Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, the President's new plan is a plan for more door-to-door fighting, more civil war, more civilian casualties, more troop deaths, more wasted money, more destabilization in the region and more separation from the world community.

Does anyone in this administration have any sense at all? They are sending our troops into the middle of a civil war, setting the stage for a wider war.

The President is blaming Iran for attacks on Americans in Iraq; he is vowing to disrupt Iran. He is adding an aircraft carrier to the shores of Iran. He is promising to give Patriot missiles to our friends and allies. Isn't one war enough for this President?

Congress needs to challenge the position of the President, take necessary steps to bring our troops home. We need to begin talks with Iran and Syria, not blame them for our misguided war in Iraq. Diplomacy is the only way to avoid a widening war. If we follow this President's path of war, we will get more war.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I began to circulate a plan among Members of Congress to establish a path towards the United States exiting Iraq.

As we know, the administration is prepared to escalate the conflict. They intend to increase troop levels to an unprecedented number without establishing an ending date.

It is important for Congress to oppose the troop surge, but that is not enough. We must respond powerfully to take steps to end the occupation, close U.S. bases in Iraq and bring our troops home. These steps are necessary preconditions to the U.S. extricating itself from Iraq through the establishment of an international security and peacekeeping force.

Congress, as a coequal branch of government, has a responsibility here. Congress, under Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, has the war-making power. Congress appropriates funds for the war. Congress does not dispense with its obligation to the American people simply by opposing a troop surge in Iraq.

It is simply not credible to maintain that one opposes the war and yet continues to fund it. And this contradiction runs as a deep fault line through our politics, undermining public trust in the political process and in those elected to represent the people.

If you oppose the war, then don't vote to fund it. If you have money which can be used to bring the troops home or to prosecute the war, do not say you want to bring the troops home while appropriating money to keep them fighting a war in Iraq that cannot be won militarily.

That is why the administration should be notified now that Congress will not approve of the appropriations request of up to $160 billion in the spring for the purposes of continuing the occupation and the war. Continuing to fund the war is not a plan. It would represent a continuation of a disaster.

In addition to halting funding of the war, a parallel process is needed, and I have offered such a comprehensive plan to this Congress. And I am asking Members of Congress for their thoughtful consideration.

I would like to review some of the aspects of that plan. First and foremost, the United States must announce that it will end the occupation, close military bases and withdraw. The insurgency has been fueled by the occupation and the prospect of long-term presence as indicated by the building of permanent bases. A U.S. declaration of an intent to withdraw the troops and close bases will dampen the insurgency which has been inspired to resist colonization and fight invaders and those who help support U.S. policy.

Furthermore, this will provide an opening where parties within Iraq and in the region can set the stage for negotiations towards peaceful settlement.

Now, it is urgent that Congress take a stand now to take a new direction. The President last night articulated a plan for more war. He will have our troops fighting door to door with greater intensity. We will be in Iraq longer.

But there is another thing the President did, and this is another reason why it is urgent for us to act. This President, and I want everyone here to listen very carefully to this: This President is setting the stage for a war against Iran. We all know this. It is not a secret. He is talking about moving an aircraft carrier into the region, giving Patriot missiles to our allies in the region. He has rattled the saber with respect to Iran. He doesn't want to talk to their government; doesn't want to deal with Syria.

This President has only one talent, and that is the talent to make war and an illegal war at that, I might add.

Congress has to assume its power again to defend the American people, to defend the international community.

This administration is on the rampage. That the President, at the delicate condition of things in Iraq, would rattle the saber against Iran shows you the extent to which the administration has no intention of working to achieve peace. That is why Congress has to push now for the administration to end the occupation, close military bases and withdraw.

We have to announce that we are going to use the existing funds to bring the troops home and bring the equipment home. We have to order a simultaneous return of all U.S. contractors to the United States and turn over all contracting work to the Iraqi Government.

When we do that, when we take those steps, then the world community can be inspired that there is a new America that they will cooperate with. But until we do that, we are on our own, and our troops are on our own, caught in the middle of a civil war.

