Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, we now know the truth was the first casualty of the President's war in Iraq. Ironically, the truth was not shot down by a cruise missile but by the Commander in Chief.

Instead of openly telling Congress and the American people that he wanted to take out Saddam, the President secretly diverted $700 million from the war in Afghanistan to prepare for the invasion in Iraq without telling the Congress, $700 million meant to help find and deal with Osama bin Laden on behalf of the 9/11 victims, on behalf of America.

Another Republican in the White House the last time America faced this secrecy was Richard Nixon, whose legacy is a profound mistrust in government that lingers to this day.

Just as America did 3 decades ago, it is time to shine the bright light of an open and democratic society on what the administration did. I call on the Speaker and the Congress to hold hearings, just as America did during Watergate, to get to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the President's war in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to deliver the thoughtful opinions about the Hubble Space Telescope from the fifth grade math class at Island Park Elementary School. All 25 students unanimously believe that the Hubble Space Telescope should be saved.

I recently visited Thelma Ritchie's class as a part of Hubble Awareness Day. It is a program I started to listen directly to the American people about the future of the Hubble Space Telescope. According to the Administrator of NASA, the Hubble has no future. Mr. O'Keefe may be the only person in America who actually believes that, but he certainly is one person who can kill the Hubble if he wants to.

Students at Island Park Elementary believe Hubble should have a future. So do I. So do millions of other students and scientists and ordinary people across America.

Thelma Ritchie's students recently spent the entire week working on Hubble-related activities. The day I was there, students were using Hubble images and math to learn how to accurately estimate the billions of stars visible without counting all of them.

The classroom fueled inspiration amid the wonder of scientific discovery. Hubble pictures were everywhere. You could see the excitement and wonder in the eyes of very young students. Some had crafted Hubble models. Others had drawings. Many of them were totally engaged in the pursuit of scientific discovery inspired by the Hubble Telescope.

Thelma's classroom, like every math and science classroom in America, is an incubator for future scientists, astronauts and astronomers, and one tool at their disposal will be lost if we do not act and save the Hubble.

Before I arrived, Ms. Ritchie had given her young scientists an assignment: Read the House Resolution that 47 colleagues and I have sponsored to save the Hubble and tell us what to do. Here is what the students said.

From Claire and Juliana: ``Without the Hubble, space would be a half- solved code for us to crack.''

Byron said: ``In my opinion, NASA should go and fix the Hubble, since it has been giving tons of information.''

Matt said: ``I think NASA should keep Hubble up there,'' and Charlotte added, ``because then younger kids can get more interested in science.''

Shoshana offered this: ``Advice for NASA would be pretty much to listen to the public and scientists and do what is best for us all.''

Sidney said: ``Not only does it give scientists answers, but it teaches kids way more about space.''

Alyssa was even more direct: ``I disagree with NASA and I think they should keep the Hubble.''

NASA's Administrator claimed that safety is the reason for letting the Hubble die, that it would be too risky to send the space shuttle to service the Hubble, as it has in the past.

Let us be clear: Space flight is risky, and safety must be paramount. But it is hard to follow the Administrator's logic on safety at the same time the administration wants to go to Mars. I think Mr. O'Keefe is seeing red, partly over the criticism of Hubble, but mostly because the President wants to go to

Mars. Personally, I wish he would, but that is a different discussion.

Hubble's mission is not over. Hundreds of millions of dollars in new Hubble equipment, some of it designed with the help of University of Washington astronomers, is built, paid for and ready for deployment. Tens of millions of dollars of equipment is already built.

Hubble's mission is not over. There are new worlds to discover, new images to take us even closer to the moment of creation and more children across America to inspire.

The Hubble Space Telescope has produced great advancements in science, yet Hubble's most important contribution may be its inspiration. It is the cheapest ad ever produced to encourage young children to become scientists. If anyone needs reassurance that America can compete globally in math and science, they should visit Thelma Ritchie's fifth grade class at the Island Park School. You know how to do math, and so do they. Here is their answer: Two plus two equals save the Hubble.

Mr. Speaker, we have had a great day today. It is really historic. The average American family could teach Congress a lot about budgets, and it appears that at least four Members of the other body may be listening, despite the roar out of the White House.

