the numbers are so big and the concepts are somewhat complex. So we always try, in our 30-something hours, to translate these concepts into what it means to everyday people. So let us just talk about the interest payments on the debt that we owe to these countries that Mr. Meek slapped up on our Nation's map.

What we could do with the money, just on the interest payments, just the interest payments on the debt that we pay for veterans: we could be spending about $35 billion, billion with a B, more money on services for our Nation's veterans.

We could be spending about $20 billion on homeland security. Billion with a B. Certainly we could dedicate all that money to port security, because we spent about $18 billion since 2001 and 9/11 on airport security. I think we could probably equal it out just with the interest payment on the debt.

Let us take a look at education. We are seriously underfunding the No Child Left Behind Act and preventing children from getting themselves prepared for the path that they choose in life. And we could take just the interest payments on the debt and spend that on education. That would be about $75 billion for education. Or we could continue to spend it on the interest, which is now at $250 billion.

Let us take it a little bit further and translate that even more specifically. What else could the government do with the interest that the country pays every day on this publicly held debt?

We could invest $1 million a day in every single congressional district. Now, I think all 435 of us could find something good we could do to improve the quality of people's lives with $1 million a day.

We could provide health care to almost 80,000, 79,925 more veterans in this country. And we know each of us in our districts hears from our veterans about the pitiful health care services that they are receiving and the struggle that they have in just getting an appointment to get health care from the Veterans Administration.

We can enroll 60,790 more children in the Head Start program, which we are going in the wrong direction in right now and enrolling fewer because we are not funding it adequately.

Or we could improve the solvency of Social Security, which this President has said is in crisis. We have differed with his definition of crisis; but even if it is half as big a problem as he says, we can improve Social Security solvency by almost half a billion dollars, just by using the interest that this Nation pays on the national foreign debt that other countries hold.

Now, if you went to a town hall meeting in each of our districts and asked our constituents, and the three of us have a diverse constituency. We represent all different kinds of folks between the three communities that we represent. Universally, they would prefer that that money be available to be spent on these items rather than making interest payments on debt that we owe to foreign countries.

Absolutely.

A small detail.

Yesterday the amazing thing about this whole port deal that you are alluding to, in the Financial Services Committee we had an opportunity to question the representatives of the administration. Do you know that they testified that six different entities within the White House were aware of the proposal to close this Dubai Ports World deal, and the President still did not know about it, with six of his offices in the White House knowing about it? No explanation in committee for why that happened.

Really, this picture says it all. We are essentially outsourcing America's security to a foreign-government-owned company. We are not talking about just a foreign company.

I think I can tell you that I recognize that we are not going to shut down foreign companies from owning and operating facilities in our Nation's ports. We are a global economy now. But is it appropriate to allow foreign governments to have intimate knowledge about America's security in our ports and run the terminal operations inside those ports? Overwhelmingly, I think Republicans and Democrats in Congress are saying ``no.'' Why is the President saying ``yes''? This is a person who supposedly thinks that America's national security should be a priority. It has left Americans scratching their heads.

It is indifference, Mr. Ryan. It is indifference, that there is a total disconnect between what the American people care about and understand are their needs and what this administration and this President understand.

I am a little out of practice with my word-in- edgewise with you guys.

It is good to be back with my 30-something friends and to engage in this dialogue.

What we have been asking for months is, where is the outrage? Where was the outrage about issue after issue that has come to light since Hurricane Katrina wreaked the devastation that it did?

I mean, just by way of example, in the Davis committee report that was just issued, where were the top White House officials on the day Katrina struck? Now, we knew in advance of Katrina, and I live in south Florida, where the hurricane center is. We had days of watching Katrina approach the gulf coast. So it is not like we did not know a category five hurricane was approaching the gulf coast. On the day Katrina struck, President Bush, we know, was on vacation in Crawford, Texas. Vice President Cheney, a little known fact, was fly fishing at his ranch in Wyoming. This was on the day Katrina struck. Chief of Staff Andrew Card was vacationing at his lakefront summer home in Maine, and Homeland Security adviser Francis Townsend was also vacationing in Maine.

Now, why would they leave a relatively junior official in charge of the situation room in the White House when you have a cat five hurricane bearing down on probably what they knew, they knew, was the most vulnerable region in the country when it came to hurricane preparedness and what they knew would likely be the aftermath?

Why did President Bush and other top administration officials insist that the levees did not break until Tuesday when now we know, with the Davis report and with Mr. Brown's revelation, that he told them the day Katrina struck, the night that Katrina struck?

They knew.

I know what the House rules are, and I know what they constrain us from doing, but they knew. And that is what Michael Brown testified. They knew. He told them. And now he is free from the constraints from working for the administration, and let us acknowledge that the four of us have been fairly critical of Mr. Brown. We meted out our own share of criticism of his performance. But now that he has been freed of his ties to the administration, and we all acknowledge that when you work for an administration, unfortunately, sadly, with this administration in particular, loyalty to your dying day is supposed to be the most valuable, particularly if they are continuing to sign your paycheck.

He made it clear when they were no longer signing his paycheck, 60 days after he was supposedly no longer with the Department, that he issued warning after warning to Secretary Chertoff, to the President. He indicated that he personally spoke with the President and told him that there was a levee break, that there was significant damage and he sounded the alarm bells. And the President was on vacation in Crawford, Texas. The Vice President was fly fishing in Wyoming. Homeland Security adviser Francis Townsend was in Maine, and his chief of staff was at home in Maine.

Trust them. They have got our back.

Indifference, incompetence, corruption, cronyism, it is all a consistent pattern. One would think when they got hit hard in the face with the criticism and the visceral reaction of the American people in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the response to their indifference that they would learn. But now, no. They were not just surprised, but astonished at the American people's reaction to their indifference on this port deal. I mean, you go from one thing to the other. The indifference and the callous disregard for what the American people's needs are in terms of security in a natural disaster or a potential man-made disaster. Their indifference and insensitivity is just astonishing.

Mr. Speaker, it is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Mr. Speaker. And it has been interesting to listen to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

For the last number of years we have had the privilege on our side of the aisle of the leader giving the 30-something Democrats the opportunity to take the floor each night at least for 1 hour, if not 2, to talk about the things that are important to America and, in particular, important to our generation. So now it is nice to see that at least the other side is beginning to recognize that this is an important venue to get some information out to the people. As I said, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

There are times, Mr. Speaker, that we are going to agree and times that we are going to disagree. The gentleman from Texas and I were just commiserating, and he and I were both elected just over 13 months ago and sworn into this esteemed body. And I was just joking with him that the chart that he just brought out and talked about related to the United Arab Emirates voting record with the United States and the United Nations is actually a document that I had with me right here in my hand and was one of the things that I was going to discuss as well.

Because I think this port deal, normally we talk about our differences in the 30-something Working Group with the Republicans on the other side of the aisle; in this case, I am heartened to see, at least for some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we have not differed on the really deep concern that many of us have as a result directly of our constituents' feedback on this port deal with Dubai Ports World and the administration.

When I can concur with my colleagues, I will do that. In this case, the administration has repeatedly indicated what a good friend the UAE is to the United States. And we only have very few examples that we can utilize to determine what the definition of ``friend'' is.

One measure of friendship is certainly how often they support us in terms of human rights and the other important issues that come up in the United Nations. There is a pitiful record that the United Arab Emirates has. And in terms of supporting us in the United Nations, not only is it pitiful but it was not so good before 2001, and it has only gotten worse since 2001.

So I stand here and am able to say that I am glad to see that our colleagues have at least pointed out that there is deep concern on the part of the legislative branch, at least some of us in the legislative branch, about the continued rapid-fire movement forward on this port deal.

I continue to scratch my head, we continue to scratch our heads on our side of the aisle, at the brazen nature of the defense that the President has engaged in of this deal. The revelation that came to light less than a week ago now that this is a deal that the President was not even aware of. And I sit on the Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology Subcommittee, which had a hearing today. Not only did we learn that the President did not have any knowledge of this deal but neither did the Secretary that was responsible for each of these agencies that is part of the process to approve the deal nor the Deputy Secretary nor the Under Secretary under them nor the Under Secretary under them. Three levels below the Secretary of each of the agencies responsible for reviewing the foreign investment deals that are proposed to occur in the United States, that was the level of awareness that there was in the agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, like the Department of State, like the intelligence agencies that are involved in the process of approving this. That is so disturbing, it is hard to explain.

I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that in the time that I have been in Congress and, quite honestly, since I spent 12 years prior to being in Congress in the Florida legislature, and I will even include the 13 years combined that I have served in public office, I have not seen or gotten feedback this quickly and in this enormity in as short a period of time on an issue as I have on this proposed port deal. And I am talking about compared to Social Security privatization, the Medicare prescription drug program.

I get a lot of responses and feedback on those issues, but they are lengthy and voluminous over a period of time. I have little old ladies and elderly gentlemen call my office, I represent a large senior citizen population, calling my office crying because they are in fear. I represent an area that includes the Port of Miami. My district abuts the Port of Miami. I had an opportunity to tour the Port of Miami Terminal Operating Company and saw firsthand what the potential threat is in the event that this company owned by the United Arab Emirates goes astray in the event that we no longer consider them an ally down the road, that there is absolutely no question that there is a potential national security risk. And for the President and his administration to continue to insist that there is not a national security risk when it is clear that they have not even begun to examine this potential risk closely, that is just shocking.

We have had a number of different revelations that have occurred over the last week, not the least of which is that the Coast Guard brought up their concern during the process, the CPS process, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. During that committee's process, the Coast Guard raised concerns. The Department of Homeland Security raised concerns. And let me back up for a second because although there are millions of people who have been paying attention to this, let me take this opportunity to back up for a second and just explain what it is I am talking about.

Of course, so many people are aware that there is a proposal that was considered over the last several months but that only recently came to light by most people in this administration, most people responsible for this decision. It only recently came to light in the last several weeks where we have learned that Dubai Ports World, which is a company, a foreign corporation, owned 100 percent by the government of the United Arab Emirates, is in the process of closing a deal. The deal is supposed to closed tomorrow. They have purchased an interest in P&O, a stevedoring company; and after tomorrow when the deal closes, they will now own and operate the terminal operating companies at six of our major ports. Six major ports.

When you have a proposal like that in the United States, it is supposed to go through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. That is made up of a number of different agencies in the United States. It is supposed to include people like the Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary of State. The Secretary of the Treasury chairs it. You have numerous intelligence agencies that have the highest level, or are supposed to have the highest level, of Secretaries serving on that committee, and they go through a review process, by law. This is a law that they are supposed to follow whereby they take it through a 30-day review process. And after that 30-day review, if there are national security concerns, then that is supposed to

trigger an additional 45-day review, a national security review, so that we can investigate whether there are national security implications to the foreign investment in the United States.

Now, given that the United Arab Emirates just 5 years ago was referred to 58 times in the 9/11 Commission report as having some level of involvement with the 9/11 attacks, knowing that just on the surface, how is it possible that a 45-day national security review was not triggered? Where were the alarm bells? Where was the concern? I mean, one has only to tour the terminals, like I did last week at the Port of Miami, downtown Miami, literally just across the water from the port, and see the devastating potential impact if you have just one or two people. There were not thousands of people that planned the 9/11 attack. It only takes a few determined terrorists to wreak havoc and horror on our Nation. And honestly, it would take almost no one to engage in a terrorist act, God forbid, in the event that our relationship with the United Arab Emirates somehow changes in the near future or down the road. But we will have no mechanism to remove them from our country.

What happens, and what I learned when I went to the Port of Miami to see firsthand the problem, what happens is that it is not that the United Arab Emirates or Dubai Ports World is going to run our ports. That is not accurate. But they are going to have control of the largest terminal operating company, and this is just in Miami, the largest terminal operating company that is responsible for loading and unloading containers in the Port of Miami. There are a million containers that go through the Port of Miami every single year, a million. And this company that is owned by the UAE is going to be in charge of the loading and unloading of those containers. What I learned when I went to the Port of Miami was that while they are not in charge of the security or running the port itself, each terminal operating company is responsible for their own security internally in their terminals and on their property. So because you have a million containers going through the Port of Miami, that is a whole lot of the security measures that are taken on the Port of Miami and that this company, and as a result the UAE, is responsible for.

In addition, what is equally disturbing is that the individuals in the companies that run these terminal operating companies, they have an intimate knowledge of the security measures that are taken on the port grounds itself. So we know two things. One, they are responsible for security within their own terminal for those million containers. One million containers at least at the Port of Miami go in and out of there over the course of a year. And their personnel also have intimate knowledge of the security measures taken at the port every single day. It only takes one or two rogues, it only takes one or two bitter people, it only takes one or two people who differ even with the government of the UAE, if they currently are our friends, and I would argue that given their track record in terms of the support or lack of support for things we care about in the United Nations and for a number of other reasons that they are not the friends that President Bush represents that they are, but it does not take more than one or two people who hold hate in their heart for the United States and our people to wreak havoc on us. They are not just this close. They would be here. They would be here on our ports on our grounds.

Let us take this a step further because beyond just the United Nations votes that my colleagues talked about and that I just mentioned, we also have the United Arab Emirates that is a member of the Arab League of Nations. The Arab League of Nations is currently engaged in a boycott of the State of Israel. The United Arab Emirates supports that boycott. Now, Israel is the United States' strongest ally in the Middle East. So now we have a second layer of evidence that the United Arab Emirates is not a very good friend of the United States. How could we allow, both for national security reasons and for economic fairness reasons, a country like the United Arab Emirates to do business and to purchase a very significant terminal operating company in our six major ports and allow them to do that kind of business here when they refuse to do business with the State of Israel, our strongest ally in the Middle East? That is unconscionable.

And with all due respect, the President touts his support for the State of Israel and what a good friend this President has been to the State of Israel. Well, I think we have one example here where he is not being such a good friend to the State of Israel if he could turn the other cheek and vociferously defend a business deal even in spite of the fact that this country denies the State of Israel's legitimacy in terms of their existence and engages in harm to the State of Israel by supporting an economic boycott. So to me the proof is in the pudding. I think words are nice, but actions are a whole lot better. Up and down this deal is disturbing.

Now, another colleague of mine, Congressman Bachus from the State of Alabama, again I want to cite he is also a colleague of mine from the other side of the aisle, in the subcommittee hearing today, he talked about the fact that in the United Arab Emirates, they will not allow the United States to have 100 percent ownership of a company on their port; yet we are allowing the United Arab Emirates to have a 100 percent ownership of a company in our port. And when he asked the administration to explain that, they had no explanation. He was going to have to get back to us. Well, of course he was going to have to get back to us because there is no explanation for that. This is a matter of fairness. This is a matter of what is wrong versus what is right, and this is a matter of national security.

Now, here is where I am going to part company with my colleagues on this because it is wonderful that many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are opposing, rightfully so, this port deal and joining Democrats on our side of the aisle in our concern, our deep and grave concern in opposition to this port deal. However, it would have been far nicer if they had not come so late to the dance in terms of their recognizing that port security is a deep and troubling problem that we have in the United States.

We currently check less than 5 percent of the containers that come through our ports in the United States. Now, that is bad enough. But over the course of the last 5 years, and this is something else I learned when I went to the Port of Miami last week, the difference between our appropriations for airport security, in 5 years we have appropriated an additional $18 billion for airport security and less than $700 million for port security. Now, I just could not believe when I learned how lopsided the difference in security measures were. If I am a terrorist, and I am not, but if I am a terrorist, it really does not take a smart terrorist to recognize that if you have that lopsided a difference in terms of the money we have spent to shore up our security at our airports versus our ports, where do you think the weak spot is, and where do you think they are most likely to zero in on in terms of attack?

They are most likely to zero in on port security and that weakness. And now what do we do? Without a national security review, without any concern expressed by this administration whatsoever, we allow a country that just 5 years ago was involved in terms of financing, allowing the financing, housing the 9/11 terrorists, allowing the financing of that attack and, in addition to that, allowing the transport of nuclear material through their country to the state of Iran. That is not allowing, it is not even strong enough to say that that is allowing the fox into the hen house. It is not strong enough to say that.

Where we part company with our friends on the other side of the aisle is in terms of our support for port security, because time and again, Mr. Speaker, the Democrats in this Chamber have proposed increases in funding for port security. We have proposed going from the 5 percent to 100 percent in terms of checking the containers that come through our ports.

Each time we have offered an amendment that would do that, that would accomplish that. The Republicans in this body have rejected it, rejected it with their red lights on that board right above your head, Mr. Speaker.

And that is just so incredibly disturbing, because it is very nice to

stand here on this floor and verbally oppose this ports deal on national security grounds, but when we have an opportunity to do something about it, Mr. Speaker, I would like to see my colleagues join us not just with words, but with their actions as well.

I would like to see them support the Appropriations Committee ranking member on our side, Mr. Obey from Wisconsin. He proposed last year and the year before just a 5 percent decrease in the tax cuts for our wealthiest Americans who make more than $1 million a year, the wealthiest, arguably no skin off their noses; and to spend that money, I believe it was an additional $750 million, I have to double-check that number, but to be able to come close to spending an additional $1 billion on port security just by dropping the tax cut for our wealthiest Americans by 5 percent.

And that was rejected. The Democrats voted for it and the Republicans voted against it.

So it is very nice, and I am pleased to see, and I have been yearning as a freshman, it is the thing that has caused me the most concern, consternation. Over the course of the last year, my good friend from Texas and I have talked about it many a time; we serve on the Judiciary Committee together. There is too much animosity in this Chamber. There are too many differences. We focus more on our differences than we do on our potential alliances.

This is a time when we have an opportunity to come together. I would like to see us come together in words and in deeds. We have that opportunity here, and it would be great. I am hopeful that henceforth we are going to be able to lock elbows and move together to oppose this deal and to address the national security concerns that deals like this present.

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

No. I wasn't aware of that either. I was shocked.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I look forward to that, and I appreciate the gentleman's comments.

I have legislation that I have introduced just today that your colleague from Texas, Mr. Poe, has joined me on that would prohibit foreign-government-owned companies from owning terminal operating companies. I would love to have you as a cosponsor of that legislation.

I hope you lead your conference beyond this port deal and your opposition to it to trying to shore up the port security at our Nation's ports, because unfortunately, your party has been less than supportive of trying to do that. I appreciate you being willing to engage in some dialogue with us. Thank you so much.

It is a privilege to have you down here. The gentleman from California has been a leader for many years. Obviously, there are some significant national security concerns that the State of California has.

We have got to make sure that we have the long-term security interests and needs of this country addressed going forward, and that this debate and dialogue not just be isolated just to this deal. This deal affects six ports in our country, six significant ports. Dubai Ports World will also own terminals and other interests at many other ports in our country. This is actually bigger than this one-port deal.

This is a matter of national security. This is a matter of trying to ensure that, going forward, we fill this gaping hole in our national security.

The two of you sit on the Armed Services Committee. Obviously, you are engaged every single day. Mr. Meek serves on the Homeland Security Committee and has intimate knowledge of the significant problems we have.

Before I turn it over to one of the two of you, I think that what Mr. Miller just said is really important to note. Actually, let me go back to what the gentleman from Georgia was saying before you all got here and before I began the 30-something hour.

The gentleman from Georgia made reference to how wonderful it is that we have a legislative process and a system of checks and balances and that the Congress can engage in oversight. It should be noted that the oversight we are engaging in now, we are forcing, we are taking it upon ourselves, because it certainly hasn't been oversight supported by this administration. In fact, the President threatened last week that if we dared to pass any legislation that halted this deal, his all-important business deal, he would veto it.

Now, that doesn't really sound very democratic. It appears to me that this President cares a lot about exporting democracy and not a lot about practicing it.

So I just think that is an important piece of information that our citizens in this country should understand: who is concerned about looking out for our national security interests. It doesn't appear that the administration is.

I would be happy to yield to either of the gentlemen.

Well, it has been clear on a number of different levels that they have the President's back much more so than the Republicans' back. We can see that when it comes to their support for the President's budget, when they support the President's initiatives at every level.

You see the red and green lights up on the board, and even when the more moderate Republican colleagues of ours obviously desperately want to vote differently, they hold the board open for as long as humanly possible so that they can twist arms and get those colleagues of ours to change their votes and vote differently than obviously their conscience has told them that they should vote.

We are facing down now a need to increase the debt limit. The Treasury Secretary has indicated that we are going to bump up against our debt limit any day now, really within the next month. And we still have not voted to do that. One of the interesting things that I have found politically over the years is that the Republicans often accuse Democrats of being tax-and-spend Liberals. All I ever hear is tax-and- spend Liberal, almost like equating it with curse words.

What has been clear is that the Republicans, since they have been in charge of this government, and in total control of this government, they have been borrow-and-spenders. We have reached the point in America now where this administration, this President, has spent more than the previous President certainly, and other Presidents combined.

We have spent more money now than the previous administration, yet Republicans continue to accuse Democrats of being tax-and-spend Liberals. It is really just funny. It has reached the point of sardonic humor.

Let us look at the issue of the debt limit. You see here that we have increased the debt limit not just on one, not just on two, but on five occasions. We had had $3 trillion of increases of the debt limit. In billions of dollars, you have in June of 2002, $450 billion increase in the debt limit.

In May of 2003, $984 billion increase in the debt limit. November of 2004, $800 billion increase in the debt limit. The pending increase now is another $781 billion for a total of over $3 trillion in increasing of the debt limit. That means that our future generations, my children, their children, are going to owe incredible sums of money, have debt to foreign nations, and that is not even talking about the deficit.

So many people really have trouble getting their arms around the difference between the debt and the deficit. We have a problem with the deficit in this country. And we have examples of that in chart form as well.

The deficit in this country has now reached $8 trillion. $8 trillion. Next week, Mr. Speaker, when we come back and do the 30-something hour, we are going to have a chart that will try to illustrate for people just what that means, what a billion dollars will do. Because it is really staggering when you think about it. People have trouble getting their mind around that concept: $8 trillion translated to every person in this country means that every person in this country owes $27,000. And when I am talking about a person, I am talking about infants as well, babies as well.

Let us look at the budget deficits of prior Presidents. If you start with President Reagan in 1982, he had a deficit of $128 billion. We had a deficit of $128 billion. You go all of the way down to this President, and we are at $323 billion.