I will continue this in the next hour with Congresswoman Waters.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congresswoman Waters and all of the members of the Out of Iraq Caucus for keeping the awareness in this Congress on the need for America to take a new direction in the world because we are not just speaking about opposition to a war which should be opposed as illegal, but we are talking about the need for America to take a new role in the world, one where our country does not engage in preemption or unilateralism or first strike, one where America cooperates with the world community on matters of international security.

Remember, before 9/11, the felicity that America was held with in so many parts of the world. Remember, right after 9/11, how the world community opened its heart to the United States.

But over at the White House, just off the Oval Office, at a meeting of the National Security Council, Donald Rumsfeld and people in the administration were plotting the attack on Iraq the day after 9/11.

Yesterday the President mentioned 9/11 again. How many times does he have to mention 9/11 when he talks about Iraq? Why does he keep mentioning 9/11 when he talks about Iraq? Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. This is the big lie. And it is this big lie that the whole policy is based on. The Bible says, that which is crooked cannot be made straight. That becomes prophecy when you are talking about Iraq because everything about what the President is doing in Iraq is crooked.

Let us look at his speech last night. Why did he spend so much time talking about Iran? Let us think about this. We know that in the last year, this administration has taken steps to try to move within the soft circumference of war against Iran. Our Air Force selecting bombing targets, moving in place 24 bunker busters with nuclear tips into the region. Last night talking about moving an aircraft carrier into the region, talking about Patriot missiles into the region, rattling sabers for war. He appears to be setting the stage for a wider war in the region. He has blamed Iran for attacks on America. He is saying that he is going to disrupt Iran. He is going to add this aircraft carrier. Isn't one war enough for this President? Isn't one misguided war enough for this President?

You know, it is time that the media and the Congress, as Mr. Conyers pointed out, started to pay attention to what this President is saying and to what he does. It is imperative that Congress exercise its constitutional responsibility. And I think we are finally starting to see that. I think we are seeing people on both sides of the aisle realizing that there is a threat to our very democracy here; that our country is in peril by a Commander in Chief who has run amuck; who is without control; who stands by while Lebanon is basically annihilated south of the Litani River and actually, we found out later, was encouraging it; who is letting a civil war grow and fester in Iraq because he is going to send more troops and pour them into it. Or, Members of Congress, is the talk about a 21,000 troop increase in Iraq for the purposes of dealing with problems in Baghdad? Is that just a pretext? Since very few things are on the level with this administration, will some of those troops instead be sent to the border with Iran to provoke a conflict?

These are questions we have to be asking because nothing this administration has said has been the truth. They don't have the capacity to tell a straight story to the American people, and they have spun the people of this country so much that people have become disoriented, but they are finally waking up, and they woke up in November. You want to talk about a surge? There was a surge in November. There was a surge to the voting booth, and that surge accomplished a new Congress. And the issue was Iraq, and our leadership told us that before the election. Three issues, they said, will guide this election: Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. And so was created a new Congress. And so it is imperative that Congress step up to its obligation.

We have to say that we are not going to give this President any more money for the war, but we have to use the money that is in the pipeline right now to bring the troops home and, Mr. Speaker, to set in motion a process, because we understand; we don't want to abandon the people of Iraq. But we know that the only way that we can get our troops out is to establish an international process, and we are not going to establish an international process until such time that we give up the occupation, that we remove our troops and close our bases because that is what is fueling the insurgency. So we can turn this around.

But this President and administration, which has such a talent for war, is determined to wreak chaos throughout the region. That is what they want. More chaos, more war, more control, as America moves towards fascism. Let's call it what it is. We are losing our democracy here. What do we stand for? What are those troops out there for? They believe in this country. They love this country. And if we love this country and the troops, we have to bring them home. But, instead, we have got an administration that is prepared to do something else because, in Iraq, his new plan is a plan for more door-to-door fighting. It is a plan for more war, more civilian casualties, more troop deaths, more wasted money, more destabilization in the region and more separation from the world community. This President wants to send more troops to Baghdad in the middle of a civil war. This President wants to continue a war that everyone knows in Iraq the situation cannot be won militarily.