Today, some Republicans still do not want to face the consequences of their actions. The budget deficit under the Republicans is growing so fast and so high you cannot even see a ``debt ceiling'' any more. We are facing trillions of dollars of debt that will be shouldered by Americans not yet born. That is how bad it is.

It does not have to be that way. Years ago, the Congress established the pay-as-you-go rule. That is a shorthand way of saying what every ordinary American already knows: You look at both sides of the ledger, how much money you have, what are your expenses, before you do anything.

Instead of pay-as-you-go, the Republicans and the President have said they are going to give America a new policy. It is called ``pray-as- you-go.'' Pray. If you say things are fine long enough, somebody might believe it. Pray that something, anything, good happens somewhere in America. Pray that Americans are so consumed with the economic crisis caused by this President and the Republican leadership that they will not have to time to vote in November.

We are not voting on a budget today because the Republicans are rolling in the street fighting amongst themselves. Why?

Some of them are beginning to figure out there are consequences.

We cannot slash taxes and give millionaires $112,925 without paying for them. We are paying for these massive tax cuts for the rich with massive deficits for America. The economy has produced 300,000 jobs this month, and none last month, not a single one. This month they say they have 300,000. I do not know, maybe they saved last month's to build up this month's; or whatever they did, 250,000 jobs are required every month to simply maintain. They have not added anything to the economy; they are maintaining.

The administration remains in denial, but some Republicans are beginning to see the truth, and I hope the light, about extending unemployment benefits. Unemployment is getting worse in State after State. My State ranks fourth in the Nation, yet the administration refuses to extend unemployment benefits.

To every American I say this: the money is there in a trust fund to provide for this lifeline program. Not a single dollar in new taxes is needed to extend a helping hand to people who cannot find a job because this administration cannot create one. Not one job, remember, last month.

Now, the other day, Myra, a lady from Washington State who is part of the ``Show Me the Jobs'' bus trip across America, came here. Fifty-one people representing every State and the District of Columbia went from town to town telling their personal stories of grief and hardship as a result of economic policies of the administration. They ended their trip here the other day because they came to the place where you can actually do something. We tried in December, Scrooge said no from the White House. We tried after the first of the year, the President said no. We tried in February, and the President said no.

The money is there, set aside for this very purpose, paid for by the very people who are out of work, and the President continues to say no.

We have tried over and over again. Just the other day the Democrats tried to get the President and the Republican leadership to extend those benefits on a bill that was before us. Once again, the President, with his warm, compassionate conservative heart said, no.

Now, Myra, you do not have to feel bad. You can hold up your head. You have nothing to be ashamed of, but we do. Because this administration knows the truth of what is happening across America, but will not act.

You have to believe, folks. They want you to pray that there will be a job. People young and old are losing jobs and losing hope. People are graduating from college, they studied hard, they worked hard, they did everything they were supposed to do to get the American dream. Under this President and this Republican leadership, the American dream is turning into a nightmare for millions of Americans. Instead of pay-as- you-go and work-and-you-get, you get from these people, pray-as-you-go. Let us hope our prayers are answered on November 2.

In the meantime, the Congress on this day should pass extended benefits. The money is there, Mr. Speaker. Please tell the President the money is there. I told Myra the money is there. I hope some Republicans finally have the courage to do the right thing and extend benefits now.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the Special Order time of the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in tribute to August Wilson, the leading playwright of his generation and an icon of contemporary American theatre.

For more than 20 years, August Wilson's sometimes searing, but always provocative, dramas have flung theatregoers into the lives and circumstances of black Americans. Performed throughout the country, these works have amused and disquieted us. They have deepened our understanding of our history and our society.

In recognition of the unforgettable portraits he has created, Mr. Wilson has received repeatedly virtually every award bestowed by the literary community, including two Pulitzer Prizes, and five Tony Awards. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

August Wilson has been a resident of Seattle since 1990. So it is quite appropriate that the Seattle's Rainier Club, one of the oldest entities in the city, has named him its laureate for 2004-2005. This occasion offers all of us a most welcome opportunity to salute Mr. Wilson for his transforming contributions to American theatre.

