Floor Statements

Congressman Holt, I just want to tell you real quick, you said that you hope the majority highjacks this issue which the President tried to do during his State of the Union, but his budget does not speak to that, Mr. Miller. His budget does not speak to innovation. He is saying one thing, and he is going in another direction. Because for him to cut student aid to students to even start the whole innovation moment, education is the way Americans have bettered themselves. Individuals have gone to college for the first time. Communities are better because of it.

Now this President wants to come and he says the word ``innovation'' that means that we are heading in that direction. It does not necessarily mean that.

So I believe, unlike what they have done in other areas, we have talk about homeland security and international strategy. They highjacked it and said it was theirs. The President was against it for many weeks and months. He finally saw it our way because our way was the American people's way.

The same thing happened with the whole issue when it came down to the 9/11 Commission. We said there should be a comprehensive review on what happened during 9/11. They tried to put together these little partisan committees. The American people said they wanted it. Thank God for the survivors of 9/11 and the families that lost loved ones in 9/11. The President was against it. The majority side was against it. The Republicans, finally, they said, oh, we should have a 9/11 Commission. What a great idea.

But this issue as it relates to innovation and investing in America, I do not think they are going to come with us.

Mr. Miller, the real issue here is that Mr. Holt talks about the good old American spirit and being able to say that we want to conquer, we want to move forward with innovation.

You talk about the support, your support of No Child Left Behind; and, as you know, many States, Republican governors and Democratic governors have sued the U.S. government on the underfunding of No Child Left Behind.

I just want to make sure and our good friend, Mr. Jay Inslee is here, and I am willing to give up the podium because he has been working on this issue. But for a very long time, Mr. Holt, Mr. Miller and others, you have been a part of putting together this innovation agenda that we have, printed well before the President's State of the Union as he comes up to say words of quote/unquote wisdom and encouragement, but at the same time put action behind it.

We have put action behind it. We as House Democrats have asked the majority to be a part of this experience of innovation. You are challenging the majority. But I am telling you, Mr. Holt, I kind of know these folks right now. I kind of know they say one thing and they do another. And the issues that Mr. Ryan pointed out is the fact that it is not attractive to them for them to go out of their way to do what they need to do on behalf of their constituents and also on behalf of the American people.

And I urge the majority, I challenge the majority to go on the HouseDemocrats.gov, get a copy of our innovation agenda that talks about how we can put this country on the right track, not in a matter of 20 or 40 or something years but right now. We can start right now with that investment.

So I want to thank Mr. Miller and yourself and others who spent a lot of time to put this together, not to just keep the printer in business but to make sure that we can do the things that we need to do on behalf of the American people.

They are begging.

They deserve it.

Mr. Speaker, I just want 10 seconds, too.

The Republican side says, trust me. I guarantee you that the President cannot do it by himself. He needs this Republican Congress to do it, and they have given him everything that he has asked for. This President, who is so-called conservative, oh, we want to watch spending, has not vetoed one spending bill. This is the biggest borrow- and-spend administration almost in the history of this country. Here is the chart to prove it. It is. The President, not by himself, his picture is here. We should have the Republican Conference here because they helped him make this history. Unfortunately, it is bad for Americans.

There was $1.05 trillion borrowed from foreign countries, $1.05 trillion that he has done and accomplished in 4 years. Forty-two Presidents, including his father, were not able to accomplish that goal.

They borrowed $1.01 trillion, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Great Depression, and every other issue that we had facing the country, economic slowdowns, what have you, gas prices, what have you, were unable to borrow from China, Saudi Arabia and other countries.

So when we talk about the will of this administration and what they are doing and what the President says and they do another thing, he cannot do it by himself. He needs this Republican majority, and that is the reason why the American people, Mr. Speaker, have to make a change in providing the kind of leadership that they need in this Congress to make sure that they are represented.

So I am so glad that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is here because you represent the very people, they are in your district, that are talking about innovation. Mr. Ryan read it off. These are statements that these CEOs have made. They are literally begging. They are saying we hope y'all work together. We had the creator of ``Star Wars'' here the other day. He said I hope y'all get together; you are talking about the same thing.

The difference between what the Republicans are saying and what we are saying, we actually mean it. We will do it if given the opportunity. They are in control. They have the majority. They agenda the bills before committee.

I am sorry, but we both asked for 10 seconds and we took 20.

I will admit to that.

Mr. Speaker, could you say that again just in case a Member might have walked into his office and walked away?

He was not asking, he was literally begging for the Congress to work together in a bipartisan way to make it happen. Just the day before he was with us, the President gave him the National Technology Award. We are talking about walking the walk, not just talking. The bottom line is he came and he understood. We were committed prior to the technology award being awarded.

We have a chart before Mr. Delahunt, and it is one thing for us to let the Republican majority know what they can do if they really want to do it. It is another thing for us to break it down. I want to make sure that the American people understand that we are about making something happen. Regardless of who gets the credit, we are working on behalf of the American people and the American spirit, taking from Mr. Holt and what he says all the time. That is what took us to the moon. That is what brought us up front as it relates to innovation and inventions, being the first.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Delahunt.

Do not leave out the oil industry.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for pointing that out.

I have a picture here of Secretary Snow, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Republican Senate. I think it is important to understand, when you start talking about what is going on, how we are borrowing and how they are out of control on the Republican side. Here is a blown-up letter dated December 29, 2005, literally the Secretary of the Treasury begging that we need to raise the debt limit because we will be able to continue to finance government operations. This is not

government operations of Iraq or Afghanistan. This is government operations of these United States.

Secretary Snow, I go back, and repetition is good because I want to make sure that folks understand. Gentlemen, I want to say this, and you cannot say this enough. They have broken records, borrowing $1.057 trillion from foreign nations. Like I said before, the President cannot just do this by himself, so I am going to put a picture of the Republican leadership there to say they are a part of this incompetence as it relates to borrowing from foreign nations that we have concern about like China.

So, Mr. Delahunt, you have hit the nail right on the head. Mr. Holt, you are 210 percent right. We cannot talk about innovation, but in the meantime we have other priorities with the special interest. I think it is important. I want to make sure that staff gets a picture of the Republican conference because I think it is important. I think we need to put the pressure on not only on individual decisions but on decisions that the majority has made that has put this country in the back seat as it relates to innovation and as it relates to many other areas that we should be leading in.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to come and address the U.S. House of Representatives. I want to thank Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and our Democratic Whip, Mr. Steny Hoyer, and also our chairman, Mr. James Clyburn, and I think it is also Mr. Larson who is our vice chair, and the rest of the ranking members and other members of the Democratic Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, an hour ago we were talking about the issues of fiscal responsibility. We were talking about trying to make sure that the American taxpayer gets what they deserve out of this government, this government that they have elected to come to Washington, D.C., to represent them, to make sure that they get the biggest bang for their tax dollar.

I think it is important to point out, Mr. Speaker, that we are having some real financial issues right now. Some may say on the majority side, and I do respect the members on the majority side, and I know that there are a few members on the majority side that feel the way we feel here on the minority side, on the Democratic side of the aisle, that we have to get our fiscal house in order. And we are not there yet. I can say here boldly and honestly that we are not there.

There are a number of third-party validators that are talking about the fiscal irresponsibility on the majority side and by this President that has put this country in financial jeopardy. You have individuals saying we want to cut the deficit in half, but, meanwhile, back at the ranch, they want to borrow from countries like China. They want to borrow from countries like Saudi Arabia and give those countries a piece of the American pie, Mr. Speaker.

I think it is important that in the last hour, when we talked about innovation, we talked about putting America first. We talked about not cutting student loans to everyday Americans. We talked about assisting that next generation and the generations that we expect to be able to stand up and make this and continue to make this country free and put us ahead as it relates to inventions, as it relates to innovation.

We are talking about on this side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, that we embrace and we appreciate our troops and our veterans. But, meanwhile, in the President's budget, it talks about cuts in veterans affairs. It talks about higher co-payments for veterans.

I must say, Mr. Speaker, I am a Democrat, but guess what? I represent Republicans, Independents, green party, and Democrats back in my district; and they feel the way that I do.

I have not had one constituent say, Congressman, I want you to go to Washington, D.C., and make sure that you borrow as much money as possible so that I can pay it back with interest. Congressman, I want you to go to Washington, D.C., and be irresponsible with my tax dollars and make sure that we do not have accountability as it relates to unbid contracts. Congressman, I want you to look the other way when it comes down to making sure that you have the proper oversight so that we do not have this culture of corruption, cronyism and incompetence that we are seeing on the majority side and in the White House right now.

I think it is very, very important, Mr. Speaker, the perception that the American people and the reality that they are seeing right now. This is not the Kendrick Meek or the 30-Something or the Tim Ryan report. This is what is being printed every day in the papers.

It is not that the Congress is taking a bold step to make sure that the children of America have what they need; making sure that we have the kinds of innovation that the President spoke about, Mr. Speaker; making sure that the veterans do not have to pay a higher co-payment for health insurance that we promised them as a country.

We salute one flag right now, Mr. Speaker, not because of coincidence. Because individuals have died for that opportunity. We have individuals that have served and served in many theaters to make sure that we can salute one flag, and the bottom line is we should not turn our backs on those individuals.

What Mr. Ryan and I are going to talk about in this 30-Something hour is the tax on corruption, the corruption tax that the American people have to pay and the American children have to pay, and men and women that have worn a uniform have to pay.

Guess what? It is not just Democrats. It is not just Republicans. It is not just independents. It is the American people. It is not just the folks that vote. It is not just the folks that do not vote. It is not the folks who are seeking status that have green cards in this country that are legally here. It is happening right now.

Mr. Speaker and Mr. Ryan, I just want to say before I yield, I feel good about the fact that we were talking about the K Street Project 2 years ago. Night after night, week after week, we talked about it. We were honest and upfront with the American people that something was fundamentally wrong when you have a K Street Project, talk about it, put a press release out about it, about how we have this relationship with the special interests.

What about a relationship with the American people, Mr. Speaker? So now we have a lobbyist here in this town that has admitted to guilt, Mr. Ryan, that has said, I have broken the law. We do not have to have a trial because the evidence is so strong. We do not have to have a jury pool. We do not have to have people come in and waste 6 months of their lives on a jury pool and a jury selection. I will admit to guilt.

Days after this particular lobbyist said, I am guilty, I am willing to help the government in seeking out those Members that were part of this.

I am closing in a minute, Mr. Ryan, because we have been talking about this. I admit to guilt, and I am willing to help the government. All of a sudden, all of a sudden, Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority says, you know, we are done. The K Street Project is no longer in existence. As a matter of fact, this little thing that we call K Street, what are you talking about? I do not know what you are talking about. We are just going to rip it up. It is not anything that we really care about. We are going to do away with that.

It is almost like, as I would say, Mr. Ryan, and as I will yield to you, the

game warden cannot be the lead poacher. I will say that to you right now. I think it is important that we be upfront with the American people because they are paying a hard, strong corruption tax, Mr. Ryan.

This is reality. It is not something that you are making up. This is reality for individuals that may be hard core supporters of the majority; that is fine. I am a supporter of the American people. We are not here on behalf of party. We are here on behalf of the American people.

These will be the very Members that if the American people allow us to lead, that what you are talking about, would be a bad chapter in American history. Well, we can put this country on the right track that will partner with us in a bipartisan spirit, and all it takes, and you know and I know, is a majority vote to make anything happen in this House.

With interest I must add, and I will tell you that it is very, very unfortunate when we tell children who want free and reduced lunch that we cannot do what they need us to do.

I think also what is wrong is when we tell veterans that they have to pay higher copayments because we do not have the money to be able to assist them in their health care.

I think another thing that is wrong, when we tell individuals that pay taxes every day, that we cannot assist them as it relates to innovation and finding other opportunities to be able to find alternative fuel to fuel their vehicles or home.

I think it is also a travesty when we have no-bid contracts. Time after time again, reports are released here in Washington, D.C., on how we failed the American people domestically and how we failed the American people as it relates to their U.S. tax dollars overseas as its relates to the war. There are billions of dollars that are unaccounted for and that cannot be attached to what its purpose was supposed to be in Iraq.

This is not fiction. This is fact, and tomorrow night and I want to say this to the staff and make sure that the rest of the 30 Somethings hear, we want to talk a little bit about what happened to the other $9 billion U.S. tax dollars in Iraq. We both serve on the Committee on Armed Services and I think it is important that the American people know. It is unacceptable, unacceptable for us to do or for the Republican majority to do what they have done as it relates to a lack of oversight.

I think it is important that we talk a little bit more about innovation and our plans to move America forward, but I want to make sure that the American people and the Republican side know, the Members on the other side of the aisle know, here is our plan right here. This is a summary of our plan. It is on the Web site, housedemocrats.gov, very simple. It is not a secret. It has been there for a long time. The only reason why it is there in the Web site, and the only reason why we have it in legislative bills, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that we cannot move innovation.

Let us talk about innovation for a minute because I want to make sure we do not fake anyone out and have folks confused. Innovation means we are committed to making sure this generation and future generations are ready to lead in the way that the past generation has done and this present generation are trying to do right now.

This is good, third party validator outside of the political process. They do not carry a voting card here in the U.S. House. They are not a stakeholder. The only stake that they hold is having Americans to be able to fill jobs that they want to provide.

And they want to do it again.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ryan knows he had me at hello on all of that.

When he says Mr. Meek, he is really talking to the Republican majority. I will say to my colleagues, because I want to be sure that they have good and accurate information from third-party validators, they can go to www.HouseDemocrats.gov/30something and you can get the charts, get what Mr. Ryan is talking about.

Most of these people that are third-party innovators as relates to innovation, they can care less who says that we brought innovation into the United States again, that we are investing in innovation. They just want it to happen. These individuals are Republicans, Independents and Democrats that are begging us to give them the workforce that they need. They want to hire the American worker. They want to make sure that local communities and States have the kind of economy that they need. I think it is important.

Mr. Speaker, it goes a little deeper. This is not just about one or two people and the decisions they are making. I have a real problem, and I do not want to change the channel here, but I have a real problem with the fact that it is so easy for the Republican majority to abuse not only the spirit of the rules in the House of Representatives but also when we start dealing with the Constitution of the United States.

We had a budget reconciliation vote that came up here, I do not know, maybe three or four times, not because the Members did not show up to vote, it is because the Members did not want to vote on budget reconciliation that cut student aid and that will bring about the kind of innovation that Mr. Ryan is talking about, that cut free and reduced lunch, that directed the Veterans Affairs Committee to make millions of dollars in cuts in veterans affairs over a period of years, that did a lot of other things, that gave giveaways to the oil industry. They did not want to vote on it.

I remember we were on this floor on the eve of I believe it was veterans'

weekend. They did not want to vote on it, leave here and march in a parade and someone may holler out, congressman, congresswoman, how can you march with the veterans here, waving a flag, talking about I am with you all the way; meanwhile, you voted with your colleagues on the Republican side that closed our clinic. They just could not do it.

So now we are in a situation when we talk about respect for the way we do business, the President signed the budget reconciliation bill that was not identical. Let me go back to Government 101 here. They have to be identical pieces of legislation between the House and Senate for the President of the United States to sign.

Mr. Ryan, you remember the old cartoon, I am just a bill, I am on Capitol Hill. It talked about going from committee to committee, and you pass the House and go to the Senate or you start in the Senate and go to the House, and then you go to the President of the United States. One bill, same language, identical, side by side.

You cannot have language in one bill that says one thing and have a budget that says something else. Not one line, not one word can be different. The President and the administration that we know, and we are going to get into this tomorrow night, and like I said, I challenge the majority side to try to go in the bathroom and look in the mirror and say, ``I can go out there and say this is right.'' We are 110 percent right on this, just like we were right on the K Street Project. We are talking fact here.

The President signed a bill that many have said is unconstitutional. It is not an identical bill. All of us know it. The issue about secrecy and misleading the public is becoming an everyday occurrence here in Washington, DC.

I think it is fundamentally wrong for us to salute one flag, believe in the bedrock of a Constitution and to allow individuals that are in control now to say a couple of words are different and there is more money here than there, what is the big deal. I signed it, it is done, we are in control, and who is going to question us, Mr. Speaker. They say, who is going to call us before the committee and say, excuse me, who is going to send subpoenas to the White House and say, did you know these bills were not identical? Who is going to call in the leadership of the House and Senate and say, how could you do something when you knew they were not identical bills? Well, it is not a big deal because they are in charge.

Mr. Speaker, if the American people were to bring about the kind of paradigm shift that this country deserves in the next election, my goodness, it will take up a lot of time here in Congress to be able to fix what is broken.

Maybe the Republican majority may say we need to start working on a bipartisan basis and start working with the Democrats on some of these issues. Maybe we can really look at Social Security and make sure that it is sound and solid for generations even beyond the 40 years it will be solvent, and maybe we need to look at health care and not this health savings plan because we already know that does not work. Let us look at some of the Democratic alternatives and let us have a conference report, let us have a bipartisan conference report that we actually invite Democrats to participate in.

Mr. Speaker, we have legislation right now that the first time that the ranking members, and I want to break this down so we all understand, the ranking members who are the lead Democrats on the committee, see for the first time a bound bill, this wide, this thick, coming to the floor and it is their first time seeing it. That is not because they decided to sit in their office and eat pecans, but because they were not told where negotiations were taking place.