Does anyone in this administration have any sense at all? Does anyone in this administration have any heart, that we can send our troops into this miasma and cause not only their deaths but the deaths of innocent civilians when the President talks about taking the restrictions off our troops? What does that mean? Is that licensing wholesale slaughter of civilians and then a counter reaction which results in our troops getting slaughtered? This whole thing is wrong. This is not what America should be about. And everyone knows that.

And yet the President last night had the nerve to talk about the Iraqi oil again. He can never talk about Iraq without talking about oil. They want to privatize Iraq's oil. Big surprise. Our troops were sent into Iraq. What was the first thing the administration had them do? Go to the oil ministry. They didn't have them go to protect antiquity, protect children. No. Protect oil.

Do you know the Baker Report pointed out that 500,000 barrels of oil are being stolen every day? With 140,000 to 150,000 American troops there, how in the world can we have all that oil being stolen? How can that happen?

Do you know what the market value of that oil is? If you run the numbers, about $62.25 a barrel. That is over $11 billion worth of oil a year stolen. The patrimony of Iraq is just being stolen.

How are we going to have peace if the U.S. is sitting on top of oil, talking about privatizing the oil for the President and all of his buddies in the oil industry? We are going to have peace in that region? Those people are going to step back and let that happen? No way.

That is why we have to get out of Iraq, end the occupation, bring our troops home, close the bases and give the Iraqi people control of their oil once again and begin a process of reconciliation.

We need to create a new context where the international community helps us, because we are on our way out of there. The international community is not going to help the United States as long as we are occupiers.

You know, Mr. Speaker, this President wants to expand the war and the American people should be very concerned because it is not just the sons and daughters who are over there, but it is more who will be sent through an expansion of the war. It is the jeopardy of an escalation.

Have we not learned anything from the experience in Vietnam? Have we not learned that this march of folly we are on has been duplicated in the past? Have we not learned that the attempt to use raw military power is doomed to failure in a world that is interdependent and interconnected? Don't we know that we have a capacity to evolve? Isn't the American Revolution really a series of evolutions of our upward march into something better than we are? Aren't we prepared to take that? I think we are.

I think the American people know it is time for us to take this new direction, to reconnect and reunite with the world community. And we will begin that when this Congress takes a stand and says no more money for war; when this Congress takes a stand and says use the money that is there to bring the troops home; when this Congress takes a stand and says close those bases, don't privatize the oil. When we become actually a co-equal branch of government, which was the intention of our Founders in drawing up the Constitution and in ratifying the Constitution of the United States.

That is what America was always supposed to be about, not about an imperial Presidency. We rejected kings. We rejected autocracy when this country was founded. We didn't come through this long constitutional experience to the administration of George Bush just to turn our back on everything America is about, turn our back on what our real purpose as a Nation is. It is about taking care of our people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007.

Over the past 9 years, as the price of food has increased and the cost of housing swelled beyond the reach of many workers, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has fallen to its lowest level in 51 years.

Since 1997, the Federal minimum wage has been stalled at $5.15 an hour without an increase or adjustment. This stagnation of the minimum wage has left families with no guarantee that a full-time job will enable their most basic needs to be met.

At the current minimum wage, a worker spending 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year on the job, earns less than $11,000 a year, leaving them more than $5,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. That is shameful.

The passage of the bill today will directly help those families.

It is estimated that 5.6 million workers will receive an increase in their hourly wage if the minimum wage were raised to just $7.25 an hour. An additional 7.4 million workers earning up to a dollar above the new minimum wage would also benefit. In total, 13 million workers will be aided by this necessary legislation.

The passage of this bill is a first step towards the greater goal of a living wage for every American worker because, even as it goes to $7.25 an hour, there are many families who are still going to find themselves within the circumference of poverty. There are people who are looking forward to the action of this Congress.

