Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to come before the House. We would like to thank not only Democratic leader Ms. Pelosi but the entire Democratic leadership, Mr. Hoyer, Mr. Menendez and Mr. Clyburn, our vice chair of the Democratic Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, the 30-something Working Group comes to the floor to share not only with Members but also with the American people about what is happening good here in the Capitol and also what is happening bad here in the Capitol, and hopefully through a bipartisan effort we can move towards positive change here in the Capitol.

Mr. Speaker, it saddens me to report the fact that this Congress, need it be whatever poll you look at, the American people by 33 percent think that we are doing a good job. Thirty-three percent of the American people feel that this Congress is doing a good job. I would tell you that if it was a grade system, Mr. Speaker, I would assume that, and Members, I would assume that that would be a failing grade.

I have two children that attend school. And if their grades were based on a 33 percent performance, I do not think that they would be moving to the next grade. And I think it is important, Members of Congress, Mr. Speaker, as we start to look at our responsibilities to the American people, not just to our constituents in our districts, but to the American people, because by them sending us to Congress they federalized us to come up here and run this country in the way that it should be.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to remind the Members that this is the people's House. It is not my House. It is not Mr. Ryan's House. It is not Ms. Wasserman Schultz's House. Mr. Speaker, all due respect, it is not your House. It is the people's House.

In the Senate, I must add, and we must let all of the Members, we must remind them in the Senate someone can be appointed to the Senate. Of course they have elections. But in a time, let us just say, Mr. Speaker, like in New Jersey, the Governor of New Jersey, the new Governor of New Jersey has the opportunity, who was a U.S. Senator, to appoint someone to be the new U.S. Senator from the State of New Jersey.

But in the House, with a seat being vacated, let us just say someone from New Jersey is appointed to be the Senator. He cannot appoint someone here to the House of Representatives. He would have to set a special election for that seat to be filled constitutionally. So this is the people's House. And so when we start talking about the people of the United States of America, we are closer to them than any other, I think, than any other branch of government.

I would like to say that on the heels of President Bush's speech today on Iraq's economy, I could not help, and Mr. Ryan and I just returned from Iraq. We visited three cities in Iraq and we went to the infamous Green Zone and Baghdad visiting our troops. Many of them were members of the Army, soldiers. Some, Mr. Speaker, on their third deployment to Iraq.

I could not help but pay attention, and I got a copy of the President's

speech and he released a 35-page, 32 pages if you look at glossy cover and all, 35 pages of his strategy for victory there in Iraq.

But he talked about the economy today in Iraq. But I cannot help but say, Mr. Speaker, and to the Members, that it would have been good if the President could have talked about our U.S. economy. I think the reason why he did not talk about the U.S. economy is the fact that we have record deficits, some 3.5 trillion over the next 10 years' deficits. That is not the Kendrick Meek report. That is not the Tim Ryan report. That is not the Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz report. That is reality.

We are record-breaking as it relates to borrowing money, Members, from foreign countries. This President, along with this Republican majority here in the House and in the Senate, has achieved $4.5 trillion in borrowing money from foreign nations, more than 42 Presidents before him. They were only able to, among all of those Presidents, I mean all of them, I am talking about since we became a country, $4.1 trillion that have been achieved. And I want to correct myself. I am sorry. I have so many numbers here, Mr. Speaker. I want to correct myself. I am glad Mr. Ryan brought this over. $1.05 trillion by this President. I said four and I will correct myself right now because in the 30-Something Working Group, Mr. Speaker, we believe in third- party validators and sharing with the American people and the Members the truth about what is happening here in the Capitol. So maybe 4.05 might have sounded a little better, but we believe in making sure that we give good information. 1.05 trillion, this president, the last 4 years, 2001 to 2005; and he is not done yet. 1.01 trillion, 42 Presidents in the history of this country, Republican, Democrat, and in their lifetime for some of them very early on were members of the Whig Party. From 1776 to 2000, 224 years, Mr. Speaker. And this is from the U.S. Department of Treasury. This is not from the National Democratic Party or anything like that. We just want to make sure, Mr. Ryan, that we have our third-party validators here.

Maybe the President, Mr. Ryan, could have talked about the fact that health care costs increased over 60 percent for small businesses over the last 5 years. Major companies are cutting jobs, and not only their pension plan that they promised, but they are following our lead here under this Republican majority, Mr. Ryan, by the fact that we are not only increasing copayments and the wait for our veterans once they leave the military, they are following our lead. Companies like GM, Delphi, Merck, Verizon and now Ford are now ``reprioritizing.'' That means cutting jobs. That means cutting back on promises that they promised their employees from the beginning.

The average family right now in the United States as relates to natural gas are paying three times more than they paid in 2001. The President could have talked about that, but he did not. He wanted to talk about Iraq because he needs to explain himself. Republican majority, they need to explain themselves.

Sixty percent of Americans, Mr. Speaker, if we like it or not, do not believe that our leadership as relates to leading our effort in Iraq has a sound plan in getting us out of there. So we are going to talk about some of these things tonight. We are going to also talk about, Mr. Speaker, this ongoing culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence. This is not the Kendrick Meek report. This is just today's papers. This is just today that is outlining a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence. So when historians look back on the 109th Congress and the contributions that we made, they are also going to look at the void in leadership and leading this country in the way that they should lead.

We used to give speeches here on the floor, Mr. Ryan, and you know full well about putting burden on future generations.

Well, I can tell the Members right now, Mr. Speaker, and this is not me speaking. They can check with any of the Federal agencies that do the reports or the auditor generals that put out reports on an annual basis. We are putting this generation in the present in jeopardy.

So I am so glad that we have the opportunity tonight to come to the floor, and I am so glad that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is here, and I am glad that we have a level of consistency for the American people to come to the floor and share this information.

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

Article I.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, can the gentleman say that again because I just want to make sure that the American people and not only the American people, but the Members who represent them on both sides of the aisle understand what is going on.

This is unprecedented. This is not something that happened 4 or 5 years ago. This is not something that happened 20 years ago. This is not something that happened 40 years ago. This is not something that happened 200 years ago. This is something that is happening now to this country, the first time in the history of the Republic. So when folks say, well, we have to do this, that we have a war going on and we gave unprecedented tax cuts to millionaires and we had 9/11, you know something? Forty-two Presidents had World War I, World War II, had Vietnam, Korea, the Great Depression. I mean, they had a number of issues thrown in the face of this country that we had to deal with. And now under this Republican majority, under the President we have in office now, we are breaking records. We are not breaking records as it relates to our economy and growth. We are breaking records as it relates to putting this country further in debt and borrowing from foreign countries.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, here in the 30- Something Group, we believe in third-party validators. We believe in making sure we share with the American people and also with the Members of this House, Mr. Speaker, because sometimes there are a lot of things that are said. Some folks come to the floor and try to make sure that they provide information that somebody might have told them or they may say ``they said,'' but we are actually giving good information, third- party validators. Some are U.S. Government agencies. Some are groups with great credibility.

I can tell Members right now and every American knows because they just pick up a newspaper or turn on the news, Mr. Ryan mentioned just a few companies, but GM, Delphi, Merck, Verizon, and now Ford just to name a few, Mr. Speaker. So when we start talking about the tax cuts, we can go down memory lane to just a month ago. There is so much happening to the American people versus for the American people that we do not have enough time to share it all. We just do not have enough time to share it all.

I mean, we would have to take 10 hours on this floor daily just to report to the Members of the House what is going on in this House. We could not look at another Congress and say, well, that happened in the 101st Congress or that happened in the 93rd Congress or that happened in the 3rd Congress. No. We are setting a new chapter in the record book as it relates to not governing in the way that we should. And I do not want to say ``we,'' Mr. Speaker, because it is the Republican majority, and I just want to make sure Members understand. Folks talk about what the Democrats are doing? What we are doing? Somebody said something about what the Democrats are going to raise. We cannot even bring our proposal to the floor. Do my colleagues know why? They say Democrats are lazy, that they do not want to put anything together. Guess what. We have a number of plans to put this country back in order and make sure that we clean out this deficit spending that the majority is doing, and they will not allow us in the Rules Committee to come to the floor and put our proposals on this floor and let us do it on an up-or-down vote. What they are doing is they are borrowing from this generation and future generations.

Just a few weeks ago, what was it, 14-something billion dollars they took from students, they took from parents that are trying to educate their children? We are getting our clock cleaned by China that, I must add, we are borrowing money from to give billionaires and millionaires tax cuts. We are borrowing money from them. They have more engineers. As a Member of Congress that represents a father or mother that wants to see their daughter become an engineer, forget about it. Unless they are a millionaire or a billionaire, that is the only way she is going to get to college so that she can be able to make this country strong. We are weakening this country and giving subsidies to companies that go overseas, Mr. Speaker, to have a better deal than they are going to have here on U.S. soil, to have better opportunities for our young people.

No Child Left Behind, Mr. Speaker, was a piece of legislation that we all thought at the beginning that could be a bipartisan work product that we can fund to help our future generations and present generation so we can compete against other countries. No. What we are doing now is we are making it easier for U.S. companies to go overseas, send our jobs overseas, and have GM, Delphi, Merck, Verizon, and now Ford lay off workers here. This is not the Kendrick Meek report, Mr. Speaker. This is reality. This is not Walt Disney World. This is the U.S. House of Representatives.

It starts here. We are the People's House. The Republican majority has allowed this to happen. Now, if someone is a Republican or an Independent, or, you know, Libertarian, Green Party, and says I am not a Democrat, I do not subscribe to that, you must subscribe to it, because it is dealing with your household. This is not just Democratic households that the Republican majority cut $4 billion plus out of student loans and student aid. That is going to increase, increase the cost to send your child to college.

So I would say, gentlemen, for the Members that are in their offices right now, for the Members that are paying attention to us on the floor right now,

they have to put in their newsletter to their constituents that you need to look at that college fund that you are setting aside for your child, because, guess what? You need to increase it. Because we just made life harder for you.

Why do we make life harder for you? We made life harder because we had to make sure that the oil companies had their subsidies while they are making record breaking profits. We had to make sure that the millionaires and billionaires get their tax cut.

It is not just our report. Just pick up the paper. Just take a look at what is going on in this Congress right now. It is not that. It is not the fact that, oh, well, we had to cut the student loan and student opportunities, we had to cut Medicaid and we had to instruct the Veterans Affairs Committee to cut out of their budget millions for veterans to make their lives longer, to make those health care clinics for veterans, have them have fewer hours.

Gentlemen, in some areas of this great country of ours, there are clinics that are only open for 1 day a week for the veterans. One day. So now we have instructed, or the Republican majority has instructed, because we all voted against it, to then cut over $600 million. So that means that maybe they will be open for half a day, Mr. Speaker.

And the President today wants to talk about the economy in Iraq. Wants to talking about what we have done with Iraqi contractors. Please. Why do not we talk about what we have done in U.S. cities?

This working group that we have plays a very important role in making sure that the Members know that we in the minority party here in this House know exactly what they are doing and what they are not doing.

And I can tell you that it is just so powerful, and it serves, to our benefit politically if the country did not have to suffer. You know, as an American I must say, gentlemen, that politically we could just say, well, let us go home. Let us not come to the floor, Mr. Speaker, and share with the Members about what they are not doing and what we should do. Come to the floor and share our proposals from the Democratic side that will fall on deaf ears on the other side, because they do not want to hear our ideas, gentlemen, they just want to criticize what we are trying to do to save this country of ours.

The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) mentioned earlier that all they are doing is weakening the country. Now, the facts are, like it or not, Members, on the Republican majority side, like it or not, the bottom line is is that the 9/11 Commission put out a report card. And the Republican majority gets a big fat F because we have been, and as ranking member of oversight on the Homeland Security Committee, we have worked time after time again and put forward proposal after proposal to make sure that U.S. cities are prepared for a terrorist attack.

Interoperability. Mr. Speaker, I want to break that down for the Members. That is making sure that first responders can talk to one another, which we learned from 9/11, that firefighters could not talk to police officers, police officers could not talk to firefighters, they could not talk to the port authority, they could not talk to others as it relates to helping Americans get out of those buildings. And guess what? Lives were lost. Lives were lost.

Well, do not ask me. I mean, look at what the 9/ 11 bipartisan commission said. I was watching Tim Russert, one of the respected reporters here in Washington, DC, at NBC. And he had the chairman, who is a Republican, past Republican governor, and the vice chairman that was a Member of this House, respected Democrat, on both sides of the aisle they respect him.

And they both said that the administration, present administration, Mr. Speaker, and the Republican majority, gets a big fat F. They did not want to grade. Well, let me just put it this way. They did not want to grade it, but they

said that it is low. Okay. And I think it is important that we understand that interoperability that was a big issue that first responders asked for, they could have saved not only first responder lives, but American lives if they could have talked to one another, because they could not, because they did not have the ability.

Okay. You would assume that we would run out and get that done. No. We did not get it done. The Republican majority did not get it done. It was not prioritized. Yes, the money went there, but guess what? There is a bunch of politics that is going on as it relates to the money and the execution of making sure that U.S. cities have what they need.

Now, Americans again, another example, looked at what happened in Katrina. The Coast Guard could not talk to the police officers. The police officer could not talk to the military. The military could not talk to fire departments that came down to help. Fire departments could not talk to game and fish that were on boats trying to rescue people.

Why? Because the interoperability is not there. We mandate highway dollars. I used to be a State trooper in the State of Florida. I can tell you right now, sometimes we used to be told, you need to write those seatbelt tickets. Why? Because the Colonel of the Florida Highway Patrol says so? No. Because if we do not write seatbelt tickets and we write speeding tickets to folks not wearing their seatbelts, we will lose our Federal money.

You think that if this Congress did that as it relates to making sure that we have interoperability that would save lives if a terrorist attack was to happen? Now it is not a secret. Wherever Americans are living now, Mr. Speaker, first responders could not talk to one another, because the dollars have not been prioritized as it relates to making sure that it happens on behalf of U.S. cities.

I want to make one other point, a couple of points if I may, and I will be quick. Failure to secure the materials for weapons of mass destruction in the national priority. We still do not have HAZMAT uniforms for many of our first responders that are out there.

Failure to improve air cargo inspection as a priority.

We want to shake down people at the magnetometers when they walk through the TSA. Meanwhile, we have containers being placed on these commercial airlines that are unchecked.

Failed to implement an airline passenger prescreening program based on consolidated terrorist watch lists. Still, you have the administration, you have the majority that has failed to do that. We have proposals to do that. I am on Homeland Security. Take it from me, it is on a partisan vote and it goes down if it is heard at all, especially not on this floor.

Failed to review and make changes in the congressional intelligence oversight process. I am going to tell you right now, there are some things that we should have great oversight over but, I hate to report, there are things that we don't even have an opportunity to have a hearing on. I just want to make sure the Members of the House understand, the majority rules here. They set the agenda. They say when something is going to happen. I mean the Republican majority. They set the agenda. They make sure that we have these hearings and they denied hearings as relates to this.

For Republicans to say, well, the Democrats are stopping us from doing certain things, we cannot stop them right now, Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority. That is something that the American people have to do. I can tell you right now, it is not political rhetoric. This is reality. I want to be proven wrong. But this is the report card. The 9/ 11 Commission has said it and we have been on this floor time after time asking for a Hurricane Katrina independent commission. The State of the Union that is coming up, I don't represent anyone in New Orleans or in the gulf States, but I asked a person that is a victim, an evacuee of that storm, to take my gallery pass for the State of the Union. I want her to be here, to look at the President and this Republican majority and all of us when he marches in here on the floor and talks about how great things are. Meanwhile back at the ranch in New Orleans and in the gulf coast, some areas don't even have power. And they are asking Louisiana and they are asking Mississippi to carry the weight on the cost of recovery. Meanwhile, we have people walking on this floor with a straight face coming here talking about we need tax cuts to help the economy and my constituents need a tax cut, because of the millionaires and billionaires that are getting it.

I want to thank my colleagues for allowing me to get these points out because it is important that we share this information.

Can the gentlewoman please elaborate on the C words?

He had the opportunity to resign and then the next day he was indicted. Go ahead.

It is a culture.

I must say that never before in the history of this country has there been leadership, all of these issues of cronyism and corruption, never before at these levels in the history of this country. It is not the Kendrick Meek report, the Debbie Wasserman Schultz report, or the Tim Ryan, the Bill Delahunt report.

I hope he yields to us for the time we are yielding to him because we only have about 6 minutes left.

Mr. Speaker, we just got back from Iraq. We are not even a week out of Iraq. We visited three Iraqi cities, and it was my second trip. I can tell you this, that when you hear uniformed personnel say, well, you know, some of the money, I mean it is like you know people take some of the money for themselves; it is something that happens here in Iraq. This is an accepted kind of thing. This is the U.S. taxpayers' money, and we are just saying, oh, well, you know, that is the way things happen over here.

Let me tell you, when the auditor general really starts to report what is happening with the money we are giving, that is being taken away from U.S. cities and the U.S. taxpayer, meanwhile the majority says, oh, let us govern, we will make sure that we are fiscal and we are responsible, well, when we come back in the next hour I want to talk about being responsible. I think it is important we do that. We will be back in an hour.

I just want you to give the Web site out before we close.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Mr. Delahunt, Mr. Ryan, Ms. Wasserman Schultz and to thank the Democratic leadership for allowing us to have the hour. We would also like to say it is pleasure and honor to address the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, let me just say what Mr. Delahunt is saying makes so much sense, but I can tell him the reason why we have reams and reams of paper about how government is not working now is the fact that we are governing under a culture of corruption, cronyism, and incompetence. One cannot operate a business under a culture of corruption, cronyism, and incompetence. They can just not do it. They cannot do it. It is impossible to achieve. And it is wrong. So when we have historic levels of corruption, incompetence, and cronyism, it is just hard for us to govern in that way.

People are wondering why am I picking up my newspaper not only seeing indictments but seeing plea agreements by the very people that are elected to come up here to govern on behalf of the American people. So why is it even shocking, Mr. Speaker, to some Members why we have so much corruption in the Federal system? And we come in here as though let me grab a cup of coffee or a latte like it is another day at the office. It is not another day at the office. It is not another day here in Congress. We are concerned, but maybe the majority could also get a little concerned about what is going on.

Let me just mention something because Mr. Delahunt just hit a couple of points, and I just want to mention something because here in the 30- Something Working Group, as my colleagues know and others, and I am so glad that Mr. Ryan claimed this hour, the bottom line is this: we have a White House where members of the White House have been indicted or previous members who resigned the day before they were indicted and serious national security breaches in the White House.

Mr. Speaker, this is not hearsay, this is fact. We have Federal investigators now, they are not talking about someone who took a trip somewhere on the Government's credit card. They are not talking about that, you know, someone went to lunch with someone and, you know, the bill was $3,000 and they had eight lobsters. They are not talking about that. They are talking about outing CIA agents. They are talking about information being leaked out that is jeopardizing national security.

They are also talking about issues as it relates to, you know, the influence of the private sector and corruption and not possible cronyism, but cronyism and incompetence. That is what is going on here now. And even here in the Congress, unprecedented investigations, inquires not by the Congress, but by other agencies that are policing us.

So when people start saying, well, why is all of this happening? It is happening because we are not, well, the Congress, the majority, is not governing the way that they should govern and policing themselves. I think it is important as we look at this culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence that we put it in the right perspective.

We know that a lot of this is allegations. We will just say allegations. I want to make sure that we say that, but I want to also make sure that Members know exactly what is going on. This is not regular business in the Congress. The 109th Congress, historians will reflect, and in the present, will say, this has never happened before in the history of the Republic.

So when folks start talking about, well, you know, I do not know what you are talking about, I am going to tell you another thing. They are coming to the floor, the majority tomorrow, to pass tax cuts on behalf of billionaires and millionaires.

Meanwhile, just before we left here, they cut student loans. Cut Medicaid, cut child support enforcement. Somebody please tell me this is a misprint. But it is not. And going after deadbeat dads. So I wonder how the state attorneys and sheriffs are going to feel about that?

They cut many programs that we need in this country. Meanwhile back at the ranch, we are going to turn our back on what is going on in Iraq and what is going on here in Washington, D.C. as though it is not a big deal.

So I think the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) is in order when he talks about some of the decisions that are being made.

And one of any colleagues on this side said just because the Republican leadership says it is true does not mean that it is true. We were here on this floor late one night in the 108th Congress, and even in this Congress, but in the 108th Congress on the prescription drug bill. And the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) does it so well, I want you to talk about what they said and what the reality was.

Just because they say it does not mean that it is true. The President says complete victory. What is complete victory? What is complete victory? Is it until the last insurgent says I am no longer going to be one?

The gentlewoman is 110 percent right. I would say, and I will even give credit to some of our colleagues on the Republican side, the few within the conference, that agree with making sure that we carry ourselves in a responsible way. In the hour before, we were going to talk a little bit about responsibility and you are talking about responsibility. You are talking about a social and leadership responsibility that we have in the People's House, or what is supposed to be the People's House.

The gentleman from Massachusetts talked about decisions that have been made here in the past and now in the present. When you have a bad idea in many cases, when you start off by saying, like, for instance, a leader can say, I was wrong, or I wasn't quite on point and I'm willing to work with others to make sure that we reach the goals that we set out to do in the first place. What is happening now, Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority and the White House, it is like we don't even want to meet with you. We have conference committees where we have members on this side, ranking members that are saying, I didn't even know that the conference committee was meeting because they are not even notified. That is what is going on. This is not fiction. It is fact.