There are a lot of rooms in this Capitol, and I think it is important that we spend a lot of time, not some time, but a lot of time letting the American people know that here on the Democratic side of the aisle we have history on our side in balancing the budget. We have history on our side in making sure that we have a very strong U.S. economy where everyone shares in it, everyone makes money. Small businesses are able to do what they have to do, and making sure that we have integrity in a government that people know when they pay their taxes that those dollars are going in the right place. We balanced the budget.

I challenge the Republican majority to say the same thing. Not that we cut it in half or took a quarter of it. That is not what we did. We balanced the budget with surpluses as far as the eye could see.

I challenge the Republican side to come with one proposal and say any time in the history of the Republic that they have done that, period dot. That is just the bottom line. History speaks to it, the Congressional Record speaks to it, and the Congressional Budget Office speaks to it.

It is not the Kendrick Meek Report or the Tim Ryan Report. We are not here to entertain the Congress. We are here to make sure that these individuals that are in control on the majority side understand that we mean serious business about saving this country not on behalf of Republicans or Democrats or Independents but on behalf of the American people.

Are we passionate? You are doggone right we are passionate. We are passionate for all of the right reasons. We are not here arguing on behalf of someone who said let us just talk about things are bad because we need to make up some kind of story because we want to be in control of the U.S. Congress. This is fact. This is fact.

I do not care if you have a club of hard-core individuals saying that I want to support corruption, cronyism and incompetence. Only the recipients of corruption, cronyism and incompetence are the cheerleaders for that kind of activity.

Mr. Ryan, they would not even come up to the 1 percent of Americans that have benefited from the bad policies that the majority side has put forward. I can tell you right, and the record reflects and it reflects in the President's budget of who is on the side and who they are standing up for in that budget.

In that budget, they are cutting veterans affairs. In that budget, they are cutting student aid. In that budget, they are giving tax giveaways to the individuals that are on K Street, obviously that have access to this administration and to the majority.

So I would say this. The record speaks to what we are sharing with the Members. The record speaks to the fact that we on this side, without one Republican vote, Mr. Speaker, not one. One would think maybe two might have said I am going to vote to balance the budget. A big fat zero. My 8-year-old and my 11-year-old can understand what a zero is. Not one. For anyone to come to the floor and say the Democrats want such and such, let me tell you, we cannot do anything but raise the question and put pressure on the majority side to do the right thing.

We said there could be a 9/11 Commission. The Republicans did not want it. The American people joined in us.

We said there should be a national strategy on homeland security and we should have a department addressing the issues of homeland security. Republicans did not want it. The American people joined with us, and we have a Department of Homeland Security.

We said we need to come to Washington, DC, and deal with body armor on behalf of the troops in Iraq. The Republicans said they have their armor. Donald Rumsfeld came down from the Department of Defense and said we have a strategy, we have a plan. Oil is going to pay for the war. All of these things that we now know are incorrect. We said it, and then the Republican majority started responding to it.

I can tell you in this case, as it relates to fiscal responsibility, the record does not reflect a past history of this Republican majority doing the right thing and balancing the budget.

We didn't say that we were going to cut the budget in half. We said, we'll balance the budget. And we did. We have an innovation agenda, if given the opportunity, and we invite our Republican friends that are over there, that a few of them think the way we think, move with us in moving this agenda together. We are talking about all of the good stuff that the American people are asking for, Mr. Ryan. They are asking for creating an educated, skilled workforce in the areas of science, math, engineering and information technology. They are asking for an investment as it relates to Federal research and development initiatives in

promoting public-private partnerships. We are saying that we want every American to have access to affordable broadband. That is making sure that they have access to the Internet, making sure their children have access, seniors and every household can afford it. What is the deal about saying, some people can afford it, some people can't? We are a country. We are not a bunch of individuals. And we are saying that we will achieve energy independence in developing emerging technology and clean substantive alternatives to strengthen national security and protect our environment, not within 20 years, not within 50 years, not within 100 years. We are talking about 10 years, Mr. Speaker. It can happen.

We know together, Mr. Ryan, in America, we can do better. We are willing to partner with the American people like we have done before. But I can tell you right now, Mr. Ryan, this Republican majority, they didn't get it 10 years ago, they are not getting it now, and they won't get it tomorrow.

I think that is important, Mr. Ryan.

$1 million a day. Mr. Speaker, we need to let that sink in. $1 million a day can be able to assist a small business in providing health care for their employees. $1 million on the back end of that can prevent individuals from paying high copays, because that is what is taking the American people under, this whole health care issue.

$1 million a day will be able to resolve some of the issues of overcrowding and the underfunding of No Child Left Behind in my district.

$1 million a day, goodness gracious, maybe we will be able to prevent many young Americans from making youthful indiscretions so that they don't have to be on the taxpayers' dole and being incarcerated.

Mr. Ryan, I know you want to move on and you have several other examples on that chart.

We don't want to hold the veterans off. But what I want to just say real quick, Mr. Ryan, $1 million a day would be able to solve many issues in the gulf coast right now of individuals who are homeless. We are evicting individuals out of temporary housing at this point and making them homeless. Not people overseas, not folks in Iraq, people that pay taxes every day here in the United States. They are in Mississippi. They are in Alabama. They are definitely in Louisiana. They are in Texas. They are in places that are a part of this country. We are telling them that we can't do it.

We have individuals that come to the floor, Mr. Ryan, saying we have got to wean the American people off the Federal tax dollar. We need to wean the special interests and irresponsibility and the corruption tax that we are putting on the backs of Americans. We are putting a heavy corruption tax on the backs of Americans. I just want to say this out loud because I want to make sure, Mr. Speaker, that the Members know. I want them to see this ball coming and it is not a softball. It is a baseball. We are going to talk about this corruption tax and we are going to talk about it and we are going to talk about it and we are going to point out to the Members what it is costing the American people. We are going to point out to the Members what it is costing their constituents. And if we want to continue the kind of corruption tax and if we want to continue to have this air and environment of corruption, cronyism and incompetence here in Washington, D.C. and it is costing the very people that woke up one given Tuesday morning very early to vote for representation, then you go home and explain to them how you stood idly by and allowed this kind of activity to continue.

So, Mr. Ryan, I just wanted to say that very quickly, because we are talking about spending the taxpayers' dollars in a responsible way. I think it is important for us to talk about the present. So I just want to put the Members on notice right now. I want to make sure the Republican majority can get in a huddle and start talking about how we are going to deflect this issue on the corruption tax, because I am going to tell you right now, this culture of corruption that is ongoing right now in Washington, D.C., and I am not talking about individuals, I am talking about the corruption tax based on the policies that have passed out of this institution. When it is okay, Mr. Ryan, for the President to sign a bill that is not identical, that deals with the budget of these United States and then someone says, excuse me, Mr. President, you know you just signed a bill that is unconstitutional? And the message comes back, well, it's okay, it's

gone now, there's nothing we can do about it, there is something wrong. I think that is a crack in the face to democracy, Mr. Ryan.

Please go to the veterans.

As soon as possible. That is what the letter says.

That is right now.

Mr. Ryan, we could do better. We could do better if we were in the majority. But we are not. I can tell you that I miss our friend, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is usually here who puts it best. We are trying, but she knows how to hit the nail right on the head.

When she speaks because I think it is important for people to understand that this thing is bigger than the two of us and that it is bigger than the 30-somethings. And that you are addressing not only Americans in Ohio but Americans throughout the country. $27,500 that is owed by every Americans, not just Democrats, not just Republicans, not just Independents, not just Green Party, Mr. Speaker, that is every American. So we look forward to Ms. Wasserman Schultz coming back and sharing with the American people what they need to know.

Mr. Ryan, I know that we are going to come in for a landing here in about 3 to 4 minutes, and you know that we have a meeting to talk about some of the information that we just received today that is going on in this House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker. There are not enough hours in the day.

Literally, there are not enough hours in the day; and, thanks to the majority, we are having to spend these hours in a late night, Mr. Speaker, trying to turn the ship and save this country on a fiscal standpoint.

Do not get me wrong. We are not talking about individual decisions. We know that people make bad decisions. Individuals make bad decisions, and we can survive an individual bad decision. But when we have an entire culture of corruption and the corruption tax that is going on here in the United States as I speak now, Mr. Speaker, we have got to burn the midnight oil. We have got to drink an extra cup of coffee in the morning. We have got to go to the gym and take a hot shower so we can make this thing happen. And we are going to continue to meet and caucus, do the things that we need to do.

I want to commend our staff to do the same thing. I want to commend you, Mr. Ryan, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, and the rest of the 30-somethings for doing what we do. Because I am going to tell you something. It is extra-extraordinary. We have got to be here in the morning just like everyone else to get out and do what we need to do on behalf of our constituents. We have got to go to more meetings possibly, Mr. Speaker, than the majority has to go to because we are in the business of making sure that we represent not only our constituents but the American people in this time.

There will be books written about this time right now, about the irresponsibility that took place in this country's history, the highest deficit in the history of the Republic, more corruption and investigations and people of interest right now in the history of this country. This is not, oh, well, in 10 years or more people of interest or investigations in 20 years. In the history of this country. So this calls for special attention.

So I call upon the Members of this Congress to look in the mirror real quick. Do you want to talk about lobbying reform? Well, I can tell you this right now, and this just comes from the book of common sense: I am pretty sure the lobbyists did not call up Capitol Hill and say, hey, listen, we want you to start a K Street project because we want to be forced to hire ex-staffers from the Republican Party. That is just what we want. Or we want to make sure that we have to give X amount of campaign contributions to a particular party. They did not call that up.

So what I am going to say right now, Mr. Speaker, is I think that we need to make sure that we do the right thing.

Mr. Ryan, I just want to say, sir, that I appreciate your candor. I appreciate your courage. It would be something very, very wrong for us to do if we came to the floor and talked about fiction. This is fact. So I look forward to any Member that wants to talk about balancing the budget, Mr. Speaker. I am ready, set, go. My chin strap is buckled, and my mouthpiece is in. I want to talk about it. I am saying let's get down, low man wins. I am ready to do what we have to do. If you want to talk about it, I can tell you right now on this side of the aisle, we have done it. And until the Republican majority can say that we have done it, then there is really no discussion.

Mr. Ryan held up the letter from Secretary Snow. I held it up an hour ago. The man is saying for the sixth time, Mr. Speaker, that we have to raise the debt limit. It does not sound like things are in order. It does not sound like there is fiscal responsibility. It does not sound like there are individuals that are being responsible with taxpayer dollars.

And the bottom line, Mr. Ryan, is the Republican majority is in charge. Not Democrats. Republicans are in charge, for the sixth time in a row, raising the debt limit. For the sixth time in a row, irresponsibility.

So I look forward, Mr. Ryan, to our meeting after we leave the floor. I look forward to hitting the alarm clock in the morning, taking my kids to school, and coming to the Capitol. I look forward to our cup of coffee in the morning in the cafeteria downstairs talking about what is the game plan for today.

So thank you, sir, for your service to the country; and I want to thank Ms. Wasserman Schultz in her absence, too.

If you would give the Web site out.

With that, Mr. Speaker, we thank the Democratic leader for allowing us to be here.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 20 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, February 16, 2006, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to be here on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives again.

As you know, we have our 30-something Working Group that Leader Pelosi has formed over 3 years ago. And we meet constantly on issues that are facing the American people, and we ask the U.S. House of Representatives to address those issues in many cases. And there is an awful lot, Mr. Speaker, that is going on here in Washington, D.C.

I must say that I am really, really pleased at the innovation workshop we had earlier today that allowed Americans to be able to get a view of what the Democratic side has to offer in the area of innovation. And we are going to talk a little bit about that tonight.

But we are also going to talk about the ongoing costs of corruption and cronyism and incompetence in this institution that has brought about bad policies for the American people and affects the very lives of the American people that we are trying to serve.

As we work to try to better ourselves here in this Congress, we continue to point out the fact that we are not working in a bipartisan way to be able to get the best results for Americans. And we are going to talk about that also, Mr. Speaker.

I think it is important to point out the fact that we want to wish everyone here, not only in the U.S. House of Representatives but throughout our Nation, a happy Valentine's Day. And Mr. Delahunt is here, one of our esteemed colleagues. We are so glad tonight, Mr. Delahunt, that you can join the 30-something Working Group on this Valentine's night.

I know a nice man like you had to call a couple of folks and wish them happy Valentine's Day, including your family members, and it is a good day.

Well, without family where would we be?

Do you know what is interesting, Mr. Delahunt, is the fact that we have the issues that are floating here in Washington, D.C., and it is just kind of hard to keep up with them. There are so many things that are going on, and so many things that are happening to the American people. It is important that we get our house in order, and this House and the Chamber across the hall, including the executive branch, of getting back to the business of the people of this country.

We have families in the gulf that had visited the Capitol last week, coming with demands for their government: do not forget about us; do not leave us out; do not leave us behind. And reports are being released, but not only a summary report from the partisan House committee that was formed here about some of the mistakes that the administration made and where this Federal Government failed Americans.

Another report that Secretary Chertoff is talking about, he was supposed to come before the Senate today of the Homeland Security Committee, and they canceled the committee meeting because of Senate votes, to get down to the bottom of why we still have not prioritized the emergency management response.

I also think it is important that we point out the fact that the partisan commission here in this House that is charged, Mr. Speaker, with getting to the bottom of what happened and what did not happen in the case of the response and preparedness for Hurricane Katrina fell short of its duty to be able to make sure that we had sound, concrete recommendations to be able to move forward.

We still ask, Mr. Speaker, here on this side of the aisle, for an independent Katrina commission so that we can really get down to the nuts and bolts of what happened in this natural disaster and the disaster that followed that was the Federal Government's response.

I think it is also important that we talk about our fiscal situation, and some of tonight and tomorrow we will talk about what has happened with the reconciliation, budget recommendations that passed through this House and through the Senate, and where we are falling short there and being straight with the American people as it relates to the Republican majority.

Mr. Delahunt, I think it is important to point out the fact that so many Americans under this administration and under this White House have found themselves left behind economically and also socially.

The President talked about his health care plan here in this Chamber, a health savings plan that is already not working, and the way it should work and could work for Americans because it is not the right prescription for coverage for families.

To set aside money, to ask Americans to set aside money that they do not have in the first place is an oversight in itself. So many American families are living from paycheck to paycheck. It is not because they were so unfortunate to have a job and a family that they could not afford some of the high prices they are paying for fuel at this time and heating costs and other energy-related costs, but to say that we will allow you to put money aside for a rainy day for when a family member gets sick, that is not insurance.

Right now there is legislation here in this Congress to stop the Veterans' Affairs Committee from going up on insurance rates against veterans. And I want to also, if I can point out a few of those articles today just in the local Washington Post, Mr. Delahunt, I think maybe we can talk about some of the things our third-party validators are talking about here in this town.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell the gentleman what took so long. What took so long is that we have an administration and we have a Congress that did not give the proper oversight.

The Department of Homeland Security asked the questions when they should have been asked. The American people were told, trust us, trust us, trust us. When you talk about the Republican majority and really Homeland Security, FEMA, the White House, and oversight committees were not prepared to do what it was supposed to do and we failed the American people.

Now, let me just say this. The American people have been asked to trust the words of this majority time after time again. Trust us on the fiscal outlook for the country. Trust us on taking down the deficit. Trust us on making sure what they tell you is actually the reality. Trust us on your health care costs and your coverage. Trust us, trust us, trust us.

And almost in the same month the American people, it is revealed to the American people that it was not about them the whole time. It was about special interests having their opportunities and privacy through the executive branches in this Congress.

Now if I can just take a minute just to bring in third-party validators. You talked about what you read in your hometown paper. I just want to put this picture right here. This is Secretary John Snow from the Department of Treasury. I want to put his picture there so folks know that this is not the Meek or the Delahunt report.

This is a report in a letter from the Secretary of the Department of Treasury to Senator Mitch McConnell, and it says the administration now projects that the statutory debt limit currently at $8.184 billion will be reached in mid-February of this year. At that time, unless the debt limit is raised or the Department of Treasury takes the authorized authority, extraordinary actions will have to be carried out, we will be unable to continue financing the government operations.

It goes on to say, I am writing you to request that the Congress raise the statutory debt limit as soon as possible or we will not be able to carry out government functions. That is basically what it is saying.

I have blown this letter up here because I think it is important. This letter is signed by the Secretary of the Treasury. Basically what he is saying in this letter is that, unless the debt limit is raised, the Department of Treasury will not be able to continue to finance government operations. Our government operations, not the government operations of a foreign country, not the government operations of the Republican party, not the government operations of the Democratic party, the government operations of these United States of America.

Now give me a couple more minutes. This came from the Secretary of the Treasury, the office right next to the White House, Mr. Speaker, appointed by the President of these United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. This is a letter that he wrote on December 29 of 2005, just the end of last year.

Better yet, Mr. Speaker, the American people are being asked, trust us with the money and the decisions. Let us have a treasurer here.

Mr. Delahunt is familiar with this chart. The President of the United States, George W. Bush, has borrowed more, and he could not do it by himself, he needed the Republican majority to do it, $1.05 trillion from foreign countries. Foreign nations like China and Saudi Arabia and all of the countries that we are concerned about, we have borrowed more money in four years since 2001 to the present, to the end of 2005 than 42 Presidents combined, and that is $1.01 trillion.

Now we had World War II, Mr. Speaker. We have had the Korean War. We have had World War I. We have had Vietnam. We had Gulf I. All of these wars, all of these conflicts, the Great Depression, a number of challenges to our country. This President and this Republican Congress has borrowed more, I cannot say that enough, has borrowed more from foreign nations in the history of our republic. And we can

say that from a standpoint as Democrats to say that we put forth a balanced budget recommendation here and it has actually happened.