But let it be said that the long-term objective, to ensure that workers are able to afford adequate housing and support their families, cannot be forgotten by this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, the administration is preparing to escalate the conflict. They intend to increase troop numbers to unprecedented levels, without establishing an ending date. It is important for Congress to oppose the troop surge. But that is not enough. We must respond powerfully to take steps to end the occupation, close U.S. bases in Iraq and bring our troops home. These steps are necessary preconditions to the U.S. extricating itself from Iraq through the establishment of an international security and peacekeeping force.

That is what the Kucinich plan which I am presenting Members of Congress today is all about. Congress as a co-equal branch of government has an urgent responsibility here. Congress under article I, section 8, has the war-making power. Congress appropriates funds for the war. Congress does not dispense with its obligation to the American people simply by opposing a troop surge in Iraq. It is simply not credible to maintain that one opposes the war and yet continues to fund it. If you oppose the war, then don't vote to fund it.

The Kucinich Plan for Iraq

Dear Colleague: In November of 2006, after an October

upsurge in violence in Iraq, the American people moved

decisively to reject Republican rule, principally because of

the conduct of the war. Democratic leaders well understand we

regained control of the Congress because of the situation in

Iraq. However, two months later, the Congress is still

searching for a plan around which it can unite to hasten the

end of U.S. involvement in Iraq and the return home of

140,000 U.S. troops.

The Administration is preparing to escalate the conflict.

They intend to increase troop numbers to unprecedented

levels, without establishing an ending date. It is important

for Congress to oppose the troop surge. But that is not

enough. We must respond powerfully to take steps to end the

occupation, close U.S. bases in Iraq and bring our

troops home. These steps are necessary preconditions to the

U.S. extricating itself from Iraq through the establishment

of an international security and peacekeeping force.

Congress, as a coequal branch of government, has a

responsibility here. Congress, under Article 1, Section 8 of

the U.S. Constitution has the war-making power. Congress

appropriates funds for the war. Congress does not dispense

with its obligation to the American people simply by opposing

a troop surge in Iraq. It is simply not credible to maintain

that one opposes the war and yet continue to fund it. If you

oppose the war, do not vote to fund it. If you have money

which can be used to bring the troops home do not say you

want to bring the troops home while you appropriate money in

a supplemental to keep them in Iraq fighting a war that

cannot be won militarily. This is why the Administration

should be notified now that Congress will not approve of the

appropriations request of up to $160 billion in the spring

for the purposes of continuing the occupation and the war.

Continuing to fund the war is not a plan. It would represent

the continuation of disaster.

In addition to halting funding of this war, a parallel

political process is needed. I am offering such a

comprehensive plan today. I appreciate your consideration.

Sincerely,

Dennis J. Kucinich,

Member of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, there is a compelling need for a new direction in Iraq, one that recognizes the plight of the people of Iraq, the false and illegal basis of the United States' war against Iraq, the realities on the ground which make a military resolution of the conflict unrealistic, and the urgent responsibility of the United States to use the process of diplomacy and international law to achieve stability in Iraq.

Today, I am presenting to Congress what is called the Kucinich Plan for Exit from Iraq. These are some of the elements:

1. The U.S. announces it will end the occupation, close military bases and withdraw.

2. The U.S. announces it will use existing funds to bring the troops and necessary equipment home.

3. Order a simultaneous return of all U.S. contractors to the U.S. and turn over all contracting work to the Iraqi government.

4. Convene a regional conference for the purpose of developing a security and stabilization force for Iraq.

5. Prepare an international security and peacekeeping force to move in, replacing U.S. troops who then return home.

6. Develop and fund a process of national reconciliation.

7. Reconstruction and jobs.

8. Reparations.

9. Political sovereignty.

10. Dealing with the Iraq economy.

11. Economic sovereignty for Iraq.

12. A process of international truth and reconciliation between the people of the United States and the people of Iraq.

It is time for a new direction, and the Kucinich plan offers that direction.