He joins the other laureates of Seattle, Jonathan Raban; Ernestine Anderson, the jazz artist; Dave Horsey, the Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist. He has been a real tribute to our city

and deserves the acknowledgment of the whole city. And we look forward to many more evenings in the theatre with August Wilson, gazing at America through his eyes.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I may take the gentleman from Ohio's (Mr. Brown) time.

Madam Speaker, we have now passed the budget in the House, one in the Senate, and they are starting a conference committee. We are going to have a product out here one of these days soon, but this budget will be perfect proof that the administration giveth and the Republican Congress taketh away. The administration gives massive cuts to the rich; the Republican Congress takes Federal unemployment benefits away from average Americans. That is the way it has been in this administration.

Millionaires get an average cut on their taxes of $112,925. The average American, on the other hand, gets $676. Why should a millionaire get $112,000 and the average working person in this country gets only $676? They have no answer for that.

They have an answer that is sort of strange. They say, well, these tax cuts are going to allow jobs to occur. If you give a lot of money to rich people, suddenly, miraculously, jobs will kind of sprout up out in the fields or in the factories. No proof of that whatsoever.

We have been following the President's ideas for three-and-a-half years, and this will be the first administration since the Hoover administration, since the Hoover administration, 1928 to 1932, that the administration has not produced one single job. They have lost jobs.

February was a particularly good month. You read the newspaper and they say, oh, the economy is recovering. We do not have to give unemployment benefits to anybody because the economy is recovering. How do we know the economy is recovering? We know it because the stock market is going up. What does that mean to somebody that does not have a job, the stock market is going up? They spent all their savings and their 401(k) and everything else to keep afloat, and this administration says because the stock market is going up we have a recovery and we do not need to extend unemployment benefits, in spite of the fact that we have $20 billion sitting in the trust.

All it requires is the President to say to the Congress, move it. Republicans will never do it. They do not care.

But the fact is that in February, in this recovery, 21,000 jobs were created. That is 400 jobs for every State. Now, maybe in North Dakota 400 jobs is quite a lot, but in California it is nothing.

Not one single one of those jobs was a private sector job. Remember, we gave all that money to those rich people and they were going to create these jobs? They did not create one single job in February. That is a jobless recovery, and the President ought to be able to see that. We could see it in December when we started talking about this.

In my State, 80,000 people have gone off unemployment since December; and the government says, well, we have this $20 billion but we are saving it. For what? To give another tax break, perhaps. You have to ask yourself what kind of an administration is this. They talk about compassionate conservatism, but I do not know what that means anymore.

We went to a workers' bus ride today, people who come to this city to tell us their problems. This guy who had been working in a paper mill up in Maine said, my grandfather worked in that mill, my father worked in that mill, I thought I would retire in that mill; but I lost my job, and now I have to go to the food bank to make it.

Think about it. Think about the loss of dignity. Think about the inability to feed your kids. But the President sits down in the White House and says, well, they do not need it; they just need to try a little harder, or maybe they can take their tax cut. They do not get a tax cut; they do not have a job.

For every person unemployed in this country there are three of them looking for every job that is created. The only reason the numbers have come down at all is because the President decided that he would not count them if they were not looking anymore.

This budget is a fraud and the American people should know it.

Mr. Speaker, I want to rise today to defend the thousands of people in the State of Washington who have no job and no unemployment benefits. Thousands more in our State face the same dire circumstances over the next 3 months.

The Washington State unemployment rate is the fourth worst in the United States. The United States Department of Agriculture Household Food Security Report ranks Washington as the fifth most hungry State in America. The National Law and Employment project says that at least half the people unemployed are putting off needed medical and dental treatment because they cannot pay for it. Half the personal bankruptcies in this country are the result of medical bills people cannot afford to pay.

Time and time again the Democrats have asked the Republicans to show a little compassion and extend a lifeline out to these people who are calling out for help. Republicans and the administration have a deaf ear. Again today we call on the Republicans and we urge the administration to stop pretending that economic recovery is at hand.

In the month of February, there were 21,000 jobs created in the United States. That is 400 for each State and not a single one in the private sector. All of them were government jobs. If you call that a recovery just around the corner, you have a different definition than I do. If that is recovery on the horizon, so the sun is setting on the hopes of average Americans.

No American should face alone at a time like this the problems of the unemployed. And we can change it. We can change it. The money is there. We do not have to raise taxes or do anything. We can change it. No American should feel they have no place to turn and no one to turn to. We can change that, and no American should find the country's leaders listening but not hearing. We can change that today.

Today, we can take a real step toward economic recovery by extending unemployment benefits. America is only as strong as its will to defend its people at home against economic adversity. We need to speak out loud and clear in a voice of unshakable compassion, commitment and concern. Let us extend the unemployment benefits. We have been talking about this since December. Thousands of people have lost their jobs. They have quit looking. The numbers seem to be going down only because they have quit looking because there are three people looking for every job that is out there.

This bill is sort of directed at maybe we should keep them out there, keep them hungry, keep them desperate, and maybe they will go in the military. That is what this is about, perhaps.

The fact that we cannot deal with this issue suggests that the President, who talked about compassionate conservatism, has no idea what it is like to be without a job. If your dad can buy you a company or your father's friends can give you a baseball team, I suppose you really would not understand what it is like to be without a job.

I remember when my father was. He was an insurance man, lost his job, went out and was driving a cab. I used to go down and open the cab company at 5:30 in the morning with him. I know what it is like to see what that does to somebody and how desperately they look. But today they cannot find it. And the Republicans just sit there look at the ceiling and twiddle their thumbs.

Well, the workers in this country and the unemployed in this country are not going to twiddle their thumbs on November 2. They are going to compassionately give Mr. Bush a one-way ticket to Crawford, Texas.

Vote against this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I'm from Seattle and I have a good neighbor named Microsoft.

A while back, they got out of line. The European Union said so. Microsoft said so.

Both sides have been negotiating to reach a just and fair settlement. It looked like good faith negotiations would lead to a common good solution. But, the decision issued by the EU falls short in my judgment.

At best, the EU leaves the matter unresolved with more legal action a certainty. At worst, consumers across Europe face confusion, and perhaps even fewer choices than anyone intended in a settlement. We can do better. The EU should find a way to re-visit its decision.

On the horizon are extraordinary new ideas and they will have their own challenges. We have to confront and settle the past. Fairly, yes. Fully, yes. Finally, yes. This is an opportunity to do just that. I hope the EU takes it.

Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to say that one person can make a difference. One person in Seattle who made a big difference is-- Mr. Harry Thomas--an unsung hero who has bettered the lives of thousands of people by advocating for safe and affordable housing.

Mr. Thomas is about to retire from the Seattle Housing Authority, and his career of distinguished public service is worthy of special note by the Congress.

Mr. Thomas served as executive director of the Seattle Housing Authority for 14 of the last 17 years. Under Thomas' leadership, the Authority won $136 million in federal grants which leveraged a total investment of $750 million to transform three World-War II era public housing developments--New Holly, Rainier Vista, and High Point--into vibrant new mixed-income communities.

Prior to his work with the Seattle Housing Authority, Harry served as Deputy County Executive for King County, and as the Executive

Director of Neighborhood House, a non-profit in Seattle. He also served as the Washington governor's staff director and special assistant for housing.

In the Seattle area, Mr. Thomas served as a member of the Board for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle, which he also chaired from 1995- 1998. He also serves as a member of the Seattle-King County Workforce Development Board.

Harry's commitment to public service does not stop with his service to the Seattle area. In 2002, he served on the Commission on Affordable Housing and Health Care Facility Needs of Senior Citizens in the 21st Century, a Congressional Commission charged with evaluating the need for senior housing in the twenty-first century. He also serves as Secretary of the Executive Board for the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities and as President of the Housing Research Foundation Board, both organizations based in Washington, D.C. that focus on federal funding and policy for low-income housing.

In recognition of his dedication and service, Mr. Thomas received the 1999 National Council on the Aging Sidney Spector Award and the 1995 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Washington School of Social Work and Alumni Association.

Harry, thank you for your life-time of public service to the greater Seattle community, and your tireless work to provide decent, safe housing for the area's low-income households.

Mr. Speaker, 15 years ago today the Exxon Valdez ran aground and gushed 11 million barrels of oil into Alaska's pristine Prince William Sound. It is pristine no more.

Fifteen years later, Exxon still has not paid the $7 billion in damages a jury awarded to thousands of Alaskans whose livelihoods were devastated. The Exxon Valdez ruined 1,300 miles of Alaskan coastline, decimated wildlife, and devastated fisheries. What have we learned?

Fifteen years later, single-hull tankers continue to be the common method of oil transportation. Fifteen years later, America continues to consume fossil fuels with a blatant disregard for global climate change. Fifteen years later, we are still just as vulnerable.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if Vice President Cheney invited Exxon into his oil policy meetings that he says should be kept secret from the American people. Perhaps if we knew who had been sitting at the table, we would be able to figure out why 15 years later we are looking at this. Tomorrow it is the budget wreck.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.

Mr. Chairman, it is really wonderful. This is the time of year when we have the big tent put up out in front of the Capitol and we invite the county fair in from Iowa. We always have the county fair come.

I am sure as you look around this hall tonight, there are three of us left, so that means 421 people have gone home. They figure, ``It is all baloney, so I am not staying around to hear this.'' But I know that the people in the Speaker's district and my district are just sitting down to dinner out there on the West Coast, and I think maybe they might be interested in what some of our colleagues do not want to really deal with on this budget.

Now, if I was going to do this the right way, I would put on a top hat and I would tell you about the shell game that we find at the county fair. It is a wonderful game. You know, the guy has a box out there, and he puts one walnut on it, and then he puts another walnut on it, and then he puts a third walnut on it, and then he puts a pea under one of them and then moves them around.

The job of the American people is to figure out, well, where is the pea? I mean, that is what the game is out at the county fair.

That is the same job you have here. You hear numbers, you see charts. I brought a couple just for fun. But you see them moving these around and moving them around, and they say, well, we do not have enough money for Social Security; well, we are taking care of Social Security and Medicare.

You lift up the walnut. Oh, no pea there. Wonder where the money is? Oh, dear. Well, the money must be somewhere here.

Education. That is right. Oh, there is no money for education. They are going to have to call this ``Some Children Left Behind'' by the time we get to the election. The President has been telling us, ``We are not going to leave any child behind.'' But he does not put any money under the pea for education for kids. He underfunds what he says is the amount he has to put there.

How about veterans? Oh, the veterans. You know, they are over bravely serving us in Iraq: Dying; being wounded; coming back here with amputations; coming back, as recently we read in the newspaper, coming back and finding that the job they had when they were in the Reserves is not there.

So the veterans who are out defending us and doing all of this for us, they say, well, but Uncle Sam promised us. So we will look under here. Oh, they are cutting the veterans benefits too? They are going to ask us to pay more at the veterans hospital?

Oh, well, there must be something wrong. I mean, health care. Health care in this country is a problem. We have 44 million people without health care. Is there anything in this budget for health care? Nothing.

But the President said, ``We are going to guarantee universal health care for the people in Iraq.'' In Iraq. Not in Tennessee, not in North Dakota, not in New York State, not in Washington State, not in California. Iraq. That is what the President said.

Then, his secretary went on to say, ``Well, in this country everybody gets taken care of some way, do they not? So that is universal care.''

But you do not get preventive care. We will take care of you when the catastrophe strikes, but there is no money in here for prevention, there is no money making it so we take care of all the kids, that we take care of all of the problems up front, because, well, I do not know. I just cannot seem to find the money.

Now, let us see. Oh, yes, the tax cuts. Ha, that is where the money went. You do not have to be a rocket scientist or have a Ph.D. in economics or have gone to MIT.

A Senator from my State used to say that he wished that we had a one- armed economist. Every time he listened to an economist, he said, ``On the one hand this, and, on the other hand, that.'' You have heard a lot of that, ``On the one hand this, on the other hand that'' tonight.

But the fact is that if you have money in the tax accounts and you give it back to the people, now, that means you do not have money to put under the shells. That is why there is no money for Social Security, that is why there is no money for veterans.

Oh, we have wonderful things to spend it on. Homeland security. I look out here under every seat in the House of Representatives, and I meant to grab one, and I will grab it for you. Every Member of the House of Representatives is sitting on a gas mask.

Now, all that protection they are putting out there for us, all those policemen and all of what is going on in all the buildings and everything else, and they give us a gas mask. How many people in America have got a gas mask? How many of you think that the American Congress is going to be gassed in the House of Representatives? If you do, then you have got to ask yourself, what is the President doing about that?

I mean, Osama Bin Laden. You remember that guy? How much money did he waste on that whole business? Why is there no money out here for health, education, Medicare, a real pharmaceutical benefit? Well, because we have to spend $150 billion in Iraq, a war that we did not have to go to, that we went to under fraudulent circumstances. The President did not tell us the truth. He scared us into, ``Oh, we got to go get Osama Bin Laden.''

Well, they are over there looking for the weapons of mass destruction under the same shells. They say we are going to find it over here; no, we are going to find it over there. Just give me some more money, he says.

Folks, you are sitting there eating dinner. Mr. Chairman, from my point of view, the American public must be just scratching their head and saying, what are these people talking about? A budget is the priorities you set.

Now, in a family you take care of the necessities, food, health care, housing. Our housing situation in this country is awful. In Seattle you cannot find a starter house for under $250,000. Somebody who takes a job at six or seven or eight dollars an hour cannot buy a house in Seattle, and I know that that is not the only place. Oh, you can do it, if you want to go out 40 miles into the countryside, and then there is no rapid transit to bring you in to get to work. I mean, you are caught coming and going. That is where the average American is in this country.

Now, we have two realities that we have to deal with in this budget, and the President of the United States has failed on both of them. One of them is to provide jobs, and the other is fairness in taxation.

Nobody likes to pay taxes. I do not like to pay them. I am right now in the middle figuring out my income tax, like everybody else in this country. I do not want to pay taxes, but I know that I have to pay some so we can have a civil society, and it ought to be done as fairly as possible.

Let us take the jobs issue. I put this up here just so you understand. Since it is Iowa night at the state fair, you all remember a guy named Herbert Hoover? He was from Iowa. He was a great guy from Iowa. He is the last guy that did to our economy what George Bush is doing.

He sat up there and said, ``Well, you know, the rich people, the stock market should just go up and up and up.'' And it was going up and up and up in 1928 and 1929. When it crashed, everybody said, ``Oh, my God. I do not have anything.'' We had no Social Security, we had no unemployment insurance, we had no construction projects, we had nothing.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt came in, and you know the first thing he said when he became the President of the United States? Was it, ``The problem with this country is our taxes are too high. We have to reduce taxes in this country. We have to give back all the money we have, and in some magical way it will get better.''

Do you think that is what happened? Do you think that is where the WPA came from, and unemployment and Social Security and all these other things, by the President of the United States saying, ``My answer is cut the taxes. Give the money back to the people. It is their money. Let them spend it any old way they want.''

Of course not. The whole country knows. Everybody in this country over the age of 50 knows that the proposals made by the President of the United States are absolute and total nonsense. He said, ``Well, you know, I got that terrible problem from that Bill Clinton. Golly, he was just such an awful guy, created those 22 million jobs, and then he left me a mess, left me a mess when I came in here.''

So he said, ``Cut taxes.'' He came out here and said to the Members, stood right here in this well and said, ``If you cut taxes, why, everything will be better.''

Well, folks, this is zero jobs created. If it was up here it would mean there was something going good. But in fact it has been going down. We have lost 2.8 million manufacturing jobs since George Bush has been here.

Now, you can blame maybe how much you want to blame on Bill Clinton. Do you want to blame two-thirds? Or three-quarters? Would you not think after 3\1/2\ years he would have figured out some way to get it turned around? Franklin Delano Roosevelt did. He put us to building bridges and highways and buildings and all kinds of things, and, lo and behold, if you spend the money you have, not giving it back to the rich, but spend it on things investing in the country, you create jobs. That is what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did.

The private non-farm payroll in this country has gone down by 3 million people, and in the non-farm payroll employment, that is only by 2.2 million. Now, that is in addition to these two.

Do you know what I heard from my colleague just a few minutes ago? ``Things are really getting better.'' Do you know how many jobs were created in February? 21,000. Now, let us see, 50 into that, that would be 400 jobs per state. That is really pretty good. I mean, I bet they will have a lottery for

those jobs. And they were all government jobs. There was not a single private sector job created.

That is why we ought to vote no on this budget.

Mr. Speaker, America will pause tomorrow to remember the 15th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez environmental disaster. On March 24, 1989, the captain in charge of this massive tanker was unfit to command even a row boat, yet the intoxicated captain was at the helm, and he ran the Valdez aground in Alaska's fragile and pristine Prince William Sound. Eleven million gallons of oil emptied into the sea and devastated everything in its path. It will take generations, if ever, for there to be a complete recovery.

Fifteen years later, at least 100 tons of toxic waste, concentrated by years of weathering, continues to kill and maim Alaska's environment. Fifteen years later, thousands of Alaskans continue to wait for the $5 billion a jury ordered Exxon to pay. The money remains in Exxon's pocket. Exxon would rather buy time and influence than pay what amounted to 1 year of profits for an environmental catastrophe.

Sound familiar?

It should.

The President's proposed budget hemorrhages red ink about as fast as the Exxon Valdez gushed oil into the Prince William Sound, and the consequences are just as devastating. This President has run the U.S. economy aground with the same disregard for protecting ordinary Americans as a drunken captain had one night for protecting Alaska's environment. It will take generations, if ever, for there to be a complete recovery.

Here is the damage report from the scene.

The President rewards our soldiers returning from Iraq by increasing fees for medical service in his budget. Welcome home, soldiers. Get out your checkbooks.

The administration orders universal health care for everyone in Iraq, but not America. Administration officials claim everyone in America already has health coverage. That will come as a surprise to 44 million Americans.

The person who knew the prescription drug bill would cost $139 billion more than the administration said it would, he was told he would be fired if he released that data. If only Supreme Court Justice Scalia were a Member of the House, he might lead the Republicans in a great ``Quack, Quack'' when the drug bill passed on quack data.

Perhaps we should have heard a similar refrain when the administration decided that flipping hamburgers was a manufacturing job. Perhaps the President should have declared, ``Quack, Quack'' when the administration rewarded corporate buddies by throwing out the rule book for overtime pay for ordinary Americans.

The average American is a sitting duck for this administration.

Millions of Americans are drowning in a sea of unemployment, but the administration refuses to throw a lifeline by extending unemployment benefits.

Average Americans received an average cut of $676. Millionaire Americans received an average cut of $112,925. This must be an example of the compassion the President says motivates him every day.

Big oil gets invited to secret meetings conducted by the Vice President to map out a future energy policy for America. Somehow, I do not think they talked at all about the Exxon Valdez or the money Exxon owes the people of Alaska for their drunken sailor.

I could be wrong, but we may never know because the administration refuses to tell America what went on behind closed doors.

Speaking of doors, they are slamming shut on average Americans at an alarming rate. Interest rates are at a record low. Mortgage foreclosures, personal bankruptcy and credit card delinquencies are either rising or are at record highs.

I wonder if we will hear a ``Quack, Quack'' from the White House on that one? Probably not. Duck hunting, after all, is best done on private lands owned by oil companies with the Vice President leading a Supreme Court Justice who has elevated duck calls to a Supreme Court decision.

How much things change. How much they stay the same.

The Exxon Valdez ran aground when there was a President Bush in the White House. The U.S. economy ran aground when there was a President Bush in the White House. The Exxon Valdez caused the greatest environmental catastrophe in history when it ran aground. Our President Bush, Bush II, may trump that with the largest economic catastrophe in history when he ran America aground.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk about the Iraq resolution that I will vote ``no'' on today.

Republicans would like us to say America is safer. I wish that were true, but it is not. We have only to look at what happened in Spain to be reminded. Terrorism threatens America today just as much as terrorism threatened America before we invaded Iraq.

Make no mistake, I wholeheartedly support the U.S. soldiers. My support does not stop at the Iraq border, nor is my support bounded by political party. I regularly visit troops at Walter Reed Hospital, and I urge every Member to do so. They are the best soldiers and they make America proud.

I would like to pass a resolution praising our soldiers, but this Republican resolution is meant to legitimize a position the administration cannot defend at home or abroad. Look at the Spanish election. We have lost soldiers. We continue to lose them. We have lost credibility. And we have found nothing.

This is not worthy of a victory lap. I will not sing the praises of the Bush doctrine.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time allocated to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez).