Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I will enter into the Record at this point an article from the Boston Globe entitled ``Sticking it to working families,'' that shows how this Congress is raising taxes on 4 million low-income families which support 9 million children.

[From the Boston Globe, Sept. 21, 2004]

Sticking it to Working Families

(By Thomas Oliphant)

Washington.--Only in George Bush's privileged America could

the following outrage occur:

Despite the president's supposed theological objection to

tax increases, that is exactly what about 4 million families

with roughly 9 million children are about to experience, with

Bush's cynical support.

The outrage is actually worse, because the shiv is about to

be stuck in these hand-working families under the guise of an

effort to help them.

Congress is about to pass a catch-all measure allegedly

designed to deal with several

problems affecting middle-income and lower-income working

families arising from the tax cuts of recent years. The

problems are a graphic illustration of how shoddy legislation

written by people who mostly focus on big-shot lobbyists can

cause ordinary Americans to plummet through the cracks. At

issue is the child tax credit--which first appeared in tax

law in the late 1990s in a budget deal between the Clinton

administration and the Republican Congress. This provision

permits a deduction from income taxes due for each child

under the age of 17 in a household. In 2001, the value of the

credit was set to gradually increase to $1,000 per child, but

in the package of additional tax cuts enacted two years

later, the phase-in was eliminated and the full, $1,000

figure was made immediately effective.

The problem arises because parts of the law governing the

child tax credit are ``indexed'' to remove the effects of

inflation and parts are not. The value of the credit itself,

for example, is not indexed; neither are the income amounts

above which the value of the credit begins to phase out

($75,000 for a head of household, $110,000 for a married

couple).

On the other hand, the income thresholds above which a

working person can claim a ``refundable'' child tax credit--a

check from the government if income tax liability is so low

to begin with that the person would not get his full credit--

are indexed for inflation. The original legislation permitted

a refundable child tax credit for families worth up to 10

percent of their earnings above $10,000. That indexed

earnings amount is now $10,750.

And there's the rub. An analysis by the Urban Institute and

the University of Wisconsin offers the example of a married

couple with two children who work at the federal minimum wage

of a puny $5.15 an hour. Three years ago, their income of

$20,6000 would have produced a child tax credit refund of

$1,060. With a higher threshold two years later, the credit's

value drops 5 percent to $1,010.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. As ordinary

Americans know too well, incomes downscale in the United

States have been worse than stagnant in this decade. Not only

has the minimum wage not budged in seven years, but family

incomes above that have also suffered severely since 2000,

and the suffering has been proportionately greater the lower

you go on the income scale.

Moreover, this decline in earnings (even before inflation

in cases like workers with less than a high school education

or single parents) has been accompanied by large increases in

the cost of necessities--including everything from gasoline

to health insurance for those low-income workers lucky enough

to have any. In the expert analysis--Leonard Burman of the

Urban Institute and John Karl Scholz of the University of

Wisconsin--a single parent who got a $109 credit in 2001

would have received nothing last year even though her

earnings fell.

Looking ahead to next year and beyond, it is helpful that

the refund rate will rise to 15 from 10 percent, but it will

largely ignore the working families with the lowest incomes.

As the analysis sums up: ``The higher phase-in rate will do

nothing to abate the underlying problem that arises from

stagnant income growth at the bottom of the earnings

distribution. Low-income households with earnings that grow

slower than inflation will see their child tax credit erode

in real terms every year, and at a rate that is even faster

than their decline in real earnings.''

Bush and his Republican Congress buddies could fix all this

substantially, by simply restoring the original $10,000

threshold. The cost to the government would have been $4.3

billion over five years.

The fact that they did nothing is eloquent testimony to the

status of working families in today's political culture. The

next time Bush trumpets his opposition to tax increases, John

Kerry should say something about the 4 million families Bush

prefers not to count.

Mr. Speaker, low- and middle-income Americans need help. They need help paying for college, health care, and things that every family needs. When I heard the House is going to do this, I thought, oh, boy, I better get my rubber stamp and get out and help the President do it. It sounded like a good idea. The middle class has been pummeled in the last years.

Between 1979 and the year 2000, the income of the top 5 percent in this country has increased 200 percent. During the same period, the income of the middle class grew by 12 percent, and low-income families have seen their income actually drop. Roughly during the same period, the top 5 percent saw their income tax rates sliced in half and enjoyed a precipitous decline in taxation of their investment income. Meanwhile, Social Security and Medicare taxes, a burden carried primarily by the low- and middle-class taxpayers, grew 82 percent faster than their incomes did.

Mr. Speaker, when President Bush came in, income inequality got worse. The Bush tax cuts increased the after-tax income of the top 5 percent by 8 percent, while our middle class watched their incomes decline during the same period.

We have to do something to help the middle class; but after reading this bill, I learned that my colleagues are asking us to play charades today.

This bill gives the average middle-class household $169 of tax relief, but guess what, it gives the top 5 percent $2,000 worth of tax cuts. So for every dollar that my colleagues provide in tax relief to the middle income, they provide $10 additional for the top 5 percent of income earners, which happens to include ourselves. Where is the fairness? Where are our priorities if we vote for this thing?

New data from the U.S. Labor Department indicates that since Bush took office at least 670,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost to foreign trade. The CRS, the Congressional Research Service, recently estimated that 860,000 service sector jobs were shifted offshore in 2003 and 2004.

Mr. Bush went to Harvard Law School or went to business school, I guess; but I do not think it had much effect on him. He has not asked the Congress to do anything to address our competitiveness problem. He just asked us to pass tax cuts for the richest among us. Mr. Speaker, he may have gone to grad school or business school, but it really has done nothing for him.

The bill before us is going to add $146 billion to our budget deficit. Where are we going to get that from? We are going to borrow it. We are going to go to the Chinese and say, hey, we have got some notes we want to sell you; would you like to buy some of our notes? How about you, Japanese; would you like to buy some of our notes? That is where this tax cut is coming from. The gentleman says it is coming from our money; it is not. It is coming out of the Japanese if they buy the bonds.

Mr. Speaker, here we are again with one of these election-year bills. I can imagine that there are people out there watching and listening to this debate and trying to make head or tail of what is going on here today, and I intend to vote ``no.'' I was asked by one of the press, why are you going to vote ``no''? And I think that is a really good thing to discuss, because it would certainly be easy to vote ``yes.'' Everybody wants to give tax breaks.

Who in the world in an election year, 40 days before election, would not want to give away all of this money and do all of these kinds of things? But I am a child psychiatrist and one of the things you learn in raising children is that sometimes you have to say, no, we cannot do that. We cannot buy that. We cannot have that. And this Republican majority in the House and Senate really does not seem to be able to ever say no. They do not believe that you cannot spend on a credit card forever.

A credit card, I have got them in my pocket like everybody else does; you have to pay it back some time. Now, the United States right now, and the reason I do not want to borrow another $149 billion is because this is borrowed money. This is not money that anybody has paid in taxes. This is money that we are borrowing from the Chinese and the Japanese and the Saudis. We go out there selling these Treasury notes. Now, when that lapses, who controls the United States? Us or those to whom we are in debt?

If they decide to pull that money out, we go down like a rock. And you think the Chinese are really on our side? Do you think they are really friendly? You think they would not do that to us economically? We are putting ourselves in danger. The Republican majority, if they were trying to destroy this economy, could not have done a better job than they have done in the last 2 years. We thought 350 or whatever it was last year was bad. Now we have got $420 billion. That is over $700 billion that we have gone in debt, we have borrowed from the Chinese, from the Saudis, from the Europeans.

We just go and say, Please, we need money. We are the richest country in the world. We have got the biggest army and all that kind of stuff, but we need money. Please give us money so we can keep our economy going. That is not the America that I want. I think we have to have some fiscal discipline in this House, and it has to start in things like this.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood).

Mr. Speaker, the administration has America leading with its chin. You heard the last speaker talk about it, and I am going to talk about the same thing. We are going to get hurt.

This administration has America going hat in hand from country to country looking for money and they intend to just keep on doing it. They cannot make manufacturing jobs, but they have manufactured the largest trade deficit in history. They cannot engineer an economic recovery, but they have engineered the largest budget deficit in history.

They cannot extend the lifeline to unemployed workers but they can expand the number of workers who have exhausted their unemployment benefits to the highest level in 60 years.

It is just 40 days until the election, and the President needs a big win to try to make America forget about Iraq. So instead of setting policy, we are masking massive problems. A lot of Americans here talk about a trade deficit and do not see the connection to their own lives. The administration has run up the largest trade deficit in history and it exports money and it exports jobs right out of the United States economy. It is not called outsourcing. It is called out of control.

The mess this administration has made in foreign trade has claimed 670,000 U.S. jobs in manufacturing, farming and fishing, another 860,000 U.S. jobs in service industries have shifted offshore just in the last 2 years. One and a half million jobs is bad enough, but the story gets worse.

The administration refused to solve its foreign trade issues. So U.S. exports are being hit by tariffs by the European Union and these penalties will rise 13 percent in the next month. The administration knows what is wrong but it will not act to fix it. Canada, Brazil and other nations have won cases in court about our foreign trade practices. But like so much else, this administration remains in denial and U.S. products could be hammered by another $3 billion in tariffs.

These penalties can be avoided, but not by an administration that governs by press release. Instead, the administration's failure to act will make U.S. products more expensive and the U.S. economy less competitive in the world market. That is a formula for losing more U.S. jobs.

A new study shows American multi-national corporations booked a record $149 billion worth of profits off shore in countries known to be tax havens. Do not blame the corporations. The U.S. Tax Code rewards U.S. companies for exporting their balance sheets, in effect. The administration knows. The Republican majority knows. They do nothing about it. We need a national policy that puts America first, but we do not have it and we will not get it under this administration. Instead, the administration gives us rhetoric, pledging allegiance to the middle class, but a reality that rewards the wealthy and ignores the consequences.

The administration holds up the middle class when talking about massive tax giveaways passed. ``Hold up'' is the right term. The Republicans gave away another $149 billion today. There is no money to pay for it, but they did it anyway. The average middle class household will get a tenth of what the wealthy are getting. It is $169 for average Americans compared to $2,000 for the wealthy; $169 will not make college more affordable for middle class Americans. It will not make a gallon of gasoline less expensive. And $169 will not provide the business with resources to expand or re-training dollars to inspire Americans to embrace a changing global economy.

This is another bait and switch tax giveaway. It will reward the rich and mortgage America's future.

The administration has America on target to be $10 trillion in debt in the next 10 years. Nations that are not democratic and never will be are buying huge chunks of America's debt. Do not doubt for a moment that nations that do not share our values cannot exert enormous pressure over America when it hold trillions of dollars of our debt. They can and they will.

The book ``After The Empire'' by Emmanuel Todd is like a crisis call for emergency action. Every modern nation has three foundation blocks, military, political and economic. Lots of countries have big and well- armed armies. We certainly do. Lots of countries have established and effected political structures, democratic or otherwise.

Only America has had an unequaled economic foundation. It is at risk from the crushing debt burden this administration has pursued with abandon. Ten trillion dollars of debt in the next 10 years. What kind of a military can you afford with a $10 trillion debt when you

have to borrow across the water to pay for your military? What kind of Social Security can we afford with a $10 trillion debt? What kind of domestic policy?

The administration is charting a course that will be the end of us if we do not have a regime change on the second of November.

Mr. Speaker, it is time to declare the Republican Party in breach of contract.

A decade ago, the GOP promised the American people they would balance the budget. Instead, they have engineered the largest deficit in history.

A decade ago, the GOP promised Americans a fair shake. Instead, average Americans have seen their incomes shrink, their jobs evaporate, Social Security threatened, and health care beyond the reach of 45 million Americans.

A decade ago, the GOP promised to help seniors. Instead, the GOP sent plastic cards to senior citizens and big profits to drug companies. Some contract.

When it comes to the American people, the GOP, like the President, have been AWOL. The contract is null and void. It is time for a new partnership. Come January, we will stand and say, Madam Speaker, as the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) becomes the first woman Speaker of the House.

The time is now and it is long overdue. It is only 40 days away.

Mr. Speaker, the remarks by the gentleman from South Carolina are quite interesting. He has brought out a bill today that all here wholeheartedly support, through tax incentives, making adoptions less costly. Now, that is certainly a good idea.

But it is hard to understand his thinking, because he has introduced legislation here to convert our whole tax regime to one that relies solely on consumption taxes, a sales tax.

Now, I do not know why he is supporting this. I guess he wants to keep making it more complicated so his other bill will pass, but that proposal would be a boon to the wealthy elite. It would remove the tax incentives that would make home purchases, college and health care more affordable. His proposal would tax all purchases on goods and services in our economy, including food, health care and home rents. In fact, the Joint Committee on Taxation did an analysis of a similar proposal and indicated that in order for a sales tax proposal to be revenue neutral over 10 years, the estimated national sales tax rate would be between 36 and 57 percent. That is a 36 and 57 percent sales tax.

Some of us have a State sales tax of 8 or 9 cents, and we think that is awful. But the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) is proposing that. In other words, the price of a blood transfusion, prescription drugs and a pair of sneakers would increase by 37 to 57 percent. Now, does that sound fair? Oh, and by the way, of course there would be no adoption tax credit under that regime. So if you adopt a child, well, tough luck.

Very good to talk about it here today. I am sure he would like to take this home for the campaign. But when you put in bills that make no sense, all those people who have lost their textile jobs in South Carolina due to international trade and qualify for health tax credits, well, they would be out of luck, too. And the gentleman from South Carolina is going to expect to sell this proposal to the baby boomers in this country who are about to go on a fixed income? Let us take the best case, a 36 percent sales tax. How is he going to sell that and get elected to the United States Senate?

The Health Insurance Association of the United States states that one of the consequences of a flat tax bill is likely to be a rapid increase in the number of people without private health insurance coverage.

One economist estimated that there would be 8 million more people without health benefits if a flat tax proposal was enacted. James Poterba, an economist at MIT, estimated that eliminating the current tax law benefits for purchasing homes could result in a 17 percent decline in the value of the U.S. housing market.

What about payroll taxes? A flat tax proposal may eliminate the deduction that employers pay for their payroll taxes, amounting to a massive tax increase on businesses of all sizes.

The American public may seem naive to some people running for the other body; but they know what this would mean, which is why the President, the President of the United States, who says he wants to tear the tax structure out by its roots, would not even admit that he supports the gentleman from South Carolina's (Mr. DeMint) proposals.

If you are out here to help families and you want people to adopt children, this bill is flawed. Too much of the money goes to people on the top end like every other proposal that we have brought out here by this administration and this Republican majority. But if you want to make that kind of proposal, then do not put in these silly bills for a sales tax for this country because the people are going to wonder if you are serious about anything. Nobody who is serious about helping people adopt children is going to think that a sales tax on tennis shoes and diapers and all the things that go with kids makes any sense whatsoever.

We will all vote for this, but I think the people should know what the proposer actually has in mind.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia is correct, we never have enough time to discuss taxes out here. We usually run bills through here with no time at all to think about anything.

The fact is, if you really want to understand what this country is doing, there is a wonderful book called ``After the Empire'' by a guy named Emanuel Todd. He is the guy that predicted when the Soviet Union would come down. He is the only one who predicted it before it happened.

He is now talking about the chaos that this administration and this Republican majority have put this country in. You are borrowing enough money for the Defense Department. That is what you are borrowing. You are only taking in enough revenue to handle everything but defense, and you are borrowing all over the world, from the Chinese and the Japanese and the Europeans.

If some day they say to us, United States, we are tired of funding your Defense Department so you can come over here and hammer us or mess up things in the Middle East or run around the world anywhere you want and start a war, because you have got a President now who says we can start a war any time we want any place we want. The world is afraid economically of the United States.

This is a war of economics. It is not a war on terror, it is a war on economics. One of the reasons why we got into this whole business in the Middle East is because the rest of the world is thinking about leaving the dollar as

the currency that stabilizes the world and going to the Euro. They were doing it in Iran. Saddam Hussein was talking about doing it in Iraq. If they had done that to the oil economics of this world, we would have had a major catastrophe. So one of the side benefits of this little exercise over in Iraq was that we did not get oil denominated in Euros.

You people simply will not look at what you are doing. You cannot fight a war and have 700 bases all over the world and run a deficit of $450 billion every year for the whole future that you can see.

This little bill here today is a minor issue; we know that. But it gives us an opportunity to point out that your economics are upside down.

You talk great things about, we are going to reform the tax system. We had a chairman on the Committee on Ways and Means for the 10 years he was here, who said he was going to reform the tax system, was going to tear it out by its roots, but he never brought a bill to the committee.

So it really is all talk, because you know it is nonsense. You want the American people to believe it. You want the American people to believe that we can get rid of that awful, terrible income tax and we will have this nice, easy sales tax that somebody else will pay. But when you look at it and how it actually works, it does not work, and that is why you will not do it.

You have no courage. You own both Houses, both the Senate and the House, and you have never brought that bill out here to be discussed. Why not? Because you know it is nonsense. You know it is nonsense. That is why you have to run these bills through in the middle of the night with 1 hour's debate or 2.

So, let us be honest here about taxes. This little one will pass, but do not give us this sales tax or what you are going to rip out by the roots.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to talk on this resolution because I think it is a long time in coming. Our treatment of the first people in this country has been abysmal. We are largely ignorant of what their culture was or that there was a culture, and this is now an opportunity to redress what I think has been a serious error that has been made by the United States.

What is amazing about this is that it is not over. At the time of the last 8 years under President Clinton, a number of tribes tried to get their recognition. The Dowamish and Chinook tribes in the State of Washington went through the entire process in the Department of the Interior. They were given their status as recognized tribes in this process. The President signed the order creating this relationship with the Chinooks and the Dowamish, and when the new administration came in, one of the very first things they did was reach back into the desk drawer and wipe out the Dowamish tribe. They do not exist any more, to this administration.

Now, I come from a city called Seattle, that is a corruption of the name of the Chief of the Dowamish tribe, Sealth. Chief Sealth was a Dowamish. He lived in this country when everybody arrived. He helped those people who came into Pugent Sound all by themselves. And, in fact, he gave his name to the city. He made a speech once where he said, ``When I met the great white father, I didn't know the land was his. I thought that God gave us, the great spirit gave us the land to live in and to share and to leave it in better condition than when we found it.'' That kind of wisdom is in that museum, and you will see it.

However, the fact is there are still wrongs that need to be righted. This Congress needs to advance a bill, which we put in a couple of years ago and no one ever wants to even have a hearing on. We want to be out here glorify the opening of a museum. And it is a good thing the museum was started before this administration got in place, or it never would have happened. I believe that there are these kind of grievances that people need to go and find out about.

We took their land. We created treaties with people who did not really understand how skillful we were with words, but they took us at our words and they have tried to live with us. But the fact is that we still continue to leave the Dowamish without their recognition and Chief Sealth is a man without a tribe.

That is wrong. We should fix that, too.

Mr. Speaker, 3 trillion is a very, very big number. Astronomers think there may be a tenth planet 3 trillion miles from the earth. Astronomers are using the biggest telescopes on earth to peer into the darkness of space. Something out there is causing a wobble in passing comets 3 trillion miles away.

But here on earth, the President's plan to spend $3 trillion over the next 10 years is causing a wobble in the U.S. economy and a black hole in the budget deficit.

Mr. Speaker, Members do not need binoculars to see it or astronomers to explain it. It is not a tenth planet; it is

the Republican economics by a Congress controlled by Republicans and the White House. At the rate this economy is going, the phrase ``to infinity and beyond'' will stand for where the deficit is going; but it is only going to go until the second of November.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to use the time of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. Speaker, the administration has launched a new campaign to win the Iraq war. The offensive is not in Baghdad or Fallujah or Sadr City. It is in New York and right here in Washington, D.C. The administration has launched another public relations campaign. They did it in the run-up to the war, and they are doing it again in the run-up to the election.

The administration will have its Iraqi functionary here in a few days to speak to this Congress. The appearance by Mr. Allawi in the U.S. Congress is meant to give the American people the illusion that Mr. Allawi was elected, not appointed. It is meant to suggest stability amid a sea of escalating violence.

The American people will decide what they believe to be true. They have already had a preview, because England was the first stop on the PR campaign. This is what the American people are going to hear over and over and over again. In London, Mr. Allawi downplayed the growing violence in Iraq. Since the middle of June, in just the last 90 days, the chaos in Iraq has claimed more than 2,000 Iraqi lives and more Americans than in any other part of this war, yet the administration's hand-picked administrator says of the insurgency, ``It is not getting stronger. We are squeezing out the insurgency.''

Then, he changed that glowing assessment for a different British audience where Mr. Allawi said, ``Terrorists are coming and pouring in from various countries.''

Now, what is the real story? We will still be asking that question after Mr. Allawi leaves.

At a time when the American people need straight talk about what is happening in Iraq, we are going to get carefully planned photo opportunities.

The groundwork has already been laid. Just the other day, the President told the American people, ``I am pleased with the progress.'' Really, Mr. President?

Iraq today is more violent than ever. Insurgency is either being squeezed out or terrorists are pouring in. Check the morning paper tomorrow or the nightly news if you are not sure which of those statements is correct. Iraq is so out of control that religious clerics are being assassinated in broad daylight. Hostages are being kidnapped from guarded homes and beheaded. And U.S. soldiers are in greater danger than ever. Iraq is so out of control that a new offensive by the U.S. military is being planned for later this year, but not until after the election. Sounds a lot like Nixon's secret plan to end the war.

The administration is delaying action because it denies the magnitude of the crisis in Iraq. Instead, they want carefully-scripted political appearances and speeches to make the American people believe that your eyes and your ears deceive you. The coming public relations events are meant to do just that.

The President says he is pleased with the progress. Mr. Allawi says elections are coming. Mr. Allawi also admits that the so-called free elections in January may only be about half fair. When he speaks before the Congress, I hope Mr. Allawi will clarify which half of the Iraqi election will be fair and which will be rigged. The American people deserve straight talk, but we are getting double-talk. So is the rest of the world.

At the United Nations today, the President said he is ``enforcing the demands of the world.'' Less than a week ago, the U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan told the world that the Iraq war was illegal.

At the U.N. today, there was every opportunity for the President to tell it like it is. Instead, he told it like the spin doctors want it, and the world heard the sound of a President in total denial.

Later this week, Mr. Allawi will say exactly what the administration wants him to say as their puppet here in the House. He is their guy. This is their war, and they need more money. They will say what they want us to hear, despite the deafening sounds of daily violence underneath their very words. They will say what they hope will silence the critics, because they cannot silence the gunfire. They will say whatever they think will win another term in office, because that is their first and only priority.

That is not the way to fight a war or win the peace, but it is the only way this administration knows, which is why Iraq's best chance for peace can only be realized by a regime change in the United States. It will happen on November 2.

Mr. Speaker, my home State of Washington is considered a swing State this November. Yesterday, Washington held its fall primary election, the first litmus test between Republicans and Democrats. The results make clear that Washington is going to vote Democratic in a very big way on November 2.

Christine Gregoire is going to make a fine Democratic Governor.

Patty Murray, Senator Murray, will remain a U.S. Senator.

Dave Ross is going to make a fine Democratic Congressman from the Eighth Congressional District, one new seat for the Democrats.

Don Barbieri is going to make a fine Democratic Congressman from the Fifth Congressional District. That is another new seat for the Democrats.

People know, Mr. Speaker, what 4 years of Republican control has done to America. People know and they are paying attention.

So, Mr. Speaker, ask the President to keep coming out to Washington and spend all the money he can. It will be good for tourism. It might even create a job or two, more than he has done in the other Washington.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, I got 86 percent, too. We are all coming back and we are going to get our country back in 47 days and a wake-up.

Mr. Speaker, among all the chaos and the economy and Iraq, the administration is bellowing these days about tort reform. It is the solution to a national health care crisis, they shout. That is the closest thing to a perpetual motion machine and just as phony.

Tort reform is a smoke screen by the administration to cover its own failure to do anything about the health care crisis. The administration squandered 4 years and did nothing on premiums, slamming Americans with double-digit increases year after year. Americans cannot find decent jobs. That is why millions do not have health care. Millions of other Americans with jobs cannot afford the premiums.

But the administration has to cover its tracks, so they launch a diversion against the lawyers, and they are blaming the other guy because John Kerry actually has a health care plan.

The President has a plan. It is called more of the same; 4 more years of record profits for special interests; 4 more years of skyrocketing costs for the average American; 4 more years of failure; and a 17 percent increase for seniors.

America needs a leadership transplant, and surgery is set for the 2nd of November.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you an American story. While I will not mention her name, the person is real. The woman is retired and she receives about $900 per month in Social Security. That is the average amount that a retired American receives.

So this is more than a story about the one person I know. This is a story about millions of people across America. Millions of retired Americans receive $900 per month to pay for food, clothing, housing, health care and everything else.

The administration recently professed its intent to address the health care crisis in this country. The President said so in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. The very next morning the administration announced a 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums. Seventeen percent is the largest increase in the history of Medicare.

Let me translate the increase into the every day life of an average senior citizen like the one I know drawing an average monthly payment. Over one-third, 37 percent of senior citizens entire monthly Social Security check will go to Medicare in 2006. That is just 2 years away. One-third of that $900 is gone.

Now, if a senior is lucky they might have a family as this woman does who can give them some extra money each month. What about those without a family? What about the retirees who have seen their loved ones, their children struggle this these last 4 years without jobs or health care for themselves? After, all over the last 4 years 5 million Americans under the age of 65 have lost their health care coverage. Those who still have it are under increasing pressure from employers to pay more and more of premiums.

Every labor dispute is over health insurance. Companies like Ford and GM bluntly say they can not remain competitive as things stand now. These are just the most recent headlines, the tip of the iceberg. The crisis gets deeper. Everyone in America today is either struggling with health care or knows someone who is.

Health care is an urgent national crisis, just like the drought we just heard about. But we are not treating it that way. If a category 5 hurricane were bearing down on us in the United States, as one really is, we would see bulletins in the media about the dangers to life and property. And we would see action by government to protect the citizens and get them out of harm's way.

Well, America's health care crisis is the perfect storm and it is already on shore wreaking havoc across this country. The damage to lives and property from health care crises is greater than a season of the greatest storms, yet we are forcing everyone to go it alone.

Here is one example. A law passed by the Republican leadership on behalf of the President forbids the Federal Government from negotiating lower prescription drug prices for American senior citizens. Never mind the other 250 million Americans who are getting no relief. When a health care plan announces a double digit increase, Americans have a choice, either pay or go without. When companies shift more of the health care burdens to employees, workers can either pay or go without. When half the bankruptcies in America today are from unpaid medical expenses democracy is at risk.

There is something fundamentally wrong in a society when people fail because they get sick. When an American gets sick the outcome ought to be health care that makes them well, not medical expenses that make them insolvent. But that is the way it is. When 37 percent, remember, of seniors total Social Security goes to Medicare premiums, when seniors spend another hundred or more dollars per month for supplemental coverage, when they have not included any cost for prescription drugs it begs the obvious.

How does someone buy food or shoes or pay for housing? Every senior citizen listening to me right now knows what I am talking about. When medical expenses take at least half of what a senior gets in Social Security, it is time to declare a medical emergency in U.S. health care coverage. It is time for universal health care.

As a medical doctor let me immediately vaccinate you from the certain administration attack. They will call it socialized medicine. And they will try to frighten the be-jesus out of you. That is standard procedure for the President and his surrogates. We do not say that about police and fire and roads and schools and everything else we do collectively. But with health care we say, you are on your own.

You should be afraid of what they have done over the last 4 years.

Nothing for you but lots for special interests like big drug companies. I think the drug companies deserve to make a profit. I mean, they should make something. I also think senior citizens deserve to eat every day and not have to choose between medication and food, and I think every American has the right to get well without going bankrupt.

America needs a universal health care system designed, built and financed by Americans. We can look at what other Nations have done and learn from their mistakes and successes. We can create a universal health care system that is of the people, by the people and for the people. The President will call it socialized medicine; I call it ``Made in America.''

Mr. Speaker, in the one minute it will take to read these remarks, an Uzi can fire off 1,700 rounds.

Uzis and similar assault weapons are about to be legal again, as if we don't have enough to worry about in America.

For the past ten years, the assault weapons ban has protected Americans from these lethal, military-designed guns.

These weapons are not used for hunting animals. They are used to kill human beings.

The assault weapons ban has bipartisan support, both in Congress and across the nation.

Seventy-five percent of Americans want to see the ban extended. Even two-thirds of gun owners favor renewing the ban.

Yet the Republican leadership has refused to take action. Now, these killing machines will be back in circulation.

Good and decent people won't buy them. Those who hate us will, and we have just made it easier.

The President says he favors the ban, but he made no effort to get his Republican leadership, which controls both the House and Senate, to bring the issue up for a vote.

Mr. Speaker, every time I hear the administration announce that the economy is going very well, I wish they could ride home on a United Airlines flight with me. On the way back today, four out of the six flight attendants raised the same question with me: Is there money in the pension guarantee fund for our pensions?

Mr. Speaker, we know that this country is in a mess. USAir declared bankruptcy this morning. There go the pension for those folks. And Delta Airlines over the weekend, they are talking

about it. They are saying if the pilots take those pensions, they will bankrupt the company; it will be gone. United is in the same position. All those people who were out there with Enron, Enron went down; and what did they have left? All they had left was Social Security. Nothing, if this administration had its way.

We have an administration that has to be changed. We have lost 1.4 million people's health insurance, 1.5 million people's jobs, and countless numbers of pensions. The regime change ought to come in 49 days.