I just want to make sure, and I know this is one of Mr. Ryan's charts here, but I am going to go ahead and say this is our debt right here now as you see it as of February 14, as of February 14 which is a special day on the calendar, and we talked about that a little earlier. This is what the American, this is what each American, if a baby was born when we started this special order here tonight, they already owe $27,526.77 and counting.

So I go back to Secretary Snow's letter. Did the Democrats write this letter? No. The Democrats put forth recommendations of pay as you go. Is the Republican majority embracing that doctrine? No. Is the White House embracing that doctrine? No.

So when we start talking about fiscal responsibility and competence and saying no to corruption and cronyism that has an effect on the American people, this is the result of it.

You have got a letter. That is what the we are about. We are about shedding light on what is happening under this Capitol dome. If you let the majority tell you, oh, well, the Democrats have done this, that and the other. This is the biggest borrow-and-spend Congress in my opinion in the history of the Congress, borrow and spending in the worst way with interest.

It goes a little further. They are going to pay higher copayments, too; and what the majority has to understand, Mr. Speaker and what the Senate has to understand and what the President has to understand, this is not going to change. This is business as usual.

A track record, a pattern of those who have made youthful indiscretions in their lives, need it be on credit, need it be some sort of criminal activity, you can no longer have access. You used to have the capital, if you do not have a good credit record. Am I right?

Let me just tell you something right now as it relates to the United States. I am looking at Japan. You can put Japan in the State of Florida, and the State of Florida will swallow geographically Japan. But, better yet, look what they are holding of the U.S. apple pie. The bottom line is this is about, Mr. Speaker, the incompetence, cronyism and, in some cases, corruption of these individuals being able to get access into this institution and into the executive branch to be able to get what they want.

I want to drive the point on here. I want to make sure this is crystal clear. It has to be crystal. The bottom line is the only way that we will be able to have a paradigm shift not only in thinking but in policy and action on behalf of the American people and unless the American people like you say, the majority, they do not have to be the majority. The American people can make that change. They can say that we are willing to allow the Democrats to lead so that we can hopefully start taking care of some of these issues that we have to take care of here at home, with our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and throughout the world so that we can get the respect of not only the world but our country, our own country.

Veterans, they signed up for all the right reasons, allowing us to salute one flag, as we see it now, are being asked to do more financially, meanwhile $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy, while we have individuals, while we are having veterans affairs centers closing in rural America and in urban America. They are closing. Some of them are only open on Wednesday now. But, meanwhile, we have individuals, we have the President every time he gets a chance he is talking about let us make the tax cuts permanent for people who are not even asking for it.

So this is very simple. This speech on what the majority, Republicans, say, well, trust us, we know what we are doing. We showed the letter from Secretary Snow. I think we already know this. We did not write this letter. The guy has said the fifth time, the Secretary is saying we will not be able to operate the government. That is one letter.

Here is the other one here. Forty-two Presidents, this President and Republican majority has borrowed $1.05 trillion, but, better yet, saying let us make a bad idea permanent, let us drive this number up, let us put a two here instead of a one. It does not make sense. Only the American people can stop this crowd. $27,526.77, the average

American owes right now. This is not brought to you, Mr. Speaker, by the Democrats. This is brought to you by the Republican majority and this White House.

We have to save this country, and the American people have to save this country, and we have to get the word out to them that all of the rhetoric, all of the big money machine.

And, look, here is another one. This stuff is just here. It is almost too much to share, Mr. Speaker. We do not have enough time to share what the Members and the American people, clients reward keeping K Street lobbyists thriving.

I never blame the special interests for what happens here, but I am going to tell you right now they have a tax shelter right now where $100 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars are not going into the coffers because they have an offshore deal with this administration and with this majority. Meanwhile, we are sitting around here trying to figure out how our veterans are going to get health care. Meanwhile, we are trying to figure how small businesses will be able to afford health care for everyday Americans to be able to buy into; and, meanwhile, we have troops still without body armor and the things they need to be able to fight on behalf of this country. So we ask everyday Americans to go out there and suck it up.

Meanwhile, the majority, the Republican majority, based on incompetence, some may say corruption in some cases as it relates to the White House, I mean, every day, I am sorry, every day we turn on the television. What is new? What is going on at the White House? What is being held back from the American people? What is being held back from the Congress? Who came to the Hill today and conflicted a story that they told just months ago about the fiscal outlook on the country?

Meanwhile, you have Members that come up to this well on the majority side and say we are doing fine, I do not know what these Democrats are talking about.

But it goes against logic. We have letters from their very own administration that are saying we have got to raise the debt limit because of our irresponsible policies.

It is the cost of corruption and cronyism. It is the cost. Who pays it?

Can I just get a third party validator in it for you? Just today, NewYorkTimes.com, the Members can go on to it: Huge giveaways were in the works for the oil industry. Not the veterans, not the working Americans, and it spells it all out here. Mr. Speaker, I do not have a conspiracy theory, but it is right here. It is clear.

I do not know. I am so glad that I am not a member of the majority because I do not even know how I could come to the floor and defend this. How can I even shape my mouth to say this is good? But somehow there must be some sort of in front of the mirror in the restroom kind of I can do this, because this is wrong. The sad part about it is that the country is paying the price; and the folks that are wearing the suits, being driven around with tinted windows in cars and sedans and all, do not even know the price of a carton of milk because they have someone else go out and get it. They are getting paid by the U.S. tax dollar. Meanwhile, we are telling veterans, schoolchildren, U.S. cities, to suck it up.

Mr. Ryan, in the same breath, the President is talking about we want to embrace innovation. We want to prepare the next generation to lead. We want to make sure that we put our fiscal house in order.

One other thing that I want to make sure that we add, Members, so that Members will know exactly, because I believe in third-party validators. I also believe in sharing information.

I know, Mr. Ryan, you will give this information out, but I want to make sure that folks understand and the Members understand. Because I know some Members are in their offices saying, I need to know this, Republicans and Democrats. I want to get a copy of this, and you can, www.housedemocrats.gov/30something. You can go on there. All of the charts that we have here tonight will be posted, and the articles that we have will be in the news section so that the Members can get it.

Because I think it is important, Mr. Delahunt. It is one thing to do something and not know. It is another thing to do something and know. I will tell you supermajority and Republican leadership know. Okay, maybe some Members may be a little bit confused about what is actually happening, maybe.

It is easy, because there are a lot of things that are going on. But while we are driving up the debt, and the highest that it has ever been, and while that whole interest piece that you have there, Mr. Ryan, Mr. Delahunt, that is not to build schools, that is not to put the gulf coast victims into homes, that is not to help our veterans, that is not even to have world-class health care. That is to make tax cuts permanent for millionaires.

They don't want oversight.

In my last 2 minutes, I am bouncing back to you to give the Web site address out, but I just want to make sure that we have a moment of clarity here. Mr. Speaker, we are not pointing these issues out as though we have not tried to stop these runaway majority borrow-and-spend Republicans here in this House.

For the Record, Congressional Record, I must add, not the Democratic Congressional Record, but the Congressional Record, Democrats have repeatedly tried to reinstate the pay-as-you-go philosophy. On March 30, 2004, Republicans voted 209 to 209 against Democrats, which killed the motion that was offered by Mike Thompson of California to instruct conferees on recommendations as pay as you go. All right, that is the first example.

The second one, May 25, 2004, Republicans voted 208 to 215. Republicans voted 215 to reject a motion by Dennis Moore, another Democrat that voted on the pay-as-you-go principle.

November 18, 2004, Republicans took another vote to block former Member Stenholm's amendment to stop the debt limit from being increased. Time after time after time again. You can go on to our Web site. The Members can get this information. We have tried to stop this Congress. The only way you can stop this Republican Congress from doing what they are doing is make sure that we have more Democrats here in this House.

We would like to thank the Democratic leader, Mr. Speaker; and, with that, it was an honor addressing the U.S. House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, rarely has a single person left so great a mark on a community as Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin.

When Sister Jean, as she is universally known, assumed the presidency of Barry College in 1981, it was a small all-girls institution. When she left nearly 25 years later, it was Barry University, a 9,000 student co-ed institution of higher learning, complete with a law school and a national reputation for excellence.

However, Sister Jean's achievements, as great as they are, pale when compared to the power of her personality and extraordinary impact she has had on virtually everyone she meets.

Last fall, South Florida CEO magazine did a profile of Sister Jean which I think captures some of the spirit of this remarkable woman, and I would like to share it with my colleagues.

The Nun on the Run

It is not every day you meet a nun whose license tag reads

``Hugs 1'' and whose sentences are punctuated with an

endearing ``honey.'' But then again, there is only one Sister

Jeanne Marie O'Laughlin.

A few hugs here and a few ``honeys'' there--along with

bulldog tenacity and a refusal to compromise her

convictions--have helped O'Laughlin forge bonds with everyone

from religious figures to football stars to dignitaries. Her

new office at Barry University, where she recently become

chancellor, is proof. The corridor is wallpapered with framed

photos of O'Laughlin with the pope, presidents, sports stars

and scores of other influential people.

About 100 plaques, keys to cities and the Greater Miami

Chamber of Commerce's ``Sand in My Shoes'' award overwhelm

glass-enclosed display cases. O'Laughlin says it was tough to

choose from the hundreds she received during her 23-year

tenure as president of Barry University.

``They just delivered the furniture today. You are my first

external guest, honey,'' O'Laughlin, 76, says in a

grandmotherly tone as she points out her private prayer

closet. She proudly displays her collection of icons--

artistic representations of sanctified Christians that are an

integral part of worship in the Catholic faith. Directing

attention to an icon of ``Jesus the Teacher,'' O'Laughlin

reveals. ``With this one I look at the world through his eyes

and see the humanity of children.'' She has a special place

in her heart for children of all ages, perhaps because her

own childhood, including World War II years spent in Detroit,

was strained.

In 1935, when O'Laughlin was barely 6 years old, her mother

died in childbirth. Her family became a single-parent

household long before it was a societal norm. She describes

her father, a draftsman at the Dodge car factory in Detroit,

as a ``good old Irish dad'' who prayed the rosary every day

and read the Bible to his family on Sundays. Her childhood

memories are a mixture of pain, love and poverty.

``At times you had to pretty well fend for yourself. So

maybe my creativity in fundraising came out of that,''

O'Laughlin laughs now. ``But my core values came from my

father's training and education. Our family always cared for

each other and loved one another. Sharing became an integral

part of what we did. My dad cared. He even took in my

mother's two brothers and two sisters when they got

married, So I had a model even though our family was poor

and motherless. I learned that family was important.''

O'Laughlin's mother lived on in her imagination, stoked by

her Aunt Edna's frequent recounting of stories. One tale in

particular would forever direct the course of O'Laughlin's

life--and arouse her passion for education.

``Aunt Edna told me that my mother valued education and

that her whole desire when she died at age 29 was that her

children would be educated. My dad promised her on her

deathbed that we would be, and we all got college

educations,'' O'Laughlin solemnly shares. ``Missing a mother

made me yearn to protect other mothers and babies.''

Detroit left its impression, too, and an early experience

with racism there, says O'Laughlin, led her to a lifetime of

social action.

One day when she was 13 years old, a streetcar O'Laughlin

was riding in suddenly jolted. Two black children fell into

her lap, and she embraced them during the rest of the

journey. To her surprise, when she stepped off the streetcar,

a white man spit on her.

``I asked my dad why that man spit on me,'' recalls

O'Laughlin, still obviously disturbed by the decades-old

event. ``He told me

it was prejudice. I asked him what caused prejudice. He told

me it was ignorance. I asked him how you get rid of

ignorance. He said education.''

The experience left O'Laughlin with a burning desire to

help people--all people, and it eventually led her down the

path towards joining the Dominican order of nuns. Three years

later, she joined the Adrian (Mich.) Dominican Sisters, an

international congregation of more than 970 vowed religious

women whose roots go back to St. Dominic during the 13th

century.

O'Laughlin began professing her first vows at age 17, That

initial step towards becoming nun was followed by several

years of exploration and training, until she became a

permanent member of the order of the Dominican Sisters of

Adrian. O'Laughlin took her final vows when she was 21--lying

flat on her back in the midst of a battle with respiratory

illness so severe her father feared it was her last breath.

After taking her final vows as a nun, O'Laughlin's next

priority was getting the education that her mother had wanted

for her. She earned a bachelor's degree and began her

teaching career in the 1950s. She taught throughout Michigan

at St. Agnes in Iron River, Detroit's Dominican High and

Dearborn's St. Alphonsus. After she earned a master's degree

in biology, the Archdiocese of Tucson, Ariz. hired her as a

supervisor of schools. Even then, she continued to attend

school, earning a doctorate in education from the University

of Arizona.

A watershed moment in O'Laughlin's life was Pope John

XXIII's issuance of the Vatican II documents between 1962 and

1965, which made several reforms to the Catholic church,

Among the reforms were options for nuns to choose not to wear

a habit, the traditional head covering and garment worn for

centuries, and to have the choice of returning to their

baptismal names or keeping their religious name, That is when

O'Laughlin chose to exchange her religious name of Sister

John Anthony for her baptismal name, and became Sister Jeanne

Marie.

Shortly thereafter, in the late 1960s, O'Laughlin was

appointed superintendent of the Adrian Dominican Independent

School System, overseeing schools in Arizona, Nevada, New

Mexico and California. The administrative position left her

with the experience she would later need to build a thriving

university.

``I learned a great deal about diversity during that time

because I worked with Indians [Native Americans] and

Hispanics. I gained a great respect for various cultures. I

learned to look at sameness instead of differences,''

O'Laughlin says.

Along with her development as an administrator, O'Laughlin

continued to evolve her concept of being a woman in the

religious order. By 1970, she shed her habit, after examining

the rationale of wearing it in light of Vatican II's

redefining of nuns as members of the laity and not of the

clergy. O'Laughlin says it seemed logical, in that light, for

her to dress like the laity. Her sister helped her pick out

clothes, which included the fashion of the day.

While today O'Laughlin wears business suits with

sophisticated style, she says at the time it was like going

from adolescence to menopause in 10 minutes as she began to

understand what it meant to be a woman.

``All of a sudden my identity was not neuter. I had to

worry about hair and clothing. It was a whole new experience

for me. I had no idea how to dress,'' O'Laughlin says. ``I

had to learn the things most women learned in the normal

maturation process from girl to woman.''

She also further reexamined her relationships with non-

clergy. ``It was always very easy to define in the habit. I

just kept my place and my distance,'' she says. ``As part of

the laity, I had to begin relating to the laity on their

level as who I was as a woman.''

As her career progressed, O'Laughlin became the executive

assistant to the president at St. Louis University in St.

Louis and also spent time as an adjunct faculty member at the

University of San Francisco and Siena Heights College in

Adrian before assuming the presidency at Miami Shores-

based Barry University in 1981.

transforming barry

When O'Laughlin first took the helm at Barry, it was a

small all-girls college. When she retired in June 2005, it

was a 9,000-student co-ed university with a law school, an

athletics program, and a $22 million endowment.

After dropping to her knees and dedicating the school to

``the Lord''--saying, she recalls, that it was his

institution and he had to save it and develop it because she

couldn't do it with her own strength--she set out to instill

what she calls the ``midnight shakes.'' Her goal was for

Barry's mission to be so clear in the minds of the staff that

if she suddenly awakened them at midnight they could recite

it, nearly in their sleep.

The mission was (and still is) to offer students a quality

education, assure a religious dimension to that education,

offer a caring environment and provide community service.

O'Laughlin saw the biggest challenge to fulfilling that

mission and building Barry into Florida's fourth-largest

private university was finances.

``It's easy to have dreams and visions, but you need the

resources to fulfill those dreams and visions. The most awful

thing was worrying at night about the people who worked here

getting paid: their mortgages, their car payments, their

children,'' O'Laughlin recalls. ``When I got here the payroll

was about $250,000 every two weeks and then it got up to $2.5

million every two weeks. The greatest challenge to me is to

try to reward and keep the people who shared this mission and

ministry with us.''

O'Laughlin embarked on an exuberant fundraising campaign,

often using the sheer force of her personality to fulfill

what had become a true mission for her. In fact, some have

described her as a cross between P.T. Barnum and Mother

Theresa because of her unusual fundraising efforts, which

included a lot of arm-twisting and the acceptance of a dare

or two.

There was the time she took a $2 million dare to learn

ballroom dancing. O'Laughlin became the first Dominican nun

to debut at the US Ballroom Championships, wearing a floor-

length royal blue gown. She donned a feather boa and white

satin gown on a millionaire's yacht and sang ``Don't Cry for

Me, Argentina'' for a $1.5 million donation.

O'Laughlin's 16-hour days were not only spent building

Barry University, but also building the community. In 1987,

when Boynton Beach-based community radio station WXEL was

plagued with personnel problems, plummeting membership and

donations--even a lightning strike on its transmitter, the

station turned to Barry University for help, and O'Laughlin

led the university's takeover of the station.

Talk of turning the community station over to a Catholic

school drew its critics, but those voices were muted when

O'Laughlin herself spearheaded the move to wash away the

station's $2.5 million debt with the help of a single donor:

Dwayne O. Andreas, retired chairman of agricultural giant

Archer Daniels Midland Co. Andreas had donated the money to

Barry at the urging of his wife, an alumnus. O'Laughlin asked

Andreas if she could use it to save the radio station and he

agreed.