I just want to point out just a few things real quick. Third-party validator on the action that is supposed to take place tomorrow. I just want to make sure that the Members get this. Economic Policy Institute, www.epi.org. They can get in their office and pull this up. It is the report that is noted, ``The Bottom That Wasn't.'' The economy has little to show for $860 billion in tax cuts, mainly to the billionaires and millionaires.

It goes further back and I want people to pay very close attention to page 12. I just want to make sure that the Members pay attention to page 12 and I think they can read it for themselves. They can pull this up on the Web. You want to talk about responsibility? One of the most respected Members of this House, Mr. Jack Murtha, stood up and said that things are not as they say they are in Iraq.

Our troops, and we just returned back from Iraq, are doing everything that they can do. We met with the 1st Cav. We went to Camp Victory. We went on to Mosul and a couple of other cities within Iraq. We heard time and time again, yes, we are here but we are here on our third and second deployment. Let me just put on my Armed Services hat here for one second. For us to look at a redeployment strategy, and Mr. Murtha is right. He has the President running around here giving four and five speeches every week on trying to justify why we should be there and how we should be there. One leader in the Senate, the Democratic leader, Mr. Speaker, in the Senate said, we need to take the training wheels off the Iraqi government and let them know that our military has delivered. Our military has allowed them to be able to have elections come the 15th of December. But no one is talking about the fact which we learned sitting down not only with our military leaders in Iraq but also sitting down with the Iraqi leaders to find out that this parliament that is going to be elected, this governing council that is going to be elected in Iraq, including a prime minister, will not be seated until March of 2006. So folks talk about, oh, December 15 is going to be a wonderful day. They are not going to even get seated, have their power, until March. I guess the Potomac two-step will kick in again. First it was when we get the security forces to the point, and we have to watch the math here when you start talking about this. How many people do we have trained? You hear one number. That number was combat troops, not police combat units. Okay, you have to talk about the interior ministry that has a whole other police force. Only one brigade or two brigades and we have handed this area over. The bottom line and what Mr. Murtha is saying, for us to be able to allow other countries to become a part of this effort that we set out on, we have to allow them to be a part of it. We are saying we have it.

Tony Blair, the number-one ally, Mr. Speaker, in this war in Iraq, has already said to his country that we're out next year. Period. Done. Not any of this, it's dependent on the training of the troops or it's dependent on how well the parliament and the new government that is in place, it's all dependent on this, that and the other. He said, We're out next year. Period. Our troops are coming home. That is the message to the Iraqi government that they have to get their act together. It

would be okay if it was an international effort in putting money into Iraq, but what the President is saying, he goes down to New Orleans and gives a speech a week after the storm that we will rebuild New Orleans. Meanwhile, Time, Newsweek, you name it, every major periodical, be it daily or weekly, special reports have said that it is not happening.

We are telling Louisiana, hey, you have got to come up with $300 billion to make it happen. They don't have any money right now. The bottom line is that just because they say it does not mean it is true. Mr. Murtha, third-party validator, had a press conference today and eight letters that he gave to the press and to the American people. The thing that makes Mr. Murtha so credible in this argument, ladies and gentlemen, is the fact, Mr. Speaker, that he is the ranking member and was the member of defense appropriations and he knows where the bodies are. He knows the Potomac two-step when he sees it. It is not about the fact that everyone likes him in this Congress. We all love Mr. Murtha. But the bottom line is that he can deliver the message. The real issue instead of the administration and the majority running around here trying to discredit a decorated Marine, trying to discredit someone that has stood with the military foot and toe, someone that wrote letters, the first letter about Kevlar and making sure that our troops have what they needed when they didn't have it and discredit him, they should be trying to sit down with him and others and talk about a bipartisan plan that we can allow other countries to come in under a NATO force and that is what is going to happen after we say, okay, this is our strategy, we want to let the Iraqi people know our military is the number-one military on the face of the earth. You give them direction as it relates to what we want to do policywise, they will do it. They will train. They will make sure the people are in place. But as long as we sit there and say, We're not going to stop until complete victory and we don't know what complete victory is, you have to be precise. It is not even leadership when someone is vague and we are spending billions of dollars in Iraq. I think it is important when we start talking about folks carrying out the responsibility they have to carry out.

Whichever way you look at it, there are Republicans that are saying, Yeah, we need to figure out a redeployment plan, but no one wants to talk about redeployment as it relates to getting our troops out of harm's way. Meanwhile back at the ranch here in this country, we have mothers and we have fathers and we have those that are seeing their loved ones, especially if they are soldiers in the Army, that are being deployed for 12 to 16 months. Think about that, in your third deployment. I left for 5 days and it was like I was gone for a year from my family. Think about the person that leaves and you don't see them for 12 months, 16 months, and every day. I cannot even explain to you of some of the phone calls. I cannot even start explaining to you some of the phone calls that I receive from mothers and from daughters and from husbands saying, I cringe every time the news report comes over the television, three more U.S. troops, 10 more U.S. Marines. And we are still here saying, We're here until we carry out complete victory. You have got to talk about responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, can I just break it down one more time?

It is a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence. It is just that simple. It is just that simple. Mr. Speaker, we can outline this thing as much as possible. I mean, we can go into tomorrow morning if the rules would allow it, but it is just a culture. You cannot operate a business, you cannot operate an educational institution, and you definitely cannot operate a government under a

culture of corruption, cronyism and incompetence.

Well, he could not go to the Jordanian embassy when he was here in Washington because if he went to the Jordanian embassy they would have arrested him on the spot. The embassy is Jordanian ground, just like our embassy is in Jordan, because they have a warrant for his arrest. But better yet, we are doing business with, again, a culture of corruption, cronyism and incompetence, period.

One thing I also wanted to say, we are talking about a redeployment, i.e., how we are going to have an exit strategy. There are people that are running in a December 15 election that will be seated in March, and guess what is some of the platform. We want our own independence. There was actually a call for the U.S. to give their exit strategy. They are ready to go.

So we are saying that we are there on behalf of democracy. Now they have a form of democracy. They are going to have it in March, and we are still saying they are not ready. Now we are in judgment of them saying they are not ready, but we are saying we want them to have a democracy. Just imagine if someone was to come over here to help us and say, well, we are not going to leave until we think you are ready to govern your own country.

It goes against the very logic and principles even in our own Constitution saying that we want to help democratize other areas, and then when it comes down to it, U.S. cities are suffering and the money that we are spending over there. When their government is seated and one of the actions of business there was we want to govern our own country, we can take care of our own problems, better yet, we are going to tell them, no, we cannot, and once again, Mr. Murtha is talking about redeploying our troops to Kuwait and some other area in case there is a threat as it relates to terrorism of the U.S., of the United States of America, the flag that we all salute, Mr. Speaker. Then our troops will go in and make sure.

But if there is some sort of war or conflict between different factions within Iraq, that is an Iraqi issue. When did that become our responsibility? We are not the Congress of the world, and the President is not the commander-in-chief of the world. There was not a ballot box over in Iraq outside with absentee ballots of our troops sending their votes in.

So I think it is important, as we look at how we are going to deal with the gulf States, how are we going to deal with health care, how are we going to make sure that small businesses are able to provide on behalf of their employees, how are we going make sure that U.S. companies are going to be able to stand for their pensions that folks signed up for, worked 15 years to find out when the golden 20 or 25 happens that it is not going to be there for them?

How are we going to continue to break our promise to veterans when we told them what we would do when they retire or they become veterans of health care? We are breaking our promises.

So to talk about the Iraqis and complete victory, I want to have complete victory as it relates to veterans; I want to have a complete victory as it relates to providing health care, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

Now, wait, wait, wait, Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Can you please say that one more time? I am sorry, Mr. Speaker.

Culture.

Ms. Wasserman Schultz, you have local contractors. You have local contractors that are saying they are not getting work. They are saying they are not getting work.

They are not getting the work.

But, meanwhile, say it again before we close. Just read what you read about the contracts, just in case some Member went and picked up some coffee or something.

Mr. Ryan, just stop.

Just because he says it, does not mean it is true.

Before you give the Web site out, Mr. Ryan, I want to say that for every time we have pointed out a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence, they are still at work doing it.

That is the sad part.

I thank the gentleman very much. It is always an honor to be here on the floor, not only addressing the Members of the House but also sharing with the American people what is not happening.

I came here and I actually picked up an e-mail here. Has there ever been a President who has presided in a bigger increase of the country's national debt and has not vetoed a single spending bill during his term in office?

I can tell you that from what I know, just from my knowledge of what I have been reading recently, I can't remember a President outside of the President that we have right now. And I am pretty sure as we start talking about national debt, we can also talk about the fact that this administration, along with this majority, has led us in just 4 years, $1.05 trillion in money we borrowed from foreign nations.

Now that is not my number. That came from the Department of the U.S. Treasury.

That is more than 42 Presidents combined. Mr. Speaker, 42 Presidents only were able to get to the point of $1.01 trillion, and that is over a period of 224 years.

A lot of folks say, well, why are you alarmed? Well, you should be very alarmed, and if the Republican majority allows that kind of borrowing to take place, especially from foreign countries, I guarantee you that the President could not do it on his own.

I guess one of the things that is quite disturbing, I could not help but on Veterans Day turn on the television and watch our President of the United States attack other Americans for being American. I could not help but think that it must have been some sort of coordinated plan in operation, look over there from over here, from what is actually happening.

I can tell you, when you are dealing with the issue of outing CIA agents and indictments and then you say, well, I am going to start attacking Members of Congress that question my policy, maybe we can make that the discussion for the week, I think the American people and also the Members of this House are far more intelligent than that, to think that just because this is your message for this week, it does not necessarily mean that the American people are going to follow you in that message.

You see the majority following suit because it seems to be a message machine. The President spoke of sending the troops mixed signals. Well, I could not help but reflect on that, being a Member of Congress and seeing what is happening right now.

We have a budget amendment that is supposed to come to the floor pretty soon. I guess they did not have the stomach to pass a budget amendment that would have cut VA benefits to veterans, that would have instructed the Veterans Affairs Committee to cut over $767 million in services to veterans and march in the Veterans Day parade. I guess that was just a little too much for some of the many Members on the majority side, and I want to thank some of those Members who said they were not going to vote for it. I hope they still stand by their convictions this week because that budget resolution has not changed a bit. What they felt last week, they should feel this week.

Also, I should say the President is saying we are sending mixed signals. Well, I guess it is mixed signals when we have over 50 million Americans without health care. What kind of signals are we sending them?

I guess it is mixed signals when we have our men and women who are fighting in harm's way right now, but better yet, when they become veterans, we do not have the same passion for their health care and for their needs.

I guess it is mixed signals when you have to look at our generation and parents that are trying to pay for their child's education and you cut $40 billion and change out of student loans and student aid. That is mixed signals.

I hope that the President can get just as passionate when it comes down to cutting free and reduced lunches in this country, get passionate about that.

We talk about winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people and people abroad. How about winning the hearts and minds of Americans that pay taxes every day?

One other point I just want to make, another mixed signal, as we speak now the Budget Committee is meeting. I guarantee that they are ready and meeting, and on the majority side, the Republican side, to protect people who make over $500,000 to be able to receive their $80,000 tax cut. That is sending mixed signals to the American taxpayer. So, if anyone that raised their hand and said they uphold the Constitution of the United States, you need to be passionate about those Americans that know what it means to punch in and punch out every day.

Last week, one of the Members on the majority side came to the floor and said, well, we are giving tax cuts to the productive Americans. I am assuming that I guess if anyone makes under $500,000 they are not productive in America.

The bottom line is, is that I am not disappointed in what the President said. I am just a little taken aback because my constituents work every day. Your constituents work every day. There are Americans out there trying to make ends meet.

Better yet, we want to scream at Members of Congress talking about rewriting history. Let us talk about putting this country in a debt that it will be very difficult for us to get out of. Let us talk about record-breaking in 4 years of an administration and this majority allowed this President to do $1.05 trillion in borrowing from foreign countries, like China I must add, more than Democrat, Republican and Whig party Presidents was not able to achieve. I have to go all the way back to the Whig party, 1776.

Folks say, oh, well, hard times. Well, World War II happened on this side of the chart. World War I happened on this side of the chart. The Great Depression happened on this side of the chart.

Challenges are not new to leadership in Washington, D.C. If people want to borrow and spend, then that is okay if they do it with their money, but when they do it with the American people's money, it is another thing.

I know the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) is standing by there, but I want to just share this with you.

I have one message for the majority and for the President: Get passionate about the right issues. We are all passionate about the war. We are all concerned about our men and women in uniform, but I tell you one thing. We have American cities that are trying to make ends meet. We have children that are trying to do the best they can under the circumstances. The Leave No

Child Left Behind Act is known by the States, and States are suing the Federal Government for a lack of funding. Meanwhile, as we speak here on this floor, the Ways and Means Committee is meeting to make sure that the tax cuts are permanent for millionaires.

So I am glad that some members of the Senate last week said I cannot vote, at the same time that I am cutting Medicaid for poor Americans free and reduced lunch for children, veterans benefits and then within the same time period, within a couple of days I am going to vote to give millionaires a permanent tax cut?

What I am saying is that there are things that we should get passionate about, and there are some things that we really need to be passionate about. I can tell you right now, there are a number of issues not being addressed, and like you said, the outing of a CIA agent is just like someone running over and telling the enemy about the Marines are going to be on this beach at this time and this day; I just wanted you to know that because I know it. That is what it is like.

And it is setting us back. My message for the majority and also for the President is get passionate about the right issues. You want to get passionate about some of the actions in the White House, it is happening right there under your nose. Passion stops at we will just give an ethics course on not sharing national secrets with the press. You have to go far beyond that. Too many people have died. Too many veterans right now need assistance to just go use the restroom right now to give that speech.

Mr. Speaker, it is once again an honor to come before the House, and we want to give thanks to the Democratic leadership for allowing us to be here one more night.

Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, the 30-Something Working Group and hard-working members on this side of the aisle have come to the floor repeatedly, night after night, in some instances, 2 to 3 hours, to inform not only the Members, Mr. Speaker, but also the American people on what is happening to them under this budget. I will tell my colleagues something for them.

As I stand here now on the floor, Mr. Speaker, the Rules Committee is meeting. They are not meeting under the lights of the American people or even in the daylight. They are meeting here at almost, close to 9 o'clock at night to try to figure out how they can come to the floor and put forth a budget that is going to increase lines at veteran hospitals and clinics in rural areas, decrease services to veterans, and also bring up a higher copayment and premiums for veterans to be able to receive health care.

They are meeting now trying to figure out, Mr. Speaker, how poor children, who do not have to pay a copayment to get health care, they are trying to figure out how they can explain that to the American people and how they can bring it to the floor and package it in a way that even some moderate Republicans can vote for it.

They are trying to figure out now, Mr. Speaker, they are going to be able to ask Members of this Congress, who have been federalized by the fact that they have been elected to Congress, to watch out for the well-being of the country; and drilling, having oil rigs just miles off the coast of Florida where so many of us here in this country go to these destinations for relaxation.

And also as it relates to even helping our own U.S. economy, people fly from overseas to come over and try to enjoy themselves and, at the same time, bring dollars to the United States. They are trying to figure out how they can go to pristine areas throughout our country and national parks and how they can stick an oil rig in the middle of a national park because special interests want that to happen, not that the American people want it to happen.

They are also trying to figure out, Mr. Speaker, how they can save face, and when I say ``they,'' I am saying the Republican majority, how they can come to this floor and ask Members to vote to increase fees for students, which is going to be handed down to the States and they are going to have to increase fees to students for college education as it relates to loans.

They also are trying to figure out how they are going to say that their budget is better than the Democratic alternative, and it is all about priorities.

Mr. Speaker, that is the reason why we are here on the floor tonight. This is the eve of the budget vote. I will tell my colleagues this: I just do not know how, on the majority side, they can swell up about the troops, how they can get teary-eyed, how they can talk about the War on Terror, how they can talk about all of the things that they talk about as it relates to defending our country, and then those very individuals that are defending our country, as we speak, Mr. Speaker, will come back only to have to wait 6 months to see a specialist at the VA.

Where is the money going to come from and the services if you are pulling the rug out from under the veterans?

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, will the gentleman from Ohio give that to the Clerk so that we can enter it into the Record.

Mr. Speaker, what is going to happen is that historians are going to look at this moment right now in the U.S. Congress; they are going to look at this very moment, as we are on the floor right now, and the Rules Committee, they are meeting behind closed doors, at night, in the dark, making decisions that are going to affect the American people, the everyday American people. It is going to affect them.

This is not a hearing that is broadcast to the American people; it is not a hearing, not even in the daytime. It is a hearing in the middle of the night. And what they are going to do in that closed-door hearing is set the stage to try to come to this floor.

They cannot persuade our Members on this side, because we are already on the side of the American people. We already know, together we can do better on this side of the aisle. We already know that we put forth amendments in the Budget Committee that were voted down on a party-line vote.

As it relates to the oil companies' profits, there was a hearing today with the oil companies here. They must have heard us talk about it, and so they said, Well, let us call a couple of them in and let us talk to them about why the American people possibly got price-gouged. A lot of talk.

But it was the Democratic Caucus and the Democrats in committee that put forth the amendment, not talk, but action, to make sure that the American people no longer were being price-gouged; and also making sure that those individuals in America that have to pay higher fees, especially our poor, for heating oil and gas this winter. Action, not talk. To come to the floor and to just talk, without action.

We in the minority, and by the fact that we are in the minority, we are trying to do the best that we can to fight on behalf of the American people that sent us here to represent them throughout this country, we are here fighting. We are not just giving them lip service. We are not saying, Hey, listen, we are going left, but we are really going right. We are not here to sugar-coat or glaze the reality.

The reality is the fact that they know that they are wrong, and they know they are going to have a problem with the vote. I guarantee my colleagues, as sure as my name is Kendrick Meek, when that board opens up tomorrow, the vote on the budget, we are going to be here for some time. We are going to be here for some time while arms are being twisted, while the special interests are calling in on cell phones saying, you have to vote for this because our stuff is in that bill.

But meanwhile, back at the ranch, I grabbed the PAC list a little earlier. I did not see a PAC on behalf of people who fought for this country. I did not even see a PAC that was put forth by the children in America that are on Title I and free and reduced lunches; I did not see a PAC on their behalf to get the attention of this Congress. I did not even see a PAC that said, Hey, listen, we just want you to do the right thing on behalf of the American people. I did not see that PAC listed on the PAC list.

But I will tell my colleagues this: This is very disturbing.

The reason why I asked the gentleman to put that VFW letter into the Record, and we need to put that AARP letter that came in yesterday since we are helping seniors, into the Record, because we want historians to look at the time when we had the highest deficit in the history of the Republic, we want historians to be able to look at when one President, with a majority Congress, with a majority House and a majority Senate, borrowed more from foreign countries than 42 previous Presidents and 42 previous administrations, Democrats and Republican.

If the gentleman will yield, even more, not only was he removed as chairman; he was taken off the committee. I think he was taken off the committee as it relates to being the chairman. I am not just talking about being off the committee, taken out of the chairmanship. But that is what you get when you stand up against the machine.

That is what happens to so many individuals that stand up against the machine.

Yes.

I know you have a point there. I just want a point of clarification. Point of clarification. I did speak correctly, Mr. Speaker, when I said that the chairman, the past chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Republican, was not only removed as chairman, but kicked off of the committee. They did not even want his thoughts on the committee because he stood up for veterans. He stepped out of line. He stepped out of line. Chairman Smith, Chris Smith stepped out of line, because he did what he thought was right. I am holding in my hand, and I am sorry, but I just wanted to share that because we were making a point earlier and I said he was off the committee, and then folks were looking around. I knew that I was correct.

Here is the legislative directory for the 109th Congress. It has the names of the members on the committee, and I do not blame the Members. I am talking about the leadership. But there are two spots there that say vacancy, vacancy. One of those vacancies was the past chairman of that committee who was a Republican that could no longer stomach doing what the Republican leadership was asking in this House for him to do.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say real quick, the gentleman said, when it passes the House floor tomorrow, and I think the reason why you said that, because I know personally that the gentleman has watched on 3, 4, 5 major votes, that 20 minutes into the vote, 30 minutes into the vote, 1 hour into the vote, 90 minutes into the vote, the arm-twisting, the squeals, the cries from this side of the aisle of individuals getting hammered, literally, with their hands on the table saying that you will vote for this. You will vote for this. And that is the reason why the gentleman is speaking in those terms, ``when it passes.''

But I am going to say something. I believe in the spirit of the American people. I hope it rises up tomorrow in a way that it should rise up against this very bad budget. I hope that we can adopt the Democratic budget that is sensible, that put us on the trail for fiscal responsibility by 2015, to make sure that we prioritize on behalf of Americans and not on behalf of special interests.

So you are 110 percent right. If things happen at all the way it appears here under this Republican majority, it will pass. It will pass because they will literally make their Members vote for it.