Now that is just for fiscal year 2006. And that is obviously increased, except for one year where it was a little bit higher. In 2004 it was a little bit higher, $412 billion. So I feel heartened that we had somewhat of a drop, but it is on the increase again.

We have got to make sure that we get back to the point that we were at during the Clinton administration when we did not know from the term deficit, because we had a surplus. What we were debating during the Clinton administration was what we were going to do with that surplus: Were we going to use it to shore up the difficulties we were having with social security? Were we going to use it to shore up the difficulties that we were having with

Medicare? We cannot have those discussions any more because we are operating at our biggest deficit in history.

What we have proposed, and what Republicans have consistently rejected, is going back to the PAYGO rules, the pay-as-you-go rule, which means you do not spend it if you do not have it.

The Republicans have repeatedly and unanimously rejected going back to the PAYGO rules. These are two examples of amendments that were offered by Mr. Spratt from South Carolina in the 2006 budget resolution and the 2005 budget resolution.

In 2006, it failed 165-264. And you had zero Republicans supporting it, 228 Republicans opposing it. In the 2005 budget resolution, it failed 194-232. Zero Republicans supporting it, 224 Republicans opposing pay-as-you-go.

Now, who is fiscally responsible and who is not? I really ask you to think about that. We have got to make sure that we return to pay-as- you-go, because even though it is difficult, that is a hard policy to adopt, making sure you have the money before you spend it, anyone who lives, if you think about it in terms of your household budget, Mr. Speaker, it is hard to only spend the money you have.

But we all know that you are obviously in the best fiscal shape, you have the most fiscally sound budget in your home when you are only spending what you take in.

There are a lot of Americans that do not do that. There are a lot of Americans that have credit card debt. There are a lot of Americans in this country who struggle every day to make sure that they can pay their bills. And quite honestly, the only way that they are often able to cover the needs that they have is by deficit spending in their own household.

But they know that it is not the right thing to do; and ideally if they could afford it, most of these families would not engage in that practice. The problem is that they are not in very good shape fiscally in their own household, so they have to. The Federal Government does not have to. You definitely cannot argue that we do not have the money to adopt this practice. We do. We have the money; we just do not have the wherewithal.

Unfortunately, the Republican leadership here has not had the nerve. I guess for lack of a better term it has not had the nerve to adopt that responsible policy. I really do not understand it. I come from a State legislative background, 12 years in the Florida legislature. Anyone who comes from a legislative background and was an elected official in their home State in this body understands that every State in the country has to operate in the black, according to their constitution. You cannot deficit spend in a State budget. You cannot do it.

You have only the ability to spend the money that you have. The Federal Government has, I guess it is a luxury, but it is a luxury that comes back to bite you very soon as you progress down the road, and you end up throwing your own future into tremendous debt.

There is a USA Today editorial that was just from the other day, and it talks about who is really the party of small government and big spending and who is not. It was really interesting. USA Today said tax cuts, they say, forced hard decisions and restrained 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, meaning the Republicans, have increased spending by an average of nearly 7\1/2\ percent a year, more than double the rate in the last 5 years of the Clinton era budget. That is really telling.

So who is fiscally responsible? Who is for smaller government? Who is for responsible fiscal policy? Clearly, given this chart, where it indicates in USA Today's opinion, our third-party validator and this chart right here, which shows the increase, drastic increase of the deficit over time from the Reagan administration to now.

Let us look at the blue area right here. See the blue years. The blue years are surplus, Mr. Speaker, surplus, when we did not have a deficit, when we had PAYGO. When we only spent the money that we had.

We had some Members, Mr. Speaker, in our caucus that lost their elections because of that vote, that lost their elections ensuring that we would adopt responsible fiscal policy. That is because we stand on principle.

We do not blindly support our President, we do not walk in lock step, we vote our conscience. And I wish that I had not seen the angst in so many of my Republican colleagues' faces when they had their arms wrenched behind their backs and were essentially forced to vote differently than you know in their heart they believed.

It is really sad. I feel so free to come on this floor and, you know, Leader Pelosi, she tells you, you do what you feel is right. I know we are not always going to agree. You have to be able to do what you think is best for your district. Now, of course, she would like us to be unified. And because we have such strong beliefs and values in our caucus, we have the most unified caucus that we have had in history, really since the 1950s, the most unified caucus.

The Democratic caucus in this Chamber knows that we can take this country in a new direction, that together America can do better, and that if we work together and work through our differences and build consensus instead of forcing our colleagues to do what they do not necessarily believe in, then we are going to make sure that we can come up with sound policy.

The Clinton years we had surplus. The other chart that you just had up is also telling. Again, we do not force people in the Democratic caucus to do what they do not believe. I cannot imagine that my Republican colleagues in every single district in this country stood in front of their constituents during their campaigns and said, you know what, I believe in deficit spending. I believe in an $8 trillion deficit.

I just doubt that if I were in their districts at a town hall meeting, that they would be telling their constituents they were glad that we had an $8 trillion deficit. But yet they come up here and they vote to continue to support policies like that.

I do not get it. Other than blind loyalty, I do not get it. Blind loyalty is what is hurting our constituents here in the United States of America.

Let us look at how just the interest payments on the national debt, we are going back to talking about the debt, the money that we owe to other countries now. Just look at what the interest payments would pay for if we did not have to spend them on covering the national debt.

If we did not have to spend them, we could spend them on education, we could spend them on homeland security, we could spend them on improving the quality of life for our Nation's veterans. You have about $50 billion that we could spend on helping our Nation's veterans. You have about, I think that is about $30 billion that you could spend on shoring up homeland security.

We are talking about domestic discretionary funding, the kind of funding that we can specifically direct to port security and airport security and making sure that our Nation's borders are not infiltrated by terrorists; but we cannot spend that money on those things because we are paying interest on our debt to other countries.

You could spend almost $100 million, I think it is about $75 billion dollars, excuse me, we get the Bs and Ms confused sometimes, $75 billion on education.

Now, one of the biggest frustrations that I know I get in terms of feedback from my constituents, Mr. Speaker, is the No Child Left Behind Act and the fact that this President committed from day one, and Mr. Miller, my good friend from California who was just here, championed that legislation on our side with the administration's commitment that they were going to support full funding.

We have not had full funding on No Child Left Behind. We have not had the ability to really implement that legislation and ensure that our children in our public schools are prepared for the path that they choose in life. What we have done instead is we have had to spend that money on things like interest on the national debt. We have had to spend that money on tax cuts, because it is tax cuts that have been the top priority of this administration.

Still today this President's and this administration's highest priority appears to be making the tax cuts for our

wealthiest Americans permanent, in the face of the national debt being the size that it is, in the face of us having an $8 trillion deficit where each American owes $27,000 apiece.

How is that possible? There are times when you just have to say, we cannot afford it. It would be nice, but we cannot afford it. When does that happen here?

Mr. Meek, I do not understand when that happens here. You know, I am a mom. I have three little kids. There are times that I have to disappoint my 6-year-olds, my twin 6-year-olds, and my 2\1/2\ year old. I have to tell them no, we cannot buy that toy. We cannot buy that toy. I would like to buy you that toy, but we have to save somewhere. We have to do some belt-tightening.

No just is not in the equation with this administration. Sure we can have billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy. Sure we can spend money on whatever we want. Sure we can continue to spiral our deficit bigger and bigger and bigger, and we can go more and more in debt to foreign countries. You know what? It is time for us to act like responsible parents do and occasionally say no.

Occasionally remember that the household budget is something that we have to be responsible about and return to the days when we were only spending what we had, return to the policy of PAYGO.

I just do not understand it. I really do not.

Mr. Meek, I have been talking about national debt. I have been talking about what we could spend if we had the interest payments on the national debt, what we could do for veterans and homeland security and education. Instead, the net interest that we are spending is $250 billion. We can see what that would buy and it is really disturbing.

When I began the hour I talked about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery so it is interesting to see that they have now engaged in a little dialogue here.

This whole conversation has really been a reflection of the culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence. Whether it is the debt that foreign countries owe, whether it is the $8 trillion deficit that we have, whether it is the pitiful and disgusting response to Hurricane Katrina or this port deal that is deeply disturbing and that brought up no national security implications for this President or this administration.

Before we close it out, Mr. Ryan, Mr. Meek, I do want to urge people to go on the Washingtonpost.com website and see the video that has just been released of President Bush being warned about the dangers of Hurricane Katrina before the hurricane hit and him not asking a single question; him being warned about the levee breaks, warned about the people in the Superdome. There is video. Washingtonpost.com.

We want to thank the Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi for the opportunity to be here and to spend time with the American people. I know Mr. Ryan will detail how people can reach us, if they have comments, on our website.

Mr. Speaker, I thank so much my good friend from Ohio. I am particularly struck by your comments and your laying out of the real significance of the problem we are facing here.

I have only been here a year now. I am a new Member, and I came from 12 previous years in the Florida legislature. The whole concept, I mean, I certainly understand what the debt limit is and the debt ceiling, and I have watched the President's brother, Governor Bush, do the exact same thing in Florida and asked repeatedly for our debt limit to be extended. So there is clearly a pattern running through this family.

But what is so foreign to me as a State legislator, and I know we have many former State legislators in this Chamber, is the whole concept of debt and operating in the red to begin with. Most States cannot deficit spend. Most States have to adopt a budget that balances. You do not borrow against next year. You spend what you have, just

like the concept of PAYGO that the Democrats in the Congress have supported for years and continue to support, and then for some reason we cannot get the Republican leadership here to go back to that concept.

It is mindboggling. How does a party and a group of people who supposedly pride themselves on their fiscal responsibility not support the concept of paying as you go? I do not understand. I mean, those two concepts are opposites. Fiscal responsibility, yet five increases in the debt limit in the debt ceiling. It is really tough for me to understand.

We are borrowing away our children's future, and it is a concept that I have not been able to get my mind around. We want to make sure that we reduce the deficit, but the President talks about it in his State of the Union address. You constantly hear Republican Members of Congress profess that they have an interest in cutting the deficit in half or eliminating the deficit. Yet, the budget that the President submitted does no such thing. In fact, over the next 10 years it ensures that the deficit continues to stay significantly high, does not even come close to cutting it in half; and, actually, he presented us a budget on Monday that includes no assumption that we would spend no money on the war in Iraq after next year.

I mean, to me, I analogize the reality of the budget the President gave us on Monday to one that my first graders might sit down and write because they have about the same similarity in terms of likelihood of success here in this Chamber, the same similarity that my first graders would write to the ability to actually meet the needs of the people in the country.

You know what it really boils down to? It boils down to hypocrisy, because the same people who accuse Democrats of being tax and spend liberals, you know, and I am loathe to repeat that misnomer because it is so insulting, but if we are tax and spend liberals, they are borrow and spend. They are borrow and spend.

Because if we say that we do not think tax and spend is a good idea, which I think universally Republicans and Democrats would say taxing and spending as a way to solve our problems is not a set of solutions for the future of this country, how is borrowing and spending any different?

I mean, you are mortgaging our children's future, and that, you know, I think if we had some semblance of bipartisan here that some people profess to be supportive of, I would love to sit down around a table. Maybe Mr. Boehner, the new majority leader, will be different, I am certainly hopeful. But I would love to sit down around a table with a bipartisan group of Members and find a way to pay as we go.

I will yield.

Essentially what that is is a manifestation of the culture of corruption. I mean, that is how you translate the culture of corruption which shows itself in individual Members in some cases, and people who are under suspicion and investigation, although not charged. And that is how you take it, or that is how they take it a step further and translate it into policy.

I mean, when we are providing significant tax dollars for energy companies, when we are essentially ensuring that special interests have their pockets lined via people `s tax dollars, then that is the manifestation of the culture of corruption and how it impacts people in terms of the policymaking that goes on here.

And we talking about third-party validators. It would be easy for us to just say what we think standing on this floor. But, you know, it would be very easy for us to lay out, you know, progressive liberal Democratic organizations to validate what we are saying here.

I am going to read you a few third-party validators who laid out their opinion of the President's budget in the last several days. Goldman Sachs, for example. They said that the deficit forecasts that were laid out in the President's budget this week were unrealistic.

Bush's budget proposal assumes that the Federal deficit would jump from $318 billion last year to $423 billion in 2006, then slide back down to $183 billion in 2010. Those factors led Goldman Sachs economists to tell clients yesterday that the deficit forecasts are unrealistic.

No. And also not a liberal organization is the Heritage Foundation, who says that the budget does not deal with retirees. Brian Riedl, budget analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that Bush's budget is clearly not enough to feasibly solve the most important economic challenge of our era, how to deal with 77 million baby-boomer retirees.

The Concord Coalition, also not a liberal bastion, said the White House was working off very unrealistic assumptions. Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, said of the Bush budget, when you look at the bottom line that they are putting out, it is important then to look at the assumptions. And I think there are some very unrealistic assumptions there that would probably keep the deficit much higher than the administration is showing.

When I say that my first-graders could sit down and write a similar budget that bears the same resemblance to reality, I am really not kidding.

You know, I am not just being tongue in cheek here. The President owes the American people the responsibility that he has taken when he took his oath to uphold the Constitution, a budget with realistic projections that does not just paint the rosiest picture possible so that he can coast through the rest of his term.

Now, Mr. Ryan, is that just adults?

To take that a step further, and, Mr. Ryan, before I do that, we have used this chart repeatedly because it is so illustrative of the stark ineptitude, for lack of a better term, of this administration, you know, compared to all of the other previous administrations combined.

I am wondering, sometimes people catch this Special Order hour, and sometimes they do not. I know we have a Website, and we have recently revamped it, and my understanding is that the charts that we use are going to be available on our Website in the event that people want to go and look at them more closely. Is that right?

They can peruse them at the their leisure.

We have sort of interchangeably been talking about two different things. There is the debt, and then there is the deficit. Both things are startling when it comes to this administration's record. Under this President the deficit and the national debt are out of control.

Right. The deficit is the annual ongoing difference between the revenue we take in and the money we spend. And then the debt is what we have to borrow in order to stay afloat.

Over the last 5 years, it is clear that President Bush has lost control of both. Under this President we have gone from a projected 10- year surplus of $5.6 trillion to a projected deficit over the same period of $3.3 trillion, which is an $8.9 trillion reversal.

Under President Bush's budget, when omitted costs are included, we have deficits for as far as the eye can see. You have a projected rise in the deficit to $556 billion by 2016. And when we talk about omitted costs, people might say, what do you mean by omitted costs? Like the fact that this budget does not include any spending on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan after next year.

Now, I wish, oh, were that to be true, that we would now be in a position where Iraq would be, and the Iraqi people would be, able to sustain themselves without our assistance. Unfortunately, we have created a situation in which that continues to be impossible, and it is a virtual certainty that we are going to need to spend money after next year in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the President's claims.

When omitted costs are included, the President's budget does not cut the deficit in half by 2009 as he continues to claim that it will.

What continues to be mind-boggling is that we could fix this if you go back to the pay as you go rules of the 1990s, which is what turned the deficits into surpluses, tough votes that people took. Like you said, there were Members that lost their seats, but at the end of the day, it has to be more important to do the right thing than to continue to be here for each one of us, and that is something that we have to internalize. This is a good job. This is a job that we all really enjoy. I have not met a Member of Congress who does not like the job a lot, and that is why many of us, most of us, fight hard to keep it every election cycle. But at the end of the day, you have to be willing to look yourself in the mirror and say you did the right thing and be willing to walk out of this Chamber and know that you may not come back after you did the right thing.

Unfortunately, we do not have enough people who serve in this body that are willing to do that. And unfortunately, it appears to be a little lopsided when it comes to the partisan breakdown of that willingness.

This is literally the worst reversal, the worst fiscal reversal, in American history. We have never had the kind of turnaround from a record surplus to a record deficit like the one we have had. And the national debt, as you said, continues to skyrocket. They have had to raise the debt limit five times, but total combined it was $2.2 trillion that the debt had to be raised since President Bush took office. I mean, it really is astonishing.

There is something else I want to bring up, if you do not mind. I think it is important to compare words and deeds. And we both sat in this Chamber during the State of the Union and listened to the President lay out his vision for America. I want to read out from one of the paragraphs from the State of the Union and compare it to a couple of weeks later when he introduced his budget.

He said in the State of the Union that ``our economy is healthy and vigorous and growing faster than other major industrialized nations. In the last 2\1/2\ years America has created 4.6 million new jobs, more than Japan and the European Union combined. Even in the face of high energy prices and natural disasters, the American people have turned in an economic performance that is the envy of the world.''

Now, during my time in the legislature, and I spent a little bit of time in leadership in the statehouse in Florida, one of the things that the party leadership generally engages in is choosing words carefully. You choose the words as carefully as you can so that what comes out actually reflects the reality on the ground. Now, I can see why the President would have chosen to say that our economy is growing faster than other major industrialized nations, because he probably could come as close to the accuracy as possible when it comes to the economy.

But just take this AP story, again, a third-party validator that we like to use, just from January 27, which talked about the economy grows at slowest pace in 3 years. The economy grows by just a 1.1 percent pace in fourth quarter, slowest in 3 years. The annual rate in the fourth quarter of last year was 1.1 percent amid belt-tightening by consumers facing spiraling energy costs. The 1.1 percent growth rate in the fourth quarter marked a considerable loss of momentum from the third quarter's brisk 4.1 percent pace. The fourth quarter's performance was even weaker than many analysts were forecasting. Before the release of the report, they were predicting the GDP to clock in at a 2.8 percent pace. The weakness in the final quarter of last year reflected consumers pulling back, cuts in government spending, and businesses being more restrained in their capital spending.

This is not a columnist that wrote this. This is an actual story that is reporting facts on the ground.

I just feel resentful when I sit in this Chamber and I listen to the President respectfully, and I expect on behalf of my constituents to hear accurate statements, to hear a true reflection of the state of our Nation. And instead what I felt like we got was a lot of partisan rhetoric, a lot of rhetoric that was not matched up with action as I would have liked to have seen it reflected in the budget.

He turned in a budget that actually gives us $36 billion in Medicare cuts. I mean, in a State like mine, I represent the State of Florida, as you know, that is going to significantly disproportionately impact a vulnerable senior citizen population when they are already reeling in the midst of this disastrous Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit that was handed to them by this Republican leadership.

So it is just kind of one insult after another. When is it going to stop? When are we going to actually have some true commitment to back up the words?

And it is not like there are not Members on both sides of the aisle who have not lived under this before. I am not sure if it is the majority, but there is a significant plurality of Members in this Chamber who served in their State legislatures. And you talk to any Governor, talk to anyone currently serving in the State legislature, that is what they live every day.

Really, it is like you get to Congress, and you become a drunken sailor. You are suddenly freed from the restraints of fiscal conservatism. You do not have to think about operating in the black anymore. You can spend to your heart's content and not think about fiscal restraint and not think about how you are going to pay for it. It is essentially like, oh, I get to Congress, and I get this humongous Visa or Mastercard, and I get to do whatever I want with it. Well, that is not how it works for the American people on an everyday basis. If it does, they end up ultimately declaring bankruptcy.

Do we want to continue to travel down that path in the United States of America and be in a position where we cannot pay our debt one day? I mean, I am raising little kids. That is literally the future that we are planning for right now for the next generation.

Again, I want to draw some comparisons to words and deeds here, if you do not mind. The President again, as I said, talked about how our economy was healthy and vigorous. I do not know how you have a debt like this, bigger than any combined in the last 224 years, just in the last 4 years, and say that the economy is healthy and vigorous, but I guess we all use a different dictionary from time to time of health and vigor.

The President said that in the State of the Union, and let us just detail some facts related to the economy. President Bush, despite what he says about the 4.6 million new jobs that were created, still has the worst record on jobs since President Herbert Hoover. He added 108,000 jobs in December. He has lost a total of 2.8 million manufacturing jobs, 2.8 million manufacturing jobs. At this point in the last recovery, the economy had created about 5 million more jobs than we have seen in this supposed recovery, and millions of Americans who want to work still do not have jobs.

Now, last week I was sitting at home. I was on my couch watching CNN, and I saw the head of the Ford Motor Company announce plans to cut up to 30,000 jobs and close 14 plants. I was dumbfounded. I had just heard from the President not 10 days before that the state of our economy is healthy and vigorous, and he created 4.6 million jobs, and now Ford Motor Company is cutting 30,000. General Motors just announced plans to eliminate their set of 30,000 jobs. Adelphia, now in bankruptcy, is asking workers to accept a 55 percent pay cut. Verizon is phasing out its defined benefits and pension plans for about 50,000 management employees. We are not talking about management employees who are on the high end of the pay scale; management employees like middle management, regular people, people who are living close to if not paycheck to paycheck every single day. And IBM recently announced it would freeze pension benefits for its 117,000 U.S. workers.

In 2005, U.S. employers announced more than a million job cuts, which marks the first time since 2001 that annual job cuts increased. Now, like I said, I understand that leaders often use the words that paint the rosiest picture or paint the picture that they would like to see or that they would like people to perceive. I think it is pretty clear that the jobs record, the health of our economy, the vigor of our economy, the debt we are saddling our children with, the deficit that continues to balloon compared to the surplus that we had just 3\1/2\ short years ago, there is no resemblance to the reality that President Bush has painted and the reality that our constituents are living every single day. None. It is wrong.

I am just looking at some of the facts and figures that our staff has put together for us, and sometimes I have difficulty thinking about the size and scope of what it means to have the largest deficit in American history and a debt that combined with the previous 224 years is greater than the debt from those years. It is easier to deal with that information in nuggets, so let us talk about debt and its impact on individuals for a moment.

And since this is the 30-something Working Group and we often try to highlight the difficulty our generation is having or what our generation lives through, let us just go through some facts and figures comparatively for our generation through the years.

Since 1992-93, the average college grad student loan debt has grown from $12,100 to $19,300 in 2003, just 10 years. Over 25 percent of college graduates in 2003 had a student loan debt higher than $25,000, which is a 7 percent increase from 10 years ago. In 2002, 14 percent of young adults reported that student loans caused them to delay marriage, which is up from 7 percent in 1991. One in five said their debt had caused them to delay having children, up from 12 percent in 1991. Forty percent reported they delayed buying a home because of their loans, compared with 25 percent in 1991. And 17 percent significantly changed careers because of their debt, about the same as 1991.

The policy decisions that are made here, Mr. Ryan, the culture of corruption that translates into special interests and the wealthiest few being at the top of the heap here as opposed to the average working family or the average hardworking recent college graduate being put first or being considered at least on the same level has caused real strife, real difficulty.

Imagine being in love, finding the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, knowing you want to have children, knowing that you could potentially buy that house that you would love to live in and have the dream of homeownership, essentially the American Dream, and you have so much debt that you are saddled with because your government, your Congress did not at least provide the ability for you to get a higher education because it was more important to provide tax cuts to the wealthiest few; more important to provide tax breaks for Big Oil and for pharmaceutical companies and ensure that they are first in line. That is real life. Those are the real-life decisions that real people, our people, have to make. It is just so wrong.

I used to think about this in the legislature, too. You come up to Tallahassee in Florida, which is our capital, and Washington here, and we make policy in this body thousands of miles from our constituents, most of us, except those who live right around here. Sometimes I think that is really a significant cause of the insensitivity that clearly goes on in Washington. Because we are so disconnected from our constituents when we make policy.

It is not like a city council people, who has to deal with the in- your-face aspect of that type of governing. You know, if there is a dead dog on someone's driveway, that city council person knows about it and they will have to deal with that person in the supermarket or you are right up in their face in the dais. We cannot talk to the people that come here and are sitting

in the gallery, and so we are insulated from making those decisions. And perhaps that is wrong. As a result, we make decisions where the people who can get access to us, the people who have the money to pay to get in front of us, they get to be first in line; and I think that really ruins lives for people.

I want to jump off from what you are saying in terms of America lagging behind global education standards with more emblematic examples of the difference between their rhetoric and their deeds.

The President, again in the State of the Union, talked about our one commitment being necessary above all in that we must continue to lead the world in human talent and creativity. Our greatest advantage in the world, he says, has always been our educated, hardworking, ambitious people and we are going to keep that edge. That evening he announced what he calls the American Competitiveness Initiative to encourage innovation throughout our economy and to give our Nation's children a firm grounding in math and science. He proposed doubling the Federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs and the physical sciences over the next 10 years and a number of other really lofty goals.

Let us match the rhetoric with the reality. Republicans have consistently, consistently failed to even come close to matching the rhetoric that the President laid out in the State of the Union in their deeds and actions in terms of making those words reality. Last year, Republicans provided less than one-third of the promised investment in the Math and Science Partnerships program, which is designed to increase student academic achievement in grades K through 12 in math and science. They have shortchanged the Tech Talent Act, which strengthens postsecondary education to increase the number of degrees in math, science, and engineering, by nearly 33 percent.

This comes at a time when only 36 percent of fourth graders and 30 percent of eighth graders tested proficient in math, but our twelfth graders scored at or near the bottom of math and science compared to other countries.

We could listen to the President say it until he is blue in the face, but until the Republican leadership here and the Members of Congress match what the President is saying with their votes, until he proposes a budget that actually reflects what his words said in the State of the Union, why should people believe them? They should not. They should not believe them because this is another example of how a pervasive culture of corruption and cronyism permeates itself all the way through the process and results in the reality on the ground in a budget that does the exact opposite in terms of producing the competitive talent that the President talked about in the State of the Union, because that cannot happen if you are slashing and burning the programs that accomplish that.

The American people are not stupid. They understand the difference between saying it and doing it. When I have traveled across the country, I hear from people that want to believe the things that their politicians tell them. They want to believe in us, and their confidence in this body, in Congress, in the government is so badly shaken by everything that has gone on through the culture of corruption that has gone on here. It has shaken the confidence that people have in this institution to its foundation. We have to do something about it. We have an opportunity to do something about it later this year. I hope that in my second term that I hope to serve in this Congress that things will change.

Again, I want to highlight where words did not match deeds. The candidate President George W. Bush said before the election that we would have ``universal, affordable access to broadband technology by the year 2007.'' Well, the Bush administration has had no national policy to develop a universal broadband access even though building a robust, nationwide network would expand employment by 1.2 million new permanent jobs in our country.

This is the House Democrats' innovation agenda, which is available on HouseDemocrats.gov. We have a plan laid out how, which includes how we would get to universal broadband access within 5 years, and that we would make sure that we grow the math and science and engineers that we need in this country and make sure that we can match our rhetoric with action.

Mr. Speaker, we again want to thank Leader Nancy Pelosi for the opportunity to talk about the things that are important to the American people. Again, we have laid out our vision for America's competitiveness into the future and how we can keep America number one and actually match rhetoric with what the President laid out in his State of the Union with action and deeds. You can get a copy of this, you can peruse a copy of our innovation agenda, which was developed not in Washington, not sitting around a conference table in a hearing room in the Nation's Capital, but out in the country, in the high-tech centers around this country, with bipartisan input, with the leaders and CEOs of some of the major technologically advanced corporations across this country that can be viewed at HouseDemocrats.gov. That is our Web site where you can get a copy of this.

Again, in addition to broadband access, we are the ones that laid out our commitment to growing a new generation of innovators. We committed in this document to educate 100,000 new scientists, engineers and mathematicians in the next 4 years by proposing a new initiative by working with States, businesses, and universities to provide scholarships to qualified students who commit to working in the fields of innovation.

But the Republicans could not say that they were going to do that because in every successive budget, they have cut student financial aid. You cannot make sure that you expand access to higher education in the math and sciences and in areas that are significantly underrepresented now unless you provide the aid that these students are going to need.

It is not that we do not have the students in these programs because there is a bumper crop of wealthy kids that are just not going into the math and sciences; it is to make sure that we go into the communities across this country and encourage and nurture the desire from the smallest children and the youngest ages and across the cultural and ethnic spectrum to ensure that people of all colors, of all economic walks of life choose to pursue math and science and engineering.

I read something earlier this morning that talked about China graduating 600,000 engineers. I think the number is right, that we graduated 50,000. I believe that it is that drastic a difference in terms of the proportion.

We have always been known as the innovators in the world. Every major accomplishment scientifically, at least in my lifetime, in our lifetime, has been achieved by Americans. But we are slowly but surely not going to be the leaders in those areas of science and math unless we go back to our traditional financial commitment to ensuring that kids can get access to education.

Absolutely.

And I mean, forgive me. But, come on, am I the only one that felt it was a little disingenuous to hear from this President that America is addicted to oil and we need to end that addiction? I mean, come on. Where has the commitment to that been? In the two energy bills that we were asked to vote on in the last year since I have been here, where we were basically giving away the store to the energy and oil companies? I mean, where is the financial commitment? Where has it been to exploring alternative energy sources? Has there been a miraculous transformation in the White House that I am not aware of?

I just do not understand how the administration could not see that you have to, in order to get the American people to believe what you say and to have faith and restore their confidence and belief in you, you have to do what you say you are going to do. And that just does not seem to happen on almost any score, particularly not when it comes to energy independence and exploring alternative energy sources.

And you know, I am proud to be a member of the Democratic Caucus, because when we say something, we mean it. But when we lay out a goal, we back it up with how we might do it were we in charge. You know, we would make a funding commitment to exploring alternative energy resources. We would invest our energy and effort into the Midwest so that not only can we become foreign-oil independent, we can become independent from oil, period.

You know, I am from a State where I do not want to see drilling off the coast of my shoreline. None of my constituents want to see it either. So we need to explore other ways of generating energy in this country that are not dedicated solely to the production of oil, whether it is developed here or in another country. But we actually have to have a plan that would do that, and have Members who actually cast votes in favor of that plan, which just has not happened by any stretch of the imagination here that I have seen.

Mr. Speaker, we spent a great deal of time tonight talking about the challenges that are facing our country, and the thing that I have noticed that is the most frustrating for me, Mr. Ryan, is in the short time that I have been here, you know, I was hopeful that just like when I was in the Florida senate, I was able to work effectively across the aisle and on the major issues that were important to our State, just like I was hopeful that we would be able to do here for the important issues in our country.

I was hopeful that I could come to the Congress and sit down, and I was ready to continue to work with Members on the other side on the major issues, not the issues on the margins, because, you know, you are able to find individual Members who you can work with one on one or in small groups on various issues, but on the hot-button issues, on education, on health care, on energy, on prescription drugs, on any of the issues that are really significant to the American people.

It is like those issues are radioactive somehow, and there seems to be an impenetrable wall around the Republican Conference, where it is virtually impossible to get any Member from the other side of the aisle to sit down with a group on our side of the aisle and try to hammer out compromise.

I just do not come from a place where I was used to dealing with my- way-or-the-highway rules of engagement. And you know, maybe now that there is new leadership in the Republican Conference, things will change. Certainly we are hearing words to that effect. It remains to be seen whether those words will be backed up by action. And I look forward to that possibility. I know you do too.

Do you want to talk about the Web site and tell people how they can get in touch with us and reach out to us?

We have a new Web site, Mr. Ryan. We revamped it, and it has a lot of new cool bells and whistles.

Thank you. We do miss our good friend from the great State of Florida, who is in the neighboring district next to me.

I do want to point out to people who might have seen this tonight that they not only can find all of the posters that we use usually on the next day once we have first introduced one on the floor, but they can also submit questions and comments to us through our Website. We want to make this as interactive as possible and get their feedback and

input, and we want to know what their concerns are.

The leader has given us this opportunity to speak to the American people, and our generation is often underrepresented in terms of the things that we care about in this country. And it is a privilege to serve in this body with you, Mr. Ryan, and under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Concurrent Resolution 332, 109th Congress, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, the infinite risks associated with terrorism demonstrated their potential to destabilize our Nation's markets after the attacks of September 11, which is why I will support the final version of TRIA before the House today. However, I, too, do so with strong reservations and some disappointment in what could have and should have been.

In spite of the tremendous leadership, hard work and cooperative efforts put forth by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley and Ranking Member Barney Frank, the other body chose to forego a fair and democratic conference process and needlessly tossed away an opportunity to truly strengthen our markets and protect consumers.

I commend Chairman Oxley, Ranking Member Frank, Mr. Kanjorski and Mr. Baker and all the members and staff, especially, of the Financial Services Committee for producing an initial bill that included a number of critical reforms to help protect Americans and our economy in the event of another terrorist attack.

This initial bill passed by an overwhelming majority here on the House floor and included a number of important consumer protections. As has been discussed, it would have extended the Federal backstop to include group life insurance, thereby ensuring that taxpayer dollars would be used not only to undergird real estate and insurance companies in the event of brick and mortar losses, but it would have provided financial protections to families who suffered the loss of a loved one in the event of another tragedy like September 11.

Moreover, those same taxpayers are being denied the right to travel freely by some of the very insurance companies who sought the extension of TRIA in the first place. The House's bill included a provision that I introduced and passed with the support of my colleagues on the Financial Services Committee during the markup of TRIA to address this unfair practice. While Americans can legally travel without the fear of government standing in our way, some life insurance companies do stand in the way, and they will continue to do so until this Congress acts.

As Americans, one of the liberties we cherish and enjoy is the freedom to explore and travel legally and freely around the world, be it for recreational, religious or cultural purposes. The unrestrained lawful foreign travel of American citizens is generally considered to be in the best interest of the United States.

Potential future travel to countries, especially our Nation's allies, should not be the sole basis for denying individual life insurance coverage. When we allow this to occur, we give in to terrorists and others who wish to change our way of life. While we should be proud that this provision gleaned broadbased, bipartisan support in the House, it is wrong that the other body refused to conference on the important elements in the House-passed version of TRIA. We cannot stop fighting for American consumers and taxpayers. We must back up our tough talk about fighting terrorism with action.

And, again, Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank Chairman Oxley and Ranking Member Frank for working cooperatively together. It is a privilege to serve on a committee that puts as a high priority working together for the greater good.

Mr. Ryan, I am the new kid on the block here, and I do not sit on the Armed Services Committee; and I completely agree it is a privilege and honor to have Mr. Spratt join us tonight.

But, you know, Mr. Spratt, my observation being of the shortest tenure among the four of us is, at least since I have been here, we should not be surprised that they would do this, because you start at the beginning of this year, and it was very clear that the leadership here has no regard for the process, no regard for the system of checks and balances, they have no regard for the judiciary.

At the beginning of this year, 10 weeks into my tenure, they put the Terri Schiavo bill on the floor, even though you had months and years of court decisions that made it clear that it was not appropriate for Congress to insert itself into one family's tragedy. Yet to them it was seemingly the right thing to do, to insert the legislative branch of government into an area that was clearly the jurisdiction of the courts.

Now you fast forward to the end of the year, and throughout this year they have had other examples of their lack of regard for the governmental

mechanics and the lack of regard for decency into what the American people support. Adding campaign finance provisions or anything other than the protection and defense of this country to the Defense appropriations bill? I mean, really.

If they were so concerned about campaign finance reform, why are they waiting until less than 24 hours before we are supposed to adjourn here? Really, we were supposed to adjourn weeks ago. I mean, they have so little regard for process that they are not able to get the job done. I mean, we are here, and it is a week before Christmas and Chanukah and the beginning of the holiday season, and we are still here in the Chamber debating things that should have been settled long ago.

So it has just been obvious to me since I began my term that they have no regard for the process, no regard for the American people's priorities, and they just keep setting example after example.

We thank the gentleman from South Carolina so much for joining us. Your expertise is incredibly helpful in terms of us highlighting the problems that we are trying to address in this Chamber.

Do you know how I would analogize the fact that the Republican leadership has now allowed the drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to be added to the Defense appropriations bill, that they have actually agreed to that? I would analogize it this way, and analogize the addition of any extraneous material, campaign finance reform, well, I would say, we almost would have to say ``reverse campaign finance reform,'' because the 527 legislation that they are talking about is more insidious, not being done in a way that would be designed to help add to the public discourse.

But the addition of campaign finance issues or oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to the Defense appropriations bill, the way I would analogize it is similar to insurgents in Iraq and in other areas of the world using children as shields. When our troops go into a neighborhood in Iraq and the insurgents put women and children in front of them so that they get killed instead of the insurgents, that is exactly what the Republican leadership is trying to do here. They are trying to put things in that they cannot get passed on their own because they cannot stand on their own merits.

They are putting the Defense appropriations bill, analogous to the women and children in war-torn countries, in front of items that have no merit, that do not have broad bipartisan support, and that cannot pass by themselves and, as a result, causing significant, unnecessary harming to this country. It is just absolutely unconscionable.

It is another circumvention of the process. It is another example of not dealing straight; another example of the incompetence, of the corruption, of the cronyism. Why can they not just be straight?

I serve on a committee where we work together in a bipartisan fashion. We lay our cards on the table in the Financial Services Committee. We agree on some things; we do not agree on others. But there is no clandestine backroom dealing. There is no attempt in that committee to try to stick things in that they can hide what they are really trying to do.

The American people want openness. They want us to vote clearly. I want a clear shot to vote tomorrow. I support defense of this country. Since I have been here, I have taken every opportunity to vote ``yes'' on defending this country to the degree that we need to. But I have serious problems, and so do my constituents, with drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. Quite honestly, we have a raging debate about oil drilling off the coast of Florida. Fortunately, that is not in this bill, but it could have been.

If we are going to continue the debate that we have had on campaign finance reform, then it should be done in the open. It should be done not at the last minute when we are trying to get out of here for the holidays. It should be done in the deliberative fashion, in the appropriate place, in the committees of jurisdiction. But they cannot get it in the honest and straight and fair way. It has to be the back door. It has to be clandestine. And it has to be putting things that they feel like most Members could not vote against in front of, just like insurgents put women and children in front of them so that they can get hurt first.

The American people are going to get hurt first when extraneous material that has nothing to do with the defense of our country is in front of some awful proposals that would never be sustained on their own.

Before you change the subject, I just want to say, on veterans, because if we are going to talk about tails, there is the tail the size of a doberman and one the size of a German shepherd. I want to do the length of a German shepherd on this.

We are not talking about the fact that a chairman here who was wonderful for veterans was removed from the chairmanship and removed from the committee. We can go much further and lengthen the tail and talk about the commitment or severe lack thereof commitment to veterans and their health care and sustaining veterans who have given not just their lives but dedicated their lives to this country and put their lives on the line.

Just 6 months ago, we finally had a culmination of a debate that we had begun where we, as Democrats, have been insisting that the Veterans Affairs had a significant shortfall in their budget, at least $1 billion, and there was denial after denial that that was the case. I was not here. In fact, I was

not a Member of Congress at the beginning of that debate.

Then I joined the Congress, and a few months later, we are on the floor passing a supplemental appropriation because the Republican leadership here had to finally acknowledge that there was a shortfall. We had to come in and pass an emergency appropriation so that our veterans could continue to get health care.

As it is, the Republican administration here makes them wait at least 6 months to get any health care services. Now, in this budget, we are going to be cutting, under the Republican's plan, veterans health care by as much as $600 million, even as we have the number of our veterans growing with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So it is not just what we are doing to veterans by throwing out the Members here on both sides who support them, but we are also totally shortchanging them. I just wanted to add that.

While we are at it, while we are cutting the budget and basically paying for what is going on in the war in Iraq, we are providing billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy, and we are all about third party validators here.

On top of what you just outlined, tax analysts agree, and this is in the New York Times, third party validators, tax analysts agree that the overwhelming bulk of the dividend goes to the top 5 percent of income earners. We just passed a $56 billion tax cut package over 5 years one day last week after we passed another tax cut package that is $39 billion over 5 years. There was no argument, no argument at all that the tax cuts that we have been passing go to the top two-tenths of 1 percent of the wealthiest people in America.

When I go home, I represent a fairly middle class district, working families, not the depths of the poor, working families. When I stand up in town hall meetings, I ask my folks to raise your hand if you have benefited from any of the tax breaks that have been handed down by the Bush administration for the last 6 years. Do you know, maybe one, two hands go up in a roomful of hundreds of people? Who are getting these tax breaks? The Rolls Royce Republicans. That is who are getting these tax breaks. That is what this administration and this leadership is all about, the Rolls Royce Republicans.

We have got to stop thinking about the special interests before we think about the average American because that is really what it boils down to, and those Republicans that you are talking about, I represent a lot of them.

I live in a town that precinct by precinct, 13 precincts in my town, in this city of Weston; every single one of them is majority Republican registration. I cannot walk down the street without interacting with a Republican registered voter, and by the way, I win every one of those precincts with more than 60 percent of the vote. I am certainly not a Republican, and the reason that happens is because it happens to be a community that has some wealth. People stop me in the supermarket, on the soccer field all the time and say: Debbie, keep the darn tax cut. I do not need the tax cut. It does not help me that much. I want my kid to have a good education. I want people to have health care.

They understand. They understand that the economy does not boom because the top two-tenths of 1 percent of Americans get a tax cut. They understand that it is kids who grow up and can get a good education and who sit across the desk from these constituents of mine, most of whom are employers, who are bosses who are interviewing kids who graduate from high school unprepared for the path that they choose in life because we are not adequately funding education because they come to work sick and have to go home early because we have 45 million people who do not have health insurance.

They want to know where this Republican leadership's priorities are, where their Republican party that they have chosen to affiliate themselves with, where their priorities are, because it is not with them. I am not sure what our other colleagues' Republican constituents are saying to them, but that is what mine are saying to me.

I think we have got to stop being the Congress of the special interests and return to being the Congress of the American people. While we are on the subject of the success of this administration, and you talk about how significant that deficit, and the combination of 42 other Presidents combined, had a bigger deficit. The President does like to talk about the success of the economy and how it is experiencing a resurgence and how we are really in real good shape right now. I want to just show you a chart that I had made up. It gives you an example of the economic success of America under the Bush administration.

Let us go down memory lane. Under the administration of Bush 41, the Dow went up 10.1 percent. Under President Clinton's first Presidency, 19.6 percent. Second Clinton Presidency, 12.3 percent. Negative. Three percent under this President's first term; now two-tenth's of 1 percent. Literally, President Clinton's Dow went up 225 percent; and under this President, the Dow has gone up 3 percent. Not exactly a stellar record in terms of improving the economy.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

A joyous holiday season.

I look forward to coming back and joining my colleagues in the 30-something Working Group next year.

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

Madam Speaker, throughout the past year, the 350th anniversary of Jewish life in America has been marked by ceremonies and celebrations across the United States. As the festivities come to an end, Chairman Hyde and I would like to establish a formal recognition of American Jewish life by creating American Jewish History Month. This is why I have introduced a resolution calling for a Presidential Proclamation in order to create an executive order to designate the month of January as American Jewish History Month to be observed with appropriate programs, ceremonies and activities.

To date, 252 of our esteemed colleagues have expressed support for American Jewish History Month. I wish to thank Chairman Hyde and Mr. Cantor for their continued support and assistance.

American Jewish History Month would honor the contributions of American Jews to society. Additionally, creation of this month would celebrate the legacy of the American Jewish experience and the rich cultural heritage of American Jewish communities.

Similar to Black History Month in February and Women's History Month in March, American Jewish History Month would present educators with the opportunity and tools to teach diversity and cultural awareness.

As Congress continuously strives to promote understanding and awareness of the many cultures of American society, we believe education is a necessity to combat ignorance and misunderstanding. Though support for Jewish communities, Holocaust education and efforts to combat anti-Semitism is well-known in Congress, support among the American public is not as prevalent.

Sadly, ignorance about Jews and our history, culture and contributions to American society remains widespread in the United States. This ignorance leads to hatred and bigotry, and one way to stop it is through education. As we all know, education leads to understanding.

American Jewish History Month will educate millions of Americans about the rich cultural traditions of the Jewish people, whose contributions to medicine, the arts, science and technology have shaped the fabric of American society and global history.

The previous debate demonstrates the need for more education and understanding of the traditions, beliefs and history of not just the Jewish communities but all minority religions in America. It is clear to me after listening to the proponents of the previous resolution that an American Jewish History Month would heighten the sensitivity of those who simply do not have enough information, exposure or tolerance for minority faiths.

It is my hope that the next generation of Americans, from all faith traditions, will have their knowledge, tolerance and understanding heightened and enhanced by the creation of American Jewish History Month.

I wish to express my sincere appreciation for the 252 Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle who have supported the efforts to establish a formal month. While the expression of the House's sentiment is meaningful, it is essential that the President formally create American Jewish History Month via executive order and put the full strength of the White House behind this effort so that we can enhance the education and understanding of Americans about Jewish cultural traditions.

Additionally, I would like to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), Leader Pelosi, and Speaker Hastert for their support and steadfast commitment to helping to establish this month. It is my hope that in the future there will be a permanent American Jewish History Month in addition to a Presidential Proclamation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

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

In conclusion, I want to thank again Speaker Hastert and Mr. Cantor from Virginia for their efforts to help us bring this resolution to the floor. I also want to thank Leader Pelosi and the rest of my colleagues for their assistance.

I do want to recognize Speaker Hastert in particular, because he has committed to personally contact the President to urge him to take this resolution and to go ahead and create the executive order. So I look forward to working with him towards that end.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join my good friend from Ohio and Massachusetts and Florida here each week.

Just to pick up what the gentleman was talking about, it is, sadly, not only on the gulf coast that we have had the issue of housing difficulties following Wilma. They had the same issue in Katrina on the gulf coast. We have got the same issue going on in Wilma, which was much smaller in scope but affected a significant number of people. We had more people affected by Wilma in terms of electric utility outages than all of Katrina, and we still to this day have Wilma victims in South Florida who have not been given temporary housing assistance, still people who are struggling to find that. Yet we are passing budget reconciliation, budget cut bills. We are passing tax cut bills in the name of offsetting the cost of the relief that we need to provide for Katrina victims and victims of natural disasters when the reality is that what we are doing with budget cuts is a direct result of needing to pay for the tax cuts that were passed just a week later.

And I want to echo what our good friend from Pennsylvania said when he introduced his Iraq War resolution, and he has repeated this a number of times, that just because you say it does not make it true. And our good friends on the other side of the aisle can continue to repeat over and over if they want to that they are offsetting the cost of Katrina relief with budget cuts, but we all know that the reality is, and I mean, we have only to do the math, that when they pass $50 billion in budget cuts one week and then the very next week they pass $70 billion in tax cuts, that is not a Deficit Reduction Act, as they called it and titled that bill, when we are adding $20 billion to the deficit.

I do not know. I go back to my kindergarten and first grade mathematics and can pretty easily sit down with my 6-year-olds, and they can figure out that the math does not work. But, unfortunately, what we have going on here, I guess, the politics of what is going on here is about message. And the Republican leadership's politics is repetition, repetition, repetition. They figure if they repeat the same message over and over again, whether it is true or not, that they figure if it has a kernel of truth, that people will believe it.

But Mr. Murtha is absolutely right on tax-cut policy, on budget-cut policy, whether it is how we got into the Iraq war and even down to the description of his own resolution. If you say it, just because you say it does not make it true. That is really what we need to get across to the American people.

I would like to yield to my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, we talk about the culture of corruption and cronyism and the total lack of competence on a regular basis in our 30-Something Working Group, and we are really zeroing in on the incompetence tonight, the incompetence and the indifference, because really the two are hand-in- glove.

Mr. Delahunt, you talked about the economic tsunami, and I want to follow up on that, but let us build up to the economic tsunami that you have been describing.

First, Mr. Meek talks about the debt, the debt under this President being more than the combined total of the previous 42 presidents prior to this one.

Now, we have a chart over here that talks about the Defense budget deficits. Let us just look at the two years when we transitioned from President Clinton to President Bush. If you look in fiscal year 2001 and fiscal year 2002, fiscal year 2001, we had a surplus of $128.2 billion. You move into fiscal year 2002, and we have a deficit of $157.8 billion.

If that is not evidence of incompetence, how do you have that big a swing from one year to the next, with the only difference being the person in the White House?

It keeps going: $157.8 billion; a $377.6 billion deficit the next year; $412.1 billion deficit the year after that. We are getting a little better; we go back to $319 billion. Now we are at $323 billion. So the track record here is that there was one dip in the whole time that this President has been in office, and now we are climbing back again.

Yet, supposedly, we just passed the Deficit Reduction Act. If you are going to zero in on the incompetence, talk about the fact that the 9/11 Commission just came out with a report grading this administration and this Congress an F on the necessary follow-up to their recommendations. There is still no unified list of terror suspects for use by air travel screeners. There has been a misallocation of funds in terms of Homeland Security money. You have big city police and firefighters who still lack the ability to talk to each other. They lack the communications systems that were one of the key recommendations.

Remember, after 9/11, if you know nothing about what happened after 9/11, the thing that sticks in everyone's mind was it was so shocking that these police and firefighters, between agencies, city to county and station to station, could not talk to each other because their communications systems do not line up. They could not talk to the FBI. That has not been fixed. It is just unbelievable.

They are still cutting. They are still cutting. They are still cutting the budget, and they are cutting taxes. They are giving more money to wealthy people, not just your run-of-the-mill average wealthy person, but the top two-tenths of 1 percent of the wealthiest people in America, people who make more than $1 million annually.

So, Mr. Delahunt, you talk about an economic tsunami. The policies that have been going on in this administration and in this Congress, it is not just an economic tsunami. What the American people have been hit with is Hurricane Republican. You really cannot describe it any other way, because they have been hit by Katrina, they have been hit by Rita, they have been hit by Wilma. And instead of fixing it, instead of addressing the problems that the American people need addressed, they have now been hit by Hurricane Republican.

Or they are about to. We can stave it off. We could stave if off because there is a conference report. A bill is passed out of the House. A bill is passed out of the Senate. The cuts Mr. Delahunt described do not have to happen. There is still time to rethink this and come together and truly work together, which in my 11 months here just has not happened enough. There are isolated pockets of instances when we do work together, and I know compromise is possible.

I am praying that that happens because the aftermath of the Hurricane Republican could be worse than Katrina, but it does not have to be that way. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Sometimes incompetence is benign. We all interact with people who make mistakes, who maybe are not up to the par that we would like them to be. But not when the stakes are this high, not when you are talking about the people who are running the Government of the United States of America. I mean, not when incompetence results in debts.

The thousands of people that are harmed or died as a result of Katrina, incompetence hurt them or killed them. Governor Blanco today, thank God for technology, we talked about that last week a little bit. E-mail technology allows us to know now as opposed to what goes in a paper shredder, that the White House, Homeland Security, and FEMA all knew what was going on down in New Orleans immediately following Katrina and as she was approaching; and they either did nothing or did not know what to do.

That kind of incompetence is dangerous. When it is benign you can look the other way and you can sort of throw up your hands and say, well, those are just things you have to deal with when you encounter incompetence. We cannot allow incompetence to reach the heights that we have in this country.

You are absolutely right. The President is trying to get away with saying generically, amorphously, we are not going to withdraw traps and withdraw from Iraq until we have results on the ground, results-oriented withdrawal.

I want to know, my constituents want to know, the American people want to know, what does that mean? Does it mean when the Iraqi troops are 50 percent independent and cannot operate on their own and protect their own country, 75, 23? Which is it? You cannot pick and choose. He cannot be allowed to pick and choose which elements of the process in Iraq he is going to put a number on and which element he is not going to.

Mr. Speaker, let me just insert one more thing because the Newsweek cover just says it all. In Bush's world, in the President's world, you do not have to have accountability. You do not have to put numbers on anything you do. You do not have to say what percentage prepared the troops have to be, and you are never wrong.

I have had to teach my kids, and they love to insist that they do not make mistakes. That is the orientation of a juvenile. My young children do not understand that sometimes they are wrong and this is okay and that you should learn how to change course. But in Bush's world, in the President's world, that does not happen. Because he is the President, he apparently has surrounded himself with people who either cannot convince him that he is wrong or he has surrounded himself with people that insist on agreeing with him all the time.

Just before we close down in our last couple of minutes, we have been talking about the culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence, zeroing in on incompetence today, and we are about third party validators. It is not just that we say it.

We got an e-mail on our 30-Something Web site that responded to some of the things we have been talking about. It was actually a Mr. Miller from Connecticut who said, ``You folks are a great breath of fresh air. I like the theme of `a culture of corruption, cronyism, and incompetence.' Well put, but incomplete. The massive rampant incompetence of this administration,'' he said, ``is a huge problem, no doubt. But for me, a bigger problem is their fundamental disbelief in democratic processes of checks and balances combined with overwhelming ideological arrogance that allows belief to trump evidence.''

I could not have said it better myself.

Do you need any ethics training? You and I served in the Florida house of representatives together, in the Florida senate together, now we serve in the United States Congress. You know, the ethics training I got began in kindergarten when my mom and dad taught me right from wrong.

I have had ethics training my entire life. It is not understandable to me why we would need and why there are some Members in this body that appear to need it.

I want to ask you another question. Do you need ethics training to tell you that you should not take bribes? Do you need ethics training that tells you that you should not circumvent State law and provide fund-raising assistance and direct contributions to candidates for State office?

I was just asking a question.

Mr. Speaker, just to piggyback on what the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) was saying, when we are talking about the costs and the impact of the decisions that the Republican leadership is making in this country, let me just highlight for a few minutes exactly what this tax cut package that passed off this floor today is really going to mean for Americans.

We have given yet another round of tax breaks to our wealthiest Americans. Now, when you hear the term ``wealthiest Americans,'' there is a lot of different ways that people might think of that. What we are talking about when we are referring to the wealthiest Americans is the top two-tenths of 1 percent of the wealthiest Americans in this country, people who are making more than a million dollars a year.

The Republican bill that we have passed off this floor today will raise taxes on more than 17 million middle class families by as much as $3,640, while millionaires would get tax cuts of as much as $32,000. These tax breaks for the wealthy few will be paid for directly through the spending cuts that we passed a couple of weeks ago in the Budget Reconciliation Act that we just adopted.

We are talking about budget cuts that impact people who need child support enforcement. We are talking about food stamps that provide school lunch funding for thousands and thousands of children across this country, both school lunch and school breakfast funding. We are talking about cuts in financial aid. We are talking about cuts to programs for senior citizens, for children, for rural families.

The Republican leadership here, Mr. Speaker, has pushed a tax bill and adopted a tax bill on this floor that will increase the deficit by $81 billion, $81 billion because when I do the math, and I spend quite a bit of time doing first grade math with my first graders at home, I see this as pretty simple math. If you have $50 billion in budget cuts and you try to call the Budget Reconciliation Act, the Budget Deficit Reduction Act, which is an obvious misnomer when you hear what I am going to describe next; and then 2 weeks later you pass a tax cut package that adds $70 billion in tax cuts, well, the difference is another $20 billion on the deficit.

I mean, that is just unbelievable that the Republican leadership here would have the nerve to call this bill from 2 weeks ago a Budget Deficit Reduction Act. And to add insult to injury, the kind of money that we are talking about, the kind of fiscal impact that we are talking about, really boils down to a direct impact on individual Americans. Every newborn that is born as I am speaking owes $27,000 that adds up to the $8 trillion deficit that we have in this country.

We have difference in terms of our views on what is considered fiscal responsibility. Obviously, there are differences of opinion when it comes to the approach that Democrats and Republicans take. But layered on top of those differences is the culture of corruption and cronyism that exists in this country and in this Congress and in this administration. Just over the last several months we have had details of that. I mean, we have layer upon layer of cronyism, of corruption and of incompetence. To me it smacks of incompetence when you continue to pass tax cuts and budget cuts and balloon the deficit bigger and bigger and bigger. I mean, we are not going in the right direction here. There should not be any delusions that we have reduced the deficit in any action we have taken in the last several weeks.

Then you add that to the fact that we had a nightmarish, disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was clearly the result of indifference. There was an opportunity in the previous fiscal year before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast region to put the money and keep the money in the budget, to fund the levees in New Orleans and the administration took it out. They took that funding out. So where it was possible to stave off the disaster that struck New Orleans, instead the administration put tax breaks for the wealthy as a higher priority.

Let us move on to, we have covered incompetence briefly, now we can talk about cronyism. The cronyism that exists in this administration is just absolutely rampant. It runs deep. It is not occasional. It is not an anomaly. You have example after example.

Let us take Michael Brown, for example, who was formerly the director of FEMA. Not only was he absolutely unqualified for the job and had little to no emergency preparedness or disaster response training or professional experience before taking the job at FEMA and being offered the job at FEMA, what his specific qualifications were prior to becoming FEMA director was to be head of the Arabian, excuse me. Let us give credit where credit is due. He was head of a national organization. The National Arabian Horse Association.

I am not sure what type of emergencies or disasters occur with Arabian horses, but there does not seem to be much of a nexus between that type of experience and the type of experience that you need to run the largest disaster response and preparedness organization in the country.

An organization where the director is expected after a disaster to have the command of every agency at his fingertips, to be able to direct each of those agencies in a particular direction to respond as quickly as possible. Yet, not even that was possible after Katrina because, unfortunately, FEMA has been brought under the Department of Homeland Security and is no longer an independent agency directly responsible to the President with an independent secretary.

Now we have so many layers of bureaucracy in the Department of Homeland Security that by the time the FEMA director's request gets all the way up the food chain, many lives have been harmed, a lot more damage has occurred. And if there is any organization that needs to be lean and clean and responsive in this government, it is FEMA. And we have, unfortunately, hamstrung FEMA and FEMA's director to such a degree that we have seen the results after Katrina to that disaster and the disaster response.

We saw the nightmare traffic jams when the folks in Texas and the western part of the gulf coast tried to get out of their homes and community on the roads to get away from Rita potentially. And then in my home State, when Wilma hit 2 months after Katrina, one would think that after Katrina hit that maybe a couple of lessons would have been learned and we would not be repeating the same mistakes. Yet, even today we still have victims of Wilma in South Florida who are without housing, who are not even in temporary housing, who are still in shelters. That is the type of person we put in charge of an agency that has that much responsibility.

Let us look at Julie Myers as we continue on with the subject of cronyism. Julie Myers was nominated to be Assistant Secretary of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. The responsibilities in that job were that she would have been in charge of the second largest investigative agency in the Federal Government with over 20,000 employees, including 6,000 investigators and an annual budget of more than $4 billion.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, is comprised of five divisions that form a 21st century law enforcement agency. It is an agency that my office at home contacts every day to help people with their immigration problems.

Her resume includes that she is currently a special assistant handling personnel issues for President Bush. She was, of course, recently married to the chief of staff to Michael Chertoff, Secretary Chertoff of the Department of Homeland Security. She is the niece of General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I am not sure what qualifications she has for a job of that size and scope. Her only previous experience was that of being a special assistant handling personnel issues. I do not really see the nexus or the connection from that job to the job that she was nominated for as the head of an immigration division.

Right now, basically, even Republican Senator Voinovich told Ms. Myers at her nomination hearing that he would really like to have Secretary Chertoff spend some time with the committee, telling them personally why he felt Ms. Myers was qualified for the job because he said, based on your resume, I do not think you are.

Let us move on to David Safavian, if we are going to continue the examples of the culture of corruption and cronyism here. Let us continue in the cronyism theme. David Safavian was the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in OMB. His responsibilities included being in charge of a $300 billion budget and ensuring fair competition for Federal contracts. His job also included setting the procurement policies for the Office of Management and Budget, including funding for Hurricane Katrina efforts.

Let us detail some of his experience. He is currently out on bail after being arrested and charged with obstructing the criminal investigation into indicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He is also married to Jennifer Safavian, who is also a person who has numerous ties and connections to Republican leadership. That also includes lobbying partnerships with the likes of Grover Norquist and Jack Abramoff.

I could go on, Mr. Speaker, but that is just a smattering of examples of people who were appointed or recruited or nominated for major positions within the administration with not so major qualifications.

Now, let us talk about the culture of corruption that has existed. I can tell you that as a freshman Member of this body, and as someone who served in the Florida legislature for 12 years, I can tell you that I am not naive. We are obviously a representative body and there are going to be instances of ethical lapses. We are all human and that does occur, especially in a representative body the size of this one. But when you get to the size and scope and proportion of ethical lapses and of corrupt activity or at least people who have been accused of that corrupt activity, it becomes deeply, deeply troubling.

We have a former Member, only recently former as of last week, who admitted guilt to bribery. I mean, this is a person who was a ranking member on an appropriations subcommittee in this body, and someone who absolutely violated the trust of his constituents and the trust of the American people.

I know we have other Members in this Chamber, in this body, who have been accused of ethical wrongdoing, and there have been quite a few of those who have been accused of ethical wrongdoing in the administration as well.

The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, is that America deserves better. We can work together and give America a better government, a government that stands up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. A government who understands that we are not all of the problem and we can be part of the solution to the problems in America and to the problems in people's individual lives.

That is unfortunately not what it appears are the priorities that are shared by the Republican leadership in this institution or in the administration.

We have got to move this country in a new direction, Mr. Speaker. We have an agenda on the Democratic side that would do just that. I want to spend a few minutes talking about that agenda.

This is the 30-something Working Group, and in the 30-something Working Group, one of the things that we try to do is help our generation understand. What happens with our generation is that often they feel less in touch with the inner workings of government. They do not really see, for example, how Social Security reform could potentially alter their future. The 30-something Working Group comes to this floor each night and tries to help demystify a lot of the government programs that maybe our generation does not feel the impact of directly.

I want to talk about Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi's innovation agenda, which is the innovation agenda of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Caucus. She rolled that out just last week, and it is an agenda that appeals and speaks directly to our generation.

We have a challenge today in this country that in years past countries around the world would follow the United States in terms of our innovation and our future technological advances. One has only to look back to when I was 3 years old in 1969 and we put the first man on the Moon. That was something at the time that no one thought possible. I heard my parents and I heard Leader Pelosi talk about it just the other morning where it was so foreign a concept, something completely unfathomable to my parents' generation, not something that they ever thought possible; and yet when President Kennedy talked about it, I think it was accomplished in 9 years.

America was previously a country that the rest of the world looked to as innovators; and now because of the direction that this Republican leadership and the Republican administration have taken us in, the anvil of Washington has stagnated our ability to be innovators.

What we have done is we took a process and went outside of Washington. We went to the technological centers across the country and sat with CEOs and the leaders of technological companies across the country and asked them what they think. Let me just give you a few examples of the type of leadership and the differences and the changes that have occurred.

America now ranks 16th in the world in broadband penetration. That is the difference between when I was a child in 1969 and where we are today. America ranks 16th in broadband penetration, broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants on January 1, 2005. You look at the countries, we are not at the top. Korea is at the top. Hong Kong and China are at the top. Iceland is doing better than we are in terms of broadband penetration. What happened to America leading the way on innovation? We are 16th in penetration.

We have an agenda that would change that. We have an agenda that would put broadband access in every household in 5 years. That is a goal that we absolutely should strive for. We have got to make sure that our generation raises their kids, that we raise our kids to be first, to have the attitude that it is America first. That is how it was when we were kids when President Kennedy was in office, and that is how it should be again.

We should put it on our Web site.

Mr. Speaker, the other place that we are lagging behind is global education standards. I was shocked to learn that the difference in the number of students who graduate with an engineering degree from nation to nation is staggering.

Here is another place, sadly, where we are no longer first. China is first. They are first by miles. They graduated 600,000 students with an engineering degree this year; 350,000 with engineering degree in India; and 70,000 in the United States.

There is no question, and I can tell you that if you even examine further the details of those numbers, what is even sadder is how few women and young women are graduating with those kinds of degrees. We need to make sure that we grow our scientists of the future and that we encourage our kids who are going through the universities, actually really we have to start in elementary school, to encourage them to pursue science and math pathways so that ultimately they get involved in the science fairs and enter their projects in the science fairs and work their way through so that they know they want to go to a university and get an engineering degree.

We have a plan that will take us in that direction. We have a plan that will add 100,000 new scientists, mathematicians and engineers to America's workforce in the next 4 years, and we can do that using our ability to provide scholarships and other financial assistance and work with the private sector to create opportunities for students who go to college to achieve that goal; but that is something that government has to initiate. That is not something that can completely be incubated in the private sector and occur on its own. Those things do not occur in a vacuum.

Mr. Speaker, the things that make kids grow up into whole people. What happens now is because we are inadequately funding education, our classrooms in most of the major urban population centers and now even in some places that would not be considered so urban, the classrooms are so crowded they are bursting at the seams. They are having to use the art rooms and the band room and the music rooms for classroom space.

So as a result, electives are so reduced or the funding is cut for them. So you are graduating kids who know how to take tests. They are test takers, and those are not the kind of skills that small businesses are looking for when they are sitting across the desk after a kid has graduated from high school or even college. I can tell you, because I taught at the college level for several years both at the university and community college level, you would not believe the writing skills or lack of writing skills that someone whose whole educational career has been structured towards taking tests, what those writing skills look like.

We are not graduating whole, well-balanced kids who have critical thinking skills and the creativity that those kinds of classes and elective courses help to shape them into adults that will be able to work in groups and dream big dreams and make us the innovators and that have been the tradition of innovation that Americans have always led the way on. It is just not that way anymore, and we have got to get back in that direction.

That is it right there, and you cannot do those things when you are hampered every day by having to answer questions from reporters and from your constituents on your ethical lapses and on the corruption accusations and on cronyism. We all know that those things are distracting. When you have to concentrate all of your energy and effort and attention on corruption and cronyism and your incompetence, how are you going to be able to focus on innovation? How are you going to be able to focus on the future?

Absolutely. We are not addressing the high cost of gasoline. We have a plan that would make us energy independent within 10 years. We have got to make sure we start innovating in that direction. We have got to make sure we stop relying solely on foreign oil. We have investments that we can make in research and development so that we can expand our ability to generate alternative energy sources. We have to help small businesses. We have to make sure that small business can thrive. They cannot thrive with upwards of 15 percent increases in their health insurance costs every year. We have got to make sure we have access to health care in this country.

That is the direction the Democrats would take this country and break the gridlock that we seem to be mired in, in which every single day there is another accusation of corruption. Every single day there is another example of a person who was selected or nominated or chosen for a job in the administration who is wholly unqualified for the breadth and scope of experience that that person would need to do that job effectively. What happens? They make horrible mistakes, and that is the next day's headlines, not the headlines that we had in 1969 that America was first to land a man on the Moon.