Madam Speaker, Congress as a coequal branch of government must be prepared to act to bring our troops home from Iraq. Congress must have an exit plan and take steps to implement it. President Bush has every intention of keeping the troops in Iraq through the end of his term. However, the money is there to bring the troops home now. If Congress appropriates more money for Iraq, the war will escalate and more troops and innocent civilians will die. The American people voted for a new direction. That direction is out of Iraq. Let us rescue our troops. Let us rescue a domestic agenda. Let us reverse policies which have created chaos, massive civilian casualties and destruction in Iraq. Let us reunite the community of nations in the cause of stabilizing Iraq.

The U.S. cannot do this as occupiers or as agents of contracting and oil interests. We can do this only once we have stated our intention to end the occupation. Next week I will be presenting to this Congress a workable plan which can enable our Nation to bring the troops home, assure an international peacekeeping force and begin to close this perilous chapter in our Nation's history.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the Title IV Sec. 405 Pay-As-You-Go rules before the House today. I support these rules that will enable us to patch a sinking ship. The Republican tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans have driven us into permanent deficit spending. These rules will stop the sacrifice of the nation's well being for the benefit of the few.

I continue to be concerned about our weakened economy and the shrinking industrial base. I believe Congress should be enacting measures that will expand the economy, revitalize the rust belt, expand our manufacturing base, prime the pump when needed in recession, and invest in infrastructure improvements. I believe Congress should enact universal healthcare for all and universal pre-kindergarten. Unlike the irresponsible tax cuts in the past 4 years, I am prepared to ensure these programs do not run up deficits over the long term. This can all be accomplished under these rules.

The American people made clear on November 7 that they demand a new direction in Iraq: Out. Bring the troops home. Just 1 month later, they have their answer. President Bush will not bring the troops home.

The Iraq Study Group report does not recommend bringing the troops home and ending the occupation. Read the fine print of the report. Only Congress can bring the troops home and keep faith with the American people.

The money is there. Just 2 months ago, we appropriated $70 billion for the war. That money should be used to start bringing the troops home now. If Congress gives the President another $130 billion in the spring to keep the war going, we will then be directly responsible for the casualties.

Why won't we take responsibility for bringing the troops home? The money is there now to bring the troops home. The American people voted for a new Congress to bring the troops home. We cannot say we are against the war and vote to fund it. We cannot say we are for the troops and vote to keep them in Iraq when the money is there to bring them home now

Madam Speaker, I rise to express my concern about the impact that this agreement will have on the state of nonproliferation in the world. The United States has not had a nonproliferation policy, per se. As a matter of fact, if we look at the administration, this administration has moved to build new nuclear weapons called bunker busters. They have moved to discourage efforts at nuclear disarmament. They have, in the first days of their administration, canceled the antiballistic treaty with Russia. This administration does not have a commitment to nonproliferation, and the world knows that.

Iran knows that. That is why it is very difficult for us to be able to simultaneously discourage Iran from acquiring nuclear technology, and at the same time speak to the imperative of a bilateral progress with India.

The United States has to have a consistent policy with respect to nuclear nonproliferation. This country cannot speak out of one side of its mouth and tell Iran and North Korea, don't you dare go in that direction, don't you dare try to acquire nuclear technology, because we cannot see whether you can separate civilian and military, and on the other hand give a blessing to that same kind of an arrangement with a country that, yes, we have a great relationship with; yes, it is the longest and the oldest democracy in the world; yes, there is a lot to be said about the people in the Indian Government being responsible people.

My point here is not in any way to diminish the role that India has in trying to develop social and technological progress in the world, but it is to speak to our responsibility as citizens of the United States to ask: What is the impact of any agreement that we have with India on the rest of the world?

And I would say that with this administration not being willing to talk to Iran with respect to Iran's nuclear ambitions, with this administration not being ready to talk to North Korea with respect to North Korea's nuclear ambitions, this is a dangerous time to be approving such an agreement, because it will be seen as a license to other countries which have nuclear ambitions to proceed whether they are talking to the United States or not.

The imperative of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty at its inception was not to manage proliferation, but it was to do away with all nuclear weapons. Read the treaty. We are at a moment in human history where we have not found a way to be able to resolve our differences without war.