Well, there is nothing more evident than the truth as it relates to this budget, and I mentioned earlier about holding the clock open and violating the spirit of the rules of the House when there is a 15-minute vote called. It is customary to give Members 5 extra minutes to get here to vote, but it is not customary to hold a clock open for 3 hours.

Let me just say, October 7, 2005, Republicans held open a 5-minute vote on the Gasoline for America's Security Act for over 40 minutes to pass the energy bill, Republicans, which also passed by two votes because of the arm twisting.

On November 22, 2003, the majority held open the vote for 3 hours, the longest in the history of the House of Representatives, on the prescription drug bill.

Then on the Central American Free Trade Agreement on July 27 and 28, it has two dates because the clock was held open so long. For a 15- minute vote, the vote was held open for over an hour; and it passed on a 217 to 215 vote.

Here is the evidence. It is in the Record. I do not need to enter it. It is already there.

When you talk about how can this happen, how could this be allowed to happen in America, as we speak now, the Rules Committee is meeting in a dark room just above this Chamber, trying to figure out how they are going to come to the floor under the lights and the cameras and justify voting for a budget like this.

I am wondering where the majority's letters are from Family U.S.A. that is saying that these Medicaid cuts that the House has, that it will cause enormous hardships out there. Where is their letter and support from the AARP, the largest retirement organization in the world, that is saying that they are against the Medicaid cuts because it will affect seniors? Where are their third-party validators, these nonpartisan groups? I have to question that because I cannot help think about what we are facing right now.

We are facing allegations in the White House of outing a CIA agent and several other agents because someone thought that it would be politically right for them to share classified information about a clandestine agent with reporters. This is not what I am saying; this is what the indictment says.

You know what I did get, not from help from the majority, but we finally got the list of the subpoenas that were issued under the Clinton administration versus the Bush administration. It saddens me to see that the Republicans can provide oversight when they want to. They can get to the bottom of what actually happened when they want to.

I will tell you this, just one committee I am going to take, just one committee, the House Government Reform Committee issued over 1,089 subpoenas to the Clinton administration. That is the record. That is not my report; that is what the record reflects. Ninety-seven percent of those subpoenas were targeted towards the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party. Only 11 subpoenas for the Republicans, 11 out of 1,089.

It goes on further to say that the GAO, this is the Government Accountability Office, examined the White House's efforts to provide documents to the Congress over an 18-month period from October 1996 to March 1, 1999. The Government Accountability Office found that during that period the White House staff spent, alone, over 55,000 hours responding to over 300 congressional requests, producing hundreds of thousand of pages of documents and videotapes and audiotapes to the Congress.

They called 134 Clinton administration White House agency officials to hearings concerning allegations of the Clinton administration. The witnesses were called to appear before the committee and in public session, not secret session, but public session, so the

American people can see it. The White House chief of staff and the counsel to the President, the counsel to the Vice President, all of them were called here, spent over 568 hours in depositions with staff. That is just with staff. They also provided discussions between the President and his advisers. President Clinton waived the executive privilege and allowed these advisers to testify before the committee about their discussions with him.

Internal White House e-mails, over $12 million was spent to reconstruct those e-mails. Confidential conversations within the White House counsel's office were provided to the Congress, but now we have questionable intelligence that sent us to war. We have a CIA agent that has been outed, and this is what the Republican Congress does now.

Well, we know that CIA agents are being outed, but we are not looking over there because our friends may be embarrassed. It may jeopardize national security, but that is not important. It is all about making sure that we stay in power and that we do not pay attention to what the American people constitutionally have asked us to do, to provide oversight and to give the American people a voice when wrongdoing is evident, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

It is a shame. It is a shame that this is happening as we speak in this Congress.

If my colleague will give out the Web site before we have to close.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Members for joining us here this hour. I look forward to being back on the floor, all of us, in one more hour when my colleague claims his hour so that we can continue sharing good information not only with the Members but the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Democratic leadership for allowing us to have this hour.

Those are third-party validators that were actually CIA agents. Am I correct, sir?

If I can, can I just be the majority right now?

Can I role play for a minute for the Republican majority?

What they are doing in response here in this House to what the gentleman has just pointed out that is public record, third-party validator, using the very words of these individuals. This is what the majority is doing.

We read it in the paper. We are hearing it on the news. People all over the world are talking about these allegations. The indictment has quotes of individuals where they contradict one another as it relates to the outing of a CIA agent, but they are my friends. And even though they are not from my district and they did not vote for me, I have their back.

Whatever the Democrats say and whatever they may write, or the ranking member of said committee of oversight that wants to review national security clearances for these individuals, I will do nothing to help in that environment to be able to bring about protection of national security clearance credentials for individuals that are questioned in these allegations. Not only will I not talk about it, I will not even have a hearing on it. As a matter of fact, I will not even allow a hearing on it.

We would come to the floor and we would say, it is just the Democrats once again being negative, not being productive. All they can do is talk about things that are not of any consequence to national security.

Now, that is what they are doing. That is what they are doing. If you ask the majority about oversight, you heard in the last hour we had a couple of hours ago, I read the record under the Clinton administration, 1,089 subpoenas of the Clinton administration for far less, for far less.

At that particular time only 11 subpoenas for Republicans. Under this administration, we are still getting that information. Far less. The Republican-controlled Congress, thousands upon thousands of hours of staff interviews of Clinton administration officials.

Millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars, and we have the outing of a CIA agent. We have an indictment for the first time in years.

One hundred thirty years of a White House Chief of Staff of the Vice President of these United States indicted. We have an Official A that we now know as the Senior Chief of Staff or Assistant Chief of Staff to the President of these United States, and not a mumbling word. Not one floor speech. Not one letter. Not one hearing in the people's House.

No message meeting from the Republican Conference about we need to make sure that we stand up to our constitutional responsibilities.

So when we talk about a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence, that is not what we are saying. That is what the American people are thinking and what they know. That

is the reason why this Congress has between a 35 percent approval rating to 31 percent approval rating. It is not our doing. It is the doing of the majority that are not doing their job.

We do not want that.

Let me just, like we say, put the cookie on the bottom shelf here.

Veterans Day is Friday. I am just thinking about this. Folks have put statements in the Record. Our veterans, we love them, tear drops on the paper while they are writing it. And here we are living in an environment now in the 109th Congress, Republican-controlled Congress, where it has been proven, literally put on paper to be judged in a court of law that officials in the White House several years ago, someone finally came forth and told the truth or said that someone lied. And they have the power to call these White House officials in a public hearing to talk about what happened. They have the power to do that, but they choose not to.

Now, just like I have this mike here and this podium, there will be some Members of Congress that will be asked to speak at a Veterans Day event and they are going to talk about the war on terror. And they are going to talk about winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis and other groups that are out there. And they are going to talk about the troops and their commitment. But I tell you one thing that they will not talk about. They will not talk about the fact that we know what is going on.

We are not going to call these people before Congress and ask questions like we are supposed to when CIA agents are outed, when national security is jeopardized. We are not going to, when there is almost close to prima facie evidence that it jeopardized national security as it relates to a person's job, who was to find out and seek out those countries that have weapons of mass destruction for the reason that we went to war in the first place.

I am just in the middle of what they are doing or not doing.

By the way, I want to let you know that I have voted to make sure that you veterans of wars that allow me to go into a free House in the Congress to represent you, that I have voted to increase your copayments. I voted to make sure that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs over the next 5 years makes $798 million in cuts that very well will result in two things: one, making sure that you pay higher fees when you go to the Veterans Affairs Department for a death benefit, or make sure that you wait longer to see a specialist in the Veterans' Department and clinics and hospitals.

That will not be said. That will not be shared with those veterans. But I guarantee you, as we sit here, letter after letter after letter from these groups that are saying that they are against what this Republican majority is doing. So when we see what is public knowledge here in the United States and throughout the world, that it is okay as long as it is the Republican White House and the Republican Congress that is condoning it to happen.

In the Senate, in the Senate I am so glad that the Democratic leadership used Rule 21 to call them into a closed session, to force the Republican majority to come with Democrats and Republicans, three on each side, to finish looking into the allegations of false information given to the Congress when it was time to go to war.

So when we start talking about the budget and we start talking about corruption and cronyism, it is happening in the moment. And I am so glad that I am a part of a party and have leadership that is willing to stand up on behalf of the American people.

Guess what? There are some of my Republican friends, because I talked to them, and when I say they are my friends, they are my friends. They wake up and put their pants on one leg at a time or grab their purse or what have you; and they are good people. But it is the leadership. That is the reason why the votes are extended.

I have here, right here in my hand, it is called The House Rules and Manual of the 109th Congress. In this manual, I must add that it says, under rule 20, Mr. Speaker, and it is number 2 here, it talks about the fact that the maximum time for a recorded vote or quorum call by electronic device shall be 15 minutes.

Now, as I stand here as Carrie Meek's son, my mother, I guarantee you tomorrow when this vote comes up that the spirit of that rule will not prevail. We will be here for some time because they have to convince some of our friends in the majority to vote for the rule.

We can talk about that a little bit because I think we need to share that with the Members, Mr. Speaker, of what the Rules Committee did tonight. I think we need to talk about that since it was in a dark room on the third floor. We are on the second floor now. It was on the third floor of this very building.

All right. Here is a perfect example of what we call the Potomac 2-Step. You have just outlined a perfect example. Some may say hoodwink. Others may say bamboozle. But here in Washington we call it Potomac 2-Step. It is a dance where, hey, I am going this way, you go that way, you swing your arms.

Let me just tell you what they are doing.

Presently, they would say it is reducing the deficit, but what they are not saying within another 2 weeks, we are going to give people that make over half a million dollars a year the biggest tax cut they have ever seen. One Member described it on that side as we are going to help the productive people here in the United States; we are going to help the productive people. So I guess that means, American worker, if you make between $34,000 and $54,000 and you get an $840 tax cut, you are not necessarily in that group of the half a million folks.

I want you to go further on that chart, but just before we get too far away from what the Rules Committee did tonight on a party-line vote, you hear Members come to the floor and other Members say, oh, well, we are for fairness; we do not know why the Democrats will not offer their alternatives; they have nothing but complaints; it is almost un-American.

I am going to tell you what is un-American, Mr. Speaker, and I am going to tell you what is limiting the voice of the Democratic side over here.

The rule that was passed from the Rules Committee just moments ago in darkness, there was not a television camera in that room. When we start talking about the back halls of Congress, it is our job here in the 30 Something Working Group, good or bad, we are supposed to expose what happens in the back halls of Congress.

Let me just read this. This is not something that I printed. This is what the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) just pointed out on H.R. 4241, what they call the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, even though it is increasing the deficit by $20 billion and change. I did not put these in order.

Number 1, closed rule. Closed rule means that we cannot even offer an amendment to this Act when it comes to the floor, democrat or Republican. Let me just keeping going here. This gets interesting.

Two, provides 2 hours of debate in the House, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on the Budget. That is where the Republican side gets two hours to talk about how good it is, the Democrats get 2 hours to talk about why we cannot offer anything to this budget, why are we cutting veteran benefits, why we are increasing student loan costs to students for our next generation of workers in this country, why can we not have more female engineers in this country, why are we putting what I call tax, they call fee, why are we putting additional tax on American families to educate their children.

Three, waive all points of order against consideration of the bill. Well, goodness gracious.

That means if you have a point of order to the Speaker, that is waived, you are out of order. What do you mean point of order? If something was found in the rule book tomorrow that violates the rules of this House and I want to make a point of order, you cannot make it because it has been waived by the Rules Committee.

Number 4, provides that all amendments printed in the Rules Committee report accompanying the resolution shall be considered as adopted.

Without a vote. Should be considered as adopted. That means it is already adopted. What are they meeting for? What is the 2 hours on both side? Why debate it? We did it because we are in the majority, and guess what, we have the power to do that. They are setting the rules. They think they are muzzling the Democratic side. They are muzzling the people that sent us up here to represent them. That is what they are doing. That is the reason why this stuff happens at night here.

Number 5, this is not my order, Mr. Speaker. This is from the Rules Committee. Waive all points of order against provisions in the bill as amended. They have already, in their opinion, adopted this bill. When I say ``they,'' I am talking about the Republican majority. When we talk about power, when we talk about an abuse of power, Mr. Speaker, that is what we are talking about.

I want to say it again, just in case someone missed it. This is not what we are doing, Mr. Speaker. This is what the Republican majority is doing on the Rules Committee.

Number 6, provides one motion to recommit, with or without instructions.

No.

That is just an attempt by the individuals that have problems with this bill to recommit it back to committee. I mean, this is not something to change or improve or someone comes to the floor and say, you know, if you just did not do what you are doing to free and reduced lunch for children, poor children in my community, I just cannot vote for this because I just cannot close a clinic which is only open in my rural area once every 2 weeks and now this may very well close it; all these billions of dollars in cuts to the veterans assistance and health care and death benefit, I just cannot vote for it in good conscience. So that means that that cannot even happen.

No, no. It does not happen.

No.

Number 7, provides that notwithstanding the operation of the previous question, the Chair may postpone further consideration of the bill to a time designated by the Speaker. Now, that is the out in number 7, and I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, in no way do I want to see the American people go through what the majority wants them to go through if this bill passes hypothetically tomorrow.

That allows the Republican majority to say, oh, the leadership, goodness, we could not get some of our Members to vote against their own constituents that sent them up here; we tried but it just could not happen because it was the wrong thing to do. They thought about it. Some slept on it. Some got calls from their veterans and from faith- based organizations that do what they can do on behalf of those that do not have as much as others; those that were concerned about the effects on the environment that is in this budget; those that cared about children to have an education environment, Mr. Speaker, where you do not have kids on one end that had breakfast, lunch and dinner because their families were able to provide it versus those kids that could have been stricken by natural disaster or a father could have died or under this bill a single mother because we cut child enforcement dollars to help go after deadbeat parents that are not paying for it.

It is not what we are doing, it is what the majority is doing.

It is not what we are doing.

It is what we are fighting against. And guess what? Those that come to the floor, and I guarantee there will be some come to the floor, and someone will give them a piece of paper, and they will say, Okay, thank you, and they will run up here, grab the mike and they will say, Why do the Democrats not offer something?

Hello? The Rules Committee has spoken. It is done. Period. Dot. Even if someone had a great idea, they cannot do it. And there is a history of this kind of abuse here in the House and muzzling individuals and people with great ideas that want to help this country. But, better yet, the rule.

And this is America. This is not a Third World country. This is not a Communist country. This is America.

My colleagues, it is not only what we are saying, it is what is in House Resolution 4241. You can go on line, Members that have not taken a look at that, they can look in the morning, read over it, have staff highlight exactly, verbatim, what we are talking about here.

I know the reason why the Rules Committee, Republican majority, closed the rule. I know why they did it. Because on this side of the aisle we will do what we tried to do in the Budget Committee. We will replace the cuts that they made to veterans' services and health care. We will replace that.

And guess what? Under the lights and in this Chamber they would have to go up, take my voting card out, they would have to go up to the machines that we have here and actually take out their voting card and put it in the machine and go on the record, on the board, saying that they are willing to cut child support enforcement.

I wonder what their State attorneys are going to say and district attorneys are going to say when a single parent, nine times out of ten women, that are going to go into the State attorney's office and prosecutor's office and say, he ran out on me; he left me here with these four kids. I have not seen him and he has not given a dime towards child support. Can you help me?

Yes, they will take their information. But you know what they will say? Ma'am, I am sorry, it is going to probably take 3 years because we have a backlog because of our friends in Congress. You need to call your Congressman because they cut the child enforcement money.

But it gets worse, Mr. Speaker. The three of us were members of the State legislatures. Mr. Ryan was in the senate in Ohio, Ms. Wasserman Schultz and myself, we were in the senate in Florida and in the house. My colleague from Florida speaks of the fact that she is a freshman here, but her public service goes beyond mine. I have been here 11 years, and I met her when I came into the house because she was already there a term before me.

So what is going to happen when it gets to the State legislatures? What are they going to do, Mr. Speaker? They are going to make a cut, too, to child support enforcement.

They will not have a choice because we handed it to them. We gave it to them.

So the Republican majority once again uses this book. And the power that they have on the majority side to close the rule, the power the people gave to them, is to prevent us from saying, Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk that will replace the cuts that are made to veterans, that will replace the cuts made to child enforcement. Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk that will make sure that those oil companies that are celebrating historic record profits, that we not only talk about those record profits here in Congress, that we do something about it; and we make sure that those who cannot afford heating oil and LP gas this winter can receive a break on that. They stopped that from happening.

So when you start talking about where are the Democrats, where are their ideas? Well, guess what? We are not going to tell you that last night at 10 p.m., while some of you all were home asleep, we got them good. We shut them down. We put forth a rule that they cannot even introduce their ideas. And you know why they did it? Because they might very well have lost some of their Members, who would have had to take this card out and put it in these machines behind these chairs and vote for their constituents and the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I want to read Point No. 4. This paper is still a little warm because they just carried out this act. It states: ``Provide that the amendment printed in the Rules Committee report accompanying the resolution shall be considered as adopted.''

Why come to the floor tomorrow? We cannot offer an amendment.

Yes, that is the bottom line. Some Member is going to make a career decision tomorrow because somebody told him to vote for something that they did not want to vote for in the first place.

We are going to make the right decisions, decisions on behalf of the American people. May the blocks fall where they may. There is going to be a difference between the Members and the followers in this Chamber. It is important that we let the American people know who is standing for them.

So when Ms. Wasserman Schultz talks about when judgment day comes every 2 years, when Democrats, Republicans and the one Independent we have, when people go to make their decision, I want them to think about the fact that they should vote principle over party. Do not go for, in the last minute what we call in some areas of this country, the okie- doke. Hey, I am strong on terror. I am with the trips. We have Members flying to Iraq. Thank you for fighting for our country; but do not talk to me when you become a veteran. I am just fresh off a vote cutting your future benefits. But, hey, I am with you all of the way. But as long as you stay enlisted, we stay with you.

Mr. Speaker, I want to give the Web site out, but I wanted to make that point so people remember what happened this November. They came to the floor and came willing to vote for a budget that was unjust.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to address the House once again, and we would like to thank the Democratic leadership for allowing us to have one more hour on the 30-something Working Group tonight. We have been coming to the floor daily and mainly speaking recently about the budget and what effects it is going to have on the American people throughout this country.

We have asked our colleagues within the working group to come to the floor, share some of their concerns, talk about our Democratic alternative, which failed in committee, not because it was not an alternative of merit and of commitment and making sure that we place ourselves in heading in the direction towards the balanced budget by 2012, but it failed because we were in the minority. One Republican on the opposite side of the aisle did vote against the proposal that will be coming to the floor in the coming days, seeing it in a way that fiscal responsibility is important but making sure that we do not leave Americans behind who sent us up here to represent them.

I am honored tonight to be joined by the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms.

Wasserman Schultz) and also my good friend, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), who has been a part of this in making sure that we put American priorities forward. But I must say that there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

Tonight we are going to make sure that the Members know and also the American people know exactly what they are going to be voting on coming the next couple of days. There will be a bill in the Committee on Rules, and we will have debate here on the floor; but Members need to know exactly what they are voting for because as we, Mr. Speaker, look at this bill as written, veterans are going to have longer lines, they are going to pay higher co-payments, they are going to pay higher premiums. And those individuals that are coming out of theater, some 130,000, now we have 150-something thousand in theater of war, when they come back and they find themselves waiting in longer lines for what we promised them as it relates to health care, as it relates to benefits and not leaving out their families and children, I think it is something we need to pay very close attention to.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Please.

Well, I want to thank my colleague from Ohio for yielding. The gentleman must have read it on my forehead when he started talking about how this Republican majority has led us into an area we have never been before as a country. And I am not talking about leading in a way that Americans will be proud of the situation we are in now or how other countries are now looking at the opportunity of owning a piece of the United States, which is basically what is happening financially.

And change.

If the gentleman will yield, this feeds into the incompetence that we talk about. We talk about it, and we do not use the term loosely. We use it because it is well founded.

We take this chart out every night, and every time we get an opportunity to share with not only the Members on what they are doing. Members need to realize what they are voting on. I am not saying that some do not, but they have to realize what they are voting on.

Here is basically what President Bush has done in 4 years that other Presidents have managed not to do in 224 years, as it relates to foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury debt. This statistic is from the United States Department of Treasury, a third-party validator. This is not from me or Mr. Ryan or Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

Let me say this, $1 trillion in debt that was accumulated over 224 years, from 1776, borrowing money from foreign governments, President Bush, who did not do it by himself, and I have said this before, and I can guarantee he could not do it by himself, $1.05 trillion in a period of 4 years. In a period of 4 years, he has accomplished something with the Republican majority that has not been accomplished by 42 other Presidents, 224 years in this country of having the Democrats, Republicans, Whig Party; and this President and this administration and this majority have done the job that 42 other Presidents did not do as relates to putting this country in the posture it is in right now.

Mr. Speaker, it is what we are all doing, making sure that not only the Members know exactly what they are doing when we come in and push the red and green button, and endorsing or not endorsing an idea or a plan. I think it is important for us to not only highlight the $14 billion in cuts which mean higher fees for students because the States have to balance. When we make those cuts, they have to make cuts. This is not the end of the cuts to the average student.

When you look at higher education, college education, preparing the next generation, that is not just on that 20-something or 18-year-old. That is on the parents of that 18- or 19- or 20-year-old. That is another burden on their backs.

I just wanted to mention quickly, I was reading this letter as both of you were sharing good information with the Members and the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I am holding a letter dated November 8. It is from the president of AARP. AARP is the largest retirement organization here in the United States and also on the face of the Earth. This is from the CEO. What he is saying here, basically, is that they oppose the Medicaid cuts that are in the House bill. They are for reform, but they oppose the cuts.

I just want to make sure that the Members, and one Member came from the opposite side, the Republican side, and said I wish my friends on the Democratic side would join me in voting for this budget that we have put forth.

I said first you have to work on some of your own Members who have not come to grips on how they can vote for something that AARP is against.

Basically, this letter says that AARP opposes the 2006 reconciliation bill now awaiting consideration before the House.

``We strongly oppose the changes.'' Not that they oppose the changes. They strongly oppose it because they know what it will do. Basically, it goes on further. For example, they say: ``The House package, in effect, would

prevent a stroke victim from entering a nursing home, even if there were no other alternatives, simply because she has helped a grandson with college tuition costs.'' This is basically where a bean counter would go in and evaluate the financial situation of the person that wants to go into a nursing home under Medicaid. They would go in and say, You wrote a $500 check for your grandson to go to college. You can afford to pay for this nursing home. We will not.

This is not what I am saying. This is what the AARP is saying, which has thousands of members and is the largest retirement organization on the face of the Earth. It goes on to say that a private nursing home could evict a person, force a person out of a nursing home for a period of time, even after the assets were all exhausted, if they contributed to a hurricane recovery victim. Once again, the bean counters would go in under this budget. This is not fiction. This is fact. Under this budget, and then say they are denying them assistance in a nursing home. This is the reality of what is in the House budget right now.

We talk about Veterans Day, and I am going to mention this as many times as I can because I think it is important, many of us, Mr. Speaker, are going to leave here on Thursday and go do the things that we need to do. Some Members have already entered into the Congressional Record recognizing Veterans Day observances throughout the country, the past contributions of our veterans. But at the same time, on the Democratic side what we have called for is we provided $1.6 billion more than the Republican budget for veterans programs for 2006 and $17 billion over the next 5 years.

The Democratic budget reverses what the Republican budget has put forth on the $798 million over the next 5 years in Republican cuts that they have asked the Veterans' Affairs Committee to do, not even talking about what they have done as it relates to cutting $14 billion over the next 5 years.

So, Mr. Speaker, what this really means is that when the veterans go to the VA in some rural areas that some of us in this room represent, there are some VA clinics that are only open once a week, not because that is all they can do, but because they have been cut so much, they cannot provide the health care for the veterans, that when they signed up, they held up their end of the deal. We are not holding up our end of the deal.

But meanwhile back at the ranch, we are giving breaks and tax cuts and some may call them incentives for companies that are making record profits in the history of the world. So when we start talking about these cuts, it is a reality. They are a true reality. And I just took the veterans out for a minute because I knew what we were talking about. But it is an irony that Veterans Day is Friday and Members are going to come here and they are going to take their voting card out, and they are going to put it in the machine, and they are going to look up to see how the leadership is voting, nine times out of 10, and they are going to vote the way the Republican leadership has asked them to vote, and that is very unfortunate.

But I want to warn the Members to take this card, and let me tell them, there are some people who woke up one Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. to vote for some representation. The people that gave Members of Congress this card to vote and put into these machines, I mean, it is not like I have a Miss Mobil in my district or I have a Mister Special Interest in my district. They do not cast a vote. The people that I represent cast a vote. So it is important that we keep that in mind, and I want to make sure that the Members understand, because veterans will be prepared and the American people will be prepared. Why do I have to pay more for health care because they want to make room for the billionaires to receive tax cuts?

Mr. Ryan has that chart there that shows individuals that are making over $500,000. Let us talk about these individuals just for a minute. They are Americans. I do not blame them for the tax cut that they are getting. I blame the individuals that are continuing to build on a tax cut that is already there for that group of people and there is very little that is for the individual that is even making $91,000, a household that is making $91,000 to $179,000 a year. It is not fair.

So when we have people fighting in Iraq, we have three natural disasters here that we are trying to manage and trying to help Americans bounce back from, and then at the same time we want to build on even more incompetence and cronyism as it relates to giving to the special interests, it is just unconscionable; and I hope that Members really weigh heavy.

And I am just going to say this: I am from Florida, and what the Republican majority is asking the Florida delegation to do is to vote for oil drilling miles off the coast of Florida. Oil drilling miles off the coast of Florida. Everyone comes to Florida for what? Tourism. What else? They come to the beaches, from all over the world. It helps our Florida economy, and it helps our national economy. But yet Members of the Florida delegation are being asked to vote against one of the very principles where the Florida Everglades is located, where we have hundreds and thousands of miles of coastline so that when people come to Florida now they can step into a patch of oil and they can see a rig off the coast of Florida.

That is a high order to call a Floridian to do. Both of our Senators are against this, I must add. We have some Members in the House that are going to have to go see the wizard, get a little courage and go to the leadership and say it is not going to happen, bottom line.

I will tell my colleagues what I am prepared to do. As long as that language is in there and we are talking about drilling in the ANWR, let us just take our national parks, and let us just start drilling there. Forget about what we already know, that there is very little oil in many of these areas, that the oil companies just want to go out, not at their expense but at taxpayers' expense, and start to drill in those areas.

So, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we continue to come to the floor to not only share with the Members but with the American people by letting them know what is going on in this House and what is not going on in this House and that there are alternatives and we are putting forth those alternatives in a fiscally sound way that will place us on the road to balancing the budget but at the same time not hurting the very people that some folks come to the floor saying they want to help.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we have a little administrative transfer to make here.

I yield to Mr. Ryan so he can give the Web site.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for giving out that Web site. That has been very useful; and we want to thank Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and even some Members for letting us know some of their thoughts.

With that, Mr. Speaker, we would like the Democratic leadership for allowing us to have this honor.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, my good friend from Ohio and my good friend from Missouri, the ``Show Me'' State, they say, we are in a situation right now where we should not be acting like what we call here in Congress under regular order as though it is just another day in Congress, another day at the office, no big deal, everything is fine.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell my colleagues that we should be very alarmed. We should be very alarmed at the fiscal situation we are in. The highest deficit of the history of the Republic. We are borrowing more from foreign countries, breaking records. One administration breaks the record of 42 administrations before it. We have CIA agents being outed.

We have CIA agents being pointed out by people in the White House who have the highest national security clearance to know what is going on throughout the world, getting daily briefings. We have a situation where we had Hurricane Katrina, which we have asked for an independent commission, not just for the affected area where Hurricane Katrina and Rita hit, and if we want to add

Wilma, it is not just to deal with that. It is to make sure that we have a 9/11-like commission outside of the partisan commission that we have here in this House to look at the way FEMA and the State and local governments respond to natural disasters, or disasters, period.

Now, we do not even have the ice and water situation down yet when we start talking about FEMA and the response to Americans in need, and I am going to take from Mr. Ryan, taxpayers when they are in need. We do not have that down. Not if, but when a terrorist attack happens in another city here in the United States, what will be the response from the Federal, State, and local governments? I am on the Homeland Security Committee, and I have come to the conclusion that we are not ready, regardless of what the Secretary says, regardless of whatever podium the President wants to get on in the situation room and say that we are ready. We are not ready.

Even if someone had an alcohol problem, the first sign of recovery is saying first we have a problem so that we can work on the problem and start cutting through the egos, cutting through the bureaucracy, because people need help, and we need to be there for them. So we should be alarmed. We should be alarmed about what is going on and what is not going on in this country, and it should be something that Americans should be very concerned about.

The majority side beats their chests. They give floor speeches, tearing up and voice cracking, talking about how they love the troops; but meanwhile here in Congress less than 48 hours from now, many of them are going to put their voting card in the machine that I took out earlier in the last hour and they are going to vote against making sure that veterans are able to get health care in a timely manner, making sure that individuals that are financially challenged in our country have some level of health care, making sure that students pay more and their parents pay more and their grandparents pay more.

So we have a scenario where we have a family that is financially challenged trying to make sure the first person, whether it be black, white, Hispanic, or Asian, is trying to better their bloodline by saying we make sure we send the first member of our family to college.

We want to make sure that my daughter can become an engineer, as we have very few female engineers in this country. I want to help. We are going to ask our family to pool in. If grandma is on Medicaid and she wants to go into a nursing home, the bean counter is going to come and say, well, you wrote a check to Warren County Community College for your grandson, so that means you do have some disposable income. And this is from the AARP letter, this is not the Kendrick Meek report. Then she will be denied the opportunity to go into a nursing home. This is callous, and it is un-American.

So I want to make sure that the Members know exactly on the other side what they are doing, when they are doing it, because I am going to tell you something. It is not going to be a well-kept secret here in Washington, D.C., and it will not go away. We will continue to remind not only them, but the American people, Mr. Speaker, of the fact that they took their card and they voted against those very things, and other things.

They are asking Floridians to vote for drilling off the coast of Florida, I mean, the place where the Everglades is located. People travel across the world to come to Florida, across the world to come to the beaches and to the Everglades. We want to drill there; that is what this budget is saying. So many of the members of the Florida delegation, when I say the majority are Republican, they are going to have to make a real hard decision, and it is something that we must encourage those Members to vote for our alternatives.

So should we be alarmed? We should be alarmed. There should be a line of Democrats and Republicans outside the door of this Chamber. I will tell my colleagues this: there still has not been a mumbling word from the said committees that have oversight and something to say about who has a national security clearance and who does not. I think it is pretty evident from reading the indictment that there are some questionable issues there as it relates to folks in the White House maintaining their national security clearance.

The President's response to it? Do not take it from me; take it from his own lips of what he said in The Washington Post and other publications that are out there. The President has ordered the White House staff to attend a mandatory briefing beginning next week on ethical behavior and the handling of classified material.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Missouri, I yield to him.

Mr. Speaker, I can say that it is within the billions, and some may say it deals with HMO administrative costs, but they will affect the delivery of services, managed care services to many of the people that are in the managed care area.

Mr. Speaker, I will tell my colleague right now, higher copayments, higher premiums, and benefits are going to be reduced. That is the bottom line. It does not get better for the seniors; it gets worse. It gets better for those who are on the side of the Republican majority, because I am going to tell you right now, if you are a special interest group, you do not even have to grab the mike and come to committee. Do not worry. The leadership on the opposite side of the aisle, they have your back. Do not worry, do not say anything, oil industry. Billionaires, do not say anything; we have you. We are going to make sure you are okay. Do not worry about it; you do not have to fight.

They were talking about a group within the Republican Conference, or I should say it is the entire Republican Conference, that has come up with a budget that is making cuts across the board for everyday Americans. Not a mumbling word, not a mumbling word about billionaires. The gentleman from Ohio just had a chart up of Americans making over half a million dollars. Not a mumbling word to just say, you know, we need 3 percent of what we have given you to not only balance the budget, but soften the cuts on everyday Americans.

I believe the Iraqis have universal health care. They have universal health care.

No, it is universal health care. It is something that we talked about here, and it just did not happen

The American taxpayer, Mr. Delahunt. The American taxpayer is paying for it.

The American people have been told a lot of things as it relates to what is going to happen and what is not going to happen in Iraq. They have been told a lot of things. We have been told that the oil will pay for reconstruction, the oil will pay for military costs; and I can tell you right now what is very unfortunate. We have men and women, I have 21 military installations in my State alone, three combined, three unified commands in my State. We have a number of Guard and Reserve troops. We have 80,000 active duty individuals in my State, servicemen and women, including their families, and a number of them are deployed at this time.

Some of them are engineers that are working in Sadr City and, you know, doing infrastructure work and fresh drinking water and building schools and doing all of that. We had them before the Armed Services Committee the other day. But as it relates to the incompetence and the cronyism of contracting, and the abuse and the awarding of incompetence and cronyism, that is overshadowing the work that these men and women are doing on the ground.

They are saying, No one is paying attention to what we are doing. And I said, Yes, there are some people that are paying attention to what you are doing, and you are doing a fine job.

One thing I can say about the military, they do what they are told. If their country tells them to do something, they do it. It is not, well, you know, I do not know. Maybe I will do it. No, that is not the case. No, they do it. And that is the reason why, regardless of how you may feel, you know, about the reasoning behind why we are in Iraq or not, we have got to respect those individuals. I do not see anyone that does not.

But when you have the incompetence and the cronyism from the top, from the folks that are wearing the suits and ties and being driven around here in motorcades making the decisions, it squashes the goodwill that those men and women are doing. And so it is important for us to really pay attention to these secret areas of torture that our taxpayer dollars are involved in.

Someone may say, well, those are potential terrorists or they are identified terrorists. Why would we care about how they are treated or if they are tortured? This is the reason why you care. And I want to make sure the Members understand this. You care when a U.S. soldier is caught or detained by an insurgent, that they will not be treated in a way that is inhumane, that they will not be tortured and that we do not have to see on the 6 o'clock news a family crying because they fear that they will go through some of the acts that have taken place in secrecy under this administration.

It goes to the incompetence. It goes towards making sure that you carry out your leadership acts. And there have been cries, fortunately, out of this Congress denouncing that kind of activity.

When we talk about what the American people have been told, that is a big part of the problem. The American people are not being leveled with. What we are saying on this end, on this side of the aisle, is that we can do better together and we are stronger together when we work together; and we are willing, and the record has shown, in a bipartisan way.

And we talked about Social Security. We talked about how Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan came together to save Social Security in a bipartisan way, not, you know, Tip O'Neill going off in his corner and saying, We will let you in on it when we feel like it, after we have it written, okay? Or President

Reagan at the same time saying, Well, I do not have the authority of the legislative branch but through an executive way I am going to make you do it the way I want you to do it. Conversations went on not just over coffee, but over U.S. policy, and that is not what is happening right now, gentlemen.

When this budget, if it passes this House and they go into what we call a conference committee with the Senate budget and the House budget, I guarantee you, I guarantee you $20, and I am not too much of a betting man, but I am going to tell you this. I guarantee you that the Democratic conferees that are supposed to be at the table will not be invited. It will not be a conference.

You can talk to Mr. Rangel, the ranking member of Ways and Means. He is walking around here, they are saying they are meeting in conference. What? No one told me about the meeting; I did not get a notice.

We talk about the spirit of the House. We have to make sure that we move in a way that the American people want us to move. This is truth, not fiction.

When the gentleman from Massachusetts talks about what we are being told, there are a lot of things we are being told. It is just not true. We were told that the White House had nothing to do with the outing of the CIA agent. Then later we find out that they had everything to do with outing a CIA agent.

Not one member of the administration subpoenaed, not one person called from The White House to this House of Representatives and the said committees to answer the question, how could this happen? Why has it happened? Not one individual, outside of Mr. Libby, who I would assume that his national security clearance has been taken by now, has been called on the carpet on other information that has leaked out of the White House that has jeopardized national security.

This is serious stuff.

So when we talk about what people are saying, or what we are being told, the real issue and the reason why the American people sees the President at a 37 percent approval rating and this Republican- controlled House is between 35 and 31, that is the reason why, because they don't believe what we tell them, especially on the majority side, because it ends up not being the truth once it is all ironed out.

Mr. Speaker, I am just so sorry. I know we have two other colleagues here who are very respectful Members of this body, but I just cannot let this moment pass. The fact that we are forgiving from the beginning, we forgave the money that we gave to Iraq and the money that we continue to spend in Iraq, which we have appropriated the largest U.S. embassy in the world in Iraq; but let me just make this point here.

Katrina, Rita, Wilma. Those Americans that were identified to receive individual assistance when they called that 1-800 number, FEMA, something FEMA, you know what they get back when they say when they filed for FEMA assistance? They do not get a check back immediately. They get an application from the Small Business Administration to fill out for a loan when they are on their knees. You fill out that loan application first. And if, and this is a big if, if you do not qualify for that Small Business Administration loan, then FEMA comes and they actually try to figure out how much money they can grant--you what they call ``mitigation''--to put your house back together.

So for billions of dollars, 87 billion-plus continuing to give and there will be another supplemental soon for not only the troops but also to pay for other operations in Iraq with companies like Halliburton and other companies that are under investigation that are enjoying Katrina contracts right now, we are asking Americans when they are on their knees to fill out a loan application.

And that is the reason why we are here on this floor. Many Members have gone home and they are having dinner or watching some sort of program in prime time, but we opt to be here letting not only the Members know, Mr. Speaker, but also the American people know what is happening in this House. We want to bring true meaning to the fact that this is the people's House. We want the American electorate and Members to know that the people of the United States of America elected us to be here to represent them.

We may be from different districts, but we have been federalized by the fact of our elections to represent all Americans. And the question that is before us now is what kind of government do you want? Do you want a government that is going to set the stage, a stage for a grandmother to make the decision if she is going to contribute to her grandson's or granddaughter's college education in jeopardy of losing her Medicaid benefits for nursing home care if she needs it? Are we going to set the stage for a veteran who wants to see an ophthalmologist who has to wait 3 months now, maybe 6 months?

Are we going to ask legislators from environmentally sensitive States to jeopardize the very trademark of their State on behalf of special interests to drill oil just miles off the coast? Is that the kind of leadership that we want? Do we want the kind of leadership that is willing to protect those industries, the industries that make record profits, not we are just making it or we are just barely holding on and we need some assistance or an airline bail-out? It is not that. It is individuals eating lobster and steak and telling the shareholders it has never been better ever in the history of the world.

But better yet, you are going to come to the people's House, or what is supposed to be the people's House, take the taxpayers' dollars, put it in your pocket while you hold on to your profits in this pocket and for you to expand and continue to prosper, that you are going to do it on the backs of everyday Americans that are paying taxes, need it be Democrats or Republicans.

We should be very alarmed. Americans should be very concerned, and we should every day in this 109th Congress rise up every time we have the opportunity to give voice to those individuals that have sent us here or those individuals that wish that their Congressman or Congressperson would stand up on their behalf.

We challenge those individuals in the majority to make the right decision. Make the right decision, because history will reflect on what each and every one of us did in this moment, in this time when you are cutting school free and reduced lunch for poor children. I mean, I am not a preacher or anything, but I am here to tell you for poor children and then walk around chestbeating that we are balancing the budget and just a couple of weeks from now going to try to pass a tax cut on behalf of who? Not the people that you have just taken from, but the people who are receiving benefits on the backs of the people that you just took from.

So it really does not make sense. The only thing that really makes sense here is the fact that those with financial power not only in this country but in this city and the special interests that they are going to get what they want, bottom line. And if you question it, you are in the line of fire. So when you start looking at this very real standpoint of what we may call the ``political two step,'' I may say the political look left, we are going right or look right we are going left. The bumper sticker theme politics that are there, we have to make sure that we break this thing down for people who are not voting politics over principle, but they are voting principle over politics. And that is Democrat, Republican and Independent. These are the things we have to focus on.

Half a million dollars.

China.

That is what you get. You are hitting it right on the head.

Here is the real issue here. In the Armed Services Committee, you start talking about strategy for success or you start talking about an exit strategy or what is the strategy, what is the coalition strategy, it is why are you asking questions? What you are talking about? Cutting and run? No. We are talking about running responsible government. That is what we are talking about.

Are you a patriot. Are you with them or are you with us. It is to assault individuals from asking the questions constitutionally we are supposed to ask. To say that on the expiration date we have is a carton of milk is really it is not a question of the expiration date. It is a question of since we have a coalition of other countries and single digits, as they may be, of those individuals that have pulled out, since we have those individuals there, what is our strategy of being able to exit? Is it to train Iraqi troops? Okay. We have been doing that now for just under 2 years now. We are still under the numbers and they are not ready yet, and we still have a lot of work to do.

It does not take 2 years.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to tell you that it is important that we do start asking some of the tough questions, that we do start pressing the card.

No-bid contract.

Taxpayers' money.

Mr. Speaker, let me just on another note that I know we all share. Our hearts and prayers go out to those tornado victims in the Knight Township in Indiana and other victims of that tornado. Mr. Speaker I know that the whole House, we are in solidarity with hopefully their fast recovery from this natural disaster, and with that, I know

that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) has the honors of the Web site and closing us out.

Madam Speaker, it is an honor to be before the House once again. We would like to thank the Democratic leadership for allowing us to have this hour. This is the 30-Something Working Group. Madam Speaker, we come to the floor night after night when we are in session to talk about the differences as it relates to the budget or response to natural disasters or the general functions of the government and how it can be better on behalf of all Americans.

Tonight, as usual, we are joined by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan). I would just like to talk for a moment on the issue of budget, just to kind of set the Democratic principles that we have within our budget, our budget alternative to the majority side. And to explain to some of the Members and staff here in the Capitol that as we know, and everyone does not know, that the majority side, because they have more Members here in this House, they actually prevail as it relates to legislation.

They would like to see a budget passed out of the Budget Committee, and it is passed just on simple numbers on partisan lines. We do commend one member of the Republican Caucus for voting with the Democrats for a budget that balanced by 2010, and also does it in a way that does not hurt everyday Americans or will play a counterproductive role in achieving the goal of fiscal responsibility.

The Democratic alternative to the Republican budget, which we will talk about tonight, does balance the budget by 2010. It also makes sure that we include enforcement measures to protect Social Security, making sure that we have budget enforcement procedures there to block tax or spending legislation that would borrow large amounts of money or any amount of money from the Social Security trust fund. I think that is very important to the preservation of Social Security.

Also, we do more for education. There are $14 billion in cuts that the Republicans have proposed. In our budget, we make no cuts whatsoever because we know education is the future of this country, the whole argument of making sure that our young people are on equal footing, and even adult education is important. Vocational education is important, to make sure that we cannot only compete, but we can be the country to provide young people to make our country strong, not only in the present but in the future.

I think it is important to point out that in our budget we have protection for veterans, some $1.6 billion more than the Republican budget, and over the next 5 years, $17 billion more than the Republican budget. The cuts that the Republicans are making to veterans we will talk about a little later. It is very unfortunate that that is a proposal which has been put forth.

Also we have a commitment in our budget to communities and families. I think it is important that we reflect on that, especially during this time when we talk about devolution of taxation. We want to cut certain taxes here and say we are doing a wonderful job and saving families and communities from paying more taxes. In all actuality, the majority side is cutting Medicaid. Medicare will be on the table as it relates to this budget when it goes to conference; if it goes to conference, that is going to turn the clock back on many families, and they are going to have to kick in more to be able to make it happen.

I just wanted to start off really talking about some of our principles within our budget that we would like to see prevail, not only here on this floor, we would also like to see, we talked about last week, that the majority side, the Republicans, respect the spirit of the rules of the House. We know when the budget comes up, if it comes up, the gentleman from Massachusetts has been here longer than any of us here, the majority side, they usually hold the voting clock open not only for several minutes but as of recent several hours to see it their way. There are a number of articles that are out that I know that we are going to reference today that allude to that.

Last week the gentleman from Massachusetts brought out Congress Daily A.M. This is what we get here in the Congress, we get an a.m., a p.m. There is also a Congressional Quarterly magazine that comes out. This is the outlook on the week at the beginning of the week. We all get it here. We find out what is going on in different committees. Here is a story which is the head story, House leadership this week are putting some Members on the spot with the fact that they are going to take one of their toughest votes in recent years. A $53.9 billion deficit reduction package that is drafted would hit child support enforcement, food stamps, Medicaid beneficiaries and student loans and would open arctic and coastal areas to energy exploration. I think it is important for us to understand that, of course, it is going to be a tough vote because they are calling for tough cuts that is going to hurt America.

Madam Speaker, let me just say this. I will not say the Republican Study Committee, I will say the Republican Conference. I mean, the bottom line is, we would not have the philosophy of a few come to the floor, pass the Budget Committee, and possibly a threat for it to come to the floor by the end of the week if it was not for the help of the Republican Conference.

Now, they are our friends. We are coffee together, we ride the elevator together, we walk down the hall together, we talk about raising our children, and all of the things that people do who work together. We all work together, but we have a difference in philosophy and priorities. And I will tell my colleagues right now, and I just want to make sure that Members, if you have a family member that is a veteran, I want you to go grab them because I am about to say something. I want to make sure that we understand that these cuts, and we are talking about 60 million Americans, 60 million that are on Medicaid right now, enrolled in Medicaid, 60 million Americans, not 60 million Iraqis, not 60 million Somalians, 60 million Americans who pay their taxes every day, that know what it means to punch in and punch out at work every day, know what it means to have a 15-minute lunch break, or a break in the morning if they get it, 15 minutes in the afternoon, and a 30-minute lunch break, if they get it. These are the people that we are talking about. Also, children are enrolled in this, too. So it is very, very important.

I am looking here at the Families USA, which is a voice for health care consumers. I mean, basically they are saying these cuts, this proposal, will force low-income people to pay, like you said, higher premiums that they cannot afford, and copayments. So let us just call it what it is.

It looks good when you look at the numbers and, oh, these are the cuts that we are making, but let us translate what those cuts mean. It means that for the premiums and copayments that people are making under the Medicaid plan now, which is not the greatest, because this Republican Congress has increased it time after time, now we are about to do it again. They are not going to be able to afford health care. So we might as well say that we do not have it.

We have companies now that are telling people to go and enroll in Medicaid, because they we do not have a national health care plan. They cannot participate in that program. So when folks start talking about weaning people off, let us talk about this. I have also said, we talk about the difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Now, here is one for the veterans that allowed us to be here under the lights in this Chamber, fought for this country, still fighting for this country, and also I want to call special attention to our Members who come to the floor and give great floor speeches about how we love the troops. Well, I have not seen a Member come to the floor yet and say, hey, listen, I do not like the troops. So to say that I care about the troops, we all care about the troops. We all want to make sure the troops are okay. But what happens when they come home? What happens? What happens when, after the parade, what happens? What happens after they turn their uniform in? What happens to those individuals? Let me tell you what is going to happen under this budget.

The bottom line is that the Republican budget cuts that are being made in health care are $14 million below current service over the next 5 years.

Now, I am going to tell my colleagues something. Maybe I represent too many veterans. Maybe I have heard too many stories about when someone who wants to see an ophthalmologist or a podiatrist or some sort of specialty at the VA, and they have to wait 6 months for an appointment, 6 months for an appointment, and in rural areas

it is even worse. There are areas where they have VA facilities and clinics that are only open once or twice a month.

And under this budget, with a straight face, they are going to come to the floor, and that is the reason why periodical after periodical is saying that it is hard for the Republican Conference to even vote for their own budget. Now, folks come to the floor, well, we want our friends on the Democratic side, if they could support us; yes, we want to balance the budget, but we do not want the veterans who have been waiting 6 months now to have to wait a year, because the majority side has made a 5-year cut of $14 billion. That is not chicken feed; that is a lot of money.

And then it goes further. Because facts hurt, facts hurt. Reality hurts.

We are here to make sure that we give voice to those Americans that sent us here. Some folks use it very loosely: This is the people's House. Well, guess what? We believe it. We do not use it as a punch line. We are here because people have elected us.

Furthermore, it goes on to require the Veterans' Affairs Committee to make $798 million in additional cuts over the next 5 years. Also it imposes new fees for veterans for health care by reducing veterans' benefits such as disability payments, pension benefits, and educational benefits.

Now, let me tell my colleagues something. Like we say sometimes, let us put the cookie on the bottom shelf. The bottom line is that folks are sugar-coating a number. We are making these cuts and we have to do this. One says we have to do it on behalf of the Katrina Commission. Another person says, well, we want the Katrina Commission, but because of Hurricane Katrina, we have to respond to those individuals. Some say, well, we have to make sure that we reduce the national debt and that is the reason we are making these cuts.

And we all know that even in the Senate there is a lot of chest- beating, because there is a $6 billion tax break, mainly for the top bracket and mainly for the special interests that they are going to push through this chamber. Why? Because if there is going to be a tax cut, there should be a tax cut that is going to help every day Americans. But how can we with a straight face, when we have veterans waiting 6 months for basic health care, when we have folks in devastated areas, with the three natural disasters that we have had, that cannot even get a housing voucher that were made homeless because of the natural disaster, when we have a government that is trying to figure out how we are going to continue to pay for the war in Iraq, how we are going to be able to pay for incompetence, incompetence in the government.

How we are going to continue to condone cronyism, a culture of cronyism at the same time? The bottom line is, ladies and gentlemen, I believe the majority side really needs to have a meeting. They need to have a meeting and talk about the true priorities of America. And then, one of those points in that meeting should be, you know, we really need to move in a bipartisan way. Oh, wow. That is a great idea. Hey, let us work with the Democrats and Republicans and let us save the country.

Now, I am coming in for a landing now. I am going to tell you something. People are saying, why are you all on the floor every night? Why? Why are you on the floor every night? Some people are saying it is a great thing, Democrats and Republicans. We are glad the people are breaking this thing down so that we can all understand, because we can use CBO and all the acronyms and folks can come to the floor and say we want to make America stronger. What I am describing here is making a country weaker, not because of the country and the people that live in it, but the leadership that is supposed to govern it on behalf of making this country stronger.

These are the facts. Third-party validators, these are the facts, like it or not. One other fact, and Ms. Wasserman Schultz, I am getting ready to yield to you, I am going to take this chart out. You know, if I could, Mr. Ryan, I would put this chart on the front of my truck so that people can see it. If I had the resources, I would get a billboard so that people understand what is going on. This is not a woof speech. This is a reality speech. The bottom line is that the majority that is in control now, need it be the House or Senate or need it be the White House, the policies that they are putting forth are not helping and strengthening our country. Period. Dot.

I do not want to make it seem like it is some sort of extreme statement. It is not an extreme statement. What I just described was happening to veterans. The last 15 minutes we talked about what is happening to Medicaid, and Medicare is on the table, Mr. Delahunt. The bottom line is 42 Presidents, 1776, we were not even thought of, you know, as Members in this House here. To the year 2000, 42 Presidents, $1.01 trillion that we borrowed from foreign nations. President Bush, not by himself, with the Republican majority, not by himself, I just want to make sure that everyone understands that the President does not have the ability to do this all by himself. Trust me. 1.05 trillion from foreign nations, Mr. Ryan, including China.

And so I think it is important that people understand. This is not Democratic talk. This is not Independent talk. This is not even Republican talk. This is reality. And unless we rise up, I just want to make sure that we let the Members know we know exactly, on a majority side you can have a study group. You can have a caucus within the caucus. You can have subcommittees. The bottom line is the policy will never see the light of day if it was not for the Republican majority here in this House pushing it to the floor.

And that is the reason why, that is the reason why you have Republican conference members that have big problems. They are, you know, they are even looking at their calendar saying, well, goodness it is my son's birthday on Saturday. Maybe I can tell leadership we are going to celebrate it on Thursday because I do not want to be here for this vote because how can I explain back home how we are increasing the wait list for veterans, how we are cutting benefits for your children to go to college, and we are going to put the responsibility on your back to take up the slack because we want to give tax cuts to special interests to billionaires.

I mean, that is a hard thing to explain, especially when you are by yourself back in your district and you are not hiding behind the press release from the majority office of this House of Representatives. And that is the fact, Jack. And the bottom line is we are going to man up and woman up and leader up and say no. And that is the reason why it has not been to the floor, and I hope that is the reason why it will not come to the floor in its present form and that we go into, if we had rule XXI, which we do have rule XXI here in the House, but if we had a rule XXI like the Senate, we should go into closed session. Folks grab the mike, the leadership, and the bottom line is work out a plan that we can all work together, take from the Democratic budget, the Republican budget and do what Americans want us to do. They do not want us here talking about one another back and forth. But the bottom line is that is the road map that has been laid out by the majority. Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

Ms. Wasserman Schultz, would you just yield for a second.

What holiday is coming up?

And it is very interesting because Members are going to be trying to run out of here and catch planes and falling over each other to go march in a parade with those that have laid down, literally put their lives on the line, lost limbs. Some will be pushed in wheelchairs. Some will be remembering the fallen members of our country that went and fought in all of the past conflicts. And just before Friday, there is a vote scheduled to set them back and what we told them we would do for them and provide them for health care. I yield back. I just wanted to talk about the gall of this whole thing at this particular time.

Mr. Speaker, those are the same constituents and my constituents that are going to get hit by the Medicaid cuts, the same veterans that will be paying more on their copayments, waiting longer for their services. Those are the same individuals that the gentleman is describing. And the gentleman is 110 percent right, and I am glad that he is warning the majority that this stuff is not going to be quiet.

Hello, ethics course? Hello. No. Like I told you once before, I do not blame the special interests for getting what they get because they do not get it unless the Republican majority gives it to them, because they are in the majority. Many of the unexplainable events that have taken place here on this floor and in committee, the mind boggling, how can that pass, how could they get all of this money, all this taxpayer money from the Congress? They do not do it. The vote has to go up on the board for them to allow them to do it.

I will say the same thing as it relates to the President, not a mumbling word from this House on outing a CIA agent. All of the speeches that were given here in this well right before me, give us the responsibility of national security, we are tough, we will make sure that we have what we need to have and we will fight the war on terror. And guess what? Someone in the White House, two people in the White House, probably even more, out a CIA agent, a CIA agent that did what? Went out to make sure that we were able to head off countries from getting weapons of mass destruction.

This is not a small issue. For far less, far less, the House of Representatives have called out Travelgate, Whitewater, all these kind of individual decisions that were made and had some possible ethic issues going along with it, but not the outing of a CIA agent, not saying, hey, you know something, she is a CIA agent and there are a number of people that are working with her, and we want you to know about it. Not a mumbling word out of this House, not one floor speech calling for resignations, not one committee cranking up a committee meeting and calling people from the White House down here before the people's House to question how could this happen, not one. Not one.

Guess what. If the Democrats were in the majority, I would tell you right now Democrat House, Republican White House, there will be hearings, and not a mumbling word, just crickets on that side of the aisle as it relates to outing a CIA agent.

So what you are saying is not alarming. The President is doing that because he is allowed to do it because the investigative body here in the House that has the responsibility of keeping this government in check is not doing its job.

National security. National security. It is not lying about, well, you know, I flew to Chicago and I really did not have Federal business and I am sorry, the ticket was $450; I need to go to an ethics course. You do need to go to an ethics course.

You out a CIA agent; it goes far beyond a firing. This is not an everyday occurrence. Maybe I am just too concerned about the security of this country. Maybe I am just too concerned about it, and I do not think I am out of

step by being alarmed by this because I can tell you right now there are some Members on that side that are alarmed about it, but they are not saying anything. Definitely the leadership is not saying anything, and the White House would do what it is allowed to do.

If it is allowed to borrow $1.05 trillion from foreign countries, it will do it. If it is allowed to have our veterans waiting in longer lines to cut their benefits and have them pay higher co-pays and Medicare individuals and free and reduced lunches cut in half, they will do it. It is up to this House to rise up, and the majority's just not doing it. We can only do it for so much as it relates to bringing this back into check.

Madam Speaker, we are winding down here. There is one statement, and then we are going to close because we have a minute.

Mr. Ryan.

With that, we want to thank the Democratic leadership for this block of time, and I yield back the balance of our time.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 41 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Tuesday, November 8, 2005, at 9 a.m., for morning hour debates.

Let me share something very quick, because I want to make sure that Members, staff, everyone understands what is going on, Mr. Speaker. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is hitting the nail right on the head, hitting it with the hammer right on the head like a good carpenter.

I can tell you what is happening now in Washington, D.C., is unprecedented in history of the United States of America. Let me say it again. What is happening now in the United States as it relates to its governance, I am not saying the everyday Americans, because folks are waking up and going to work every day. Small businesses are going to open their stores to be able to bring about the kind of commerce they need in their local communities. Kids are waking up, going to school to hopefully educate themselves. But as it relates to governance we are falling short.

We are robbing, a couple of years ago we could say future generations, I would say we are robbing Americans in the present. So when these kinds of activities that we are talking about taking place under light and under camera, then I am very concerned about what is going on in the back halls of Congress.

Now I am going to tell you right now, it is not the Meek report. It is not the Ryan report. It not the Wasserman Schultz report. This is what is happening in our country right now. We have fiscal responsibility used as some sort of whim word or some sort of punchline. It is not being used in a way that it should be used.

It is not saying to billionaires, no, we cannot give you another tax break because we have a war going on, as a matter of fact, two. We have three natural disasters that have hit our country in an unprecedented way. We have Medicare that some here in this Congress on the majority side want to cut. So we have to say no to the special interests.

Also, I am going to tell you, and I just want to make sure that folks understand what we are talking about. It is unprecedented as it relates to a lack of governance in the history of the country.

Now I am just going to point out just a few things here, and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), you can continue or we can move on to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz). But I can tell you this, USA Today, I did not print this. The gentleman did not print this. ``Outing of a CIA agent.''

One of our third-party validators.

``Outing of CIA agent. Louisiana can't pay Katrina and Rita bills.'' But, meanwhile, folks are running around cutting the very programs that help folks in Louisiana and Mississippi and other affected areas, in South Florida as it relates to Wilma and others, cutting programs that will help the very people that State is trying to use.

The Washington Times, let me take this little promo off here. Washington Times, a conservative paper here in Washington, D.C. It talks about issues that are coming before the Congress, and it talks about the other issues that are taking place in Capitol Hill, maybe not on the front page but within the paper talking about indictments and hearings.

The Washington Post, a big front-page picture. Not about some sort of program or some sort of way that we are helping middle-class families, not talking about bringing the costs down of gas or heating oil or anything like that. No, it talks about the fact that the popularity, 58 percent in a poll questioned the integrity of the President of the United States.

Now I am not one to question the integrity of the President of the United States, but I can tell you this: That it is interesting that individuals can out or in said indictment, out CIA agents and then forget about it. Oh, like I said last night, I was going to get a cup of coffee, and I walked over--I cannot remember when I outed the CIA agent.

The bottom line is something is very wrong as it relates to what is going on in this country, as it relates to governance.

The New York Times, the same. You can pick up a paper, the Members when they fly back to their districts, since we finished our business for this week, they can pick up the papers and find the same thing. We cannot explain ourselves or spin ourselves out of this situation. This Congress is rated below, 35, 31 percent. Who is counting at this particular time? But I can tell you something is very wrong.

We have to rise up and provide the leadership. That is why we come to this floor. We challenge the majority side to stand up and govern. And the reason why we have this kind of atmosphere in Washington is because we have not called these individuals out on the carpet. Need it be executive branch, Federal agencies, those that are taking the American people's tax dollars and doing what they may.

$14 billion yesterday in the Budget Committee and a hike in fees in students loans, in student assistance at a time when we are talking about providing jobs. So I am just going to say that we need to be alarmed by some of this. We need to be able to let folks know that we are about changing this kind of atmosphere here in Washington, D.C.

I can tell the gentlewoman that, as it relates to national security, protection of our homeland and as it pertains to this case, you have the question of a CIA clandestine agent whose job was charged with finding out more or tracking down possible chemical weapons that can be used, weapons of mass destruction that can be used against the United States of America.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we are in the minority, and that means that the majority, which is the Republican majority, has the responsibility of governance, has the responsibility because they have the committee chairmanships. They have the Speakership. They have all of the leadership, and I will say at least I am not even going to talk about the Speakership or the leadership. I am going to talk about the committee chairpersons that have the responsibility to protect and have direct oversight over the Federal Government, making sure that we keep children, women, men, everyday Americans, safe.

What are we doing as Democrats? What we have done, not only have we put light on what is wrong as it relates to outing CIA agents, but also, there was a letter written today by four of our ranking members. A ranking member, I want to make sure I explain, that is the highest ranking Democratic Member on the said committees of jurisdiction or concern over a particular issue, in this case, security clearance.

This letter went to the associate director of division of security, and it is questioning Mr. Rove's security clearance. This did not come from the chairmen of the committees, did not come from any person of power on the majority side. This came from the minority side, on the Democratic side; and it is done by very fine Members, the ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Mr. John Dingell; the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, Ranking Member David Obey; also, Defense appropriations, veteran, marine, Mr. John Murtha from Pennsylvania; and also the Armed Services ranking member that we serve with, Mr. Ike Skelton of the Armed Services Committee. They questioned the security clearance of Mr. Rove.

What the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) just finished saying is the fact that no one is that important when it is a question of outing a CIA agent and others for political gain. So that is what we are doing right now.

Highest security clearance.

Mr. Speaker, just a second. I just want to make sure you identify who Mr. Libby is.

Sunday news show.

``Meet the Press,'' syndicated affiliates, one of the most respected journalists in Washington, D.C.

How do we know that? From the notes of the chief of staff of the Vice President of the United States that said the Vice President told him in the indictment. I mean, that is not what we are saying.

You talk about third-party validators, but if I may for a moment, the reason why the alleged activities that have been identified in this indictment and alleged activities that are in the stacks of these papers today, just today, this is not papers from the week or the month or over the past year. That is just today, and I cannot even hold up the number of papers. We could not even bring them all down here to the floor. There are just too many. Mr. Speaker, I do not know how it would look if I rolled in a cart of the newspapers that are reporting what we are saying.

I can tell you this, it even comes back here to this Congress. The fact that we are not carrying out our oversight responsibilities and we are not calling this administration into check and balance as it relates to oversight, this is the reason why this activity is going on.

I just want to share some frustration here with trying to get information from the majority side of what happened in the Clinton administration as it relates to subpoenas and what has happened in the Bush administration as it relates to subpoenas because, Mr. Speaker, I do not just want to come to the floor and say there were a plethora, a number of subpoenas that went to the Clinton administration for far less, for far less, and now we have the outing of CIA agents. We have the possibility of some hanky-panky with the intelligence that was given to the Congress of the United States. We have the possibility of other questionable activities out of this White House and from this administration, and there are not any committee chairmen that are running around saying we are going to subpoena this person, we are going to put them under oath, and they are going to come before this Congress and they are going to respond.

Let me just mention something here. September 16 of this year, I put one of my best staff people on this. I was standing there and I told him, I said, listen, I want you to make a request to the Congressional Research Service, which is the service that we use here in the Congress to give us the facts that we need to know as it relates to putting together legislation coming to the floor, sharing with the Members, with the American people, and I want you to find out how many subpoenas were issued from not the Senate but the House of Representatives during the 8 years of the Clinton administration versus the going-on-now 5 years of the Bush administration from this Congress.

That was September 16. He makes a request. We call over to the Congressional Research Service. God bless them. I like them. Okay. These are the nicest people, Mr. Speaker, that are involved in this whole atmosphere here in Washington, D.C. They are over at the Library of Congress. Some of these folks have been there 30-plus years. Some of them are very young, bright, intelligent folks. I mean, all of them are. They are the nicest people. They come over and they brief us. They shudder. They are concerned, because they said, whoa, you are asking for something and we have to go over there and ask them, okay, the very same government that we are dealing with here.

They go over, and I continue to call because usually it takes one or two days to get this kind of information. We call back between the 9th and the 16th. The Congressional Research Service spoke to the office of general counsel and was told the records are not complete.

Now, let me tell you something. The records are not complete of what? Wait. The subpoenas were given out. Obviously, the House general counsel had to have something to do with the subpoenas being issued.

It gets better. Let me just tell you. Because it is so detailed between September 19 and September 29, the Congressional Research Service spoke to four House committees and was given the following response.

This is when you talk about the Potomac two step here. Someone is asking for records. Oh, my God. Well, people would assume here in the Congress that records is one of the things that we do so we know what we have done in the past, so that either we can do better in the future or not make the same mistake in the future. But here is the response: The committee does not have records. That was the first one. The other one: Committee does not have records of previous Congresses.

So we do not know what is going on under this majority.

The next one is: The committee is not sure they have those records. They could be archived. And the fourth one: The committee does not have records for previous years, and previous records may be at the National Archives.

Now I am going to put the majority on notice right now. If those subpoenas, which I believe were sent out and issued under the Clinton administration, are in this Capitol, and I do not know of any subpoenas, but if they are out there, and I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt, if they are in this building, somebody better get an intern and run them over to the National Archives because we are on our way over there.

This issue of covering up this whole thing, this thing of I got your back if you have mine, enough of it. People want change. We are trying to bring about that change, and we are being stymied. We are being locked out of information.

One Member said, this is the people's House. I question that at this time. I question that because I think, and I am coming in for a landing here, I think there are some people that are very, very worried about the facts we are bringing to light to the American people and to Members of Congress, letting them know that we know what is going on in the back halls of Congress.

Right now, like I said before, as it relates to governance, the country is going through some hard times; and there are some folks on the majority side that are not willing to govern on behalf of the very Americans that sent us here to represent them.

In this House, we have to be elected. Not one Member of this House has been appointed. In the Senate, you can be appointed by a Governor if someone leaves early in their term. But in the House there has to be a special election. So whether it is Democrat or Republican, you are elected. There is one Independent. By virtue of the fact we have been elected to come here, we have been federalized to make sure we stand up on behalf of everyday Americans.

So the hypocrisy that is going on in the House as relates to oversight, I am saying this on behalf of CIA agents right now worrying about whether their government is going to out them, and I am saying this on behalf of national security, which I serve on two committees which deal with this very issue.

Our integrity and how other countries see us and how individuals that want to go into the clandestine service, that want to serve in the CIA, I want them, I want the best and brightest to come, but I do not want them to think or anyone in the State Department to think if they get on the opposite side of an administration that they will go after their wife.

We have not even talked about that. Because Ambassador Wilson had something to say outside of what was on the script of the White House, and they could not get him because he is a person that dotted his I's and crossed his T's, they decided to go after his wife. We are going to go after your wife.

To women in this country, you need to be concerned about that. Someone cannot get to your husband, but they are going to come after you. We need to disabuse ourselves of that.

If the gentleman will yield, I can tell you why this is not personal. It is not personal for this Congress and it is not personal for the leadership, but it is personal to the American people. We have taxpayer dollars we are trying to nickel and dime. We want to nickel and dime Medicare, we want to nickel and dime Medicaid, we want to nickel and dime free and reduced lunches for poor people here in this country, and then we want to get excited about possibly saying something about someone in power?

We respect the rules of this House. We appreciate the integrity that is in the rules of this House. We do not want to abuse the rules of this House. But as it relates to the majority leadership and the majority on the other side and the majority in the Senate and as it relates to the White House, I want them to live by the same rules that everyday Americans have to live by.

I want it to be personal for them just like it is personal for the person that can only afford to put $10 in their gas tank because they do not even know what it means to have their gas tank full because gas prices are so high.

I want the folks that get driven around this place, that are being chauffeured around here in cars that do not know what it means not to put a debit card into a gas pump but only be able to get $15 out, I want them to feel it just as personally.

I want them to feel personally what the mother who has to think about whether her son, who is living in the heart of America, and she may very well be in a trailer park, and because I was federalized, I represent her, too. I want them to feel personally the decision she is going to have to make when the budget is passed by this Republican majority controlled Congress cutting free and reduced lunches. That is personal. That is personal.

So I could care less about the folks of power and influence and what they say and how they do it. We are going to stay within the rules. We are going to stay within the rules, but I want to make sure that folks understand that we have individuals out in this country that are suffering, white, black, Native American, Hispanic.

And Asian. They are suffering, and we have to give them voice. We have to give them voice, sure, when we start outing CIA agents, when we start seeing the majority side looking the other way. Even though they know what is going, they are not going to look because their friends are there and they do not want to do that.

In the Clinton administration, Democrats called the administration officials out on things that they were doing that was wrong.

That is our responsibility in the Constitution of these United States.

So when the gentleman from Ohio speaks of not putting party over country, I think that if we were to look at what we do now and what we have done in the past, we have always put country over party. The everyday Republican does not want his government operated by what the national GOP leadership says that it should be, that we need to do that and do this, but they are messing with the lives of everyday Americans. They do not endorse that.

So the problem here in this House is that we are sharing that information with the American people. We are not over at the Democratic National Committee sitting there sharing it with Democrats only. We are here sharing it with the American people; and we are letting the Members of this House, the majority and the minority, know that we all must go see the wizard and get some courage and some heart and

stand up to some of these very few individuals that are in the minority on the majority side that are running and pulling the sticks behind the curtains on behalf of the American people. Now, that is personal.

Mr. Speaker, we want to thank the democratic leadership for allowing us to be here and for this hour, and we want to continue talking about the issues that we were talking about in the hour before the last one, the issues that are facing Americans. As you know, within our working group we talk about what we are doing and what the other side is doing or not doing and how we want to put this country and build a partnership, put it on a new direction. The only way we will be able to do that is making sure that we are able to get some of the ideas on this side of the aisle to the forefront, make sure that we work in a bipartisan way.

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I must say that that is not happening right now on a lot of the major issues, issues that are facing everyday Americans, issues as it relates to the budget that is coming to this floor next week. I can tell you that this so-called budget was put together on the backs of everyday working Americans. Some may say that it was in light of making sure that we can respond to Hurricane Katrina and the gulf coast, but cutting the very assistance that these individuals need is almost like saying I am going to take $5 out of this pocket and then I am going to try to put it, the same $5 I took out of your pocket, and put it in your left pocket and we are done. That is not good enough.

I think it is very, very important to also be mindful of the fact: If the job is so good here in Congress, if we are doing everything that we are supposed to do as it relates to the American people and they feel so good about the economy, they feel so good about security, they feel so good about health care, they feel so good about the environment, then why do American people, poll after poll polls this Congress at a 35 percent approval rating? Thirty-five percent.

I mean, if I was to call down to my district and they were to take a poll on how they felt about me and it was 35 percent, that means that I need to start doing something right for me to be reelected to this Congress.

So when we start, our friends on the opposite side of the side come in and say, well, we are doing a great job and I do not know what the problem, and folks are saying that we are not, and I hope our friends on the other side starts to join us. I can tell you right now, I do not want to join anything where the American people feel that you are doing a great job by 35 percent. That is not a team I want to be on.

If I am going to go join a team or be a part of something, I am going to be a part of a winning team. I am going to be a part of a team that is going to make sure that we stand up on behalf of everyday Americans, that makes sure that we do not have States out there with over $85 billion in deficits, deficits that they have to clear up, they have to balance, unlike this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the Members, last night I brought this chart out and I just want to remind once again, because I want to make sure that Members understand, American people understand, Mr. Speaker, this is not the doing of the Democrats. This is the doing of the Republican majority. Forty-two Presidents. Forty-two. And this is from the U.S. Department of Treasury. This is not the Kendrick Meek Report. U.S. Department of Treasury of the United States of America, in case anyone gets confused. Forty-two Presidents, all the way from the Whig Party before we had Republicans and Democrats. Since 1776 to the year 2000, Democrats and Republicans, Whig Party and other parties alike, 42 Presidents only borrowed $1.01 trillion from foreign nations, from foreign countries. One, one President with the majority here in this House, Republican majority and in the Senate, has trumped 42 Presidents, 42 Presidents, $1.05 trillion and counting.

So we bring to the floor the issues at hand. These issues are real, and it is the reality of America right now. And so when our friends on the other side start saying, I do not know what is going on, I have a job, I think everybody else does, I think everything is okay, somebody needs to go out and tell the American people that it is okay, because they do not think it is okay.

Thirty-five percent of Americans feel that we are doing an okay job. What does that mean? That means a number of Americans feel that we are not doing the job that we are supposed to be doing, whatever that may be.

I just want to go back again, Mr. Speaker, in case a Member was walking around, had a phone call or something, did not quite understand. Forty-two Presidents, you name it, they are here, 1776 to 2000, 224 years, 224 years. In the 224 years, they did not borrow from foreign governments as much as one President and the majority Republicans here in this House have done.

The President did not do it on his own. 224 years, Mr. Speaker, World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Korea, other crises in the country, depressions, you name it. Things that my grandmother and my father told me about took place in the time of these 42 Presidents.

Under this one President, one majority, they helped us get to this number. So you know, the facts may hurt. The facts hurt. The facts hurt. The facts hurt when you sit down at the dining room table trying to figure out how you are going to get past this month dealing with the money that you are making.

Now, how are you going to get past this month? Those are hard facts. Well, the hard facts are, like it or not, it is not, you know, not the 30-something Working Group; it is not, you know, the Democrats. It is prepared and served by the majority here in this House, and the majority in the Senate and the White House; and that is a fact, Jack.

I do not care. You can go and use big words, you can go around, read reports that someone gave you that kind of paint the pot black with the fact that a lot of people out there use a lot of numbers, charts and graphs; but the bottom line is we are borrowing our country away to foreign nations.

Then we want to call a budget up on the backs of the very people that we say that we are trying to help

These are children. It goes beyond empty tummies. It goes down to kids prepared and ready to learn regardless of their economic background. It is not their fault. It is not their fault that they are in a poor household and they are eligible, eligible because the Federal Government has found, and an education committee and all of these folks came about during a time here in this Congress and said, you know, kids that are coming to school hungry, we cannot actually teach them in the way that we want to. They are thinking about food. We need them thinking about preparing themselves to become the next workforce here in America.

I can tell the gentleman that when we start talking about what is happening here, and I think the problem here within the Beltway, the fact that we are here on this floor, or there is a report in the newspaper, whichever newspaper it may be, they do not know what they are talking about, because the majority sees everything in their world, everything is fine.

I am going to tell you the reason why we are here, Mr. Speaker, is Republicans permitted Democrats to offer only 4 percent of the amendments submitted to major legislation in the 108th Congress. And when this Congress is over, and we get the statistics on that, we will probably find the same. On prescription drugs, the energy bill and the tax bill, only 4 percent. So much for bipartisanship.

To shift the debate, for example, in the summer, the Republicans brought the consideration of amendments that drastically shaped three important measures before Congress. When you start looking at the issue of CAFTA, medical malpractice, and the Chinese trade, these amendments were not even allowed to be heard on the floor, or were limited and restricted. We are talking about bipartisanship. We talked about the Katrina Commission in the hour before last.

They do not want an independent commission like the 9/11 commission that the country was pleased with because it was bipartisan, and it was out of the reach of this Congress. They know the reason why we passed the 9/11 bill is because we had an independent 9/11 Commission that was able to have equal subpoena power, getting the facts.

Guess what? Democrats, Republicans, Independents, those who do not even vote in this country applauded it, the work that that entity, the 9/11 Commission, brought about. So to say that we have a partisan commission here in the House of Representatives does not serve the American people in the way that they should be served. We talked about that for months.

Right now I want to yield to you, because we do have a special guest here with us, and a great Member of this House. I want to you introduce him

I want to say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson) as they depart, I just want to say what they are saying is right on. We do not have to be concerned with what outside people and outside groups say and do. We must be concerned about what our colleagues are doing or not doing on the other side. I think it is very important for us to remember that.

Talking about this budget is something that really needs review. And I encourage the American people, I also encourage Members to figure out what is in it and what is not in it. The cuts that are being made in the budget, well, let us just call it what it is.

Let me ask the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), I know she has a third-party validator, the cuts that are in this budget, in the light of hurricane relief, the cuts that are being made are really to clear the way for the $106 billion tax cut mainly for special interests and billionaires in this country on the backs of Medicare, on the backs of Medicaid, on the backs of free and reduced lunch for children.

And the reason why they were on the backs of those, and some may call it dependency, I call it making sure that the seniors can get their prescription drugs. I call it making sure that children that happen to be born into a poor community and in a poor family and a struggling family that is trying to make way to get a hot meal in the morning, to be able to get lunch, I guess left up to the majority since there is something about this dependency thing that is going on, I guess it is okay to have 60 percent of the kids eating lunch and 40 percent of the kids looking outside of the lunchroom inside wanting lunch but they cannot have it.

I guess it is okay to have those kids then to go to the classroom for the second half of the education day in front of a teacher hungry, while the other half of the class are picking their teeth from the lunch that they are able to afford because the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) is able to provide that for her children and I am able to provide it.

So I guess those of us that have, we are going to be okay. It is just those other folk out there making up beds, popping sheets in hotels and driving cabs around here, good luck to them.

I guess when faith-based organizations in my district and throughout this country are trying to do all they can to hold this thing together, providing after-school programs with parishioners, giving money to fill the gap that is no longer being filled because we have cut the local commitment in juvenile justice and prevention programs. When we say ``prevention'' we are talking about programs. We are talking about programs that help young children stay out of trouble, homework centers. All of those activities that we have put in Leave No Child Behind and will not fund those, Mr. Speaker. We will not fund those. I guess that is a dependency for afterschool homework.

But guess what? We have a nice cozy jail cell if someone was to step out of line. So I think it is important for us to remember that this is very, very serious.

Now there was an amendment in committee by the Democrats that said that, okay, let us talk about the tax cuts so we can expose the real reason why we are going through this exercise. Let us talk about the tax cuts for the special interests and billionaires first. Let us bring that up first and make that a part of this budget and reflect it and put it out front so everyone can see it.

But the majority did not want that to happen because it just would have been too easy for the folks back home. So say, okay, you are raising fees on students, our future workforce, by $5,000 apiece, to the tune of $14 billion. And then you turn around and this particular industry is receiving a $10 billion, what you call, ``incentive,'' we call tax cut, even though they have record profits to go out and find oil off the coast of Florida. Yeah, that is the ticket. That is. And that is actually happening.

So that is why it is important that we come to this floor every time we get the opportunity, within the frame of the rules, Mr. Speaker, to share with the Members on the majority side that we know what they are doing, and the American people know what they are doing, and that is why the American people see this Congress on the approval end at 35 percent. We did not do the poll. That is what the American people are saying. It is not only Democrats, it is Independents, Republicans and others.

So we are here to make sure that all Americans know exactly what is going on and let the chips fall where they may and make sure everyone understands and we have transparency in this process.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is very evident that nowhere in this budget is it talking about cuts in tax breaks to special interests. There is nothing in here that says that we are going to make sure that we tell billionaires that we have some things that we need to do here in this government and we can no longer give them that tax break. We are not saying it to special interests, but we are saying it to those who cannot fight for themselves.

We are saying it to not only students, but we are saying to parents that if the majority side have their way, they need to go out and meet with their college fund adviser because you will be paying more for higher education so that your children will be able to be a part of this workforce or what is left of it and has not gone to China and other countries.

I think it is also important to understand that child support, like Ms. Wasserman Schultz said, has been cut in this budget, and now over on the Ways and Means on the committee side is $8 billion as it relates to the cuts over 5 years. The cuts come where? Human services, child support and foster care.

So I want to warn States, including my State in Florida, I want to warn you, you are going to have to deal with enforcement of making sure that single moms are able to get money from deadbeat dads or vice versa. You are going to be responsible as it relates to kids that are orphans to find some sort of shelter when they have to go into a foster home environment because the Federal Government, we are not partners with you anymore because we are trying to clear the way so that we can keep our promise to billionaires and special interests here in Washington, D.C.

I want to also put the States on warning, every State, red, blue or purple, I am giving you forewarning that you are going to see the largest what we call devolution of taxation in the history of this country, where we back out of the responsibility of being a part of making sure that we have vibrant communities and making sure that we treat people like they are supposed to be treated because you are going to have to make the cuts because you have to balance. You have to balance your budget.

So what we hand down with the philosophy that if you are middle income in this country, if you are not a billionaire or a millionaire, good luck. Good luck on health care because we do not have health care, real health care here in the United States.

There is story after story about small businesses telling folks to go sign up for Medicaid because they cannot afford to give them real health care. Sign up for Medicaid.

But guess what, I want to say this to the small businesses. There is a $10 billion cut in this budget. So, guess what, that option is no longer going to be there if the Republican majority has their way. If they continue to have their way, it is okay for them to go into what is left of a poverty, if you want to call it, health care program out there for people that need health care to be able to make sure that they provide tax cuts, not for you, small business person, not for you, company of 100 or 200 people or company of 500 people, not for you, Republican, Democrat or Independent, but for the individuals that have the ear apparently of the majority at this particular time.

We know that this is the people's House, and I have said it before and I will say it again. It is supposed to be the people's House and we are the only body here in Congress, the Senate you can be appointed if it is in midterm, but only in the House of Representatives is it that you have to be elected. That is in every State, and no one can touch that. If a Member was to say I resign today or I am moving on to something or I am appointed to this position, you do not see someone here tomorrow. There is a special election set, and the local people in that district will vote to replace that individual that left Congress. So I think you could not get closer to the people of the United States than we should be here in the Congress, and I will tell you this, that I am very, very concerned about what is being done here in Washington, D.C., right now.

I am going to just show this quick chart because I showed it at the beginning, but I just want to keep reminding folks. Folks feel that, oh, they are alarmists. Some people walking around here in the Capitol, they are saying something and what is the problem. What is the problem? There is no problem. What are you talking about? Things are great. You know, I had lunch today, did you?

But when it comes down to security and financial security, 42 Presidents, and I am going to say it again and I am going to keep saying it, 42 Presidents, $1.0 trillion loaned from foreign holdings, and this is from the U.S. Department of Treasury that we have gone to other countries to borrow money, World War I, World War II, you name it, Depression, all 42 Presidents, one President $1.05 trillion in 4 years.

All of these Presidents combined could not do as much as this administration has done as it relates to borrowing from foreign countries to support mainly tax cuts that we cannot afford for billionaires and millionaires and special interests. I could see if it was something where there was billions of dollars going into U.S. cities and to rural America to

build economic development, to be able to help farmers that are trying to compete with foreign countries, thanks to us, okay, or thanks to the majority.

I can see if we were going into schools and saying that we are going to be the leaders of the world in educating engineers, that we are going to have science and math and we are going to lead the world in education. I could see that.

I can see if we had real homeland security where our border would be protected and that we would have the enforcement officers out there with the tools that they need to make sure it is protected and have a process to be able to deal with the issue of illegal immigrations and even if they are in this country, I can see if those dollars went towards that.

I can see if we said we want to deal with energy with those dollars, Mr. Speaker, to be able to say that we want to pull back on our dependency on oil and that we will use alternative energy sources. I can see that.

But I do not see people coming to the floor and saying, well, on behalf of the economy, billionaires need another tax break, millionaires need another tax break, this special interest group with record profits, unprecedented history of these oil companies, that we need to give them additional billions of dollars in taxpayers' money to go out and do what they should be doing with their profits anyway. You get a small business that makes a profit, some of that goes towards a security fund and some of that goes towards what? Growing their business. No, no, no, not in this majority, no, no. You get the profit and then you come over here to the Congress and you get the taxpayer money to go out and do the things that you should be doing in the first place.

It does not make sense, Mr. Speaker, and I do not care who says different. I do not care if the chairman of the basket weaving committee was to come to this floor and say what is the problem. What is the problem? We have enough baskets. What are you complaining about. Well, there is a lot to complain about, and there is a lot to let the Members know and the American people know that we are willing to lead in the area of individuals who are not leading in right now on the majority side as it relates to energy, as it relates to making sure that we have a health care plan here, making sure prescription drugs are affordable for Americans, making sure that our men and women in Iraq have what they need.

And let me just mention something for a minute, since I mentioned Iraq. The bottom line is that on the majority side and the President you start saying, okay, let us talk about Iraq. All right, we had bad intelligence, and that is a big question right now. We do not know if the Congress was given bad intelligence or not, but there is very little that is happening on that. And thanks to the Democrats in the Senate that pushed a----

I am coming right back. I am not going into Iraq. This is an example.

That is fine that the Senate came together, three Democrats, three Republicans, who will come together with a report on the intelligence piece. Okay. Okay.

Do we have a strategy for success? Well, we do not have that answer. Do we have a strategy of when we will be able to have American men and women come back home? Well, you know, we are fighting a war against terror, a global war, and we have got to go after the terrorists. Okay. But what is our strategy? Well, we do not have one.

So we are spending billions and billions of dollars of the taxpayers' money in Iraq at this particular time. And it is not about the troops; it is about some other things that we are trying to accomplish.

What is the strategy? Well, there is no strategy, and why are you asking, by the way. Why are you asking what is the strategy?

I am on the Armed Services Committee, and folks say, do we have an exit strategy? Democrats and Republicans have asked that. And I want to say that on the minority, the majority of the minority of the members over there, in the majority, have asked that question, along with several members on the Democratic side, because we want to know exactly where we are going. Are we going to be in Iraq as long as there is a small insurgency?

So that is the issue when it comes down to oversight and governance and making sure that we do what we need to do. So I just wanted to mention that because the ideas that we have, the ideas as relates to pay-as-you-go, the ideas as relates to being energy efficient by 2010, 2012, those ideas cannot surface in this Congress because the majority has their foot on those ideas.

So when folks come to the floor and say what is the problem, I guarantee when that budget comes up next week, and there is talk on the other side of, I wish our friends on the Democratic side would join us in this budget resolution that is coming to the floor, well, I have to say this to the Republican majority: I hope that Republicans join you on it, because that seems to be a problem, Mr. Speaker.

Every time there is a major bill that comes to the floor and it is a 15-minute vote, that 15-minute vote turns into a 2-hour vote. Why does it turn into a 2-hour vote? Not because Members cannot make it from their offices to the floor. No, it boils down to whose arm can be twisted, who can be pushed into a corner, and who can be pushed into voting for an unjust budget to clear the way for special interests and for billionaires.

So, Mr. Speaker, if someone wants to impress the American people that the budget is so good, let us follow the House rules and do the vote in 15 minutes. Do the vote and do not have the Members standing here at 3 a.m. in the morning saying, well, Mr. Speaker, they said it was a 15- minute vote and we are now on 90 minutes. When are we closing the board?

I think the reason why the voting board was not closed, and probably will not be closed next week, is that as long as the majority is not getting their way, they are going to change the spirit of the rules of the House of Representatives, and that is the problem too.

Just to add to what I was saying before the gentlewoman made her statements, October 7 the board was open for 40 minutes to pass the ``energy bill,'' as relates to home heating. Special interests were able to get their profits out of that. The board was open for 40 minutes, even though it was a 5-minute vote.

November 22, 2003, broke the record here in the House of Representatives by holding the vote open. It was originally set for 15 minutes but lasted over 3 hours into the middle of the night. It was obvious on the prescription drug bill that it was a failing bill, but it took 3 hours for the majority to get their way.

The reason why there are two dates on this, July 27 and 28, is because the board was left open, the voting board was left open for an hour, well past the 15-minute voting time on CAFTA, which actually passed by 227 to 215. So when the majority says I wish the Democrats would join us, I wish that the Republicans would join the Republicans on it, because they know exactly what is not happening.

I want to give our Web site out here. It is [email protected]. That is [email protected]. We want to make sure that everyone knows exactly what is going on here in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Florida, as well as the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), who joined us here today; and we will continue to work hard not only to bring fresh ideas to the floor but to make sure that we point out where the inequities are within our own institution.

Mr. Speaker, once again it is an honor to come before the House. As you know, we come to the floor nightly to talk about the issues that are facing Americans and also what Members of Congress are trying to do about them. Even in cases when we are not trying to do anything about it, we think we need to bring those issues up.

Mr. Speaker, we want to take the opportunity tonight to honor some great soldiers and warriors, the Tuskegee Airmen, for their contributions to our country.

Mr. Speaker, when I traveled to Iraq, I had an opportunity to see the Tuskegee Airmen Wing there in Iraq, still running strong, still flying sorties, and still defending this country in many ways. Even in some other theaters, they have done an outstanding job.

I am so glad to be here tonight with my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), who has some comments that he would like to make; and so I yield to him.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

I just want to say to both of my colleagues from Ohio that it is so important that we recognize not only veterans, but we recognize celebrations that hold our veterans up. The Tuskegee Airmen had a very hard time in their day to even climb into an aircraft, let alone go into a theater of battle. But it is good for our country to be able to recognize past sacrifice and commitment. I know all veterans shoulder to shoulder today know that every American fights for the freedom of this country and countries that are in our coalition in the civilized world.

I can share with my colleagues that I have many Tuskegee Airmen living in my district in Florida. They come out with their red coats on, and it is so good to see them standing strong with their chests out. As you know, the NFL has built a very strong relationship with the Tuskegee Airmen. They appear at a number of the NFL, National Football League, half-time shows.

So we need to see our heroes and our sheroes while they are here, and not just look in a book and say, it was once, not only with the Tuskegee Airmen but veterans in general who come out.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank both of my colleagues for bringing this to the floor tonight and putting it in the Congressional Record, because I think every time we have an opportunity to celebrate those who have allowed us to salute one flag, we need to take that opportunity at the highest levels.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I might mention that my colleague, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), has just joined us; and we now have another of our special guests with us, and I will leave it up to my colleague to recognize him.

Well, without her, I do not know where we would be as relates to being able to deliver a clear and crisp message that people can understand. She is our translator. She translates from Washington talk to everyday talk so that even some Members can understand and the American people.

With that, since we are talking about those who are underprivileged, and those that are trying to, hopefully, be a part of our workforce in the future, there is an awful lot to talk about, a lot of ground to cover tonight, so we are going to try to cover it real quickly.

A lot of action here under the dome today. The Budget Committee met. We are talking about those that play fiscal conservatives on television and those that are actually looking out for the financial well-being of our country. I might just say that as the 30-Something Working Group looks at issues that are facing young people and parents that have children that they want to be able to go to college, Mr. Speaker, and receive a higher education, there are a number of things that we have to cover.

Not only the budget. We have Hurricane Wilma. We have the Hurricane Katrina investigative panel. We have issues as they relate to Iraq and misspending there. And at the same time, we have a culture of corruption and cronyism and coverups going on here, right here in the capital city.

I just want to bring a quick point just to start us off tonight. Some folks run around and say, what is the Democratic position? Well, the Democratic position is making sure that the everyday American does not end up paying the bill for billionaires, billionaires, not everyday Americans, but billionaires, to run away with the U.S. Treasury and special interests to have free rein on the U.S. Treasury.

Now, I do not blame the billionaires for getting what they get. I do not blame the special interests in this town for getting what they want. I blame those that give them what they want when they want it. And it is up to us, as the representatives of the people, to make sure that that does not happen and that we work on behalf of the American people.

Representatives Kind, Capps, Edwards, Moore, and Schwartz moved in the Budget Committee today to direct the chairman, on behalf of the committee, to consider an amendment in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The amendment eliminated all new student-paid fees to increase the cost to receive a student loan.

What they have done here, Mr. Speaker, and when I say ``they,'' I mean the majority side, is they are saying there are not any offsets or cuts in this bill; but what they are doing is they are putting 27 percent additional fees on students that are receiving student loans. Now, that is 27 percent more that they have to pay. Some folks call it a tax. So one would think we are just talking about students. We are also talking about parents. When the students cannot pay for their education, who kicks in? Mom and Dad, family, Granddad, Grandmother. She is digging into the retirement fund to help pay to make sure that her grandson will be able to go to school. They continue to carry the message on down of adding these new taxes on to students and families on the State government.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, that was a party-line vote. A 27-percent increase, which I call a tax increase, on students that want to go to school, 27 percent, a party-line vote. Democrats voted not to increase those fees on them. Republicans voted in the majority.

Mr. Speaker, here is another one just today from the Budget Committee. This is not something from yesterday. It will probably come out in the hometown paper tomorrow, but the Members here in this Congress, Mr. Speaker, will get what happened in the Budget Committee today because that is where they put the cookie on the bottom shelf. I mean, that is when it happens. The same thing, a motion to link the tax cuts to spending cuts.

This is what is going to happen, Mr. Speaker, and we might as well call it so that everyone knows exactly what is going to happen and illuminate what the majority is doing right now. We are going through all of this process with all of these cuts, a real big number as it relates to the cuts; and then a couple of weeks from now when folks are doing something else, the majority is going to come up with the tax cuts for billionaires. They may give everyday Americans a little tax cut, just a little one.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have Katrina, which was a catastrophic storm that took out the gulf coast. We had Rita that also hit the gulf coast, and we have Wilma that we are going to talk about in a minute that also hit south Florida. And we have this thing we call a war in Iraq and Afghanistan that we need money for.

I am saying this to make this point and then we are going to go to the next level here: the President of the United States and this Congress, Mr. Speaker, have borrowed more from foreign governments than 42 Presidents combined. Since the Republic started, this President has outborrowed from foreign nations. In the 224 years, from 1776 to the year 2000, the U.S. Presidents borrowed a combined $1 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In the past 4 years alone, President Bush and the majority of this Congress have been authorized and borrowed a staggering $1.05 trillion, just in 4 years.

Folks come to the floor and they are dazzled on the other side. Why are they talking about all of these things? And we come to this floor night after night and say, you know something. Something is really wrong going on here, and we need to bring this to the attention of the American people.

I have a little chart here that I just want to get out of the way right now. We will pull it up. Forty-two Presidents, Republican and Democrat, 42, not 10, not 20, not 25, not even 30, but 42 Presidents. One President, one President outborrowed 42 Presidents from foreign countries.

What has happened here, Mr. Speaker, is that the country is now depending on foreign governments to run our government. Some folks may ask why are we talking about the billionaire tax cuts? We are talking about those tax cuts because it is weakening a country, bottom line. That is all that is happening here.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Nevada.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman is hitting it right on the head. We talked about the carpenter hitting the nail right on the head the other night. I can tell you that, even now as we speak, in committee today a budget passed out of the committee on partisan lines with one Republican, one Republican, voting with the Democrats to stop this madness.

One day, if this continues, if this continues, let me just say, in all fairness to President Bush, he did not do it alone. The majority had to be along with him on this. The majority Senate had to endorse this, that it is okay for you to knock on the door of the Bank of China and say, and when I say China, I knew the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) was going to get excited, but knock on the door and say we need more money. If this continues, one day one of these countries is going to rise up and say ``we own you'' on behalf of the majority.

Mr. RYAN of OHIO. If the gentleman will yield, the Republican Party has been in charge of this Chamber since 1994. They have had control of the Senate for a number of years. They have had the Presidency since 2000. They cannot govern. They are incapable of governing this country.

We have poverty rates up, we are cutting programs that are investments into the United States of America, and we have borrowed over $1 trillion in just 4 years from foreign countries, and the national debt is above $8 trillion. That is not governing. That is not providing a bright future for the country.

Talk about reducing the tax burden. The burden on average people is higher now, and these kids that we are also cutting their student loans and health care for are the same kids that are going to have to pay the interest on the money we are borrowing, which never seems to be recognized by our friends.

He is not even walking yet.

Mr. RYAN of OHIO. He is still sleeping 23 hours a day.

They cannot get out of the hospital, and they already owe the Federal Government, and we owe foreign countries all kinds of money.

Mr. RYAN of OHIO. Is that an ownership society?

Let me tell my good friend, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), it starts right here. We talk about third-party validators, and we believe in that in our working group we have here.

I hold in my hand here from the Republican Study Committee, which it seems like the majority is following the lead of this group, and they have said originally in this report that they wanted $35 billion in cuts. Let us talk about those cuts.

Let us talk about those cuts: $35 billion in cuts, and all of this is on the table and a majority of it is in this budget, Mr. Speaker, that was passed by the Republican majority out of committee today. Cuts to Medicare, cuts to Medicaid, student loan cuts, we talked about that; food stamps, school lunches. But not a mumbling word, not a mumbling word about taking back tax cuts from billionaires. Not a mumbling word.

Not one, Hey, you know something, we are at war. Maybe we need to ask these folks who have never given anything. As a matter of fact, I do not blame them. I go back to not blaming the billionaires. We never asked them, we never told them that they need to do something. Let us just keep it going.

This is the document. I want to make sure that the Members who did not see this document, they can go online to www.john.shadegg.house.gov/rsc/, that is www.john.shadegg.house.gov/ rsc/. Do not take it from me. Go find it for yourself.

So how do we get to the point where we are?

Yes, why do we not do that? We are going to get staff to put this on the Web site, because this stuff just does not fall out of the sky. This does not just fall out of the sky. The President cannot do it by himself. Take it from me, he cannot. He has to have his Republican majority, he has to have a majority, obviously, over in the Senate to do it; and he cannot do it by himself.

So folks start talking about what is going on here. Why are these foreign countries owning our debt? Why are they owning our debt? Why are we taxing our students? This budget that was passed through the Budget Committee on a partisan vote, with the exception of one Republican, and I am going to write him a thank-you note tomorrow, the bottom line is $14 billion and a tax on students. Not just students, but parents who have to take up the cause because the kids can no longer try to pay for their own college or the majority of college. If parents have a college fund going now, they need to go back and talk to their financial adviser and put some more money into it, because if this Republican majority continues to go out of control, there will not be any assistance for your child. That is not just me presenting a budget. You can go online and see this for yourselves.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will yield, I cannot help but see that picture behind you and see a lady there with silver hair. So if the majority has its way, not only did she get hit by a category 3 storm, Wilma, but she is going to be hit by a Republican majority Congress at the same time.

Record breaking.

I want to say quickly just today, news flash from the Budget Committee, happened over there in the Cannon Building, really nice building named after Speaker Cannon, who used to walk around here smoke cigars and all and is well known.

But I can tell you this. There is a heating program that is out there to help poor people. Since we are talking about these big companies that are making all of these big profits, it would have increased the funding to provide for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program from $1 billion to $3.093 billion. That would impose a temporary windfall profits tax on the oil companies to assure that the amendment is deficit neutral.

Now I am going to tell you something. You want to talk about this budget is keeping not only everyday Americans in the cold but is definitely keeping poor people in the cold.

But I cannot tell you, when you say, can you explain it to me, well, I cannot explain to you the reason why we have CIA agents being outed, not only one but a number of them.

I cannot explain to you the reason why we still have Michael Brown on the Federal taxpayer dollars, on the dole, at the same salary he was making pre-Hurricane Katrina, and why the Secretary of Homeland Security extended not only the 60-day contract they had with him but another 30 days, saying we have to learn something from him.

I cannot explain to you why the majority side puts together a report talking about cutting, and I am going to tell you, we gave the Web site out earlier. This is third-party validators, cuts to Medicare, cuts to Medicaid, cuts to student loans, cuts to food stamps, cuts to school lunches for poor kids. I cannot explain to you why.

I cannot explain to you why veterans have to wait so long for assistance. I cannot explain to you why that was the case.

I cannot explain to you why this administration, after this Congress acted, with many Members on this side pushing for military families to be reimbursed for equipment they had to buy for their loved ones while they were in theater to save their lives, to give them the Kevlar and the vests that they needed, I cannot explain to you why the Defense Department waited for the regs for that program for them to even get the money back, back in February. Senator Dodd from Connecticut had to write the Defense Department, who is a Democrat, had to threaten them to write the regs, and they finally wrote it. I cannot explain to you why.

This is to reimburse military families for equipment they bought, husband, wives, what have you. I cannot explain to you why.

But one thing that I can tell you, that it is important that we illuminate these issues so not only the Members know that we know what they are doing on the majority side but the American people know.

Now I am going to say back for the one Republican that voted with Democrats on this budget, on the backs of the American working class, on the backs of retirees, on the backs of those that wake up every day and try to provide for their children, provide for their family, I am glad that he voted with us. Maybe, just maybe, this hour is working on the conscience of some.

Real quick, since we are going out of time, you want to give the site out? Then we can close out.

Mr. Speaker, with that, we would like to yield back the balance of our time and thank the Democratic leader for the time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) for yielding to me, and I can tell her right now that I shudder when I think about not only the devastation that took place in Hurricane Wilma but what took place in Rita and took place in Katrina and what happened today in the Budget Committee.

I want to make sure that the Members, Mr. Speaker, are fully aware about an act that I did not take part in, an act that not one Democrat on that committee took part in, an act that at least one Republican did not take part in, that is, delivering another catastrophic event to the victims of these three natural disasters.

The cuts that were made today in the Budget Committee, that I must add without one Democratic vote, but with Democratic amendments, to make sure that those victims do not become victims again, were devastating to these individuals; cutting Medicare, cutting programs that will help everyday working Americans, delivering another blow to the gut of the individuals who need us the most.

Let me tell you what the majority side is saying. ``Oh, we have to make these offsets to help the Katrina victims.''

Hello. No. We have to slap them in the back of the head and push them to the floor because they cannot fight us like the special interests that got what they wanted in this budget, that we are going to make them victims again. That is what that means.

So, I am so glad that we are bringing to light not only Katrina, not only Rita, but also Wilma; that many seniors in our district, and we talked about this a couple of nights ago, or even over the past weeks, we have been fighting for the independent commission so we can review not only the Federal response, but the State response and the local response.

Now, I just want to take two more minutes. Down in Florida with Wilma, when the response was not what it should have been, Governor Bush of Florida jumped out in front of the train and said, ``If you want to blame someone, blame me.'' Well, you know something, I have a message, not only for the Governor, but for anyone willing to step in front of an unorganized response to people in need, because I would say to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), it could be your communities next. It could be a terrorist attack.

So I guess the Governor could not do it in Mississippi, he could not do it in Louisiana, he could not do it in Alabama, he could not run over to Texas and jump in front of FEMA and say ``blame me.'' This is bigger than an individual. This is making sure we can respond to Americans.

I would say to the gentlewoman from Florida, I would make this point to what the gentlewoman is pointing out here, that what can you say to this senior that you are in his bedroom there, I believe that is his bedroom where the ceiling came down, or another person's bedroom fell down into their home.

So it is a condemned apartment. She cannot live in it. Not only are there only 300 FEMA inspectors of over 100,000 and counting condemned residences in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties. Even in Broward County, well over the number. We are going to send 300 people down there to inspect before we are able to assist them. That is the reason why we need an independent Katrina commission, to make sure we are able to respond to Americans in need.

So when folks come to the floor and start talking about, well, you know, I do not know why they are complaining, because everything seems to be okay and the lights are on here in the Chamber and democracy is strong, we have Americans out there that are suffering and we have to give them voice.

This is the person that we still have on the payroll to teach us what to do.

A culture of corruption and cronyism.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to chime in to let the gentleman from Massachusetts know, sir, that we can do better.

That is the reason why the Democrats fought hard in the Budget Committee to make sure that the Medicare cuts did not take place or put an extra burden on seniors, to make sure that we replaced the burden that the majority side here in this House, the Republicans, have put on students as it relates to student aid and student loans. $14 billion in fees for students. That means $14 billion in fees and taxes for parents in America, for grandparents in America.

We can do better. I am so glad that we sleep with our fists balled up here ready to fight on behalf of Americans every day. That is the reason why I feel excited every time we get the opportunity to come to this floor to offer an amendment, to come to this floor here in this special order, to be able to let not only the majority side know, the Republican majority because, I must say, and I want to remind everyone, the Republicans are in control of this House, the Senate, and the White House. So anyone that has anything to say, and that includes Members, about how the Democrats said this and the Democrats said that and they are doing this, we are not doing anything as it relates to pulling this country in reverse.

I am going to tell my colleagues right now, what went down in the Budget Committee today is shameful; it is really shameful. I just want to, as we work here as a working group, I just want to say, I want to make sure that the majority side, when that budget comes to this floor, that they abide by the rules of the House of Representatives. If there is a 15-minute vote, then let it be a 15-minute vote. If there is a grace period, 17, 20 minutes, okay. But we do not want to be here on this floor watching the majority side, the Republican side, twist arms to get the votes to pass an unjust budget.

Now, we held up a report earlier that the Republicans called for $35 billion in cuts for the very people they are trying to help, or they say they are trying to help; and then in the end game, it is $50 billion in cuts. Not a mumbling word, not a mumbling word about billionaires and moving that tax cut away from billionaires, just some of it for the offset. Not a mumbling word, not a mumbling word to the oil industry that is dancing in the street and people around here are putting in $5 and $10 in their tank because they cannot afford to fill their tank up. It is not because they like going to gas stations; it is the fact that they cannot afford to fill their tank up. So it does not matter what you are driving. You can be driving a small, compact car. $5 is $5, $10 is $10, $20 is $20. They cannot afford to fill up their gas tank because it costs so much, leave alone the fact that it is getting cold.

I just wanted to tell you, they are not a Democratic club or an independent voters club or a Republican club. They are our religious leaders that are calling upon this Congress to recognize their responsibility.

I can tell you right now, you know, I am a Baptist. But I do not have a lot of time, you know, Christian, Baptist. But here is the issue. I just wanted to make sure that we know exactly what we are doing. We know what we are doing. We know what they are doing. We want to make sure that we illuminate what they are doing because, when it comes down to it, if the Republican majority in this House was doing such a great job, then why do only 35 percent of the American people feel that we are doing a good job?

Now if it is only 35 percent of the American people, just do the math. A super majority of Americans feel that we are not doing our job. Why do they feel that the President, why is the President at his lowest approval rating of his entire administration at 35? Why is Dick Cheney's approval rating at 19?

So when folks start coming to the floor swelling all up and carrying on and saying, you know, we salute one flag, and anyone else that has anything to ask or say about it, they are with the other folks, with the terrorists, with the enemy, why are they coming here? Why are not they doing certain things?

But I just want to make this point on this issue. I just wanted to make sure that we understand that we live in a democracy, and that we have the very people that the majority side is cutting the programs that help them the most, Medicaid, Medicare, being able to protect our environment in a way that it should be protected.

Democrats, what we did we made sure that we put forth amendments that will help everyday Americans, that we will be able to achieve the goals that we are supposed to achieve as Members of Congress. We also pushed a philosophy of making sure that we bring the budget back in balance. We made sure that for every time that someone puts forth a program that we have a way to pay for it, not just saying we are going to run over to China and say we are going to get the money, or not to say that we are going to pay for it on the backs of everyday Americans as it relates to including a budget enforcement measure to protect Social Security.

That is another pot that the majority cannot help themselves of going into and raiding all the time. It was this working group, amongst many others, that fought off the majority on this side of the aisle. We had 500 plus town hall meetings, a number of editorials, a number of editorial board meetings to make sure that we let America know what they were trying to do.

When I say they, I am talking about a Republican majority.

So, once again, I will close by saying this, that the Republicans are in control of this House by the majority, and in the Senate they have a majority, and the White House, they definitely have control of that. And the reason why I continue to say that is that I want to make sure that folks know that we are fighting a good fight here, but we need to make sure that the Republicans, Democrats, independents, those that are thinking about voting, registering to vote, get involved in this process.

Because I can tell you right now, I have some good friends that are Republicans, and they are very upset about what is going on right now. I have good friends that are Independents, and they make comments as it relates to what is happening here in this House.

But folks are saying, fiscal responsibility? Okay, you know I am a fiscal conservative because I say I am, not because of our acts.

This is a President that has not vetoed one spending bill. Not one. Not one.

If I may, I mean, it is just not an indictment that someone ran out and took a plane and took a plane to go see a basketball game and flew back on some private

company or something. It is not that. It is not something that reflects on personal judgment.

No, this is outing, Mr. Speaker, a clandestine CIA agent. That individual that goes in, and guess what? Guess what the agent's job was? To help us in finding out those countries that have weapons of mass destruction. To harm who? The United States of America. And because she was out, and now, you know, I am hearing that in the White House they are saying that the defense is going to be, well, you know, I have a lot of conversations in a day. I did not quite remember talking to a reporter about a CIA agent.

I am concerned, Mr. Speaker, because if that is something that you can forget, the time that you outed a CIA agent, and you forget it. You are like, oh, well, you know, I got coffee. Then I walked over here. You know, you do not just out a CIA agent.

You cannot violate national security when you have a security clearance, hello, that the four of us have. I said the other night, if I wanted to, you know, for political gain, talk about the things that I know as a Member of the Armed Services Committee, talk about the things that I know as a Member of the Homeland Security Committee for political gain, that would be horrible and a crime.

And it took place. You know, if it was just politics, I mean, people can understand. But someone could have lost their life. We do not know yet. And now her cover has been blown. A whole front that the CIA has has been blown. And those individuals that she has relationships with have been blown, all because some folks thought it would be good for political gain to be reelected to the White House.

Now I am going to tell you something right now, ladies and gentlemen, that we cannot allow this activity to continue.

As we started talking, I was handed a piece of paper here, because I was incorrect. The Congress approval rating is at 31. At 31. So anyone that wants to come to the floor chest-beating and patting yourself on the back, talking about I am doing a great job, let me tell you something on both sides of the aisle, we have to step it up on own our leadership. We have to step it up on our leadership, and we have to do it together on behalf of Americans. We have to do it together on behalf of Americans, not Democrats, not Republicans, not independents, not the special interests, not the folks that showed up at the fund-raiser last night.

We have got to make sure that we represent the United States of America and the people that pay taxes. We were Federalized when we were elected. So if folks feel, oh, well, I am here or here, and I do not need to worry about that, you are a Member of the United States Congress. You are a Member of the 109th Congress, and you have a responsibility to lead.

If you do not want to lead, I am going to tell you something, as sure my name is Congressman Meek, I feel that the American people, Democrat, Republican, Independent alike, and even going back to what the gentleman was talking about, 224 years of individuals that were fiscally responsible, the Whig Party, okay, these individuals will rise up to make sure that we protect our country.

Mr. Speaker, once again, it is an honor to come before the House. We want to thank not only Democratic leadership but everyone within the Democratic Caucus for coming to this floor night after night in a fight for what is right in America and to make sure that we work as much as we can in a bipartisan way to bring about the best of America. We have to fight for that position.

A lot has happened today, Mr. Speaker, in the Capitol. A lot has happened in the capital city in the last days. A lot will happen in the days to come. And it is how we move from this point on. If we are willing to travel the road of bipartisanship, carrying out oversight, making sure that our country is being told the truth, making sure that our troops are being told the truth, making sure that we as a Congress do what we are supposed to do constitutionally for the American people, then I believe that our future will be bright.

Or there is another road that could be traveled and has been traveled upon quite a bit in the 109th Congress, the road of strict partisanship, abusing the rules of the House to extend votes even when the majority is not winning so that they can win even though the ideas may not be in the best interest, in many cases, of the reason why we came to the floor in the first place, i.e., the energy bill, the prescription drug bill, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Also on that road is the road of cronyism, the culture of corruption and cronyism; and I think it is something that we need to disabuse ourselves of and move on the road of bipartisanship, move on the road of cooperation, move on the road of leveling with the American people.

So we do have a choice. There is a fork. Unfortunately, I would say that just picking up the paper, Mr. Speaker, just looking at the news, it looks like the majority has taken the fork of partisanship, endorsing the culture of corruption and cronyism. I want to make sure I am clear when I say culture of corruption and cronyism: A, condoning it, not calling Federal agencies, the executive branch, and some legislative branch operations or on the floor or before committee when we see this activity taking place.

Cronyism: a perfect example, Mr. Speaker, as I stand here now, Mr. Michael Brown still enjoys full salary at FEMA even after the debacle of Katrina, admitted by the administration, admitted by many Members of this House; but he still enjoys full salary of the taxpayers' dollars, $148,000-and-change. The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security has endorsed his extension by saying that we can learn from Michael Brown.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot wait until Secretary Brown comes before the Homeland Security Committee, because I have one question: What benefit to the taxpayers of the United States does Michael Brown have or possess as it relates to his experiences from Katrina? Did we not already have 60 days of a contract that was extended and then 30 days more extension of the contract? Mr. Speaker, I ask the colleagues of the House and level-minded Members of goodwill to please answer the Department of Homeland Security, to save the taxpayers' money, and turn their back on cronyism in the Federal Government.

Today I am joined once again by the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) and also the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan); and we come to the floor, as the Members know, Mr. Speaker, week after week and now night after night, to not only bring to the Members but to the American people what we are doing and also what we are doing wrong. But it just seems like the wrong is overwhelming, and we feel it is our obligation to bring it to the attention of the Members and the American people.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. I was looking at the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and looking at those charts over there. They are so breathtaking.

And turning over to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), we were working very hard over the last weeks or so dealing with Wilma, the gentleman from Washington State (Mr. Inslee) has joined us tonight, who has so much to add to this conversation.

I will give the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) the honors of recognizing someone else who has joined us here on the floor.

Mr. Ryan, could you read that again, sir?

I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the reason why we want to be careful as it relates to the Office of the Vice President and President is because we respect the rules of the House, unlike some folks on the majority side that expand the rules of the House for their own gain. I just want to bring that clarification.

I do not want the Members, Mr. Speaker, to feel we are scared to call a spade a spade. We just want to respect the rules of the House, and I think that is very appropriate and in order in this case.

Mr. Speaker, one individual in the Senate said the Senate was hijacked, as though someone came in with a gun, waving it and saying, I am here to take over; but simply using the rules of that body, the Senate, just like we use the rules here in the House towards the benefit of the American people. Reports have said that what came out of it is hopefully a report that will surface in a couple of weeks about some of our intelligence failures.

I can say that Mr. Inslee, a couple of speakers ago, mentioned the fact of outing a CIA agent, and I must say my good friend from the Garden State New Jersey and also Mr. Delahunt stated that a CIA agent, a clandestine agent, was outed, but a number of agents were outed. A number of agents, agents that we will not even know their names for now, left up to this White House; they may be outed tomorrow, if they get in the way. I think that it is 110 percent correct, as Mr. Pallone said, if you get in the way, and I do not even like to use the word ``Republican,'' because I have a lot of good friends who are Republicans and I have some folks on the majority side that I know that they go home every night and lift the toilet seat up, and they are literally sick. They have to put their heads in a porcelain bowl because they are sick of what is going on in this institution.

It is shameful that we would sit here under regular order when CIA agents are being outed and being proven in indictments that they are outing these individuals for political gain. It is beyond politics, far beyond politics, what is going on.

I just want to read something here. Mr. Delahunt, we call those individuals like the colonel and others third-party validators. We want to make sure that the Members are not sitting in their offices thinking, oh, well, they go in the back and they just draw this stuff up. Members, the American people, Mr. Speaker, all they have to do is pick up the paper. They do not even have to turn the page; it is right there on the front page, what is happening in the moment.

And the question is, when folks start looking at the 109th Congress what we did and what we did not do and what we allowed to happen, we have an obligation, Democrat, Republican, and the one Independent in this House have an obligation to call the question on why we are allowing a number of things that are happening to our country, our country, our country, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, those that are not even registered to vote and those individuals that are seeking to become citizens in this country, it is our responsibility. It goes far beyond winning and losing here in this House and the games that are being played on a bill or two.

I just want to read here what was printed on the 10th, just a couple of days ago: a small Boston firm, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, listed as her employer, suddenly was shown as a bogus CIA front. Her alma mater in Belgium discovered that it was a favorite haunt for American CIA spy activity.

Now, this is a front. This is a company that we had set up. I did not know about it. I am pretty sure none of us knew about it. But the individuals in the White House that have the highest security clearances knew about it, outed this agent and outed a number of other agents behind enemy lines in a forward area. It is like saying, it is like calling up the enemy and saying, there are some marines right outside of Mosul, okay, and they will be there at 12 o'clock, to the insurgents. That is how deep this is.

We have individuals that are running around here without weapon, some folks have put their life on the line for this country, and it is shameful for the people that have the highest security clearances and I must add, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, appointed to have those security clearances.

Now, you speak of Mr. Rove. I mean, the way this indictment reads, obviously a lot of thought has gone into it. Statements were made to this grand jury, and he is still available and working as the deputy White House chief of staff, sitting in on meetings, the highest security clearance, hearing what the President hears, hearing what the Vice President says.

I am glad that I am not a CIA agent. I am glad I am not a clandestine agent working on behalf of this country, because I may very well be outed because I am talking about it. This is very dangerous. This is very dangerous, Mr. Pallone, what you mentioned. It is very dangerous when not Big Government, just a few individuals in the government, take it upon themselves, they have the prerogative to out individuals that are career CIA agents. There is something fundamentally wrong with that, and it is very serious.

I would like the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), who has been focused on this issue for some time, we would like to hear some of his thoughts on what is happening right now.

Mr. Ryan, I believe you have the next hour, sir. We are running out of time. What I am going to do is, if you could, we want to get that Web site so we can click over and have more time so that we can continue to talk about this issue.

I am pleased that the Members who have been following this issue for a very long time on behalf of the American people are here. If you can give the Web site, I would appreciate it, real quick.

Mr. Speaker, we want to thank the Democratic Leader and the Democratic leadership for allowing us to have this hour.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell you right now, this goes far, once again, beyond politics. This is serious business.

We have Members here who have traveled abroad. I have. I am on the Armed Services Committee. I am on the Homeland Security Committee. If you know how it was to go down to a hotel lobby and go to a restaurant where you are staying there at a hotel, you come back to a hotel after official meetings with the government and you do not understand what people are saying, need it be French, need it be Arabic, need it be Spanish or what have you, now, just think for a minute. If I were a CIA agent in a foreign land, or someone in a friendly country that works with the United States as it relates to sharing sensitive information, how do they feel right now? How do they feel about America right now? How do they feel about our executive branch right now? And how do they feel about the Congress? This is going to hurt us.

The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) put it just as clear as it can be. It is weakening a country when it comes down to getting the intelligence to protect all of us here in the United States and our allies. And I think it is important, I think it is important, and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) hit the nail straight on the head. Like we say down in Florida, he hit the nail straight on the head just like a good carpenter.

The bottom line is that we are not here to hand down guilty verdicts; but we are here to say the statements that were made to FBI agents, statements that were made to the grand jury, statements that were made to the special prosecutor were incorrect and misleading. Statements that were made on national television on Sunday shows, need it be talking to the press in the press corps, at the White House, we now find were incorrect.

Now, as it relates to indictments and the conviction of Mr. Libby or possible indictment as it relates to Mr. Rove, this thing is far beyond Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby. This is about outing individuals that have dedicated their lives to go behind enemy lines and live amongst them to get information to protect everyday Americans. I cannot help but think of the veterans that laid their lives down right now, 2,000-plus recently, Gulf War I, Vietnam, Korea, other conflicts, World War II.

I was riding through the Mall with my children just about 2 or 3 weeks ago, and we stopped by the World War II Memorial. We saw the different States as you look at the World War II Memorial with the water, a very nice memorial. We dedicated it last year. I was telling my kids about it and the allied force and all of those folks that gave their lives so we could salute the Flag and it is flying high. It was a coalition of countries that fought for democracy on the face of the Earth. For people to not think of that commitment and that sacrifice, that those individuals, and some are still walking this Earth, some have gone on to a greater place, for them to selfishly think of political gain to out these individuals is beyond me and unconscionable.

So I say there must be Members on the majority side who have the power to do the right thing in this case, but they have opted not to. So when folks start, when you said before what are we doing, we are pushing the card not on behalf of the Democratic Party; we are pushing the card on behalf of Americans and those veterans that are without limbs right now, those veterans that have to get assistance to get up out of bed right now, who fought for the Flag to fly over this very Capitol.

I am not saying that Members who are not focused on this issue are unpatriotic. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that we have a responsibility as the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) has said, not only in the White House but in the Congress to make sure that the truth comes forward so we can protect American lives. Period. Dot. That is just what it is.

This is far beyond a campaign against a certain Congressman or President or Vice President or a party. This is about national security of our country and countries that are working with us.

Do you think that someone wants to put their agents up front with an American agent, not because the American agent they feel lacks qualification to get sensitive information. They are scared because someone may out their agent and our agent because of a political campaign. That is what this is all about.

This is not about one day someone woke up and grabbed a doughnut and coffee and said, I think I will out a CIA agent today. I think I will do that because I feel like it. No. It was about saying that we know our intelligence is bad and anyone that rises up and says different we will destroy them. We will destroy him and we will destroy his wife. We will do what we have to do to make sure that we win.

What is happening is that the American people are more in danger under that philosophy than under what we are supposed to be doing statutorily. And when you have a security clearance, let me tell you, there are a lot of things I want to share with some folks but I cannot, because I took an oath and I signed an oath that I will hold secrecy not because I am not fearful of losing my security clearance. I am fearful that someone may lose their life behind enemy lines because I thought I wanted to say something to prove a point.

It does not come to that. This is blood. This is life and death. And we do not even know, someone could have lost their life behind this. We do not know that yet. We need to get to the bottom of this, and the bottom line is if the majority is not willing to do what they must do, not what they should do, not if they could, what they must do, if they are not willing to do it, then that is something the American people have to take into account.

I tell you one thing, the ride to the soccer game and sitting there feeling that you have a sense of security may not be what it is right now if this kind of activity continues.

If my colleague can read that again, that ``we're not being undermined by the North Koreans.'' Just go through that paragraph one more time.

With that, if I may, what is so disturbing about this whole thing, once again, is the fact that like my colleague from Florida, this whole culture idea, and we talked the other night that it takes a while to get a culture. It is an American culture to have picnics on July 4. It is cultural, I guess, for certain religions to practice a certain meal on a given day. It is within the culture. That means it is preserved. It is something that is accepted.

What has happened here in Washington, D.C. is that there is a culture of corruption and cronyism. When we say a culture of corruption and cronyism, that is not something that remotely happened on some given day 2 years ago. That is an everyday practice, and you would assume that it would stop. You would assume that we would disabuse ourselves of that kind of activity. You would assume.

The gentleman from Massachusetts mentioned ``their war.'' Well, guess what, it is our war. It is our war. They are our men and women that are laying down their lives right now, whether it be part of our armed services or a contractor or foreign service Americans that are working in the biggest embassy in the world there in Baghdad, in Iraq. Millions upon millions and billions of dollars are being spent.

We talk about a culture of corruption and cronyism. I would say to the gentleman from Washington that the other day we talked about four of the big contractors that received no-bid contracts on the Katrina disaster that took place. They were under investigation for mishandling the taxpayers' money and falsifying documents by our own government.

I used an example of a company that is under investigation by our government where it is pretty much documented that they have overcharged the government for the services that they were supposed to be providing and, in some cases, never provided those services. Then we call them in when Katrina happens and say, Oh sure, here is another contract, no-bid, go out and do the work.

I used this example: it is almost like I run into a 7-11 and I am a contractor. I take my gun out and I tell the kid behind the counter to give me the money. And I reach in there and grab $200, and I run down the street. Then some of Washington, D.C.'s finest stop me. Police officers. We gotcha. Wait a minute. Just put that money in your pocket and put that gun back in your waistband and go out and rob some more. That is encouraging corruption. That is encouraging a crime.

That is what we have here. That is what we are encouraging here. So when folks come to the floor on the majority side or have a press conference that calls themselves fiscal conservatives, or we know how to run the government and they do not, speaking of Democrats, that kind of activity does not speak to it.

When the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the largest department not only in the Federal Government but in the history of the world, takes a former director, Michael Brown, of FEMA, and not only removes him from the position of being over the response at the time of the response to Hurricane Katrina and the recovery, and says, Well, we need to send him back to Washington, we are putting two or three other people over his responsibilities; but better yet, we will keep him on for 60 days so we can learn.

As a consultant. At the same rate he was making as a consultant. And lo and behold, just last week we hear, Oh, well, I extended his contract 30 more days so we can learn more. That is cronyism and it is on the breach of corruption.

And I say to my colleague from Massachusetts that I am driving the point straight home. I am not as good as the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) in hitting that nail on the head.

I am not a carpenter.

This is far beyond someone saying that we are being political. This is about the taxpayers' money. This is about the responsibility of the Congress. I said it once and I will say it again: if the majority is not willing to lead, then there are enough individuals that have filed bills to bring about accountability on behalf of the taxpayers of the United States of America on this side of the aisle that are ready to go.

Not only are they in the locker room and ready to go; they are on the field with their mouthpiece in right now, chin strap buckled, ready to go out and hit somebody when it comes down to standing up on behalf of the taxpayers. So I think it is important that we do this.

And what we are talking about here, because this is not just a discussion about Iraq, this is not just a discussion as relates to outing CIA agents, as

heavy as both of those topics are, and they end up being intertwined, this is about the culture of corruption and cronyism that is going on here in Washington, D.C.

Just as an example today, the Senate used the rules to do what they had to do on behalf of the American people. And guess what they were called? Hijackers. They hijacked the Senate today, as though someone ran in on the Senate floor with a gun and said shut the Senate down. No, they used the rules on behalf of the American people. And guess what came out of it from news reports and what I hear from some of our friends across the aisle? The fact that they are going to do what, a bipartisan, three Democrats and three Republicans, who will come together to bring about the report that should have been reported on long ago. But it took an act of leadership and courage.

We need our friends on the majority side who have the power right now, because if we had such a rule here in the House we would exercise it to go see the wizard and get some courage and fight on behalf of the American people. If they do not want to do it, we are willing to do it.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but think, when I talk about commitment and sacrifice, I just represent too many veterans for me to even look beyond the front line that allowed us to even have this discussion here, kept this country free. I cannot help but think of the parents, wives, fathers that have a picture of their child, son, daughter, husband, wife hanging on the wall right now next to a Purple Heart. They lay down their life for this country. So this discussion is far beyond comprehension for me. I have gone to too many funerals, talked to too many parents, read too many stories for people to take this lightly.

I know we have said it once and we have said it twice and if we have got to say it 10,000 times, trying to keep up with a lie, my mother told me when I was young that if I tell a lie, I have to remember what I said when I said it. And that is the problem right now in Washington, D.C. There are so many lies that have been told to the American people, it is difficult to keep up with what was said in the first place. If it was the truth, it would not be a problem because it is enshrined in one's memory and in one's character.

So I will leave it with that. There is nothing more that I can add to that; but the reality for so many Americans, so many Americans that we represent, so many parents and wives and fathers and mothers that were handed a freshly folded, crisp American flag on behalf of their loved one and family member who lay down their lives for this country, their lives, literally, for those individuals who have to be fed by tubes right now, for those individuals who cannot get up and go to the restrooms like many of us right now, for those individuals we have got to continue to fight on their behalf and on behalf of their children that are without a father and mother.

So I commend the Members for coming to the floor. I am glad the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) has claimed this hour, and I think we have to do the things we must do within our power to stand up for those individuals.