O'Laughlin hired Jerry Carr, a broadcasting veteran and

turnaround expert who had helped revive Miami's Channel 33

and Paxson television stations. Carr credits O'Laughlin with

single-handedly rescuing WXEL from bankruptcy. Many didn't

believe O'Laughlin could keep a Catholic agenda out of the

station's programming, but Carr says she never told him what

to air. In fact, Carr even ran a Planned Parenthood

advertising campaign, a taboo subject in the Catholic church.

``I did not even have to ask Sister Jeanne for permission

because I knew her heart was to do whatever was necessary to

serve the community in a non-sectarian role,'' Carr recalls.

``She always told me I should not do anything other than what

was expected in the world of broadcasting. She was the

greatest boss I ever had and the most wonderful lady I've

ever met in my life.'' WXEL rebounded and revenues

skyrocketed. When Barry took over, the station's net value

was $354,573. It was valued at $5.93 million when O'Laughlin

handed over the chair of the station to Sister Linda

Bevilacqua.

O'Laughlin smiles when she talks about WXEL, but admits it

wasn't quite a dream come true in every respect. ``My dream

was to use the radio station as an instrument to increase

access to education in the community,'' she says. ``We just

didn't have the resources. But God used me as an instrument

to save it, and if that's all he wanted and all he wrote,

then that's OK. It's a huge success. I am proud of that.''

In 1999, O'Laughlin oversaw the launch of Barry's law

school in Orlando. She battled for three years to gain

accreditation from the American Bar Association (ABA). Barry

law professor Stanley M. Talcott, who was dean during the

battle, says he will always remember O'Laughlin's

determination.

``I watched Sister Jeanne as she advocated for the law

school. I found her to be extraordinarily effective, well-

informed, and just powerful,'' he says.

Changing the Meaning of ``Nun''

O'Laughlin has never taken the easy path, and her life has

been tinged with controversy since the Detroit streetcar

incident. She proudly calls herself ``the nun on the run''

because she is constantly on the go and knows she has helped

quash some stereotypes about Catholic religious women and

women in general--things she never intended to do. As she

sees it, she was just following her faith.

In a time when nuns did not typically fraternize with

political potentates and influential business leaders,

O'Laughlin was the first woman on Miami's influential Orange

Bowl Committee and the Non-Group, an informal fraternity of

local power brokers. She has served on countless boards and

committees and has been urged to run for political office.

Never afraid of being outspoken, O'Laughlin has worked to

do more than educate her students. She has labored to fight

drug abuse, feed the homeless, assist immigrants and protect

children.

``We have to understand the dignity and beauty of each

human being, even though we don't agree with them because of

a different tradition or history,'' says O'Laughlin, who has

also fostered the most diverse enrollment in Barry's history,

with 47 percent of its students identified as black or

Latino.

Among her many exploits, O'Laughlin took responsibility for

300 Haitian immigrants when they were released from the Krome

Detention Center in 1982 and placed with sponsors who

provided them with food, housing, and employment; took in

Romanian detainees; helped get residency for an Iranian

couple and their children; and found a home for a Chinese

baby.

Certainly O'Laughlin's most controversial engagement was

her role in 2000's Elian Gonzalez saga. Moved by the little

boy whose mother had died while they were fleeing Cuba by

raft to the US, she initially acted as a neutral mediator,

hosting meetings between the boy's Miami relatives and his

Cuban grandmothers in their tug-of-war for custody. Hers was

an unpopular position that spawned death threats, bomb

threats, and plenty of hate mail.

Then, suddenly, the neutral nun became an ardent advocate

for the Miami relatives, urging the government to allow Elian

to stay in the US. O'Laughlin says her emotions included

fear, compassion, and rejection during a period she describes

as one of the most difficult in her life, but insists her

faith got her through.

``When I went to bed at night, I had to tell the Lord it

was in his hands, and, `If I offended, I ask pardon. If I

haven't, I sure hope you'll help me the next day,'''

O'Laughlin reveals. ``When I talked to [former Attorney

General] Janet Reno about Elian after it was over, she quoted

Truman. She said we were both searching for the truth.''

Generally, O'Laughlin's disarming manner has been key to

her success in helping people, say those who have worked

closely with her.

``With the `honey' here and the `honey' there, she gets a

lot of things accomplished,'' says Leslie Pantin Jr.,

chairman of Barry's board of trustees. ``She continues to

instill in Barry a unique, caring environment while being

involved in every major cause we've had in South Florida,

from the airport to rebuilding after Hurricane Andrew to the

fight against drugs, and of course the Elian Gonzalez

position.''

O'Laughlin may be loathe to admit it, but one of her

toughest fights was her personal battle with lung cancer. She

underwent two lung cancer surgeries in the past few years

(she never smoked) but has hardly slowed down. After stepping

down as Barry's president last summer to allow a new face

with a new perspective to take the university to the next

level, she continued to focus on education, albeit with a

slightly different twist. O'Laughlin's mission now is to

teach women how to open universities in developing countries.

``It would be really great if the Lord would let me, before

I turn up my toes, play a role in getting schools started and

I don't care at what level--because we'll never have peace,

we'll never have a legitimate fight against poverty, unless

we have education,'' she says.

In her quasi-retired life, O'Laughlin remains involved in

various South Florida organizations, and has faith that the

region will become a model that the whole world will envy.

``South Florida has all right ingredients: good people, an

embracing climate, and welcoming shores,'' O'Laughlin says.

``My vision and hope is that we continue to open our arms and

caress our people and energize them to create a greater state

and a greater South Florida by giving their gifts back to

this great place.''

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to come before the House of Representatives once again. I want to give a special thanks to Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and also Democrat whip Steny Hoyer and our chairman, Mr. Jim Clyburn, for leading us in the way that Americans are now seeing that we are moving in the right direction.

Just today, Mr. Speaker, we had an election of Mr. John Larson, who has become the vice chairman of our caucus. We are continuing to move in this area of not only bright ideas about also a forward lean to make America stronger.

It is also a great day for us to reflect on where we have been and where we want to go as a country. And I think it is important to take note of what took place last night. We had the State of the Union address. We were all there. We paid very close attention to what the President had to say, the Commander in Chief, about his vision for this country. Also, some of the vision was embraced by all of us. Some of the vision was embraced by a few of us. And some of the vision that he was saying that he had we heard once before as a vision.

A reporter called me, Mr. Speaker, and asked me for a response to the President's address, and I had to scratch my head for a moment because it was a lot of what we heard in the past. Theme language. We have to get tough on them before they get tough on us, we heard that before. We have to fight them over there so we do not have to fight them here, we have heard that before. We have to stay the course, we have heard that before. A lot of themes, a lot of slogans. I think what the American people were looking for was some direction on where we are going to go and how we are going to get there, sending a very strong message to our young people, to our middle-aged people, and also to our seniors that are out there, also to our troops. And I think it is so very important that we pay very close attention to what our troops are learning and what they are hearing from this Congress and what they are not hearing as it relates to the direction that we are going on the stateside. When I say state, dealing with diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan and other areas, and also as it relates to something as simple as body armor and also continued support for our troops.

Of course, I did not see anyone say that we do not support the troops. We

all support the troops. Every American supports the troops. I think it is important for us to understand that we have to make sure that they have what they need. And, Mr. Speaker, as you know, this 30-Something Working Group meets constantly to not only promote the ideas that are bipartisan in nature but also the ideas that on the Democratic side we want to share that not only with the majority side but also with the Americans, and I think it is important.

I think it is important for us to even look at issues as it relates to national security. We must stand behind the American military. That is what the President said. But I want to make sure that everyone understands, here on this side of the aisle and I would even say a couple of my friends on the majority side, Democrats were calling and have been calling for the last 3 years for implementing plans to strengthen and revitalize our overstretched military at this time. It is also important for us to understand that we have to be ready to fight other wars and other conflicts when they do arise, and we need to make sure that we are ready. We need to make sure we have Humvees. We have to make sure we have the body armor. We have to make sure that we have a clear task and mission so that our men and women know exactly what their purpose is, they know what their mission will be, and they know when they will be coming home. It is not a big secret to say when you are coming home. Maybe it is a secret as to when you are leaving to go to war, but when you are coming home is something that I think our troops need to know. We hear little words like, well, they just want to stop or they just want to cut and run or whatever the case may be. You can use your slogans, but what we are now seeing in the polling, Mr. Speaker, is that American people are saying, You have to be a little clearer with us on this. You just cannot say, well, stay the course, we will stay there as long as we need to be there. Well, that would be great. I am pretty sure many of our U.S. city mayors, many of whom just left town, Mr. Speaker, would love to hear, with our community development blocks grants or what they had with their COPS program that they no longer have the funding from the Federal Government. If the President were to say we are going to stay the course in those areas and make sure that we build small and big communities, that we are going to stay the course in making sure that police officers have the dollars they need to be able to get the things that they need to fight crime in communities and have afterschool programs, that we are going to stay the course, they would love to hear that. But fiscal responsibility and just simple common sense, Mr. Speaker, would say that you have to be able to set some benchmarks. You just cannot say I would like to spend billions of dollars and do not ask any questions and if you do, you are being a pessimist.

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad that Mr. Ryan has joined us, and it is so good to be back here in 2006 with the 30- Something Group once again.

I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I want Mr. Ryan to talk about this. I know it is a chart that I usually speak from, but he is making a valid point here and I think that the Members need to be able to see it.

And governs well with others, and that is something we want to do here in this Chamber on the majority side. We want to move in a bipartisan way.

Unfortunately, the burden has been the American burden, the American taxpayer.

Mr. Speaker, I must say that it is very important. Mr. Ryan was speaking about this whole honest leadership piece, and I think it is important. We know that we have some Members that have made some bad decisions, and we are not going focus on that, and past Members. People make mistakes. I am just going to fall on the side that people make mistakes.

But when you have institutions such as this one that is making mistakes that cost American taxpayer more money, that is when we have a problem.

Now, the good thing about this is in the next 9 months the American people will be able to make some decisions. It is something that we have in the U.S. Constitution. You know, when you come to the House all of us have to run every couple of years. I call it a time where we are judged by all of our constituents throughout this country.

It is a job interview. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. We need to write that down. It is a job interview, where you come, you are being interviewed by all of your constituents, and they are going to evaluate, is my Congressman doing everything that he or she can do to make sure that my life is better? A grandmother, is my Congressman or my Congresswoman doing what they should do to make sure that my children and grandchildren have better opportunities than what I had?

Is my Congressman or Congresswoman making sure that my health care costs are under control and that I have to with my prescription drugs choose between whether I am going to

eat or take my medication like I should? Do I have a community where we have a sound community? Is my Congress passing on unfunded mandates to my local government that I have to then pay additional taxes just for general services?

Those are going to be some of the questions that people are going to ask. Is my Congress playing a leadership role in the area of the culture, okay, Mr. Ryan, the culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence that permeates throughout this Chamber and throughout this Congress?

This is not the Kendrick Meek-Tim Ryan report. Just pick up Newsweek, Time, the Washington Post, the Washington Times. You can pick up the Miami Herald, the Chicago Sun. Pick up any paper you want to pick up, and there is no secret that there is a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence.

Let me just say this: it means more, it means more to the American taxpayer, the people that are paying taxes every day, when they have to pay more because of certain special interests having worked their way into getting sweetheart deals from this Congress. It hurts, because we are here to represent those individuals that have sent us here to represent them.

Mr. Ryan, you have heard me say this once before, and I will say it again: the American people, all of them, just about all of them that participate in the electoral process, woke up early, Mr. Speaker, one Tuesday morning, 7 a.m. in some cases, to cast their ballot for representation in the U.S. Congress. They didn't cast their ballot for a K Street project. They didn't cast their ballot for a corporation who is running an operation here on K Street for some sort of agreement which was not an open agreement.

Mr. Ryan, I just started to think about this K Street Project, and I can't help but think about what is going on now that we don't know about similar to a K Street Project. K Street was fine a couple of months ago. Now it is not fine.

Let me just talk a little bit about the whole K Street piece and make sure the Members don't get amnesia as it relates to the K Street Project.

You call Shakedown Street. The deal was, and I am not talking about the deal with cards, the deal was, and may still be, as far as we know, is that corporations and special interests had to hire, okay, quote-unquote, former staffers from the Republican side to work in their corporation. The leadership of those lobbying groups had to be a Republican person that was trusted by certain Members and certain former Members of the majority. So that was the deal. You do that, and then you have to make sure that we have a line of communications, because we are in this thing together.

I can tell you it has resulted in a lack of health care policy. And now the President is talking about health savings plans, which is very interesting, because we already have something similar and it is not working, Mr. Ryan. Higher prescription drug costs, okay? Not allowing us to negotiate with drug companies.

I must say, Mr. Ryan, I don't blame the industry. I don't blame the industry. I don't want to walk around here and say ``you bad industry.'' You made us, or you made the majority.

No. The majority voted for it, and that is what happened. The bottom line is that it wasn't these special interest groups that voted to have Members of Congress. They didn't go to the polls. I didn't see a special interest group say, well, I am going to go to the poll and vote for this Congressman because they are going to serve me when they get to Washington. No, an individual American did that. I think it is important that we realize what is going on here.

So now we have the majority saying we are going to disband the K Street Project. Well, it was wrong from the beginning, Mr. Ryan, and they all knew it, and we knew it. We talked about it.

It has been wrong for a number of years. Guess what, Mr. Ryan? We came to the floor definitely within the last 2 years and since the creation of the 30-Something Working Group and brought this to the attention of the Members that this is wrong. You even called it Shakedown Street. We didn't even want to call it K Street, because it promoted too much.

People laughed in their offices at us saying, look at them on the floor. They are talking about it. We are in control. This is no biggie.

One article that I read, one Member that will go unnamed at this moment, we all know, had a little booking office. If you were not in the book, you did not get to see me, or that particular Member.

So I think it is important, Mr. Ryan, that we make sure that Americans know and the American people know, no matter where they live, that under a Democratic-controlled Congress, and this is the message to the Members and the majority, because there are some Members in the majority that feel the way we feel, Mr. Ryan, but, unfortunately, the majority of the majority doesn't feel that way.

So maybe we can have a paradigm shift as we start working on this job interview that you mentioned, which we call in broader terms an ``aka election day,'' that hopefully there be a paradigm shift where these Members will say, you know, I think it is important that we work in a bipartisan way to benefit Americans, and I think it is important that we make sure that the American people feel they are getting their vote worth out of this Congress, versus a K Street Project or Shakedown Street.

So, Mr. Ryan, I am glad to report that we, the Democrats, have worked very hard in making sure that we bring this honest leadership to this Chamber and to this institution to benefit the American people. It is nothing against certain individuals and Members that have made bad decisions. That is what they have to deal with individually, okay?

But when it deals with the overall function of this House, and I am so glad in our legislation that we have, Mr. Ryan, on the Democratic side, that we are doing away with those in-the-dead-of-the-night special interest votes while Americans are sleeping because they got to go to work in the morning and punch in and work with very little health care benefits; that at 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning their Congress, their House of Representatives, took their vote, took their confidence, and gave it to the special interests.

We are saying we want to disabuse this Chamber of doing that, we are saying we have a plan to do it, and we are saying that we have been amplifying this kind of what some may say is illegal activity that has been taking place in so many different areas and what has been reported in the media, we have been reporting this.

Mr. Ryan, I would feet uncomfortable saying what I am saying right now on the floor of the House of Representatives if we hadn't been saying it for months and months and months. Finally there is validation that is happening, that it was happening, and that it is time for a change and it is time for us to make sure that this country gets its votes worth out of this Congress.

Forty-six million.

Well, it is interesting, Mr. Ryan, that when you started talking about health care, I think it is important that we have plans to cut health care costs. We also want to reduce the number of the uninsured and provide tax credits for health insurance for small businesses.

Mr. Ryan, there are a number of small businesses in my district that say, you know something, Congressman? I would like to offer a real health care plan to my employees, Mr. Speaker, but they can't. They can't do it because they, A, cannot afford it, and, B, the insurance is too high.

Even when you have insurance, you may call it insurance, but the premiums are too high. Also making sure we allow patients to buy into a CHIPA program, and also allow Americans age 55 to 64 to buy Medicare, and also provide proposals to bring down the cost of prescription drugs.

Mr. Speaker, the President mentioned nothing, absolutely nothing, you can check the speech on the White House Web site, nothing on prescription drugs, nada, even though we have seniors throughout the country trying to figure out where is the cost savings in the bill that was passed are. I mean, absolutely nothing. I can see at least like one little word. ``Well, I want to address this.'' Just one line. Nowhere in the speech.

So the American people know as far as the majority, the Republican majority, you have the Republican U.S. House of Representatives looking forward to the status quo. If you are happy with the status quo right now, I think you need to stick with it. If you are not happy and are concerned, like many millions of Americans are, I think you need to be able to put that on that interview you have with your Member of Congress.

The European markets when they opened, they said ha. You know, they were concerned because before the speech it was all of this talk about what he was going to say. But they did not even respond to what the President said, because they did not even take him seriously.

So I think it is important that we understand, that the Members understand, it is not about the President of the United States. It is about what this House is going to do on behalf of the American people. That is what it is about.

Mr. Ryan, as you know, we believe in making sure that we share with the Members that we are prepared, we are ready and able to lead. And we are going to present a case every time we get an opportunity to have the Republicans join the debate on some of our ideas. We are willing to even share some of our ideas with the majority.

And we have offered procedurally to the Republicans our ideas, but since we are not a part of the legislative writing, the legislative creating, the legislative process here, where we have

folks outside of this process that are unelected that have more input than our caucus on a piece of legislation of significance to the American people, we have to make sure that we share our case.

I want to make sure, I want to make sure that the Members on the majority side know that they can go to www.democrats.gov and pull up our innovation agenda, Mr. Ryan, pull up our innovation agenda.

And this is just the executive summary of it on how we are talking about how we are going to make America better, how we are going to find alternative energy, how we are going to make sure that our next generation is ready to lead the world, not the United States, but the world. How we are not going to leave our young people behind, how we are going to invest in technology so that we do not have to come up with special visa programs.

Let me just break that down. Special passports or credentials from foreign countries because we do not have the know-how here in our country to do what we need to do as a country, and to continue to stay the superpower of the world. If we continue on this track, we are going to have some real financial issues, Mr. Ryan, that you mentioned earlier. And we are going to have a brain drain, because we have some folks that are more interested on the majority side on giving special deals to the special interests.

I also want to add, and you mentioned this, and I just want to refer to my notes, but I want to make sure that we are crystal clear, and that everyone understands what we are saying here.

We have an energy independence plan within 10 years, like Mr. Ryan said with new investments and clean energy and technology, calling for the repeal of the $8 billion subsidy to the oil companies, and use it for consumer relief.

Now, I think that is important. We are going to take $8 billion from the special interests. This is our plan. $8 billion. This is not a new program like they like to say, this is taking away from the special interest programs, Mr. Ryan, our friends who you made mention of, record profits, all of the way up. I know you mentioned Exxon and Mobil, but there are a number of other companies taking the cookies from them because they are making money.

I mean, it is not like, you know, a small business would love to say, well, you know, I made money this year, but I do not even have to spend my money to invest in future profits. I will just spend the taxpayers' money to invest in my own profits and to my stockholders.

So folks want to talk about fiscal responsibility, I think it is important that we understand that there are people working out there that are paying more for heating oil and fuel and LP gas than at any other time in history of this country.

But meanwhile the corporations that are able, that are a part of the legislative process here in this Congress, Mr. Speaker, and a part of writing legislation over in the White House as we have read reports on, they are getting what they want. What about the folks that woke up early one Tuesday morning to vote for representation? So there is a clear choice. Just like we were talking about the K Street Project for 2 years, 24 months.

One member of the K Street project, a substantial member on the Republican side admitted guilt, willing to, you know, okay, go spend some time in jail. It was all right. And then when he did that, then all of a sudden the K Street Project, it is not good. We need to do away with it. We have been saying that on the Democratic side for a long time.

It was not only working toward the demise of bipartisanship here in this House of Representative, it was working toward the demise of the American spirit. And making sure democracy rings, and making sure that every individual received the just-due representation that they voted for, not the just-due representation of the special interests, the just-due representation of what they voted for.

Yes, Members, it is painful. It is very painful, Mr. Speaker, to come to the floor and speak truths. But I think it is important that Republicans, Independents, Democrats, Green Party, you name it, Reform Party know exactly what is going on under the Capitol dome.

We were not sent here to be cozy-cozy and buddy-buddy and allow this country or the leadership of this country to in many ways turn their back on future generations and this generation.

You mentioned today, the budget once again passed by 1 or 2 votes, passed by 2 votes today. That cut substantially student loans and student opportunities to our young people, but better yet, the President stood up here last night around this time, or last night, an hour from when we are talking now, and said we believe in innovation, we believe in making sure, because, you know, what the President saw our plan and saw that we were talking about, our plan, and heard about our town meetings, that we were having as Democrats, about our plan on innovation.

So he decided to talk about it. But he is talking the talk but he is not walking the walk. It is not in his budget. It was not in his budget last year. And the action by the House today, by the majority that voted to set back the clock on so many Americans that work every day. Parents work every day, Mr. Speaker. They pay taxes every day.

I mean they pay the highest taxes because, guess what, they do not get the big breaks like special interests get. And yet we made their job even harder today in making sure that they educate their children.

So, Mr. Ryan, I would be uncomfortable in saying what they have been saying, and saying what we have not been saying for a very long time. I want to remind the Members once again that if we were in the majority, when I say we, I am talking about the Democrats, there would not be a lot of talk about what we should do or we could do, it will be the fact that we are doing, and that we are working on behalf of everyday Americans, and if they are a police officer, a teacher, a person mopping up the floor at a hotel on the midnight shift, they are retired, they are trying to figure out how they are going to make ends meet, or if that they have reached the American dream, had a small business, it is now a big business and providing jobs to everyday Americans, and making sure that they are equally represented. It would not be a question.

Mr. Speaker, it would not be a question, and we would not even have to talk about bipartisanship, because we would have bipartisanship, because that is what we are supposed to do in this House, and what the American people voted us in and expect from us to do is to work together, not only on naming post offices and bridges like we do to Americans that deserve it, I am not belittling that process.

We all bring legislation here to honor our constituents and Americans that have served our local communities. We all vote for it, with a few exceptions, but on issues such as health care, on issues such as tax reform, on issues such as the rights and body armor for our troops, we should be united on that. It would not be a question if we could or we would, we would be doing it.

So that is the programs that we make from this side, Mr. Ryan. And guess what? We have history to prove that we work in a bipartisan nature. So when you talk about election time in November, and you talking about the fact that people will be coming forward, the American people in an interview, as though they are applying for their job once again, or we say an evaluation, when they sit down to that evaluation, we want to make sure that the Members know exactly what the American people, the kind of questions they are going to be asking or what kind of action they will be taking.

If you are not passionate, if you did not have a special place in your heart and your mind, then something would be really wrong. You are one of the Members of Congress that knew and appreciate what it meant when someone or a constituent of yours went to go vote for representation. That is what they voted for. They voted for someone that was willing to stand up for them, even if they get strange looks by certain Members the next day or right after we leave the floor.

That is what this thing is about. That is the reason why we serve. That is why we make sacrifices, to be here on this floor after everyone else has gone home and flipping cable channels saying, well, you know, today I have done my part.

We still have an America out there that is suffering, and I am not talking necessarily about poor people. I am talking about folks that work every day. I am talking about small businesses trying to figure out how they are going to control their health insurance costs. I am talking about victims of natural disasters in our Nation. I am talking about families of troops, men and women in harm's way, that are concerned about their loved ones and the lack of vision and leadership and direction that we are not providing and sending the signals to other governments and taking the training wheels off of them and saying now, listen, there has to be an end or a strategy to bringing our men and women home and saving the U.S. taxpayer money. That can be accomplished and protect America at the same time.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we speak truth to power when we talk about those kinds of things because you cannot let statements just float saying that we just stay as long as we have to stay. What does that mean? Stay the course, what does that mean? It is not giving the very men and women that have sand in their teeth as we are speaking here on this floor a piece of mind on our vision as a Congress and as a White House. I think that is important.

The reason why you were speaking so passionately, I just want to reflect on tax cuts. As we start talking about them, I can tell you right now I was in the State legislator, Mr. Speaker. I voted for a number of tax cuts. Yes, I did, for people that worked every day, for small businesses that were trying to make a way out of no way, helping them achieve the American dream, even for some large businesses that wanted to create more jobs. I did it. I did even a hearing in this House as it relates to tax cuts for middle class families, and so did a number of colleagues on this side even had proposals that would help small businesses more than the majority proposals would help small businesses or recommended helping small businesses.

I think it is important for us to look at when we talk about tax cuts and urge the Congress to make the tax cuts permanent, okay, well, let us break that down. Let us put that in English. That is another theme. That is a slogan. That is an old Burger King theme, have it your way. There are a couple of other themes that are out there: Stop by, we leave the lights on. Those are themes. Those are slogans. That is a marketing campaign. That is not governance. Let us just share this for a moment.

Let me just translate for the President. What he is talking about, and the majority of the House of Representatives is talking about, the extension of capital gains and dividend tax breaks were provided to the top 1 percent tax cuts up to $14,361 in 2010. Meanwhile, using the same timeline, middle class, low-income families would only get $41. I can tell you, either everyone in America has to be part of the top 1 percent to enjoy the majority's vision on the Republican side or else. That is it. Either you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Green Party and Reform Party members, or you get the $41. That is just where it is. You get what kind of tax cut? $41. It almost costs $41 to prepare your taxes. So the tax guy takes that right off the top. You do not even see that. It is just enough to prepare your taxes and report to this government.

I think it is important that we break this thing down for the American people, that they understand exactly what is going on and that we let the majority side, as we did with the K Street project, as we talked about the Republican culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence, I cannot say it enough because there is no better vindication than being right.

I tell you, some people wait years. Some folks say, well, maybe 10 years from now they will realize what this Republican majority has embraced as doing business in Washington, D.C., but there is a higher power that will reveal to his people what is going on in this government that has he ordained. You say you have 12 years of Catholic school. I have got about forty-some years of Mount Table Missionary Baptist Church in me, and I have been in the neighborhood where when folks pray hard, they pray hard. I have been in street revivals. I have seen evangelists on television. I have seen them under a tent, but the bottom line is whether it be Christian or a Jewish person or a Muslim, I am going to tell you right now, regardless of what one's faith is, right is right and wrong is wrong.

I would tell you, if we make things permanent and totally lock in middle America, poor people in this country into what the President is talking about, we better all try to be part of the 1 percent because if you are not, you are going to get shortchanged. Not only are you going to get shortchanged, your child is not going to have the education dollars that they need to even prepare themselves to be a part of the 1 percent. That is where it comes down to.

Members need to understand that the American people are going to have to make a choice, and they will make a choice in the coming months. You said it and I will say it again. We are ready, prepared, we have our chin strap buckled, Super Bowl coming up, to lead, not next year but right now. If the majority side wants to have a paradigm shift and say that we want a bipartisan working group on making sure that we do things the way we are supposed to do it here, then, fine, we can get to work now.

But as long as the Republican majority feels that they need to hold us down, Mr. Ryan: oh, we got to keep those Democratic ideas down; oh, we have to procedurally not allow them to bring ideas to the floor; oh, we need to gavel them down in committee when they try to present these ideas because we don't want our Members to vote for them because they may be judged by their constituents, I can tell you, and I am so glad I thought of this, Mr. Ryan, and I know you have the next hour, but let me just say this real quickly.

A perfect example: vindication within our lifetime is wonderful, within our political lifetime of the 109th Congress. Social Security. The President last night said, Well, you know, we have to work on Social Security. Well, the Congress stopped the President and the majority side from the privatization of Social Security last year.

Democrats. Democrats. And Mr. Ryan, in the 30- somethings we like to tell the truth, so a few Republicans, just a few in this House, stopped the Republican majority. And guess what? And everyday-working Americans, Mr. Ryan. The millions of Americans that wrote their Members of Congress.

But on the Democratic side we had hundreds of town hall meetings informing Americans about what this Congress was going to do to them on behalf of special interests. The only guarantee was special interests were going to get their money off the top and their benefits were going to go down.

But, guess what? Now the President is saying that because it takes a little blood and fire in this thing, oh, maybe we can put together another, and another, I think it is the fourth or fifth so-called bipartisan commission to look at Social Security.

I'm going to tell you, Mr. Ryan, the only way we fight, the only way we win as Americans against special interests, coupled with the majority side, is by fire and through commitment and the American spirit.

I must say that I am very excited about the fact that we have energized Members on this side of the aisle that are not willing to take it. Now, I'm saying some people might say take it any more, but we never took it. We are making sure we bring the fight to the majority side. If they want to work against the will of everyday American people, we are going to give the American people the voice. Even if they are Republicans, even if they are Independents, even if they are part of the Reform Party, they are Americans. We have been federalized to represent them, and they will receive their representation.

I have already mentioned it.

But go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Ryan, for joining us. We are going to spare the great staff here in the Chamber. It was a long night last night. We are going to call it a night with this hour. We will not take our second hour. We want to once again thank the Democratic leadership for allowing us to have this hour, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of today, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the passing of a tremendous voice in the struggle for equality, Coretta Scott King.

Mrs. King was best known as the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but she was a key advocate for civil rights in her own right.

Mrs. King was with Dr. King when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and marched by his side in the Selma march.

Following Dr. King's assassination in 1968, Mrs. King championed her husband's work, leading the effort to establish a national holiday in her husband's honor, and founding the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change in Atlanta, a center dedicated to learning and activism.

She worked to keep Dr. King's dream alive by keeping his ideology of equality and social change at the top of our Nation's agenda. She became a symbol of her husband's struggle for peace and brotherhood, but developed a voice separate from that of her late husband. She branched out from issues of race and was outspoken on a number of international human rights concerns.

Mrs. King continued her husband's mission with a keen sense of devotion. She has kept his work alive and evolved his mission of equality to confront new times and new challenges. We must now work to renew our community's commitment to the ideals that Mr. and Mrs. King embraced, and ensure that generations to come never forget the groundbreaking contributions of these two legends.

Mr. Speaker, once again, it is an honor to come before the House, and we would like to thank the Democratic leadership for this opportunity, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi; our whip, Mr. Steny Hoyer; and also our chairman, Mr. Bob Menendez; and chairman to be Mr. Jim Clyburn.

As the Members know, Mr. Speaker, we have a 30-Something Working Group that comes to the floor every opportunity we have to talk about the good things that are happening here under the Capitol Dome and also some of the bad things that are happening and the things that are not happening at all that should be happening on behalf of the American people.

Today, as the Members know, Mr. Speaker, there has been quite a bit said in the Capitol, very little done in the first session of this Congress, facing some of the needs that the American people are wanting to be addressed. The American people want to have issues such as health care, veteran affairs, also making sure that we have a strategy in Iraq for success, making sure that we stand up on behalf of those Americans that have been devastated by natural disasters, making sure that we get down to the bottom and get rid of a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence under the Capitol Dome, and also making sure that we can expand jobs for Americans and also for small businesses.

But in the last 24 to 48 hours, there have been quite a few strange things that are going on here in the Capitol. There have been bills that Members have tried to put amendments on that are not passable and should not be even honored with the paper that they are printed on, of personal agendas and agendas on behalf of the special interests.

So with that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to share this hour tonight with Mr. Ryan and also Ms. Wasserman Schultz but also with a respected Member this House with whom Mr. Ryan and I serve on the Armed Services Committee with, and he is also the ranking member on the Budget Committee and has been working very hard on a number of pieces of legislation. He is from South Carolina.

I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).

Mr. Speaker, I am so happy that Mr. Spratt came to the floor tonight to share with the Members what is important in this bill. And this was an authorization bill even before it went to conference that a super majority of the Members voted for because they believe that many of those provisions needed to be enacted on behalf of our security.

And we hear a lot of talk about what needs to happen now, what the troops need, what our Armed Forces need throughout, rank and file, officers, flag officers, individuals who are interested in being a part of our military, and to be able to send a very strong signal that we support them 110 percent. And for it to be held up for political purposes, and I can tell my colleagues for political purposes because in that 527 bill, there are a lot of special interests that would like to have access, more access than they have right now, to this majority. And it is very unfortunate that it is being held up. Of all things, the Defense authorization bill. It is hard to explain with a straight face. And Mr. Ryan was there in committee when we voted this bill out, and he was here on the floor and also Ms. Wasserman-Schultz. For this to be happening now in the closing days of the session and possibly held off in the authorization bill until 2006 is beyond reproach, in my opinion.

Mr. Ryan, I just wanted to say when you talked to that marine, we were actually in Mosul at the time, and I am going to be a third-party validator as it relates to your discussion with them. Also, it was a bipartisan delegation, and we heard it on both sides of the aisle.

One thing that I want to say, even Mr. Spratt as we talk about the authorization bill, as you know, defense seems to be the vehicle to pass all pieces of legislation or thoughts or ideas that the majority has problems in passing under regular order. They have problems passing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, so they want to attach that onto a piece of legislation and try to push it through the process.

But I can tell you that this abuse of authority is stepping in the middle of national security at this point, and it is very, very unfortunate. And it is not like coincidence; it is not like something that is blowing through the air conditioner vents here.

I am so glad, sir, once again, that you came down. We are talking about this subject. Many times some Members may not know what is going on. The American people may not know what is going on. That is the reason why we are here, to make sure they do know what is going on.

I just want to ask you a quick question, Mr. Spratt. I think it is important not only for the Members to know, but for everyone to know: How much work has gone into this Defense authorization bill? It just was not something that one meeting took place. I am pretty sure hours and hours of testimony and also committee work.

You never heard of a measure coming before the Armed Services Committee dealing with elections. Maybe absentee ballot access for troops or something, but that is about the extent of it, I am pretty sure.

Well, Mr. Spratt, I want to thank you once again for coming down and bringing clarification to that. But this is just an ongoing issue.

I can tell you, I had the opportunity, I wanted to share with the Members, to be a guest at 8 a.m. this morning on Washington Journal. And Mr. Ryan knows, as Ms. Wasserman Schultz knows, not to put me in charge of an 8 o'clock volunteer breakfast. It is kind of rough for me at 8 in the morning, even though many mornings I am driving my kids to school. But I do not have to speak on the issues that are before the Congress.

It was very strange, like Mr. Spratt mentioned. There are a lot of things that happened just today, today, that do not ordinarily happen here under the Capitol dome.

To be able to have an authorization bill, to try to put some sort of campaign, let us take the roof off the limits, on to a must-pass bill is very, very unfortunate. To have the whole discussion about the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve where we have Senators on the other side of the aisle saying, well, we are not going to vote on the budget. Before we vote, we will vote on the Defense appropriations bill, and we want to put this in because it cannot pass on its own merits. So it is very, very unfortunate.

I always say, I do not fault the special interests for fighting for what they want. That is their job. That is what they are supposed to do. We are sent here to represent the people of the United States of America, and if we allow it, then shame on us.

I can tell you, fighting against this, any Member can come and can file a piece of legislation, and in some cases we have seen legislation filed early one day and passed later on the same day. In this case, for this to come in on the back of national security and Defense is just beyond me.

I think the American people need to know about it, and the Members need to pay close attention to it. When you have a majority that feels that they can do exactly what they want to do it when they want to do it, that is okay when it is a personal decision. We talk about that. If we make a personal decision and there is a mistake, it is on us. When we make a decision affecting the American people, the men and women in uniform, need it be here, we have a number of military bases that this bill helps for those troops that are here and the civilian personnel that is involved with the Defense Department and other measures throughout, even contractors in this bill.

For them to come in and do this to those individuals right now, putting something on the bill, I hope through our efforts and through many efforts and through, hopefully, some of our friends on the other side of the aisle, we can take this off the bill and be able to take care of our business and give our troops what they need.

Let me say, just to back up what you were saying and be a third-party validator on that, I have the facts here. You want to talk about abuse of power? It was printed just this afternoon a story that was posted around 7 p.m. tonight about what is going on in the back Halls of Congress. I mean, we have leaders in the Senate saying that we have an agreement with a said Senator, but I do not want to go into details. That is what our leadership says here in the House.

At the appropriate time when I find the cover sheet to this one story, I will enter that into the Record because I think that needs to go into the Congressional Record so that when folks start backtracking on what happened in the 109th Congress at the closing of the first session of the 109th Congress, I want them to clearly know what the thinking was on behalf of the majority. These are two majority leaders that are talking about this kind of ``we have a deal worked out, but we do not want to go into details,'' meanwhile holding up the Defense authorization bill. Not only that, holding up the Defense appropriations bill. There are other bills that we would like to get through this Congress.

Mr. Ryan talked about abuse of power. Let me take you down memory lane for a moment. October 7, the Republicans held open a 5-minute vote on Gasoline American Security Act. It lasted over 40 minutes to pass an energy bill that does nothing to lower gas prices, and that bill actually passed only by two votes. The Republican leadership, they have bills that even Republicans do not want to vote for.

I think it is important that the American people are made aware of that and also Members that may need to freshen their memory.

November 22 of 2003 in the 108th Congress as it relates to the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill: 3 hours we stood in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, waiting on this bill, waiting on us to close the board. When we say ``the board,'' we are talking about the voting board. We sat here for 3 hours while the arm twisting went on. Leader Pelosi came to the floor and put forth a resolution in detail talking about some of the activities on that given evening here on this floor that I am speaking on.

I think it is important we go down memory lane to make sure that people understand when folks talk about fairness and inclusion and that Democrats have access to the process, we just need to go down a brief history of what is going on. And that is the purpose of the 30- something Working Group, that the American people understand exactly what is going on here.

You want to talk about arm twisting? Just recently, July 24 and 28, on those two dates the vote was held open for so long. Leaders held the vote open for 1 hour, well past the 15-minute voting time as they rounded up enough votes to pass CAFTA, which was in the final vote 217- 215. Even some Republicans on that side of the aisle could not vote for that piece of legislation because it did not meet the merit to be able to be a sound free trade agreement the American people can embrace. It took an hour for that to happen. Let us go down memory lane once again.

Veterans Affairs, the chairman being pro-veteran, goodness gracious, if you are pro-veteran in the Republican majority, you are going to lose your chairmanship. This is not just our report that we have in the back room here and we said, let us see if we can fabricate something.

January 6, this year, 2005, House Republicans ousted Mr. Chris Smith as chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs for bucking his leadership and being a tireless advocate on behalf of veterans rights. He was not only removed as chairman, which he served on the committee for 24 years, but he was kicked off of the committee, off of the committee.

It is one thing, Mr. Speaker, it is really rough to be removed as chairman and then to be kicked off the committee that you served on for 24 years.

I have a tail end to that statement on this whole abuse of power, and I am glad you have the perspective from the 108th Congress about what actually took place and how you served with this past-chairman and past-member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.

The change was widely denounced by leaders of several veterans groups. Richard Fuller of the Paralyzed Veterans of America said in response to that, ``The Republican leadership has made a statement that the country is making too much of a commitment to the men and women who have served in uniform.''

This is from the New Jersey Star Ledger. I think it is important that this is a man, this is obviously a man that has served. He is the president, or was the President, at that particular time of the Paralyzed Veterans of America in response to that. And they have made a very strong statement that they are not willing to make the commitment to men and women that have served in uniform.

So when we talk about the abuse of power, we look at this budget that is under consideration right now. We have been talking about the budget now for several weeks. I think if this Republican majority could give millionaires and billionaires a tax break, they would borrow as much money as they have to borrow to make it happen.

Mr. Speaker, this Republican majority is willing to borrow as much money as possible to give millionaires a tax break.

Really, to get to the nitty-gritty of the whole veterans, they instruct the Republican majority, which I must say, when the budget came through this House, Mr. Speaker, not one Democrat voted for the budget. Not one Democrat said, well, maybe I need to vote for this reduction and maybe I just need to do it because of the folks back home; I just do not want to vote against the budget. Not one Democrat voted for the budget that they passed on the backs of the American people, and to come here with a straight face and talk about how we are going to borrow as much money as we have to borrow to give billionaires the majority of the tax breaks of a proposal that we put forward, and these are the very individuals that are standing up with all kinds of markers behind them and charts and everything, fiscal responsibility, ``trust us'' kind of thing, and I can tell you right now, Mr. Speaker, we should have as much trust and confidence within our government. But when we see our leaders act in such a way legislatively, I think it is something that should be quite alarming.

I want to come to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) for a second, but I want to hit this chart since we are talking about being responsible.

If I could, I would like to kind of get a billboard placed probably right where the Members come in to vote, if I could. If I could talk to House Administration to see if I could do that, I think it would be helpful for the financial well-being of every American. So when the Republican majority is driving in here and saying, I want to borrow as much money as I can to make sure that oil companies have the subsidies that they would like to have, even though they are making record profits, we are going to give them more than we are giving to the American people or more than we are giving to Leave No Child Left Behind to improve that Act.

There are going to be 11 States that have filed suit against the Federal Government because it is underfunded, but meanwhile, here we are speaking of, let us borrow as much as we can to give billionaires their tax break, $1.05 trillion this President has borrowed with the Republican majority, in just 4 years, from foreign nations such as China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, you name it. They have a piece of the American pie now because we have borrowed $1.05 trillion. Forty-two Presidents before this President and before this overwhelming so-shall- it-be-written-so-shall-it-be-done Republican majority, 42 Presidents in the past, $1.01 trillion, 42 Presidents, 224 years of a country and trying to be as fiscally responsible as possible. I think it is important that the Members pay very close attention to this chart, and unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this is continuing to go up and up and up and up and up.

Once again, I just have to point out, and this is going to take me about 10 seconds to do it. They cannot get Republicans in this House to vote for drilling in ANWR. They cannot get them to do it. So I do not blame Republicans, and I do not even blame the Republican Party. I blame the Republican leadership that is leading the Republican side of the aisle and even giving the oil companies and the special interests the thought that they can invade the Defense appropriations bill of all bills. Republicans, their stomach is all messed up over this.

The Republicans need to ask elected Republicans when they go home, why did you change on me? You changed uniforms in the middle of the football game. I am not an advocate for the majority, but I am just saying, there is something fundamentally wrong here. I want to know, what is the problem, and who is whispering in whose ear?

I did find the article, Mr. Speaker, and I would just like to insert it, but it is, Plan to Move ANWR to Defense Bill Moves Budget Deal Forward. That is CQ Today, December 17 article, Mr. Speaker, and I will enter that into the Record at this point.

[From the CQ Today, December 17, 2005]

Plan to Move ANWR to Defense Bill Moves Budget Deal Forward

(By Steven T. Dennis and Liriel Higa)

A conference report on a $45 billion budget savings package

was nearly complete Saturday evening after House leaders

reached an agreement with Senate Defense Appropriations

Chairman Ted Stevens to move a provision allowing drilling in

Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) out of the

legislation and into the Defense bill.

The agreement on moving ANWR came on a day of negotiations

on multiple fronts. On Saturday night, the House by voice

vote passed a stopgap spending measure (H J Res 75) to

temporarily fund Defense programs and other government

operations after a day-long dispute between Republican

leaders in both chambers over when the measure would expire.

A new stopgap measure must be cleared by Congress and

signed by President Bush by midnight, when an earlier stopgap

spending measure (H J Res 72) expires.

On Sunday, House leaders expect to bring the budget package

(HR 4241, S 1932) to the floor for a vote. And they expect

Stevens, R-Alaska, to sign the budget conference report.

Stevens, a staunch supporter of ANWR energy exploration,

had vowed not to do so until the lawmakers cleared the

Defense spending bill (HR 2863) with drilling provisions

intact. But he later agreed to allow the budget conference to

move forward provided that the House passes the Defense bill

with ANWR attached.

``We have an agreement with Sen. Stevens, but I don't want

to go into all of the details,'' said House Speaker J. Dennis

Hastert, R-Ill.

House Budget Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, said Saturday

afternoon that his panel was expecting final reports from

authorizing committee chairmen by the evening and that once

the final bill is scored by the Congressional Budget Office,

the budget savings package should come close to the $45

billion goal set by House leaders.

Nussle said that they ``need, want, expect'' Stevens' vote

on the budget bill. He said the House would vote on the

Defense spending bill Sunday before voting on the

reconciliation bill.

The Senate also would likely vote on the Defense bill with

ANWR attached before voting on the budget reconciliation

package according to a senior Senate GOP leadership aide. The

timetable for Senate action is unclear.

It is uncertain if Democrats would attempt to filibuster

the Defense measure. But they were hoping to muster the 51

votes needed to reject attaching ANWR drilling to the

conference report.

The budget savings package is protected from filibuster in

the Senate under special budget reconciliation rules, but the

Defense spending measure has no such protection.

``This language has the potential, in my opinion, to sink

the package once it reaches the Senate.''

The ANWR provision, which was included in the Senate's

version of the budget package but not the House bill, has

been a sticking point in finishing work on the legislation--

especially for House moderates and Democrats. Negotiators

hope that moving the proposal to the must-pass Defense bill

makes the budget legislation easier to pass while making it

harder politically for Democrats to filibuster.

A number of other provisions in the Budget savings bill

opposed by House moderates--including savings in food stamps,

child support enforcement and welfare--would not be in the

final bill either, Nussle said.

But a $3.2 billion House provision shifting trade dumping

penalties to the U.S. Treasury instead of aggrieved companies

was still in the package, Nussle said.

Medicaid and Medicare provisions were still being hashed

out late Saturday afternoon, as negotiators awaited scoring

of the provisions.

The package still needed to go through a so-called ``Byrd

bath,'' to ensure that it does not run afoul of the Byrd

rule. Named for Senator Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., the rule

prohibits provisions in budget legislation that would have a

negligible spending impact.

Meanwhile, Republican moderates in the House began to worry

that their victory in stripping ANWR from the House budget

package was becoming a fleeting one.

Representative Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., said he and other

moderates would consider voting against the budget savings

package unless ANWR is removed from the Defense bill. ``The

my way or the highway crowd'' has been winning, and moderates

need to consider changing tactics, he said.

House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., said

appropriators were close to a deal on additions to the

Defense appropriations bill, including hurricane relief, flu

prevention funding and a 1 percent across-the-board cut that

would apply to Defense but spare veteran's benefits. That cut

would save about $8 billion a year.

Stopgap Funding

Lewis lost in an intraparty dispute Saturday with Senate

leaders over how long to temporarily fund government

operations covered by spending bills have not yet cleared,

including Defense.

Since the fiscal year began on Oct. 1, Congress has twice

enacted such stopgap spending measures. On Saturday, Lewis

introduced a third continuing resolution lasting until Feb.

15, but the Senate insisted that the measure expire sooner,

on Dec. 31.

The continuing resolution would fund programs covered under

the Defense bill and the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations

measure (HR 3010)--the only two spending measures that have

not yet cleared.

Lewis had said he was seeking a Feb. 15 extension because

of concerns that the Senate would not be able to clear the

Labor-HHS spending measure before adjourning.

Lewis rejected a proposal floated Friday by Senator Arlen

Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Labor-HHS-Education

Appropriations Subcommittee, to tack the bill on to the

Defense Appropriations measure.

Well, first Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

I just want to say to my colleagues here, and Mr. Spratt, who was here earlier, that it has definitely been a great joy and honor to be a part of this group that we have that is working so hard, and also Mr. Delahunt and many other members of the 30- something Working Group. On behalf of all of us, we want to thank not only the Speaker-to-be, hopefully in the next Congress, Leader Pelosi, but also our Democratic whip, Mr. Hoyer. And I want to congratulate Mr. Bob Menendez on being appointed to the Senate in the very near future, and also to Mr. Clyburn.

And, Mr. Speaker, we wish you a Merry Christmas, too, sir.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to draw the attention of my colleagues to the growing tragedy in Kashmir, a northern region of Pakistan located along the Indian border. In early October of this year, an earthquake devastated that area, killing tens of thousands of people and leaving millions more homeless. Each passing day brings new heartbreak to that remote region as exposure, illness, and famine continue to wreak havoc on the population. These people are desperate, and they need our help.

The earthquake's epicenter hit Muzaffarabad, the regional capital, and registered a magnitude of 7.6 on the Richter scale. For comparison, the 1989 earthquake that hit San Francisco had a magnitude of 7.1 and its epicenter was more than 70 miles away. The Pakistani Government has reported that at least 73,000 people have died, 15,000 they believe to be school children. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank reported in their assessment after the quake that at least 3.5 million people have been dislocated, and that another 1.6 million are without adequate food supplies.

This mountainous region of Pakistan lies at the foothills of the great Himalayan Mountains. The area receives as much as 10 feet of snow during the winter months, and nighttime temperatures can easily drop to 50 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. As winter quickly approaches, the severe potential for further catastrophe grows for the millions of homeless Pakistanis living in makeshift tent communities.

Mr. Speaker, the earthquake that devastated the capital city and surrounding communities disastrously separated brother from sister, parent from child, and destroyed the lives and livelihoods of countless families. International aid organizations have speculated that the tragedy of the quake's aftermath could surpass that of the tsunami that struck just months earlier given the region's severe climate, remoteness, and the shortfall of international assistance. Without immediate action by the international community, thousands more will surely perish.

The World Bank estimates that $5.2 billion will be needed to adequately rebuild the region and care for the quake's victims. The Bush administration has provided $50 million in emergency assistance and pledged another $150 million; however, more is needed. For this reason I have written to President Bush requesting that he double his request to Congress, and provide $300 million towards Pakistani reconstruction.

The United States and Pakistan have long worked together, and jointly we are fighting the ongoing war on terror. In addition, additional aid from our country would send a signal to other nations that the United States stands ready to help in times of need. Mr. Speaker, I call upon my colleagues in the House to strongly support measures that would send addition aid to help alleviate the suffering the Pakistani people.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to address the House once again. I would like to thank not only the Democratic leader but the Democratic leadership for allowing the 30-Something Working Group to come to the floor again not only to address the Members but also interested parties in how our country conducts its business and how we operate this government that the American taxpayers have allowed us to oversee.

There is a lot going on, Mr. Speaker. I must add a lot of it is quite discouraging when we start looking at how we are conducting business here in Washington, D.C. But I think it is very important and very appropriate for not only Mr. Delahunt but Ms. Wasserman Schultz and also Mr. Ryan of Ohio to come to the floor to share with the American people things that the Democratic side of the aisle are working on to improve their lives.

I can tell the Members try, day in and day out, not only in the committees but here on the floor working on behalf of Americans, protecting Americans here at home, dealing with issues as it relates to implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 reports. As Members know, the 9/11 Commission has given this government failing grades across the board of implementing some of the projects that they would like to see implemented to protect Americans. Also, we have been standing up for Americans that have served in harm's way, veterans, making sure that they are able to get improved health care benefits. But in this particular budget that the Republican majority passed, we know the lines are going to get longer and services are going to be cut back or veterans are going to have to pay more.

We released a report today dealing with Hurricane Katrina. In the same week that the Republican majority, Mr. Speaker, is going to pass a budget on the backs of working Americans to give millionaires tax breaks, we still have families living in tents. Tents. While we are kicking others out of hotel rooms, we are giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. And I think it is important that we understand what is happening right now in the moment.

I do not want to wait for the book to come out, Mr. Speaker. I want to do something about it before one can write the book. And if they are going to write a book, it is going to talk about Americans and Congress came together. Hopefully, we can get some of our Republican colleagues in a bipartisan way to save the American taxpayer and to save the Americans that are in need right now.

There is a lot of concern and focus on what is going on hundreds and thousands of miles away as it relates to a group of individuals that we have done quite a bit for recently in Iraq. Americans simply ask for, not just Democrats in the House but also the Senate has asked the President for a clear plan as it relates to dealing with the issue of Iraq and our troops and making sure that we can bring families together in the very near future.

I think it is important that we continue to hit on these issues. I do not know what the American children and families have done to the Republican majority, but I can say that if they passed this budget, what the majority would like to do on the backs of Americans and in the same week give the wealthiest Americans an unprecedented tax break in the history of this Republic, I think it is something that the American people are going to have to evaluate. The Democrats, on this side, we are trying very much to protect access to health care for Americans. Not a mumbling word, not a mumbling word, from this Congress on this issue of the health care crisis here in Congress. But I am glad that the 30-Something Working Group does not find it robbery to come to the floor to bring light to these issues and make sure that not only Independents, Republicans and Democrats know what is

happening here under the Capitol Dome but also know what is not happening.

And with that, I yield to the gentlewoman from the great State of Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, there was a time and a place that we could say future generations, but we are talking about right now. We are talking about taking and cutting out of the budget child enforcement, Mr. Speaker, enforcement that State attorneys have to go after deadbeat dads, that mothers will lose money out of, deadbeat parents. Let me say that children will go without.

We are talking in this budget about cutting free and reduced lunches for children. We are talking about cutting money out of the veteran affairs. The Republican majority in this budget is instructing through legislation the Veteran Affairs Committee to cut over $650 million out of veteran affairs.

I do not understand. We can talk about future generations as it relates to the budget and the $27,000-plus that they already owe at birth, but let us talk about what is happening right now. The lines are going to get longer for veterans. Under Medicaid, children will not get eye examinations because of this cut.

I could see it if we were to say, Mr. Speaker, we did not have the money for this. But we are giving the money to millionaires. We are giving the money to billionaires.

Well, Mr. Delahunt, I must add to just say this, that we are compassionate to the oil companies. We are giving them money when they are making record-breaking profits. So when folks say, well, Congressman, when we get an e-mail or so to Members of Congress, well, what are you so alarmed about? We are in the majority. What are you concerned about? You gain the majority on the Democratic side, and you can do something different.

We have reams of plans where we want to put American people first. We want to put our troops first, our

troops' families first. We want to put our veterans first. We want to put a child that did nothing but was born as an American child first. That is what we want to do. We want to do away with the culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence. What is wrong with that?

So, Mr. Delahunt and Mr. Ryan and Ms. Wasserman Schultz, when we talk about future generations, we have to talk about now in the present. We are not talking about Republican families will not suffer under this. They will suffer just as bad as independents and Democratic families.

So I think it is important that we should be alarmed, that Americans should be alarmed. These are the very same individuals, I am sorry, I have to pull my chart out; Mr. Delahunt, you can't say this enough, these are the folks that are saying, Trust us, we know how to operate the government.

Then you have a President that could not do it by himself with a Republican majority who made this country more dependent on foreign countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, borrowing $1.05 trillion. I cannot say that enough. In 4 years, that has trumped 42 presidents before him, $1.01 trillion. In 224 years of presidencies, of all the crises we have had, this President seems to have done it in 4 years.

You would think that cities would be a shining example of the Federal commitment after all of this money has been borrowed from foreign nations. No, cities are putting levies and millage and going out to the taxpayers asking for more money, a penny here, a penny there. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, people are getting tax cuts, millionaires are getting tax cuts on the backs of the very people that we are trying to provide a government for.

So, Mr. Delahunt and Ms. Wasserman Schultz and Mr. Ryan, if we could talk about the present, because we talk about future generations and some folks will say we will have time, we will recover. But this is unprecedented. The deficit has never been this high.

Incompetence.

Can I amend that chart and say Hurricane Republican Majority, because we represent Republicans that believe in what we are talking about here tonight. Goodness gracious, the average Republican's stomach would turn if they even knew half of what is happening in this House. You can have a convention or you can have a pep talk or you can go on a radio show and give one side, but these are facts, not fiction. There are third-party validators behind all of these numbers. They can go on the U.S. Treasury Web site and find that we are borrowing more in the history than any of the other 42 Presidents before this President from foreign countries. The deficit is higher than it has ever been before.

The Republican majority is saying we are not going to leave until we pass this budget on the backs of the American people. I added ``backs of the American people.'' We are not going to

leave until we pass this tax cut for millionaires and billionaires and special interests. We are not going to leave until they get what they want or what we want them to have.

Instead of them saying, We are not going to leave until we make sure that Americans do not have to pay three times as much for heating and oil. We are not going to leave until we put forth a bipartisan health care plan. We are not going to leave until veterans get their fair share out of the Federal Government and we do what we are supposed to do. And we are not going to leave until we pressure this administration to come up with a strategy for Iraq because as we were talking earlier, the bottom line is is it for everything that has happened in Iraq, and maybe Mr. Ryan will want to elaborate on this little more, there has been a time line. But when we start talking about our troops, our men and women that are in harm's way, oh, we cannot talk about time lines now.

Talk about the Iraqi elections, the President just gave a speech saying, well, the elections, this is happening and a permanent parliament will be in place. They will be seated sometime in March, and it is going just as planned. Well, guess what, the insurgency knew about the elections, the insurgency knew of every other benchmark that we put forth; but when it comes down to our men and women, four marines died today. When it comes down to our men and women we cannot ask any questions?

Excuse me, we all salute one flag I think. I think just as the President has the prerogative to say that this Member is wrong or Congress is wrong or that Senator is incorrect, we can say the same thing under this democracy, Mr. Speaker. I think the American people have risen up. It is not a question if they have arrived yet to this conclusion, that we need a plan. We need a plan so our troops know clearly what we are asking of them, so the Defense Department can stop acting like the State Department and replace them with diplomats. Just like Mr. Murtha has said, we need a diplomatic solution to Iraq.

Yes, we can do things on the horizon. Yes, we can come in and carry out operations here and there, but to have our troops carrying out convoys on the grounds of Iraq so that the insurgency can continue to pick off 10 and five and eight, these are American families. I think we all in this House should be passionate as if we had children in harm's way. Period. Dot.

If my son or daughter were there, I would want a plan, a plan to where it just does not move based on what the President says about stay the course. Stay the course for what? Stay the course for what? For the elections? We have a plan there. We know when the elections are going to happen. The insurgents know when their government is going to be placed. But to say if we reveal that then it will hurt our operations there. Rhetoric.

So I think it is important if we are going to stay here, and I am prepared to stay, I am prepared to stay until we deal with the real energy crisis that we have here at home, until we deal with health care, until we make sure that jobs are secure here in America, until we make sure that we get a real budget that is going to decrease the budget and we are record breaking.

I want to say this in closing out the comments here, an editorial from the Lafayette Daily Advertiser. I talked this out with the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) because we went through Wilma. We were here fighting on behalf of Hurricane Katrina victims and survivors. Meanwhile, while we are fighting, a hurricane hits our district. Now we are having to talk about not only Katrina, but Rita, Wilma, and a number of other storms. This could be in a paper in a Member's district soon: ``Tax Cuts to the Rich Shouldn't Come At Gulf Coast Expense.''

Let me take one paragraph from here:

``We can't afford a levee protection system for south Louisiana, but we can afford to give away $56 billion over the next 5 years to people who don't need it.''

Now this is what the paper is saying. It is not what I am saying.

There is not enough money to help the people pay their mortgage on uninhabitable homes that insurance companies will not pay for, but we will give millions to millionaires, $32,000 extra each year in tax breaks.

Like I said, if it was a perfect world at this point, I would assume that it would be okay, but it is not. We have Americans living in tents. We have Americans thinking about, I heard some Members coming to the floor talking about Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, you name it, the high religious season that we are getting into now. Meanwhile, we are giving notices to Americans that you are going to be evicted, a judge had to step in and say not so. A judge had to step in.

We have Members here that are throwing rocks at the judiciary. I say thank God for the judiciary in this case. Someone needs to stop this culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence. And I would add incompetence as it relates to evicting Americans. Meanwhile, we are record breaking spending money over in Iraq right now with no plan, no plan to say we need to take the training wheels off the Iraqi Government and let them know. Just like we can have elections on time, we can have a redeployment plan on time and we are offering that option.

I ask some of my Republican colleagues on the other time, and some of them are, a very small group, but I asked them to be able to rise up because when historians in the very near future, and I do say the very near future, when they start looking at what we were doing and, guess what, what the Republican majority was not doing under the circumstances, I think that there is going to be a price to pay politically for the inaction that they have not taken.

Mr. Speaker, we would like to thank the Democratic leader for the time tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad that Mr. Ryan set the pace here and he laid the foundation for continuing our discussion as it relates to responsibility. I can tell the Members the ideas that we had here on this floor as it relates to sensible tax policy that will not drive us further into debt.

What happened today on the floor, not because of our votes, but because of the majority vote, the Republican majority, they took this country further into debt.

They made it so we are going to have to change our board here, because we are going to be borrowing more money from foreign countries, Mr. Speaker, because of the deficit.

I will say this again. President Bush, with the Republican majority, I guarantee you he could not do it by himself without the Republican majority here in this House, has borrowed a record-breaking, mind- boggling $1.05 trillion in the last 4 years, more than 42 Presidents prior to the President taking office.

42 Presidents, Republican and Democrat. Some of the gentlemen here on this board were once members of the Whig Party. But I can tell you they were only able to achieve borrowing from foreign nations $1.01 trillion over 224 years. This is the same majority and the same President that says that we know exactly what we are doing as it relates to putting this country on the right track.

Well, I can tell you, Members of the Congress, that I am very, very concerned. We used to have a discussion about future generations and putting the burden on their back. We are putting the burden on this generation's back. It is going to cost more for kids to go to school. It is going to cost more for parents to send their children to school. It is going to cost more for those young Americans that would like to educate themselves to be able to save enough money to be able to go to college, because we cut it by $14.3 billion.

So I think it is important that we take all of this into account. But what I would also like to say, Mr. Speaker, in my opening comments, I cannot help but commend our Democratic leader for her privileged resolution here today, outlining a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence in Washington, D.C.

I think it is important that we say that out loud so that individuals understand that we must not only police ourselves in how we conduct business, but what we are doing when we have investigations, unprecedented here in this Congress and investigations over in the White House, dealing with national security breaches. It is important that we make sure that the American people know exactly what is going on and that we take appropriate action in a bipartisan way.

Right now we are not taking any action. There is discussion about action. And I just want to commend the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) and the Speaker about having ethics training here in the House. I just wanted to say that. That is something. That is something. That is better than what we had yesterday.

Well, let me just say this, and I say this is something that I have read in the paper today, and I am pretty sure some sort of memo is going to come out on it: when you are in a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence, you have to start, I guess, somewhere.

Apparently, Federal prosecutors and other investigating bodies here in this Capital City have taken steps to try to help those of us here in Washington, D.C. that need help as it relates to that kind of training. But let me just make this point. Do we need ethics training? I think we need to be reminded of that, because as I said last night, Mr. Speaker, 33 percent of Americans feel that we are doing the right thing here in Washington, D.C.

I saw a poll today that said 28 percent of Americans agree with what we are doing.

I just want to say that it is alleged activity.

It is important. Anytime anyone can get information between right and wrong, I think it is good. I think it is good. I think it is good that we have this discussion. But we need action.

The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) had a colloquy with a Member on the other side talking about the war in Iraq and the kind of action that we have to take as it relates to the corruption and cronyism and incompetence in contracting.

He said that it was important, and he yielded to this distinguished Member of this House. And he said, yes, we should have a discussion on it. Mr. Delahunt reclaimed his time and said, no, we should not have discussion on it, we should have action on it, because that is what the American people want.

And I think it is important that we get to the bottom of it. I think it is important. We have to. We must get to the bottom of it. It is important that we start taking steps in a bipartisan way.

Now, I am going to tell you that the Democratic leader brought up a privileged resolution today that basically talked about the spirit of the rules of the House being violated, talked about the fact that we had issues here of former Members that served in this Congress and the previous Congress, in the 108th Congress, that were a part of not only questionable, illegal activities.

No. Some have left and have pled. Forget about a trial. They have said, oh, I am guilty. So that is not an issue. Some of it is alleged, ongoing now; but some of it is actually proven. So that means that we have a lot of work to do in a bipartisan way. And I am going to be honest.

Like it or not, Mr. Speaker, I am glad that this Speaker took some steps as it relates to talking about the issue that we do have a problem and we need to do something about it. Is it almost like many people that are struggling with substance abuse, they have to first say they have a problem for them to even get on the road of recovery.

I talked last night about the fact that how can you operate a government in a fiscal way, in a responsible way, in a way that Democrats, Republicans, independents and other party members would like for their government to function in this democracy; how can you do it under a culture of corruption, cronyism and incompetence. You just cannot do it.

This is not the 30-something Working Group report, this is not your report, it is not my report. It is what the American people know, and that is what people are reporting about, and we have all of these investigations going on.

I ask the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), who would be happy tonight, based on the passage of the bill that passed today? Who would be happy?

You mean what the majority did?

I would also add corporations that have influence and power. What is it, K Street?

I thought so.

I want to go further. It is from the Congressional Budget Office. I mean, I just want to make sure that is clear.

$1.05 trillion.

When you say foreign interests, who are they?

And the U.S. workers are training people to replace them.

A piece of the American pie.

That is what I was going to say. I think it is important we talk about this all the time. We work on this as a working group. I think it is important that the American people understand that we have a war going on, we have a war going on, that we still have people that are delusional as it relates to our commitment, our financial commitments, Mr. Speaker, to what we have to do. And I think it is important that people understand, Mr. Speaker, that if we are going to talk about the strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is important that we have a serious discussion on how we are going to be fiscally responsible in making sure that we do not have more and more and more money being spent in an irresponsible way and giving it away.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to appear before the House again this evening. My colleague on the other side and I, we are here almost every night.

I just wanted to say the new government, of course the election will take place December 15. They will not be seated until March. I know that sometimes we are having to close and say things and we are under the clock. They are going to be seated in March. Then we are going to have to wait to see how they feel about us, the United States of America, not having a plan as it relates to being able to draw down our troops, allow a NATO force to go in. I just left there the week before. I met with General Dewey talking about the NATO force that is going to come in after hopefully we start to draw down our troops.

So we have to allow that process to take place. But I do appreciate some of information you shared tonight with Members of the House. Thank you for your service here.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but tell you that the 30-Something Working Group, we continue to work hard, not only working hard on behalf of the people that we represent in our given districts throughout the country, but also representing the entire population of the United States of America.

As you know, and I have mentioned night after night, this is truly the people's House. You cannot be appointed to the U.S. House of Representatives; you have to run. If someone resigns or leaves the House for some reason, a special election is set by the Governor.

If a Senator were to leave, as we see right now, the Senator of New Jersey was elected Governor of that State, he has to make the decision on who he wants to fill that seat. That will be by appointment. That individual will serve until that next election until that term is out.

But not in the House. So that is the reason why we are like on the frontlines of providing the American people with the kind of leadership that they deserve. Now, I want to talk a little bit about leadership and responsibility. I also want to compare, in a way, because, Mr. Speaker, I hope and I wish and my prayer is that there can be a paradigm shift here in the House of Representatives, a paradigm shift in a way that we can all work together in a bipartisan way on a number of issues.

I think the issues that we are facing now, there is a health care crisis in this country, could be addressed in a bipartisan way. I think some of the issues that some Members of the House brought up as it relates to Social Security, we are definitely concerned about some of the issues that are facing Social Security.

But the majority side tried to ram it down the throats of the American people to privatize Social Security versus fixing Social Security in a way that it will be here for generations beyond the 50 years that it is already set to provide the services at today's levels to the recipients of Social Security, need it be disability or retirement or survivor benefits.

In a bipartisan way, we can move in that direction. That is what the American people want. As it relates to making sure that we can keep U.S. jobs on U.S. soil, we can do that in a bipartisan way. And I must say bipartisan, because when the Democrats were in the majority, we did do things in a bipartisan way. Right now we are under an environment, we are as partisan as we can be, not because we have the control to make ourselves partisan, it is the fact that we cannot have input in making sure here in this House on the Democratic side, we are not allowed to have the kind of input, because the majority believes so shall it be written, so shall it be done.

Just watch what we do. If you question us, we will insult you, or we would

say, oh, well, you do not quite know what is going on. Oh, you just want to derail our plan. Why do we not have a unified plan for America? And that is what Americans are calling for.

I want to talk a little bit about the budget, talk about the responsibility that we must have as we start moving forward. We want this country to strengthen, not only in security, but also in unity, and make sure that we protect the environment, and make sure that we protect the homeland as it relates to homeland security, to make sure for the very individuals that are getting sand in their teeth now, be it Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan or Iraq, we have to make sure that we run this country in a way that it should be run, so that not only this generation but future generations can celebrate not only personal finance but also making sure that they are safe.

The Republicans passed the $54 billion cuts in the budget. I must say that it is quite crippling, Mr. Speaker. The Republican majority will add to the deficit some $8 trillion under what the majority calls, Mr. Speaker, a deficit reduction. We passed a budget of $52 billion today. We took action today to increase the budget by $8 trillion. That is according to the Department of Treasury.

It is important to also let every American know that this number is inching up. In the 108th Congress, it was lower. The beginning of this Congress, it was even lower. But now it is higher: $6,983.89 cents every American owes as it relates to the debt. You would have some believe or have Americans believe and some Members believe here in this Congress that we are doing the right thing by the American people by putting them further into debt.

It is almost like the high-interest credit card that you receive in the mail. I get them all the time. I mean, they mail credit cards to me. Sign right here. No problem. Interest free for the first 3 months. But in the fine print, I must say in this Congress on the majority side there is a lot of fine print. There is a $75 annual fee that will be tacked onto the credit card even before you use it. Just by you signing it and mailing it back in, that is $75.

And then the interest rate goes up, if you read the fine print, if you are late on one payment. It goes up to a 24 percent interest rate, because you signed that contract.

Well, the American people went into the ballot box on a given Tuesday in a given community to vote for representation, not for individuals to exploit the fact that they are here to represent them and turn their head when proposals are put forth that can help save the American taxpayer money in the short and long run.

And so we are going to talk a little bit tonight about what we call here in Washington, D.C., the Potomac two-step. We are going to talk about what some people call in parts of the country ``hoodwink.''

So we want to make sure that people understand what is going on here with third-party validators, not just fiction, not just what they say, or not just what some unidentified Member said on the floor. We are going to make sure that the Members know exactly what is going on, how it is going on, and when it is going on. It is going on right now.

I always say, Mr. Speaker, when the historians look at the 109th Congress, they are going to be looking at fiscal irresponsibility. They are going to say, how did this happen? How did we try to nation-build in Iraq when we had leaders, be it the executive branch or Members here in the Congress, say we are not in the business of nation-building? Now we are in the business of nation-building.

We are in the business of nation-building in a foreign land. We do not want anyone else to be a part of it. We do not want folks to come in and be a part of what we have to do to be able to allow the Iraqi Government to move in a direction so they can be self-sufficient. We must take the training wheels off the Iraqi Government.

Being a Member of the Armed Services Committee, I must add, Mr. Speaker, it is important that we give them some direction as it relates to security forces and as it relates to the responsibility of their very own government. And whatever internal conflicts that may go on on that given plan, if we may see it from the leadership, not just talking about we are going to have complete victory without really looking at how you are going to bring about complete victory, but if we are going to continue to stay and spend the taxpayers' money when U.S. cities are hurting, and when the American people are hurting, then we really have to look at our checks and balances.

That is the only thing I can share with the Members. All we can do is what we present here in the Congress. We play under the rules of the majority side. But I believe the American people, they do have a voice in this.

Now, I would feel a little uncomfortable talking about that, Mr. Speaker, if I did not see poll after poll that the American people disagree with what the administration is saying, with what the White House is saying, with what the majority of Republicans are saying. So I can see if I was all by myself in saying, folks do not necessarily feel that. I do not know what the Democrats are talking about. I do not know what the 30-something Working Group folks are talking about in Congress. No, we are talking about what the American people are talking about, and we are here to give them voice.

Going back to this budget, $12 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next 5 years; $12 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next 5 years; $47.7 billion in Medicaid over 10 years. The Democratic budget that we wanted to bring to the floor, we were not even allowed to bring to the floor under the rules. We did have it in the committee, made no cuts to Medicaid.

I think it is important that people realize what is happening. I am going to share these cuts and then we will talk about today's action. You have the Republican raid on student loan aid or student aid to help young people make it to college. $14.3 billion cuts in students aid programs. $14.3 billion. I am just going to let that sink in. $14.3 billion. And I think that is important for people to understand. $7.8 billion in new charges on student loans that students and parents borrow. That is $7.8 billion, everyday Americans, Democrats, Republicans, heartland, east coast, west coast, Northeast, Southeast, Northwest, east Texas. We are not discriminating where you are from.

The bottom line is that you will pay more in charges for student loans that you borrow to educate your children and educate yourselves. And the Democratic budget as it relates to student aid, zero cuts, zero. I am going to let that sink in. Zero. A typical student, an individual that graduates, is $17,500 in debt. Over the last 5 years, tuition has gone up 57 percent at public colleges and universities. Tuition has gone up 32 percent at private colleges and universities. Forty-one percent of college graduates have an average of $3,071 in credit card debt, and financial barriers already prevent 4.4 million high school graduates from attending college.

Now, that is today's statistics. By the time this budget passes, we will find ourselves in deep trouble right here again on this chart, Mr. Speaker. I want to make sure that the Members see this because these are the facts. It is not fiction. This is not something that was drawn up in the backroom and said, oh, we will just say that, we will just say that they did this. This is actually what happened in the budget that passed this House, the Republican budget.

Once again, a typical student graduates with $17,500 in debt. Over the last 5 years, tuition has gone up 57 percent in public colleges and universities. Tuition has gone up 32 percent in private colleges and universities. Forty-one percent of college grads average $3,071 in credit card debt, and financial barriers already prevent 4.4 million high school graduates from attending college.

Now, Mr. Speaker, what the Republican Congress has done to the American people they have done with the $14.3 billion in cuts in students aid programs, and then to turn around $7.8 billion in new charges, that means that this statistic is going to go up from 44 to possibly over 50 percent. You want to talk about responsibility and who is on your side and who is not?

We also have to look at the fact of what happened in this Republican

budget that affects rural America. I got a lot of cousins in the area called Montezuma, Georgia, and they are farmers. And they farm and they really look to their government for assistance because we have given other countries subsidies so that they compete against our farmers. A billion dollars in cuts, a billion dollars in cuts in farm programs in the Republican budget, rural development research and energy programs, cuts, $1.1 billion. Conservation programs cut by $760 million; $844 million reduction in the food stamp program.

Also, when you look at rural America, I have to add in the over-$650 million that they instructed the Republican majority budget, instructed the Committee on Veterans' Affairs to cut out of their budget over the next 5 years. And so I think it is important that people understand in rural America, veterans, farmers, people that are living in the heartland.

I was in Kentucky a couple of years ago. Folks that are out there trying to make themselves whole, educate their children, you are getting a double whammy. Number one, we will take the very programs that assist you in the little way the U.S. Department of Agriculture is able to assist you. But when this Republican majority gets finished with you, if you happen to be a farmer, you are going to have big problems because we are around here cutting the budget to do what? What we did today: to give millionaires tax breaks. That is the way this thing circles back around.

So let us just tell the whole story here. Let us just not flick and pick and say we will talk about this because that sounds good. Rural America, if you are a veteran, we have veterans clinics, not hospitals, clinics that are in rural America where they are only open one day a week now. When this Republican majority is finished with you, I do not know when it is going to be, once every 2 weeks, once a month. I mean, they are going to have to go in there and dust things off because they will not be able to operate it.

I am going to get this next chart here as it relates to what the Republican budget cuts, how it affects children. I just want to take about 4 more minutes here because I think it is important. And I want the gentleman to get the chart that talks about the $87,000 gift we gave to billionaires. I mean, what the Republican majority gave to billionaires today, and talk about what the hardworking Americans, what they have got, they got peanuts when people got folding dollars to put in their pocket. You cannot put $87,000 in your pocket. You just cannot do that. But what the everyday American got, they will be lucky if they can even squeeze a dinner out of it.

So let me talk a little bit more about this. The budget as it affects children, $4.9 billion in cuts from the child support enforcement programs, that is going to what, allow States attorneys and allow other agencies to go after deadbeat parents that walk out on their children and do not pay child support. We cut $4.9 billion, not million, not $4,900; 4.9, almost $5 billion from child support enforcement.

Now, I did not get one letter from a sheriff that said we want that to happen. I did not get one letter from a State's attorney that says we really appreciate the fact that you cut $4.9 billion from child support; it is going to make our job harder. As a result, parents will receive $7.1 billion less in child support over the next 5 years. I am going to say that again because that is one of those things that must sink in with the American people. Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green Party, whatever you are, nonvoter, just everyday hardworking American.

As a result of the Republican budget that passed this floor with Republican votes, not one Democrat vote for that budget that they passed, parents will receive $7.1 billion less in child support over the next 5 years and $21.3 billion less over the next 10 years; $577 million cut from child care. I am going to let that sink in.

AARP, the very organization that represents seniors in this country, was opposed to this budget in the Medicaid cuts. Here is the letter right here. This is not on my stationery. It is on AARP stationery. Editorial after editorial talked about the fact that Americans that are trying to struggle and they are trying to make it, I heard a lot of talk today about, well, you know, if the Democrats have their way, you will not even be able to buy gifts for your children. Oh, please. That is weaker than watered down tea or lemonade. I do not know if the Members ever had lemonade that is watered down. It does not taste good. As a matter of fact, it does not even look good. It looks like water.

I think it is important that the American people understand the bottom line is that people that make over half a million dollars are happy today. Corporations that have special interest contacts with the majority side and with the administration are happy today because once again they were able to bring about riches for them while the American people get crumbs. Watered down tea. Watered down lemonade.

As it relates to prescription drugs, still seniors will have an opportunity to do great things for them. We still have seniors. Guess what they were getting? Watered down and cut-in-half drugs that they cannot even afford the full dose. I just would like to ask the gentleman if he would break down, I mean, I talked about these cuts because these cuts, I was told by the majority side that they were to set the stage to decrease the budget, not increase the budget. Oh, we have to make sure that we no longer deficit spend. And today we turn around, or the majority turns around, and do exactly that.

There is a war. There is a war going on.

Mr. Speaker, I hate to break in when you have a stream of thoughts that are there, but I wanted to just share just one moment, and I think it is important for us to realize, when you start talking about what is happening and how we got to where we are, Mr. Speaker, once again my famous chart we know we have to put more on to it.

We have to put more into this and we have to do more with this. Matter of fact, I want to make sure that staff get this on. It is factual. Matter of fact, it is from the department of the U.S. Treasury so this is not fiction. This is third party validators. I am going to possibly get this on my Web site if it is not already on there, on my House Web site, to make sure the American people understand what is happening to them.

$1.05 trillion this President has borrowed along with this Republican Congress here in this House and over in the Senate. Forty-two Presidents before this President, $1.01 trillion, 224 years, 1776 to 2000. I am going to say that again, year 1776 to the year 2000, $1.01 trillion borrowed from foreign Nations. From this government, one President, one Republican majority, $1.05 trillion.

Oh, we know exactly what we are doing on the majority side. They say, oh, yes, the Democrats, they do not have any thoughts on balancing the budget and making our country more sound financially; we have all the great ideas. Well, guess what, the great ideas have countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, just to name a few, their hand in our cookie jar. They have a piece of the American pie right now, not because they took it. It is because the Republican majority gave it to them on a silver platter.

The Republican majority is saying we can go to war, we can Nation build in a foreign land, we can also give tax cuts to billionaires and millionaires and give the American people peanuts in a tax cut. The first time in the history of this country, there is a lot of record- breaking things that are going on here, and it is not all good. $1.05 trillion, Mr. Speaker, in money that foreign Nations that we borrowed from foreign Nations. That is making history in the wrong way.

I do not see anyone coming to the floor on the majority side saying guess what we have done, $1.05 trillion, we have borrowed more than 42 Presidents before this President and before this Republican House, we have done that. We have done it. We have accomplished that. No one is cheerleading about that. No one is willing to talk about that. So, if we want to level with the American people, let us tell them the truth. Go on to the U.S. Treasury Web site.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say this. I will not say it is the Republican party because I know some Republicans that are upset about what this Republican majority has done to the deficit. You know why we can speak with meaning and with backing on the Democratic side? Because we have actually balanced the budget and took it into surplus when we were in control of this House, Mr. Speaker. That is not fiction. That is fact.

So for folks that run around here and talk about what could be, what we will have if we do this and are using these words, going out and taking polls and saying how can we John Wayne this thing with the one liner, let me tell you something. The reality is here in America we are weakening a country, not a foreign country, weaken a country, not the special interests that come down here and from Shakedown Street like Mr. Ryan said, weaken a country. We are the ones carrying the voting cards. We are the stewards of this government. We are the Americans that were chosen out of many to come to this House and represent the people of the United States, not represent special interests, not represent the billionaires that are saying keep the tax cuts going while I watch a war on CNN and MSNBC and WorldNews Tonight as entertainment, saying, oh, wow, another bomb. That is not what they sent us up here for. They sent us up here to lead. We have to make the tough decisions, and I want to say this.

It is important that we take our job seriously, in a serious way, and when we come to this floor this is not political rhetoric. I have gone to Iraq twice, not because someone asked me to go. It was because I wanted to go. I met with our troops. I have talked to our troops, our soldiers, Marines. I have talked to the commanders. We are both on Armed Services. We have heard it since the war started what they have been telling us, what the President has been telling us, what the Iraqis have been telling us.

Now it is time to lead. It is time to lead in the way of making sure we make right decisions, not only on what happens in Iraq, but what happens here in the United States of America, period.

So I think it is important. Folks can have as many press conferences as they want to have. We need to have action

in giving the American people the direction that they are asking for. One poll says 28 percent, another poll says 33 percent approval rating because they want more leadership out of us. They want better and more sound ideas out of us.

Mr. Speaker, they want a bipartisan approach to the issues that are facing Americans today, and they do not see it. That is the reason why they are frustrated, and they are frustrated because they understand what the Republican majority is doing, not allowing Democrats to be able to put amendments on legislation, not allowing Democrats to offer their budget here on this floor, not allowing Democrats to play a vital role in making sure that this country is on equal footing with other countries.

So when folks want to talk about being partisan, that is a party game. That is a political game. That is not an American game. What I am saying is that the real issue here is the fact that, yes, we come to the floor and point out the fact that we are working in a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence. You know something, if somebody gets upset about that, anybody gets upset about that, that is a personal problem because it is going on.

This is not the Kendrick Meek/Tim Ryan Report. It is not the 30 Something Report. This is reality. You pick up the paper. You watch the news. We have got investigations going on over in the White House. We have got investigations going on here in the Congress, and at an unprecedented rate, national security breaches. This is by the majority that says trust us, we are the folks that you can trust. So I think it is important that we point that out.

Pointing that out, does that mean now we can cannot play in this democracy with the ideas that we have, ideas to be able to help this country become even stronger? That is in the job. We come to Congress to strengthen the country, not to weaken a country financially, and so I think it is important that we realize that.

We said last night you cannot run a business, you cannot go to talk to shareholders and say, listen, do not worry about it. We know that the business, it is like with Enron, the company. It is not like they can go to their shareholders and admit, well, you know, we know that we have a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence and we know that even when it has been pointed out, it still continues here in the corporate headquarters, but do not worry, everything's going to be okay. We know we are borrowing money and we are running deficits, but if we just stay the course, we will end up coming out some kind of way. That CEO will be fired on the spot.

If they ask to see the books and they ask to take part and are trying to help with the problem, trying to get out of the hole that you are in a financial way and they are called, well, you must be a mole from another company; no, you are not really with us, name calling, attacks. That will not happen because the bottom line is that they will not allow it.

So here in the Congress, we have to make sure as it relates to this culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence that we should not allow it to happen.

That is the reason why the hour before, I mean some folks say, why would you give the Speaker credit? I give the Speaker credit by saying there should be some ethics courses here in this House. That is a start, okay? If we have a problem, first we have to say we have a problem and then we can be on the road to recovery.

But if we deny that we have a problem, if we look at the front page of the paper and say, oh, I just do not want to read it today because it is talking about what is happening in the workplace, well, that may be okay if you are in a private company somewhere and you do not have stockholders and it is your money, that is your deal; but when you have the American people and you are using their money and you are making decisions on behalf of a country and you are not willing to look at the issues that are facing us right now as relates to governance, then you are making your problem the American people's problem and the taxpayers' problem.

Right.

That is correct.

Yes, sir.

That is correct.

Being evicted.

If the gentleman will yield.

Mr. Ryan, I think it is important that we realize that the President is talking about the economy in Iraq and is talking about infrastructure, yet ignoring infrastructure here at home; talking about boosting oil production in Iraq while ignoring soaring energy costs here that have, in some cases, risen three times more than what Americans spent last year.

He went down to New Orleans and gave a speech saying that we are going to build New Orleans back and it will be a shining example and it will be a city we can all be proud of because I will make sure, meanwhile the State legislature is trying to figure out how it is going to pay its share of the money that the Federal Government is saying it has to pay. And it literally has no economy right now.

We have children now within this budget that they will not have free and reduced lunches, but meanwhile, the children of Iraq and the people of Iraq have universal health care. We have mayors now trying to figure out how they are going to meet their budgets. They are laying off workers, which equals fewer services for the people that pay taxes in those local cities and governments, because they have to pick up some of the Federal responsibility, where we have cut programs and opportunities for cities like the COPS program and many other programs like it.

There are issues as relates to making sure that we secure our airlines and have a national transportation plan as it pertains to security. We are encouraging people to not drive so much, yet we do not want to provide U.S. cities with what they have asked for. They have asked for interoperability, to make sure if there is a terrorist attack or there is an event that takes place, a natural disaster, that they would have the resources to be able to talk to one another in order to save lives. That still has not happened.

These are all issues, Mr. Ryan, that we on the 30-something side and on the Democratic side have already addressed with legislation that has been filed, filed from Democratic Members of Congress, ranking members on the committees of said jurisdictions to bring about the kinds of change we have talked about.

So when we get into the long and short-term effects of what this Republican Congress is doing under a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence, and when I say here in Washington, D.C., that that is an accepted practice, then we wonder why things are the way they are. You do not have to wonder. You know why.

So it is important that we clear some of this stuff up and, hopefully, if we keep hammering at the door, that there will be a bipartisan approach to move this country forward, Mr. Ryan.

Mr. Speaker, this will not only help individuals out of poverty, but this will help educate America.

Mr. Speaker, I want Members to be able to go onto the Web site. We are not down here to talk about fiction; we are here to talk about fact and make this country stronger. The Web site is www.housedemocrats.gov. I want my colleagues to go on, look at the Democratic plan. Hopefully, we can move in a bipartisan way to strengthen America.

I think it is important that we share with Members because we like to hear from Members and we like to be challenged by Members and get information from Members on both sides of the aisle, and that is just the way it is.

I think as we come back next week, I think that some of the issues that we should be addressing are issues that are very, very important to the American people and hopefully in the last week before we go on break we can work in a bipartisan way in moving this country forward.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Ryan and Ms. Wasserman Schultz; and with that, it was an honor once again to address the House, and I want to thank the Democratic leadership for the time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 50 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, December 12, 2005, at noon.