Witness the failed policies of this administration with respect to Iraq. Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, but we chose to attract Iraq anyway. Policies of unilateralism, of first strike breed the same kind of policies around the world.

It is premature for us to be promoting an agreement with India when we have not shown the capacity as a Nation to take a direction which prizes diplomacy, which shows that we can use the science of human relations to be able to avert conflict. We have to show a capacity to demonstrate that war is not inevitable; we have not done that.

And so when we are on the threshold of approving a new nuclear agreement with India, notwithstanding our good relations with that country, we cannot do that without looking at the impact that will have on the rest of the world.

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

Mr. Speaker, our Nation is faced with an unprecedented challenge in global warming. Saving the planet will undoubtedly require us to drastically curtail our use of fossil fuels. The CDC recently said, ``Climate change is perhaps the largest looming public health challenge we face.''

There are solutions available now, like conservation; efficiency; development of alternative energy, wind, solar, geothermal, green hydrogen. Congress is going to need to facilitate the transition to clean energy in the future.

Instead, the response of this Congress is to open up 6 million acres of protected area in the Gulf of Mexico to drilling for oil and gas. In other words, with this bill the response is more of the same of yesterday's destructive energy portfolio.

Wake up, Congress. Step into the 21st century of sustainable energy. Save our natural resources. Protect our environment. Save our planet. Or we are going to have more toxic air pollution, more fouling of the waters of the United States on which entire industries like fishing and tourism depend; and more global warming, more monopoly control of our energy by oil companies, more price gouging by oil companies, more record profits to the oil companies. In fact, this bill deprives the Federal treasury of $170 billion, further deepening our deficit. The government is subsidizing the oil companies, who are gouging the public, taking huge profits, while exploiting natural resources which belong to the people.

Then the oil companies refuse to pay to the government the royalties, which is why the Markey amendment is so important. You have to look at what this bill is going to do in permitting the opening up of six million acres for drilling of oil and gas. It, in effect, creates a transfer of wealth from the people of the United States to the oil companies, a transfer of wealth in terms of destruction of the environment. We are subsidizing the oil company's destruction of the environment. A transfer of wealth in terms of diminishing the health of the people of the United States. With all the environmental pollution that causes people's help to be degraded, well, guess what? That is a subsidy that they pay to the oil companies, and the oil companies make a profit on that.

We are ruining our planet. We are ruining our Nation because of corporate control of our energy resources. It is time to stop this bill, which is called the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, folded into a larger bill. We need to stand up for clean energy. We need to stand up for the future of America and stand up for our planet.

I want to thank the gentleman; I want to thank Chairman Dreier.

Madam Speaker, I think it is important to concede that it is possible to be in favor of trade, but at the same time be very concerned about the rules which attend a trade, about the structures that are set up to facilitate trade that may not take into account the rights of people, the rights of workers.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us might have Vietnam in its name, but it is a hodgepodge collection of an agenda impacting Africa, Haiti, as well as Vietnam.

If we wanted to raise wages around the world, improve the livelihoods of a majority of citizens, we wouldn't send them on a global race to the bottom. That is precisely what this bill does.

Let me talk about Vietnam. A lot of us feel very badly about the legacy of the U.S. war in Vietnam. We feel badly about the napalm and carpet-bombing and the damage that was done to the lives of innocent people. We feel we should do something positive for the people of Vietnam. And I agree. We will have a moral obligation to the people of Vietnam far into the future.

But foisting the rules of globalization on the Vietnamese people is no gift. Let us remember that NAFTA was no gift to the Mexican farmers, who lost their markets and their livelihoods and who are poorer now after NAFTA than they were before NAFTA.

This bill is no gift. The global experience of developing countries with WTO rules provides a warning. During the WTO decade of 1995 to 2005, the number and percentage of people living on less than $2 a day has jumped in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and the Caribbean. The rate of worldwide poverty reduction has slowed.

When you add in the full range of globalization's institutions, the picture gets even bleaker, from the specter of a developing country. Per capita income growth in poor nations declines when they sign up for the structural adjustment policies of the IMF and the World Bank. Per capita growth from 1980 to 2000 fell to half of what occurred between 1960 and 1980, prior to the imposition of the WTO-IMF, or International Monetary Fund, package.

I worry about the damage to the people in Vietnam if this permanent trade agreement passes. As poor as that country is, it actually has a lot more to lose. This permanent trade agreement we are talking about, here is what it could cause. It could cause millions of peasants to be thrown off their land as agricultural supports are withdrawn. It can cause millions of workers to lose their jobs as state enterprises wither in the face of foreign competition or downsize and speed up operations in an effort to stay competitive.

As a result of these and other factors, there will be a surge in income and wealth inequality, exacerbating dangerous trends already underway. Foreign tobacco companies will gain greater access to the Vietnamese market, which almost certainly means there will be a rise in smoking rates among women and children and may result in millions of excess tobacco-related deaths.

The U.S. balance of trade with Vietnam has already gone from a surplus in 1993 to a deficit of over $5 billion. As Chinese manufacturers move south to Vietnam in search of even cheaper labor, more and more exports will come from Vietnam to the United States, and more and more jobs in the United States will disappear.

Haven't we learned enough about the folly of the World Trade Organization? Haven't we lost enough good-paying jobs? Haven't we learned that the U.S. cannot for long be the world's biggest market and biggest consumer if our people are not making wealth through manufacturing?

What will have to happen for us to learn that we cannot sustain trade deficits forever? The U.S. is borrowing almost $800 billion per year from the international community. That is the trade deficit. One day, our Chinese, British, German, Canadian and Vietnamese creditors will want a say in U.S. economic policies, and that is not going to be in the interests of U.S. workers. Vote ``no'' on H.R. 6346.

A nuclear sword of Damocles hangs over the world. Fear and ignorance have placed it there. Separation from our brothers and sisters holds it there. Separation of our heads from our hearts leaves it there.

We have a moral responsibility to our children, our grandchildren, and the entire world to create a world free of nuclear weapons. We have moral obligations to lead the way towards total nuclear disarmament and nuclear abolition, to wrest from the unsteady hand of crass casualty that nuclear sword of Damocles, and save this planet as a place where we work out our destiny.

Only we can dissipate the advancing mushroom clouds by saying ``no'' to this bill, ``no'' to proliferation, ``no'' to nuclear testing, ``no'' to nuclear weapons, ``no'' to nuclear war, ``no'' to the destruction of our planet.

The spirit of the Founders which inhabits this institution was a spirit that believed in unity. We must believe in human unity as firmly as we believe in the unity of the United States. We must believe in the imperative of human unity as we believe in the imperative of our next breath, the imperative of the first breath which issues from all new life to come. And we do this by pursuing international cooperation towards abandoning nuclear ambitions, not furthering them. For God's sake, stop this sleepwalk into the nuclear valley of shadows. Wake up and vote against this bill.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman.

I had the opportunity to review the bill briefly, and this is a bill that purports by its title to relate to the care and study of premature babies, but it also has a whole section dealing with contact lenses and the industry; and it also has a provision that deals with the Head Start program; and it also has a provision that deals with the Medicare program.

Now, I want to say that I think that we have misunderstood our Republican colleagues because this is the first bill that I have seen that deals with health care from cradle to grave, and so we ought to give them better consideration in the new Congress.

However, with this bill, it raises questions about exactly what we are doing here at this hour where they are throwing everything in.

So I would ask the gentleman from New Jersey to pursue a course of action here not only of objection but of calling upon the soon-to-be expiring majority to not belabor this case any longer. If you have a clean bill you can send over here, fine, we will look at it, but there are at least four bills they have rolled into one, and I think Mr. Pallone's point is well-taken.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, I just have an inquiry. The title of the bill seems pretty far reaching. Would you like to, for the benefit of those of us who aren't familiar with it, just give a couple-sentence summary that elaborates a little bit?

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation.