Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 106 before the House of Representatives today.

The Constitution has never been amended to mandate discrimination. It is historically served to expand liberty and equality. This proposed constitutional amendment, if passed, would set a precedent at odds with the values and freedoms upon which the nation was founded. Further, it is an attack on the United States Constitution and the system of government that has made this country so great and has served us so well. Supporters of this resolution complain loudly about the decisions of ``unelected judges,'' but it is important to remember that those very unelected judges are a key part of our system of government--it is how the authors of the Constitution saw fit to protect the rights of minorities.

By trying to amend the Constitution, conservatives are trying to cut off the emerging national debate on same-sex marriage. Amending the Constitution has only been done 27 times before in our history. It is something that is traditionally done only when there are no other options, but the country has only just begun to try to work through this issue.

Even for people who, like myself, believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, this measure does nothing to strengthen or protect those bonds. It seems to me that if a threat exists to marriage, it is that too many of them fail. For every two marriages that occurred in the 1990s, one ended in divorce.

The stresses on marriages today are great, but they don't have to do with the jurisdiction of the federal courts. This bill does nothing to deal with problems like affordable housing, quality education and training, daycare for young children, high costs of gasoline, electricity and food, high unemployment rates and underemployment, and the lack of health care coverage and other benefits that place severe strains on many families.

Today, the very nature of the typical American family is changing. Just as families headed by only one adult were rare only a few decades ago but are common today, non-traditional couples are now a widespread fact of American society. Nearly 200 Fortune-500 companies and numerous municipalities and organizations have already recognized this fact on their own and provide benefits to same sex couples. In addition, several municipalities have adopted local ordinances prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing and employment.

This proposed constitutional amendment is heavy-handed and unnecessary. The companion amendment in the United States Senate not only failed to meet the required two-thirds vote for adoption, but it failed to even receive a simple majority of the membership, failing 48- 50. At best, it is bad policy that does not get to the core of the problems that face American families today. At worst, it is a ruinous attack at the very foundation of this great country--A Constitution that protects the rights of the individual over the tyranny of the majority.

No matter one's individual beliefs, there can be no excuse to putting limitations on one person's rights for another person's beliefs in a document under which we all live--the Constitution of the United States of America. I hope that my colleagues will join me in opposing this ill-advised, unnecessary, and bad precedent-setting amendment.

Mr. Speaker, once again it is an honor to come before the U.S. House of Representatives to be able to share a few things with the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we reflect on this period as we stand as a country. A lot has happened today and a lot will happen in the future, and I think it is important that we reflect on what happened today and the direction our country needs to go in and should go in.

We all know that there are 40 days and some hours, just about to be 39 days before the national election on November 2. I think it is also important for us to reflect on the responsibility that every American has to participate in that process. I would like to share with the American people that for a couple of weeks, we have not had an opportunity to have a 30-something hour, but I think it is important for us to address some of those issues that are affecting young people in this country.

I want to commend those organizations that are out there supplying information to voters between the ages of 18 and 30 to make sure that they participate in this election. What has been happening for the last 4 years, and what is going to happen in the next 4 years is very, very important for the future of our country and also for the future of our families.

I want to thank Rock the Vote and also the WWE Association, and many other individuals that are out there, like Mr. Russell Simmons, what the NAACP is doing, what the people for the American Way are doing, and also thank what Puff Daddy and other folks out there are doing in making sure that people have good information. Voter suppression is very real, Mr. Speaker, and I think it is important for parents or grandparents or even Members of Congress listening tonight that we share with them that their loved ones who might be in school do have the opportunity to register to vote.

In the beginning of October, that clock is going to run out throughout the country, so we need to make sure they know they can register. We did have some supervisors of elections or those election officials in those local communities that were telling them they could not. Now we are getting that information out. I believe there is a 1975 Supreme Court decision that said that if one is in school and registered in school, they can be from another State, but they can register to vote there, because nine times out of ten during the early voting periods and the election period in early November, they will be there at that location.

Mr. Speaker, I have my friend and colleague, the gentlewoman from Cleveland, Ohio (Mrs. Jones), joining me here tonight, but I first just want to take a moment, since we are talking about democracy, to reflect on a country that we are saying that we want to institute democracy in. I think we should be very careful in being the promoters and also the hood ornament for democracy in the world. We are promoting elections in Iraq at a time when we know that it is very unsafe, not only for U.N. workers but for our U.S. troops and the very limited coalition that we have in Iraq right now.

On the floor here today, Mr. Speaker, we had the interim prime minister of Iraq addressing the U.S. Congress. He also went over to the White House and was with the President in a Rose Garden ceremony. It is one thing to be able to say that we have to be there for the long haul. As a member of the Committee on Armed Services, I support the effort of making sure that we achieve our goals in Iraq. I may not support how we got there, which I do not, that being the preemptive strike, which is something this country has never engaged in before. There is no ``may'' about it, I do not. But I think it is important we reflect on where we are right now.

We have had the arguments, hours of arguments on this floor, of how we got there. I think the American people are fully aware of who made the decision and who decided that we should take a preemptive strike in Iraq, without a real plan that provided for a good measured outcome. The people who made the decision to go with the willing I think is something that we are going to remember in the future as it relates to the art of war and in taking a move like we did several months ago.

I could not help but reflect on the prime minister's comments today, and I also could not help but reflect on what was said at the Rose Garden about the fact that we are ready for elections in January. Now, this is not the Kendrick Meek report, this is the report of many news articles I am holding here in my hand from the events of today. This is not only the reports of these news organizations but also of anyone turning on the television and looking at cable or at network television. Guess what, things in Iraq are not going as well as we are being told here around the beltway and in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Speaker, I think it goes beyond my obligation and the obligation of all the Members here in the House, be they Republican or Democrat, to level with the American people about the realities of Iraq, the realities of taking on an effort in the Middle East where we have had terrorism for years and years and years.

Fact: Saddam Hussein. Yes, he was a bad guy and he needed to go. But at what cost? Fact: Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups were not running the streets of Iraq prior to the preemptive strike. That is a fact. That is not fiction. That is not the Kendrick Meek report, that is reality.

The President today said, well, we have to continue to fight the war in Iraq, because if we leave, then the terrorists will have a hub to be able to carry out terror on other democracies on the face of the earth. Well, Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but to reflect and to comment on that remark. Who set that stage for that mecca or hub of terrorism?

Now, I am not here to point fingers, I am just here to say that the world community knows the reason why we have all the terror in Iraq right now, that could and would be and is a part of global terrorism at this particular time. And I think it is important if we are going to build a broader coalition now, and I want to make sure, because Secretary Rumsfeld today, I must add, was over in the Senate and he said, well, what is wrong with the elections? We can have elections in January, but what is wrong with having elections in some places and in other places where we cannot have them, it is not a perfect world, so let us just move on with the elections.

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, but I beg to differ with the Secretary, in all due respect. That is not the way a democracy operates. Next thing you know, here in the United States, and thank God for the U.S. Constitution and some people of goodwill who would stand up against such an action, if it were said that, well, we can have an election in Georgia, Alabama, or Mississippi, but in other places we cannot have it, so whatever the results are from those States, then so be it. Those are the elected officials that will represent that legislative body or those cities in those areas or this country.

Mr. Speaker, we need to watch what we say. Just because we can say it, does not mean that it is right. It is very, very unfortunate that the Secretary of Defense feels that he can

make those comments. And I wanted to make sure that I came to this floor tonight to share not only with Members of Congress but also with the American people that we should disabuse ourselves of such statements made off the cuff when we are trying to create a democracy.

The coalition in Iraq is not expanding with individuals or countries that are there to be able to help us in our mission and our goals. The coalition is getting smaller. I think it is important if we are going to build a true coalition, then we have to make sure that we have strong leadership. Mr. Speaker, 1,041 American lives have been taken. We honor and respect them. As a Member of this Congress and as an American, I respect their contributions to our country.

I think it is important that Americans not only reflect on their contributions and their sacrifices, but we need to also make sure that when we hear something here in Washington, D.C. by individuals that are being driven around in cars with tinted windows, who have prepared comments to be able to draw an audience and who believe what they say should be law, we beg to differ. It is our responsibility and our resolve and our commitment to this country and to the lives of those troops and their families goes beyond that.

So whether it be an independent, a Republican, or a Democrat, we have the responsibility to stand up and say that is not so, Mr. President, the administration, or whoever it may be; these individuals who would sit here and give the American people the Potomac two-step that everything is okay. It is not okay. We have 7,032 troops injured, and we are at 96 percent of the cost in Iraq. We do not have a coalition, as the administration will share with you that they are running the costs and they are taking on the casualties.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, we are trying to train the Iraqi army, but this argument goes beyond partisan politics. This goes to the very fiber of every veteran that has served this country, every veteran that allowed us to be able to breathe and celebrate the very democracy that we live in today. Their memory, their honor, their sacrifice is on the line right now in the world community.

The boldness of some folks here in Washington, D.C., to be able to say that something is going on in Iraq that the American people cannot see. I want to share a few facts here. Security failures in Iraq, we need to get down to what it is worth. I mentioned the casualties, and I mentioned the injured. Our forces are coming under attack 90 times a day. That is a twofold increase since winter.

Also, when we look at the new al Qaeda terrorism generated throughout the world, we are at a cost of $145 billion, and 41 percent of our debt is handled by foreign countries right now. That is 96 percent of the bill.

I think it is unacceptable for people to talk about things are going so well. We need to tell the truth. The truth is no weapons of mass destruction, no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. This is not the report of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek); this is what the President said in the Roosevelt Room when questioned about it. The facts show there was no link. The mission is not accomplished. The transition is not a peaceful and stable one that is happening right now. The attacks on the troops are increasing, not decreasing. Terrorist opportunities are growing in that region. The fact that the failures of this administration to come to grips with the reality with what is happening in Iraq right now is detrimental to our mission.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones).

Mr. Speaker, I want to let the gentlewoman know how excited I am, not about the prospect but about the reality of the number of individuals who will vote this election. The stakes are high. This election is beyond personalities. It is personal. It is about families and their future.

I once said on the floor that the goal of every grandparent and parent is to make sure that their children and grandchildren have better opportunities than they had. That fits everyone, Democrats, Republicans and Independents. The American people are going to have an opportunity to have a new direction. There are 45 million Americans without health care. These are working Americans without health care. We have the highest deficit in the history of the Republic. We are knocking on the bank door of China saying, please help us with our debt because we cannot manage our own money. At the same time, we are in a war with no real end.

I will repeat again, I support making sure that we reach our objectives in Iraq, but what I do not support is for us to continue to carry 96 percent of the costs and 96-plus percent of the casualties without being able to go to the world community to build a real coalition in Iraq. It is not good thinking to be able to say we are going to hang in there and go from a shooting-from-the-hip way of doing things; we cannot do that. We have the moral authority in the world so we cannot behave like others. We cannot afford to behave like others.

The rest of the world is looking at this election to see what the American people do about the future of the world. People talk about a global war on terror, yes, a number of countries are involved in the global war on terror, but the real issue is who is involved in Iraq.

Just for a moment, what happened to Osama bin Laden? We had efforts on Osama bin Laden and also in North Korea and making sure that we kept the pressure on Iraq as relates to their nuclear programs; maybe we will be securing the world more. Maybe, just maybe, we will not have the kind of terror incubator that we have in Iraq now. This is not the Meek report. The CIA report said either civil war or a lack of not being able to accomplish our goals that we set out to do in Iraq, one of the two.

When you follow Secretary Rumsfeld saying we can only have elections in three-quarters of the country, the rest of the country, we will get around them, it is not a perfect world; you want to talk about a prescription for civil war, that is one. That is why it is important that the American people understand their responsibility in this upcoming election season.

I am encouraged by the 18- to 30-year-olds who are registering to vote. I am encouraged by the grandparents and the veterans who are saying, young person, make sure you carry out your vote. To those individuals and seniors who are cutting pills in half because they do not have a prescription drug benefit, they have an opportunity to voice their opinion.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, this election is going to be about who votes and who does not vote. This election is going to be about the future of every American family. We know that every election is supposed to be about that, but this one is for real.

The President of the United States said today to the interim prime minister of Iraq, do not worry, the American people will be with him all the way to help him accomplish the goals that the Iraqi people want to accomplish. Well, I am not one to hang my hat on polls, but I will tell the gentlewoman this: the Iraqi people see us as occupiers instead of liberators. And that is not a reflection on the job that the troops are doing on the ground.

I want to make sure that Members of Congress understand that there are a lot of proud men and women who are laying it down right now. I pray for them every day. I make sure that their families understand that we appreciate their service to our country. But at the same time, it is our obligation as leaders here in Washington, D.C. We are citizens elected to this Congress to make sure that we run this country in a way that it should be operated and that we make sure that our troops have what they need and when they need it and we make sure that we make sound decisions based on what the situation is today and what the situation will be

in the future; and that is the reason why I am sharing tonight with all of the people that can hear my voice that it is important that they look at it for what it is.

There is a term out there that a lot of young people use: it is what it is. And right now, if I were, hypothetically speaking, the President of the United States and I am looking at what is going on and I am getting the CIA reports and I am hearing things that the American people are not hearing right now and I am turning on the news and I see what is going on and I am picking up the paper and I am reading the articles and I am getting all this good information but, better yet, I am still going to hold on to the fact that we are going to have elections in January, that lets the world's community know that we are putting, I believe, politics over principle and over sound thinking.

And the great thing about our democracy is we have the opportunity to come here and voice our opinion and to be able to share it with the people who live in our democracy for them to act appropriately, and acting appropriately would be to think about the facts. A commercial over here and a commercial over there. That is fine. Some of it is true, and some of it is fiction. But the bottom line is when we speak from the White House and when we speak here on this floor, we have to speak the truth. There is not a lot of time for us to play around and start talking about, well, I am going to just sway over here and I am going to embellish a little bit.

The American people deserve better. Congresses before our Congress, the 108th Congress, knew and hoped that this democracy would move as it relates to truth, honesty, and dignity. And it is important that we do not even reflect that. With all due respect, we do not even want to brush up against that. I am not saying that that is not the case now. But I am saying we do not brush against that honor that has been laid out. When I talk about veterans that have served this country, those that are in Arlington Cemetery right now, resting in peace, we appreciate their contributions. Every time I go to the airport, I see Arlington; and I swell up about their contribution. We would not be in Congress if it were not for them. So when we look at that, it goes deeper than the politics that we are hearing right now.

So the American people have an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, those who are voting for the first time and those who have voted 100 times, to be able to make the right decision based on the facts. If their voter registration card says Green Party, Reform Party, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, whatever their party may be, they have an obligation on behalf of their family. Family, that is personal. So we have to make sure we reflect on that.

I am excited. I am just going to let the gentlewoman know I am in no way feeling that woe is this country because I have faith in the American people. I know they will make the right decision. We have got to give them the facts about what is happening, what is really going on, and let them make their decision.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I will just say, since our time is drawing near to the end, that the American people have an opportunity to vote and they will. There are record numbers of new registrants out there in this country, and they are registering to do something. And they have an opportunity once again to vote for a new direction as it relates to health care; education; environment; energy; security for our country, making sure that we have more containers that are being checked, coming into this country, which has been found to be one of our greatest terrorist threats.

They have an opportunity to make sure that there are sound decisions, and a real opportunity for the world community to feel that they can come to the United States and we can build a real coalition in Iraq; to be able to make sure that we put on a real hunt for bin Laden; to make sure that individuals that were responsible for 9/11, that they are not only brought to justice, but shut down.

So they have that opportunity, and I believe very strongly they are going to take that opportunity and they are going to swell that vote, and they are going to vote early, and they are going to make sure that every member of their family votes, because this election, I believe, this election, I say it again, is the greatest opportunity that Americans have had who are able to cast their vote in a very, very, very long time.

So, I am glad that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) has led us in the direction of the New Partnership with the American people, and that we are going to do the things that are going to be able to help not only working Americans, but those Americans that have contributed to our country.

If you are on Social Security, you have a place in our partnership. If you are looking for a job, you have a place in our partnership. If you are a mother that is trying to make ends meet, you have a place in our partnership. If you are a veteran that wants to go to the VA and get assistance within 6 months, you are in our partnership beyond 6 months. That is the situation right now, if you want to see the eye doctor or whatever the case may be.

If you want to make sure that we build a sound America with sound education funding and policy and making sure that students that are crushed by student loans right now, that they get the opportunity to attain a graduate education so they can compete with the rest of the world, you are in our partnership.

If you do not want to have to train someone to perform your job overseas, you are in our Partnership with America to bring about change.

So I am excited about our leadership here under the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and so many others that are out there, along with our Democratic Caucus, but I think it is important that we make sure that American people understand the opportunity they have.

Mr. Speaker, I will try to live up to that as we move on. It is a great pleasure to serve with the gentlewoman from Ohio, with all of the trials and tribulations that her constituents and the people of Ohio with the loss of jobs.

As we know, in Florida when we talk about health care, 240,000 people in Florida lost their health care that are working under this administration. We have an opportunity to turn that around. I am very proud of the opportunity that we have.

Once again, it is an honor to serve in this House. It is also a greater honor to be here, to be about the solution.

I will tell you, it is not just Democrats. There are people of good will in this House that want to do the right thing. It all comes down to the leadership. It is like our troops in the field. Who does not support the troops? That is what I want to know. We all support the troops. We speak in our vote, we speak in our support on the floor, we speak in our prayers for the troops.

But it is important that we are not blinded by bipartisanship and about the fact that, oh, well, I have to do this because the leader of my party or the leader in the White House says that I have to do it, and we have to stand in solidarity with him or her or whoever it may be.

We stand in solidarity with the American people, and the American people have an opportunity through the partnership that we have built here in this House with our leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), about what we should do and what we have to do, given the opportunity.

I must say, it has been 10 years since this House has been controlled by Democrats, and I think it is important with Democrats and some goodwill Republicans that we put this country on the right track.

With that, I want to thank the gentlewoman for joining us here tonight.

Mr. Speaker, it is with deep sorrow that I rise to inform my colleagues of the passing of Orange ``Buddy'' Hays, one of Miami-Dade County's most quietly effective and dignified patriarchs and a community leader and mentor who had the ability to transform the lives of everyone he met.

Mr. Hays death on Sunday, September 12, 2004, has cast a veil of deep sadness over our community. The funeral services to celebrate his life were held Saturday, September 18, at Mt. Olive Primitive Baptist Church in Miami, Florida.

Buddy Hays was a good and decent man who contributed greatly to our community, professionally, as a City of Miami police officer and as the District Manager of HUD for more than 30 years. But I knew him, much more closely and at a young age, as someone who was wise, and strong, and fair--a great role model.

He was like a father and mentor to me, and I've been blessed and inspired by the good words and magnificent examples of this ordinary human being who went about quietly helping youngsters in our community, simply because of his great goodness and the fact that there were youngsters out there who needed his help. My friend, State Rep. Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall described Mr. Hays as someone who ``. . . will be missed by so many. He was steadfast and relentless in his mission to make this community a better place, and he did.''

Buddy Hays was a delicately drawn character of quiet demeanor and dignified commitment to the well-being and growth of the neediest and most vulnerable in our community. He projected a vision of service and faith. His passing is a terrible loss, but the legacy of his caring and love lives on, and I am part of that legacy.

The world is a better place because of Orange ``Buddy'' Hays. It would be a high goal for anyone to set to follow the path that he blazed.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address a human crisis of the highest magnitude. It demands a strong, unequivocal and immediate response from the international community and particularly from the United States.

The latest storm struck Gonaives on Saturday. So far, the only aid from the Bush Administration has been $60,000 in relief assistance. This is just a drop in the bucket compared to the desperate need of the Haitian people. It is wholly inadequate. The Bush Administration needs to exercise leadership in coordinating immediate assistance from our own country and the international community.

While the Bush Administration is watching the development of this disaster and assessing what its response will be, thousands of Haitians are suffering. This situation demands an immediate emergency response from the United States Government.

As reported in these Miami Herald and the New York Times articles, nearly 700 lives have been lost in Haiti because of the flooding and mudslides triggered by Tropical Storm Jeanne. Already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, this new crisis has made conditions in Haiti even worse. And the desperate situation that Haiti faces today because of this disaster comes on top of the catastrophic floods only 4 months ago with over 3,000 Haitians killed, missing, or presumed dead.

The press has reported widespread human suffering in Haiti, with unburied bodies in the streets; hospitals and hospital equipment rendered unusable because of water and mud, grave shortages of fresh water, food and antibiotics, a very real threat of public health epidemics, and thousands without even rudimentary shelter.

The government of Haiti is totally unequipped and unable to deal with this massive crisis, because they have neither the resources nor the organization. Private voluntary groups are reportedly overwhelmed by the enormity of this crisis.

Given the gravity of this situation, in which thousands of Haitian lives hang in the balance, I call upon President Bush to immediately send significant U.S. emergency assistance to Haiti in the form of food, medicine, fresh water, clothing, and emergency shelter, and to immediately coordinate, with the international community, the manpower, transportation and distribution of these needed commodities to provide immediate relief to the people of Gonaives and the surrounding countryside.

We know from the storm damage in our own country that fast action is imperative in natural disasters; Haiti's poverty and the size and scope of the disaster there makes the need for speed even greater.

If ever there was a time when the people of Haiti need the help and support of the United States Government, it is now. I urge President Bush not to delay this aid any further, but to act immediately.

[From the Miami Herald, Herald.com, September 21, 2004]

Storm Floods Kill More Than 600 in Haiti

(By Amy Bracken)

Gonaives, Haiti--.Rescuers dug through mud and ruined homes

for bodies Tuesday, expecting the death toll of more than 600

from Tropical Storm Jeanne to rise even further, with half

the crowded northern city of Gonaives still under water from

the weekend's devastating winds and rain.

Gonaives was hardest hit in the latest tragedy to beset

Haiti in a year of revolts, military interventions and

devastating floods. Bodies, including many children, were

stacked at the city's main morgue, where weeping relatives

searched for loved ones.

At least 500 people were killed in the city, according to

Toussaint Kongo-Doudou, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping

mission in Haiti.

``I lost my kids and there's nothing I can do,'' said Jean

Estimable, whose 2-year-old daughter was killed and another

of his five children was missing and presumed dead.

``All I have is complete despair and the clothes I'm

wearing,'' he said Monday, pointing to a floral dress and

ripped pants borrowed from a neighbor.

Floods are particularly damaging in Haiti, the poorest

country in the Americas, because it is almost completely

deforested, leaving few roots to hold back rushing waters or

mudslides. Most of the trees have been chopped down to make

charcoal for cooking.

Aid workers were struggling to get relief to victims amid

worries over looting and crime, said Hans Havik from the

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent

Societies.

``Security is little bit tense. We have to be careful with

bringing in the materials because we risk looting,'' Havik

said.

Three trucks carrying Red Cross relief supplies rolled into

Gonaives Monday, but before they could reach their

destination at the mayor's office, two of them were mobbed by

people who grabbed blankets and towels. U.N. troops stood by

watching.

People tripped over each other to grab tiny bags of water

thrown from a Red Cross truck in front of City Hall, where

officials said about 500 injured were treated Monday.

Dieufort Deslorges, a spokesman for the government civil

protection agency, described the situation in Gonaives as

``catastrophic.'' He said survivors need everything from

potable water to food, clothing, medication and

disinfectants.

``We expect to find dozens more bodies, especially in

Gonaives, as . . . floodwaters recede,'' Deslorges said.

Floodwaters destroyed homes and crops in the Artibonite

region that is Haiti's breadbasket.

``Everyone is desperate,'' said Pelissier Heber of the

Artibonite Chamber of Commerce.

Elsewhere, 56 people were killed in northern Port-de-Paix

and 17 died in the nearby town of Terre Neuve, officials

said. Deslorges of the civil protection agency reported

another 49 bodies recovered in other villages and towns, most

in the northwest.

Although there were fears of many more dead on La Tortue

island, Deslorges said: ``The government has been in contact

with officials on La Tortue. Nothing happened there.''

Jeanne lashed Haiti on Saturday, four months after

devastating floods along the southern border of Haiti and

neighboring Dominican Republic. Some 1,700 bodies were

recovered and 1,600 more were missing and presumed dead.

Gonaives, a city of about a quarter million people, also

suffered fighting during the February rebellion that led to

the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and left an

estimated 300 dead.

All this in a year supposed to be dedicated to celebrating

the 200th anniversary of the country's independence from

France. Haiti, the only country to launch a successful

rebellion against slavery, was the world's first black

republic.

Jeanne regained hurricane strength over the Atlantic on

Monday but posed no immediate threat to land. At 5 a.m.

Tuesday, it was moving east-northeast with 90 mph winds,

about 445 miles east of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas.

The storm entered the Caribbean last week, killing seven

people in Puerto Rico before heading to the Dominican

Republic where it killed at least 18. The overall death toll

from Jeanne stands at 647, 622 of them in Haiti.

Waterlines up to 10 feet high showed the passage of the

storm waters, which turned some roads into fast-flowing

rivers.

Argentine troops who are among more than 3,000 U.N.

peacekeepers in Haiti treated at least 150 people injured by

the floods in Gonaives, mostly for cuts on feet and legs.

One man stood outside the flooded base used by Argentine

troops, asking soldiers to remove 11 bodies that were

floating in his house, including four brothers and a sister.

``I would like to see if the soldiers could do something

about these bodies,'' said Jean-Saint Manus, a 30-year-old

student. ``The door was closed. Everybody was trapped

inside.''

He said he had been outside and could only get in once the

floods subsided.

Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue toured flooded areas

Sunday and declared Gonaives a disaster area, calling for

aid. The U.S. Embassy announced $60,000 in immediate relief.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Karl and Tropical Storm Lisa remained

far out in the Atlantic. Karl's sustained winds were 140 mph,

making it a Category 4 hurricane. Lisa had winds of 60 mph.

[From the New York Times, nytimes.com, Sept. 21, 2004]

Death Toll Nears 700 From Haiti Flooding

(By Reuters)

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (Reuters).--The death toll in Haiti

from flooding and mudslides triggered by Tropical Storm

Jeanne rose above 660 on Tuesday and government officials

were still struggling to reach areas cut off by flood waters.

The storm swept north of Haiti during the weekend,

drenching the impoverished Caribbean nation, inundating

cities and sending deadly mudslides through towns and

villages.

Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, who declared three

days of national mourning for the victims, planned to visit

some of the hardest hit areas on Tuesday.

The government put the death toll from the floods at 662

people and expected the total to rise as relief workers

recovered bodies and reached areas isolated by the now

receding water.

The known toll included 550 deaths in the coastal city of

Gonaives, 65 in Haiti's Northwest province and 47 in other

towns.

``There's not one house in Gonaives that has not been

affected,'' Latortue said before leaving Port-au-Prince to

tour the city. Officials estimated half of the 200,000

residents needed immediate assistance with shelter, water and

food.

The city is the birthplace of Haiti's independence from

France 200 years ago and it was where an armed revolt began

that led to the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide

earlier this year.

Latortue's entourage hoped to land on the island of La

Tortue off Haiti's north coast to assess damage there. U.N.

workers said on Monday it was barely visible beneath the

flood waters and rescue workers have been unable to reach it.

U.N. peacekeeping forces sent to stabilize Haiti after

Aristide's departure were helping with rescue efforts and

providing transportation for relief shipments.

Haiti, the poorest nation in the Americas, is frequently

inundated by flash floods and mudslides because of extensive

deforestation. Around 2,000 Haitians died when extensive

floods washed away villages near the Dominican-Haitian border

in May.

Tropical Storm Jeanne also killed 11 people in the

Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola

with Haiti, and two in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

The storm meandered in the Atlantic about 445 miles east-

northeast of the Bahamas' Great Abaco Island on Tuesday but

posed no immediate threat to land, forecasters at the U.S.

National Hurricane Center said.

Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to present a position on this amendment before the House here today.

I just want to qualify the fact that I live in south Florida, and I do have some good friends that are Cuban, and I do represent many of those individuals. I must say that I voted against this very bill last year in solidarity with many of my friends who are against embargo and want to put pressure on Castro. I believe in that, but I believe that we have crossed the line now as it relates to going into family.

There was some discussion from my good friend and colleague from Miami Dade County talking about, well, folks are going to stay in hotels. Well, if a person is going to see a family member that is sick, nine times out of 10 they are going to stay with that family member.

What has happened now, we are putting on Cuban Americans, I must say Cuban Americans want to go over and visit their family members when they are sick. Now if they have an aunt that is sick, under the new Bush restriction they cannot visit an aunt or a cousin or an uncle that helped to raise them. They could very well be the last living member of their family in Cuba, but they cannot go.

Let us just say that their mother or father is terminally ill and they would like to go and consult with the doctors; they would like to go and give them moral support, spiritual support. They are going have to make a decision now, because President Bush put this restriction in 4 months prior to a major election, I guess because the polling said it was appropriate to do so, they are going to have to make a decision, are they going to visit their family members to give them that support, or are they going to the funeral. If they go to the funeral, they only have a couple of days to do that. Guess what, God forbid if another family member gets sick. Now, if we want to present democracy to families and we want to hurt Castro, then let us hurt Castro. Let us not hurt families.

I have been around Miami Dade County in South Broward for a very long time; and I will tell my colleagues this, there are a lot of people that are hurting and feeling the pain and suffering of this particular restriction. This is far beyond politics and partisanship. This is dealing with families.

I want the people that are paying attention to this debate here today to really understand, if a person has a family member that is on their death bed and they have to make the decision if they are going to be there while they are living and support them or they are going when it is time to put them down to rest, think about that and think about is America trying to present democracy to a Communist country and to Cuba.

Castro is going to turn this around by saying, they will not even allow you to see your son and your daughter for the last time because they came a year before.

This will not deter the Castro government from doing what they are doing. This will make sure that he has another tool to say how bad the United States is. I tell my colleagues, I for one want to see Castro go. I want to see his regime go, and the way to present democracy is not hurting families.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate the life and acknowledge the great accomplishments of a talented actress, Isabel Sanford, who passed away on July 9, 2004.

Ms. Sanford and Sherman Hemsley co-starred as Louise and George Jefferson in the sitcom The Jeffersons. Isabel Sanford was also known affectionately to many as ``Weezy'' Jefferson. She was a native New Yorker and performed at the world famous Apollo Theater in her youth. Ms. Sanford made her film debut in the historic Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

The Jeffersons was one of the first television sitcoms to showcase the black family on national television. The Jeffersons moved on up from being the neighbors across the street from Archie Bunker, and moved into a skyscraper in New York City. She, along with Sherman Hemsley, changed the way America looked at African Americans; breaking down barriers and eliminating stereotypes. Ms. Sanford was the first black woman to receive an Emmy for Best Actress in a comedy series for her work on The Jeffersons.

Ms. Sanford's legacy will live on through her movies and her television but most of all her family and her fans. She will be greatly missed.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the work of one of my constituents, Debra Barron, who suffers from a debilitating disease called scleroderma. Debra and her family have been tireless advocates in drawing public attention to this painful condition. Her work demonstrates her strength and resolve, and I ask that her remarks from the March 20, 2004 Scleroderma Foundation Wine Auction & Dinner in Broward County be entered into the Congressional Record.

Imagine for a moment you're a 26-year-old newlywed . . .

young, healthy, athletic, and pursuing a serious career. That

was me in September 1981, when, one afternoon as I'm washing

my hands the color in them suddenly changed from pink to

stark white. There was no warning, no pain or discomfort. Two

weeks later, after a battery of tests requiring copious

amounts of my blood, a doctor at the George Washington

Hospital Center in D.C. informs me I have a ``condition''

known as Raynauds, which is basically a loss of circulation

to the extremities. Raynauds is easily manageable with

medication and isn't a problem except when the circulation

returns; some will experience a minor sensation such as

tingling while others endure severe pain as the blood vessels

return to normal and the color returns. So there I am, I'm

26, having never been seriously sick a day in my life, and I

think to myself . . . ``This is nothing. Go home and don't

worry.''

My husband, Gary, and I moved to San Francisco in 1982. My

doctor in DC suggested I seek out a physician to monitor my

condition in the event. I needed follow-up care. Since I

needed a physician anyway I'm not too concerned. From 1982 to

1983 the Raynauds become aggressive. The first to go was my

left index fingertip which developed a gangrene-type sore,

and had to be removed by a doctor, also losing my fingernail

and some bone matter. No problem . . . I still had nine good

fingers but, as time elapsed, more fingers became infected

and each episode brought new horrors, as well as physical

pain, as I watched my fingers literally die. Needless to say

there went my regular manicure appointments.

By the spring of 1983, my condition had become more

aggressive. Chewing and swallowing food was now something I

actually had to think about because food would get stuck or

caught in my esophagus. My doctors were supportive and

encouraging, but they were running out of options and I

wasn't responding to experimentation with medication.

Basically, I was still taking medication for a ``condition''

that was supposed to be manageable.

The pain was also getting worse. Many scleroderma patients

experience severe pain and it becomes a way of life, day in,

day out, sometimes for months on end.

The sores don't heal quickly because the blood vessels

clamp down, which suppresses the flow of oxygen to the blood

and thereby causes poor circulation. Chronic pain gets old

very quickly and it affects everything in your life: I no

longer felt young, I certainly didn't feel healthy, I was

suffering from fatigue, my career was suffering, and the

biggest insult of all was the total loss of my sexuality and

how I felt about myself as a woman. I was broken in all the

ways that matter to any human being. It didn't help that my

family was on the other side of the country, my husband was

traveling, and the only thing my doctors could do was offer

encouragement. It was at that point I made a conscious

decision to do something and as I drove over the Golden Gate

Bridge one afternoon, crying from pain, I intended to end my

life.

San Francisco police don't like speeders on the Golden Gate

Bridge and I got pulled over. I knew I was about to receive a

whopper of a ticket when the officer realized how hard I had

been crying. I explained about the pain and told him I was in

a hurry to get home to take my pain medication. He offered to

escort me home, which he did, took me upstairs to my

apartment, waited while I took my medication and stayed with

me. He never spoke of God or having faith, nor did he try to

offer encouragement. He just sat there with me and let me do

the thinking.

Realizing the consequences of what I tried to do to myself

hit me hard. The state of my health was no longer something I

could deny and from that point on I chose to become more

aggressive regarding my condition. I was basically being

monitored, not treated, for a disease no one understood and

it still took another 12 years before a doctor finally

recognized my symptoms as Scleroderma.

I still get sores and have to deal with pain but life is

good again. I'm in remission now thanks to my scleroderma

doctor, Frederick Wigley, at Johns Hopkins plus the myriad

physicians that oversee my healthcare.

I'm very fortunate to have a loving and supportive family,

both my immediate family and Gary's family. But, most

importantly, the two people I live with have been

tremendously supportive.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to be on the floor not only with the gentleman from Wisconsin, but also with the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is very important not only for Members of Congress, but the rest of the United States to understand that Florida has gone through quite a bit, and there are other States that are affected as relates to the flooding and some of the aftermath of the hurricanes.

But I also want to add, and I want the Members and I know it is not in this bill, I know we have $2 billion that is going to FEMA. We have, I believe, $30 million going to the Small Business Administration. But I think it is important to remember that the VA was also hit in this storm. In Palm Beach, I know some of the Members can attest to it, that it is important that we have emergency funding in a bill, not in this particular bill, but in another supplemental coming up for the losses that the Department of Veterans Affairs was not included in this bill.

The VA in West Balm Peach and in the middle of this storm, clinics in Brevard and also Port Charlotte received lesser damage than their main facility in West Palm Peach. In the middle of the storm, it was flooded. They had to move people to the second floor. That is something that we definitely need to think about, and I know it is something we will include, hopefully, in the future for these patriots that have laid it down for the very democracy that we celebrate today.

But I am excited about the fact that not only Floridians but also others can count on the Congress responding in the way that we are, because we are spending their tax dollars. It is not like we are giving them something. This is something that they have invested in our government, rightfully so; and we are responding to them in their time of need.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage, like I know that Members will, when they open the board up to allow an opportunity to vote on this emergency supplemental, I am pretty sure that every Member of this Congress will be in support of that. I would like to commend the local governments and their response to our recent natural disasters and their continued support and commitment. Also to those Floridians that have lost time and wages from their jobs and small businesses. This is very timely. I want to thank the ranking member for allowing me to have time, but let us also remember our veterans and VA hospitals.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I know a wise man such as himself is fully aware of what I just shared with the other Members. I want to thank the gentleman for sharing that with the rest of us.

Mr. Speaker, once again, it is an honor to address the American people and also Members of the U.S. Congress, and there are so many issues to talk about tonight.

As many of the Members know and the American people know, once a week the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader, has allowed the 30-something Working Group to come to the floor to share with the American people issues that are facing not only young Americans but Americans in general. We have 14 Members in our working group, and we work throughout the week and here in the Congress to make sure that we give voice to issues that are facing Americans throughout our country.

I must say that being from Miami, Mr. Speaker, I just want to share with the Members and the American people, we are so glad that the people of Los Angeles allowed for the Miami Heat to be able to receive Shaq. We look forward to the Miami Heat going to the NBA not only finals, but championship this upcoming season. Shaq is going to bring a new flavor to Miami, and all Miamians are very proud to have him there and also his family; and we welcome them all. We look forward to a successful Eastern Conference playoff and even regular season, and I will tell you, not being a season ticketholder myself, I look forward to saving up my money to get an opportunity to see him in the Magic City.

Mr. Speaker, let me share for a moment with the American people that week after week the 30-something Working Group has had an opportunity to come to the floor to speak to the American people about the issues. This week we had a visit from the WWE, which is the World Wrestling Entertainment Association. These are wrestlers that came to the U.S. House of Representatives to talk about their initiative that they are working on throughout the country.

Everywhere the WWE is going, they are registering voters, and they are working with the democratic way of making sure that every vote counts in this upcoming election. We know that many Americans, many of them are young; a lot of issues facing Americans right now are issues that are working towards our future. It does not matter what age you are, but especially for young people. I commend WWE for the work they are doing. They were here Monday night at the MCI Center registering voters. Their number is up to a million voters who have already registered for the upcoming election.

I am very excited about Americans who have not had an opportunity to vote in the past that are taking an opportunity to vote this time; and wrestlers, entertainers are telling them it is important that they vote. There are issues facing the economy, the environment, the war in Iraq; and we are glad they are there.

I have a picture, if I may, of three of the WWE wrestlers that came to the Capitol on Monday. This fine gentleman is myself. I wanted to wrestle once upon a time, but I do not think I can hang with these guys. We have Maven, who is an outstanding young man. We had an opportunity to hear his views on voter suppression.

This is Hurricane. We had an opportunity to see him Monday night. He is a very popular young man and has a bright future in the wrestling entertainment world. And then we have Chris Nowitski, who is a Harvard graduate. He graduated from Harvard and now wrestles in the WWE. They all have a voter consciousness. And here is our very own, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), who wanted to have a lights-out cage match with these gentlemen. He said as long as he has his track shoes on, he will be okay.

Mr. Speaker, we want to commend these men for coming and helping to get out the word about democracy and making sure every voter takes their American right and has an opportunity to vote so their voices are heard. It was good. We had an hour-long meeting, and we opened it to the press to allow them to come in and hear these fine gentlemen. I am glad they have taken time out to share in a bipartisan and nonpartisan way the importance of voting.

Mr. Speaker, I must share the issue of voter suppression. This is going on throughout the country, and I must say to many of those students that are going to return to colleges and institutions and even to those parents that are sending their kids off for the first time to a college in a city that they have never been in before, many of those individuals have registered in high school through their social studies programs and government classes. We do it in Florida, and in many locations throughout the country the same thing happens. We want to make sure that these young people know they can register.

In November, November 2, they are going to be at the location where they are going to school. We started getting reports of young people going to register to vote before they recessed for the spring, and now in the middle of August they are going to return for the fall semester; but they were told they were not eligible to vote because they did not live in that particular city. Taken from my good friend, David Letterman, and hopefully I will get out of here in time to be able to catch the show, if you live in Sioux City, Iowa, and you are attending university in Akron, Ohio, you should have the opportunity to vote there. The Supreme Court said in 1979, if you are a registered student, going to school there, you have a right to vote in that location.

Mr. Speaker, there is also rhetoric that is being shared with many students that want to vote at their college campus, if they register, they will lose their out-of-state or in-state aid they will receive, or their scholarship will be in jeopardy because they were brought in as an out-of-state student.

That is not true, and there are no repercussions to take part in our democracy. We want to make sure we get that word out to all Americans.

I think it is important for every parent and grandparent, for the grandparents that have given their hard-earned money to make sure their bloodline has a better opportunity than what they had, that they have the opportunity to educate themselves, and they have also an opportunity to share in this democracy. They have feelings, too. As it relates to growing and skyrocketing tuition costs, they have to be heard on that. They have to be heard on the environment. A lot of things that are happening that were not happening years ago, they have to be heard on that. They have to let it be known that we want alternative fuel sources in the United States of America. If they are not heard, it may not happen.

They have to be heard on the issue of student loans, of skyrocketing costs of college tuition, and that they are graduating in debt. We want them to take part in the American Dream. That is what it is all about, to buy a home and get a piece of the rock. And we want them to have a credit report so that they will be able to be eligible to get a loan to buy a house.

So for 18 to 30, young people being able to have an opportunity to vote, if we can raise the level in that demographic, what we call it in the political world, we will have a better America. We will have a safer America, a cleaner America, and a healthier America. I think that is very important.

That is the reason why the 30-something Working Group formed itself under the leadership of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), because she believes in a better America. She believes if given the opportunity to be Speaker of this House that we will be able to top- shelf many of the issues that are facing young Americans. So not only now but post-election, we will be coming to the floor to share these philosophies and issues with the American people.

Also as it relates to voter suppression, we want to make sure if anybody wants to find out more information about it, go on the rockthevote.com Web site and find out more information on voter suppression, or you can take the opportunity to contact us here in the House of Representatives. We are going to give voice to those individuals that may run into problems.

This is our Web site here. We have our e-mail address, [email protected]. Also our Web site, we have democraticleader.house.gov/30something. I will share the Web site and the e-mail address again later on. You will have an opportunity to be able to allow us to fight on your behalf. We are not talking about just Democrats; we are talking about Independents, Republicans, Green Party, what have you.

We feel to be able to have a stronger America, safer and healthier America, it is important that our entire country takes part in the electoral process. If one does not take part in the electoral process, we will not bring about the kinds of change that everyone cares about. That is what we are about. We are about making sure that everyone, and I mean everyone, not just folks from Florida or Ohio or the Californians or Texans, we want to make sure that everyone participates in this process. We want to make sure that everyone can have their voice heard, and that is why it is so very important.

Tonight we are going to talk about several issues. One we are going to talk about is our breach in intelligence. We are also going to talk about many issues facing Americans. And guess what, we even have a top 10 list tonight that we will give birth to tonight so when we return after Labor Day, we will continue on with our top 10 list.

I have been joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), who is an outstanding Member of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) that I shared our picture on the Capitol steps. I talked a little about how you wanted to have a lights-out cage match, and as long as you had your tennis shoes on that it would be okay.

I think it is obvious. The man with the green hair has more muscles.

It is love.

We talked about, but it would not be complete without your views.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, everyone forgot about us. Walking through the halls, they wanted to touch the Hurricane and the Maven. They said these guys are just Capitol regulars.

Mr. Speaker, athletes nine times out of ten get a bad rap for being about business. This is a capital city. These gentleman could have been doing anything. They could have been somewhere relaxing, kicking back, doing what they wanted to do. They were doing what they wanted to do. They wanted to make sure that not only young people but wrestling fans throughout the country could just pause for a moment and realize the seriousness about their vote and about their voice being heard. This is serious business.

We are at war.

If I can say, 897 American troops are not coming home. We honor them, but they are not coming home. That means 897 individuals will no longer see their family members ever again.

That means that 5,394 American troops, not coalition troops, American troops, injured, dealing with the war in Iraq, just Iraq. This is not talking about Afghanistan, going after the Taliban and 9/11. Do not get me started.

The real issue is serious. We have to make sure that the men and women that follow the WWE, and that is what these gentlemen are trying to do, let your voice be heard. They are not telling them how to vote or who to vote for. They are just telling them that they have to get registered and that they have to get out the vote.

I must say, the gentleman from Ohio does that well. He reads the e-mails. He gives the Web site. I gave the Web site out earlier. I want to apologize to the gentleman from Ohio for giving the Web site out because that is what he does.

The gentleman just wants to make sure that the individual who e-mails, that he does not skip a word. Every word is important. Every little nuance is important. We are not here to talk about travelogues or footlockers. We are here to talk about serious business.

Nowinski, also. We cannot leave him out. Our Harvard grad.

Who is a wrestler.

Studentsuffrage.com. They have good information about voter suppression. I just want to from that e-mail let you know, we have to remind the American people and Members of the House, this is not the 30-something report. This is not the Representative Tim Ryan report nor the Representative Kendrick Meek report. This is for real. People who would think we are joking, it is unconscionable for someone to even put a sign out as much as we are trying to encourage young people to come out and to take part in this democracy, that anyone would say that you would suffer financially from voting. Leave alone from voting, from registering to vote. I am from Florida. Do not get me started. I am just going to say that when we look at individuals taking part in this democracy, we are not talking about Democrats only. Let us make sure we are straight on that because we will get some folks who come in on the other side of the aisle, the 30-something Dems, they have Dems on the back of 30-something, they are only fighting to make sure the Democrats have a right to vote. That is not true. We want Republicans to vote. We want independents to vote. We want democracy. We want to make sure that their voices are heard. We want to make sure that we have a better America as we move forward. If we do not have a voting America, then we are not going to have a better America. If they are not turned on or turned off about what is going on, we need individuals like WWE. We need them to have a fair shake when they go to register to vote. And for someone to a student, think of a student, and I am sorry, I am getting a little wound up here, think of a student that would even take the prerogative to register to vote when they have all of these issues to worry about, exams, term papers, making sure that they get registered in their classes. They want to do what they are supposed to do, what their parents have done, and that is register to vote. We want kids, we want parents. Parents, if you are listening to us here tonight, even Members of the House, if you have children that are attending, or of the other body or even of the Bush administration, I must add, if you have children or, I must say, let us just be bipartisan, if you work for Senator John Kerry or Senator Edwards or what have you, we want you to be able to call your kids and make sure that they have an opportunity to vote. The bottom line is that we have to crush this. We have to crush this right now. We want people to let us know. We want to fight on behalf of those individuals. We want to make sure that they know that they have a voice, even here in the U.S. House of Representatives, that they have a voice. For all the folks who stand up here and say, I support the troops. No, I support the troops more than you do. No, you don't support the troops as much as I do. I support the troops even more. I have a tattoo saying, I support the troops.

Let me tell you something, we want some folks enthusiastic here in this House and in this democracy, I must add, here in the United States to be supportive of democracy. There may be some individuals that are actually scared that people may very well vote in this country and if they vote, they may no longer be here. But that is the price we pay for being public servants in this process. I am saying, bring it on. Allow Americans to vote, especially young people. My goodness, I am taking out my deficit chart here. $477 billion in Federal debt and this is using the Congressional Budget Office. The number is probably higher. $477 billion. That means children at birth already owe the Federal Government money. This is serious business. This is not a joke. This is $477 billion, the highest

deficit in the history of the republic. So for those of us in this House that want to drape ourselves in the flag and talk about how we support the troops and I am more American than you are, you look at this number. This is nothing to be proud of. I have two children. I have a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old. I do not want them asking the question, what were you doing when this was going on? Why don't we have Social Security now? To my uncle who is a Korean War veteran, why do I have to wait 6 months at the VA to see an ophthalmologist? Why don't I have health care, for the 43 million Americans that are working. These are not individuals that are sitting at home, looking at cable and saying the job situation looks sad. These are people that are working every day. So how are we going to resolve those issues that are facing everyday Americans? $477 billion, that is not a small number. We are knocking on the Bank of China and Japan every 3 weeks saying, guess what, we're the United States of America. We need money to pay down the debt.

So this voter suppression issue, some people may say, it's just rhetoric. This is for real. These are the individuals that are going to have to pay this. That is why we need them engaged. Everyone that comes to Capitol Hill, we have a lot of young people walking through the Capitol. We see them in the hall. They come. They identify with us. They want to talk to us. They want to talk to Members of Congress. But when they get back in the fall, do you think that it is going to be a lower tuition rate there? I do not. Why? Because of this. $477 billion because we do not have the money to be able to help State governments. State governments do not have a credit card with a U.S. Treasury here and, I must add, we are not in control. News flash to Members of the Congress and the American people. They cannot say, well, you know, the Democrats, tax-and-spend Democrats. Hey, guess what, ladies and gentlemen, the last time that the budget was actually balanced in this House, the Democrats had control. And we passed a balanced budget amendment in this House without one Republican vote. Without one. Maybe two or three could have come over. Without one. When we start talking about this issue of spending and the deficit, we need to talk to the hand. You cannot talk to me about that, because the real issue is that the Republican Congress put us in the situation that we are in now.

Believe me, there is a good argument for it, if someone was to mike up on the Republican side of this House and some of them are very good people. Some of my best friends are Republicans, okay? I am going to let you know that right now. I will tell you that many of those individuals feel the way that we feel, fiscal conservatives, concerned about the Federal deficit. They have children, too. And they are concerned, too. And every time someone from the other side of the aisle tries to step out and say I am going to do the responsible thing and make sure that we spend within reason, make sure that we invest within reason, that I will not give a tax break that I know that we cannot afford, that I will no longer send States that are over $87 billion in deficit right now, because States do not have a credit card. They pass that cost on to State universities. They pass that cost down to local governments and they have to pay the bill. So this voter suppression, I say to Members of this Congress, members of the Bush administration, I hope they are listening. This is serious business. Yes, we know November 2 is going to go and come but this deficit will be here, for our children and in many cases our grandchildren to pay the cost. Even seniors now will pay the cost. Prescription drugs, they will pay the cost.

Adequate health care for every American, will pay the cost. For everyday working Americans that know what it means to have a 15-minute break in the morning and a solid 30 minutes and not-a-minute-over lunch break, and 15 minutes in the afternoon, they know what I am talking about. So those are individuals that we are trying to represent. That is why their children have to have an opportunity to vote, and that is the reason why the 30-something Working Group wants an opportunity to fight on behalf of that individual that sent the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) that e-mail to make sure that they have a right to not only vote but, guess what, a right to register.

Goodness gracious. I am from Florida. We talk about voting in Florida. Now we are having in the United States an opportunity to talk about just registering. So when we look at that, it is important that we fight. Now, the National Secretaries of State Association, which is a bipartisan organization, not a Democratic organization, but a bipartisan professional organization, has joined in this effort with us to make sure that these individuals will have an opportunity to vote.

So I want to apologize for my being a Congressman just for a few minutes because it is a great amount of frustration.

Mr. Speaker, I further yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. Speaker, it is important. Natural sciences, engineering.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) for sharing that with the American people. I know he needed those charts to make sure that he can show the picture, but he was kind of brushing against kind of like a Ross Perot kind of feeling there. I started thinking he was going to say in a minute, You are not listening. But I think it is important. We try to make this not normal C-SPAN watching for the viewing public and for the Members of Congress. We want to make sure they hear what we have to say. But if we are going to compete, guess what, we have to have players on the field that are the numbers. It is almost like football. One cannot line up with five people and expect to beat a full defense there with five people on offense.

That is correct.

I played a little defensive end. That was when I could legally hit someone. But we will leave that out here because there is no hitting in the Congress, I must add.

That saves lives.

Mr. Speaker, we are going to talk a little bit about intelligence for a minute, if we can.

Then we are going to get into our top 10 list after intelligence. I am just going to talk about that for a minute, because the American people are going to get an opportunity to hear more about intelligence as the week gets a little older.

We know that there has been a lot of talk, that there has been a Senate report released. The Senate Intelligence Committee put out a 511 page report, which is a bipartisan report. It gave a pretty good picture of what was going on in the CIA, of what possibly went on in this administration as it relates to intelligence analysts that were subject to political pressure.

There is going to be a second tier to this report, and guess what? It is going to be after the election.

Wow. Is that not a news flash?

Once again, this is not the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and/or the 30- something Democrats working group report. This is a report from the Senate, or the ``other body'' Intelligence Committee.

I must say that the Democrats on that committee did file a dissenting view, basically saying intelligence analysts were subject to political pressure.

I will say this: We had some very honorable Members whom I respect and, we are both members of the Committee on Armed Services, I am also a member of the Select Committee on Homeland Security, and this is serious business. We have men and women right now getting sand in their teeth over in Iraq right now based on intelligence.

Right here in this well, right above the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), our Commander-in-Chief shared with us information that we know now is false, or was given bad information.

This is serious business. This is the reason why we have got to deal with voter suppression. This is the reason why everyone who has a voter registration card or will become eligible to get a voter registration card should make sure they let their voice be heard at the polls.

I for one and the gentleman for one and the 30-something Democrats for one are not scared of American people voting. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Green Party, whatever party you are a member of, we want you to vote, because in this democracy things will happen better for our future.

This report will be coming out. There will be a lot of rhetoric about who did what, who did not say this. We know the CIA director, Mr. Tenet, resigned. We know that there are others that should resign.

No one gets fired from this administration, I must add. For all of the issues that have gone on in this country, no one has been asked to resign. Everyone has done a superb job.

They have not made a mistake.

I will tell you this: It would be good for politics. But, do you know something? I have to go back to the numbers. The numbers speak for themselves.

The reason why this is serious business and the reason why week after week we come back and the reason why we have a Committee on Armed Services, hopefully that will have hearings that would hold the higher echelons, and I mean the secretary and undersecretary and everyone over at the Pentagon that is wearing a shirt and tie and suit that is appointed, that are calling the shots for men and women. They say well, you know, we wait to hear from our commanders in the field. We do not make those decisions.

Mr. Speaker, I remember a day when everyone at the Pentagon took credit for what was going on. Now it is like, well, we are waiting to hear from this general and this other general, and, until we hear from the field, we are not going to do anything.

Mr. Speaker, 897 and climbing. A coalition of troops that one may say is over 132,000 American troops, enlisted, Reserve, National Guard. And, guess what? Over 6,000 individuals that did not say, hey, I am ready to go. They were called up and sent. And also 4,000 troops were relocated from other parts of the world that we need them to go to Iraq.

The last I checked on 9/11, it was all about the Taliban and al Qaeda. And, guess what? They are in Afghanistan doing what they want to do.

Yes, we commend the troops. Do not get me wrong. I do not know a Member in this Congress, I have not encountered an individual out on the street, either here in Florida or Washington, D.C., that says I am not with the troops. So we can just put that debate aside.

I think it is important that the American people understand that we all support the troops. For anyone that spends 30 or 40 minutes talking about how he or she supports the troops, we need to focus on other things about the intelligence of why we are in Iraq in the first place.

And protect the troops, and making sure that Reservists who signed up to protect this country, they will fight for 20 years if this country asked them to fight. That is not the question. It is about decisions that are being made here inside the Beltway. It is about the individuals that are being driven around with tinted windows in black cars and Suburbans with police escorts. We are talking about those individuals.

Guess what, I say to the gentleman from Ohio? The U.S. Congress and the Committee on Armed Services are the individuals charged with making sure that those individuals are held accountable. We have the leadership of this House on the other side of this aisle here that says, oh, we do not need to bother the Pentagon. They have a lot work to do. We do not need to ask the Secretary to come down here. He has a war to fight.

Well, guess what? The last I checked, we need some help, and we need some oversight.

So I want to move on, if we can. If the gentleman from Ohio would, he can remove that e-mail address. We want to make sure the American people get an opportunity to see it. He is going to help me out here.

Unprecedented. We want to make sure that people know that we are here, that we mean business.

No one is calling the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) Vanna White. No one wants to.

What you do at the top, you start at the very top.

I want to let you know, this is the top 10 reasons why young Americans need a change in leadership. I just want to make sure our viewing public has their eyes on this, or our friends at C-SPAN have their eyes on this chart here, because it is important.

The top 10 reasons why Americans need a change in leadership. Can you take number 10 off.

At the top, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), look at that.

Not sure how you will be able to pay your share of the $2.9 trillion deficit and afford Outcast tickets. That is important there. The Outcast tickets are important.

I want to add to the American people that the Congressional Budget Office says that is the next 10 years. It will be $477 billion, which is the current deficit for this fiscal year. That is right now where we stand. That is number 10.

Number 9.

Look at the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan). The

gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is about to get a contract here in a minute.

New dorm rooms run by Halliburton overcharge you by $900,000.

That is possible. I want to let you know that is very possible. That happened.

Let us go with number 8.

We have to get moving here.

Because young people cannot get sick, 30 percent of young people do not have health insurance. That is an important issue. That is number 8.

The top reasons why young Americans need a change in leadership.

Go ahead with number 7.

You can talk about it later.

Young people concerned over the prospect of another Cheney swearing in. Oh, wow, that is interesting.

Let us go from there.

Number 6: MTV spring break coverage lacking. Only 15 students able to afford the Cancun getaway. Worse teen unemployment since 1949.

That is very serious.

Go ahead. We have got a couple more here. Number 5: Students dismayed that 10 Crackerjack box tops now worth the same as Bush's Pell Grant.

Go ahead, number 4: Because John Ashcroft has got to go.

So, number 3, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) has got to move faster. Number 3.

A draftee is not what you meant when you said you hope the Bush policies would help you find a job.

Just drop it to the floor. We will clean it up later.

Number 2, cannot buy self-help books titled ``I am da bomb'' in fear that the homeland security officers will investigate you under the Patriot Act.

Number one, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is doing a fine job: Because this is your country and what is at stake is your future.

And that is very, very important, that the American people understand that that is important, and that goes for everyone and every age group.

We want to make sure this top 10 reasons why young people need to change leadership in America is all in being able to frame this issue, to let them know what the issues are. We know that we put a little humor to it, but, at the same time, it is very real, it is very accurate.

We need to give folks our website. We are running out of time. We have probably a minute or so left.

And make sure we give them the web site so we can continue to communicate with Americans.

To the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), I must say he is going to have the last word tonight and close this out. That it is a pleasure being here with the gentleman and a pleasure working with the 30-something group. We look forward to hopefully a democratically-controlled House when we return back here after November so we can talk about offense and not defense.

Mr. Speaker, this is the conclusion of the 30- something working group. We appreciate the opportunity to address the American people and the House of Representatives.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 59 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, July 21, 2004, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. It is such an honor to be here on the floor once again with the great men and women of the Committee on Armed Services to get an opportunity to address the United States House of Representatives and also the American people.

First of all, I would like to say that I am both proud and humbled by what our troops have been able to accomplish under the circumstances. I also think that it is in proper order for us to give them uplift in a time that this very Congress, the other body, released a report, intelligence report showing that the intelligence, that there is a very strong possibility that it was manipulated, manipulated to the point that many Members of this House, many Members of the other body, and the public, were led to believe that the circumstances were imminent as it relates to the threat to the United States of America, and that we had to forthwith go to war in Iraq with a preemptive strike.

I also think that the troops need uplift of the fact that the report, through the Department of Defense, said 25 percent of American lives could have been saved if we were prepared; not the troops, but this administration, with body Army and up-armor for their Humvees and vehicles.

I think they also need uplift to know that Democrats and some Republicans in this House are fighting for hearings to make sure that we have some level of accountability at the highest levels of the Defense Department and the administration, because we have men and women that have sacrificed not only their lives, but also many have sacrificed their freedom to be with their families.

I do not blame it on the troops, and I would not say that it is the troops' responsibility or fault about what is going on with the insurgency right now in Iraq. The troops will fight for 20 years if this country needs them to fight for 20 years. I think the bigger question comes down to in this democracy that we have, since we are traveling throughout the world trying to create new democracies and trying to create civilized governments, that there has to be some checks and balances, and it does not serve me any pleasure to say that right now in this effort in Iraq, I do not think the checks and balances are there.

I am glad that we were leader enough to come to the floor tonight to be able to share with the American people that we want our troops to know that there are Members of the Congress who will ask the ``yes, but'' question, that will ask the tough questions about equipment, that will ask the tough questions about intelligence and the fact that something happened between the CIA, what the Congress was told, and the role that the Bush administration played in it. This is not in any way being partisan; it is just laying the facts out the way we see them.

We also want the troops to know and their families to know that we want the situation to get to the point to where other countries will assist in Iraq, will assist in Afghanistan, and operations can get better, so hopefully Reservists and National Guardsmen that put their name on the dotted line, said they were willing to serve their country, that they will be able to come home in the very near future to be able to make a son or daughter's birthday, or to be able to see their families or loved ones or significant others.

Mr. Speaker, I think also it is very important for us to share with troop families that those of us in the Congress, I believe everyone in the Congress, that we feel for those wives and husbands and children when they are getting up to go to school in the morning, when they are getting ready to

now, this summer, to go to summer camp, and it goes over the TV. I have families in my district, they turn the TV off. I have one constituent who has two sons in the theater right now in Iraq, and they do not even watch the TV in the morning because they do not want to start the day off knowing that two or five or six troops were killed overnight, and they do not know if someone in a military uniform is going to knock on their door and tell them that it was their son, her son. I would say that there are Americans that cringe when they hear that, because it is quite personal.

So I want to say to those families that we appreciate their service. I want to say to those families that we will get to the bottom and the top of bad intelligence. We will make sure that our troops have what they need to have. But we need the opportunity to do so.

I implore, Mr. Speaker, as I close, the Republican leadership within our committee, the Republican leadership in this House, to allow the House Committee on Armed Services to do its work, to be able to have the witnesses that we need to have to ask the tough questions, to be able to know how much this effort in Iraq and also the lack of effort as it relates to, we just had a hearing on Afghanistan and the poppy plants being harvested earlier that is funding the Taliban to fight against our American troops, and it is the number one threat to this country and did have a connection to 9/11; asking those tough questions to people that had made the decision, not someone five tiers down within the Department of Defense, but at the very top of the Department of Defense, because the country's reputation is on the line.

Every veteran that suited up and went into war, need it be World War II, Korea, the Gulf War I, need it be when individuals went into theater in Granada, anytime that we got ourselves together in Vietnam, making sure that those veterans know that the rest of the world, we appreciate their service and that we will not allow individuals, because they want to make sure that other individuals do not take fault for what has taken place thus far with bad intelligence, going to war, not for the reasons why the country was told, and also losing so many lives in that process.

So I am proud that we are here. I hope that we can come to the floor even more. I hope that the American people understand that there are Members on this. And I do not want to even put partisanship on this, because I know that there are Republicans who feel the way that we feel on this floor, and we want to make sure that those voices rise to the top. For those individuals who may be standing in the door of oversight by this Congress, I hope that they do not take personally our quest and our need to be able to address some of the issues that are facing the needs of our troops in theater.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to come before the House of Representatives tonight and the American people and this great house of democracy that we serve in day in and day out. It is an honor to serve, and every day that we have an opportunity to serve it is important that we share important information with the American people and also with Members of the House.

Once again, our 30-something Working Group that consists of 14 Members on the Democratic side of the House, we come together to share with Americans things that are going good. We call it the good, bad and ugly; but at the same time, we work towards constructive change, and as my colleagues know, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and I have been coming to the floor, along with other Members of this House, to address issues such as education, issues that are facing young Americans from the ages of 18 to 30-something. That covers a supermajority of individuals that are not exercising their right to vote at this particular time, but I believe now, because we are reaching out to those individuals, they will find a reason to go out and register to vote or to use that voter registration card to work towards good for their family and also for their future.

There is a lot happening to young Americans now versus poor young Americans, and this is the 30-something hour that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the minority leader, has organized. Those of us in the House that are living the 30-something right now or that recently went through 20-something come and give voice to those individuals on the floor, and I think this reaches out to even a larger demographic, a demographic of parents that are paying for their loved ones to go to college, a demographic of individuals who were not able to go to college immediately after high school or completion of a vocational training program. Some are in community colleges that are trying to make a way. Either they did not have an opportunity to go to college immediately after high school, one, they could not afford it; two, they had to help their family. Many Americans have to make that choice, and it is okay to make that choice.

It is about family. It is about values. It is about religion. It is about definitely individuals that have strong morals and outright patriots in our country that would like to see their children and grandchildren have a better opportunity than what they have.

I think it also addresses grandparents. I am not one, obviously. I have two children and a wife; and I would tell my colleague that I look forward, if God is willing, to allow me to become a grandparent one day. I am pretty sure my goal would be to make sure my children are able to provide for their children and that their children have a better opportunity than the generations that were before them.

So we come to the floor to be able to share with the American people and give response to some of their e-mails. We welcome e-mails to the 30-something group, and we will be giving that e-mail address out; and I will tell my colleagues week after week, we have received a number every week. We are receiving more and more e-mails. It is very encouraging.

Some Americans have questions that they need answered. We try to provide those answers to the best of our ability. Some Americans are saying, hey, it is great, I am a Republican, I am glad you are giving voice to the issue of student loans, and the fact that more people are graduating from college that are in debt now than it was in the previous generation and the opportunity for Pell grants that were promised, and even those who went through college in the early 1970s, I mean we have less of an opportunity for financially challenged individuals that work every day, individuals who did what we told them to do, go to high school, get that vocational training, that we will be there to be able to assist you. There was a commitment made by the President to raise the Pell grant commitment a little bit up to $5,000, but he has not yet been able to do so. Not because the resources have not been there. It is because the priority has not been there, which then takes us back to being able to have individuals ready for the workforce, that small businesses and businesses need in this country; and it is so very, very important we pay very close attention to that because that is serious business, the business of making sure that we have a workforce ready to step up and meet the challenge to be able to make America strong.

If we are going to have these individuals graduating from college in debt before they can invest in the American dream of being able to buy a home, being able to invest in this economy, it is very important that we do not put them in debt prior to that opportunity.

Some believe in this Congress that we should have variable student loans. Well, one may argue, well, it is the lower interest payment now; but guess what, they will be forever paying those student loans. Being someone that was once on a college campus, offered a credit card, I will tell my colleagues I am a victim. I put my hands out. I was on my campus.

Mr. Speaker, well, I do not want to pull my credit card out. I have a couple of credit cards here, but that is later on in the program. We have our whole David Letterman, Top 10 thing that we have to do, and we have to read some e-mails that we received in the previous weeks. We had last week off.

I can tell the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), I missed him.

We come together. We have this thing here on the floor. We have special guests sometimes from the 30-something Working Group. I like the new haircut that the gentleman has going on there.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell my colleague, if it was not for our wives, I do not know where we would be, to be honest with him; and I thank God. Coming up October 12, it will be 13 years for me; and, amen, I got married young.

Is that not something? What a country.

What a country. Let me just, if the gentleman would start, I started out with some opening comments, just to kind of share with the American people and the Members of the House our purpose for being here.

Once again, we pay all respect and opportunity to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader, that has made a commitment that young people in America

will have a time on this floor. This is just an hour. They are going to have time they have not had in the past so we can raise those issues to the level of the national debate, have people here in this Congress pay respect and treat 30-somethings on down to 18 or 16 or 15, those that are looking to participate in this democracy that we serve under, have them use their power that they have as it relates to voter registration cards, have them use their power in talking with their Member of Congress, to let it be known that throughout they have issues, they have concerns.

I also made the correlation between the parents and grandparents. I mean, obviously, parents want their children to do well. Grandparents especially want their grandkids to do well and make sure they are able to have a better and safer America for the future.

So I just wanted to tell my colleague once again I look forward to this. We were talking earlier today when we were going through some of the subjects we are going to talk about here today because we try to be as factual as possible, also come out with solutions; but guess what, there was a great announcement today. Maybe the gentleman wants to talk about that.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned Bermuda, and I cannot help but think of the largest Homeland Security contract that was given to an offshore company. Now, this was once a U.S. company.

Nothing. Zero.

The largest agency in the history of the world, Federal Government agency created by this Congress, the largest contract they have given out thus far has gone to an offshore company. No taxes, no benefit to the American people, no benefit of helping to pay for education, no benefit to be able to provide for alternative fuel sources or towards a health care program.

Hopefully, my colleague, we can share with the American people, and we always say this is not the Tim Ryan/Kendrick Meek Report, this is facts. We spend at least 7 days prior to what we are going to talk about in the upcoming week getting the facts. So anyone that wants to line up on the other side of the aisle and start refuting or just saying, well, that is not true, this is not true, well, we have the facts. And folks who want to e-mail, we will send them the facts.

A lot of this is hard to digest and a lot of it is hard to believe. And, to be brutally honest with you, we are all wrapped up in patriotism and we understand that we have to protect the homeland, but yet we give the largest contract from the Department of Homeland Security to an offshore company. Now, I am from the South. I am from Florida. We have people in South Carolina, in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi who are sitting around not because they want to sit at home watching cable television. They want a job. They need a job. But they do not have a job because we are sending the jobs overseas.

And who am I to talk, because my colleague is from Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, that is something to be outright mad about, but I can tell you one thing I find comfort in. I have the opportunity, I am Baptist, and I have the opportunity to do something we call pray, and we pray for days when things will get better for real people, people who understand what it means to take a 15-minute break in the morning and a 15-minute break in the afternoon, and a solid 30 minutes for lunch. These are people who know what it means to punch in and punch out. They know that if you punch in five minutes late that you have to punch out five minutes late. Those individuals.

These are the individuals who come home, and I am not just talking about hardworking men that have the steel toes sitting next to their chair watching their favorite sitcom when they get home, if they can stay awake through it. I am talking about every day working men and women in this country. And also young people that are having to pull a little extra wait because the money is not coming in like it used to.

So if a family tries to get health care, someone has to sacrifice. The person that has the lowest premiums has to pay that out of their paychecks. This is hard, particularly in a single-family household. And I will tell my colleague that I came up in a single-parent household, and there is nothing wrong with that. I want my colleagues to know that right now. I commend those single parents out there doing what they have to do on behalf of their children. Whatever your faith may be, whatever your religion, it is the same thing. The responsibility of taking care of one's child is priority number one. It is close to what we call in the Baptist and Christian faith, when you think about God, agape, love. It is important we do that and we practice that.

Now, what I see, because I am not a pessimist, I am a person that feels that tomorrow will bring about a different day, a brighter day for Americans. And that means Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Green Party or what have you. When it comes down to health care, and you talk about emergency room health care, no one asks for a party affiliation. No one says, well, Republicans over here, Democrats over here, Independents over there. We are going to take the majority party first. They do not do that. They treat you equally. That means 3 to 4 hours in the emergency room.

Why does it have to come to that? Why do we not have 41 million Americans working? I am not talking about individuals looking at want ads, not even trying to get a job and saying the job situation looks sad. I am talking about individuals who go in and punch out or sign in and out every day. Those individuals who cannot walk away from their job, or say, hey, guess what boss, I am leaving.

Or what about a small businessperson? These businesses that have 100, 200 good hard-working Americans, be they citizens or noncitizens, working in their companies, they are not offshoring it. They are right here in America paying their fair share. They are the American Dream.

I want to make sure Americans understand and the Members of the House understand that we are talking about super-duper corporations. I mean the folks who publicly traded on the stock market. I am talking about individuals who do not even say hello to the individuals that we are talking about here. And the reason why we are here, at 10-plus o'clock at night, taking away from our families, is to be able to say there can be a brighter day.

And I am glad that even though we did not have the vision or foresight or power to put us on the floor for an hour every week, I thank God for the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader. She has been here for some time, along with the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and they have seen this happen.

So I can say that we have been about the solution on this side of the aisle as it relates to Democrats. And guess what, there have been some good Republicans that wanted to do it, but could not. They could not do it because they felt there would be repercussions for them manning up and womaning up and leadering it up to be able to say you are wrong. But, guess what? Some have said it. And the record speaks for itself.

Once again, this is not the Tim Ryan report or the Kendrick Meek report. This is fact. We talked about prescription drug plan. The bottom line is, Americans get drugs cheaper under the Democratic proposal. Bottom line. I am sorry. No one can debate that or dispute that.

Now we have the AARP coming out and saying we need the Democratic proposal. I prayed that the leadership here in Washington, at the time that the issue was here on the floor at 3 a.m. in the morning, would have said without that that they would not support it. But that is the past, and we are talking about the future.

At the same time, when we talk about folks taking money home, and what I would like to see and for us to continue to let the American people know just because we are Democrats, and there are a number of Americans that are out there, and they are not all Democrats, they are Independents, Republicans, they voted for leadership, to make sure they get their voices heard in this democracy in this House; and they are going to get it. The bottom line is if given the opportunity, if we are able to have as the Speaker the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) in the 109th Congress, that this will happen. If we are able to have new leadership in the White House, this administration has had their chance. The Democrats did not impede them from doing what they wanted to do. The Democrats are not in the majority. We did not appoint the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Commerce. We did not appoint these individuals, the national security person, the Attorney General. The Bush administration did.

They cannot say well, the liberal Democrats ran the deficit up to the highest level in the history of the Republic. They cannot blame that on the Democrats. That game is over.

Or the reason we do not have health care is because of the Democrats. I am sorry, the last I checked at 1600 Pennsylvania, there was a Republican President there.

Mr. Speaker, that budget was balanced without one Republican vote in this House. I want to make sure that we are clear on that because 3\1/2\ years ago, we were talking about how we were going to spend the surplus.

Are we going to save Social Security? And I want to say this to our older Americans and future Americans that will be eligible for Social Security, the little thing on their paycheck, Social Security deduction, think about that. We were go to be able to put money into the trust fund.

Mr. Speaker, let me say quickly, we talked a couple of weeks ago, and I want to segue into what is happening in the workforce, and before we leave here we have to read some of the e-mails that we have received so our viewers will be able to know we hear them and are responding to them. We get a number of hits on the 30-something Web site, and a lot of people are very interested in this. They are not just young people, they are older people, they are Republicans and Democrats.

God willing, I will be there one day.

We talk about a devolution of taxation, and that is when the Federal Government cuts the Federal commitment to the States, and the States do not have the privilege that we have. See, here in Congress we have the opportunity to put it on the U.S. Treasury. Oh, we can take that credit card out any day of the week and we do on the minute. Then every 3 weeks we knock on the bank of China or Japan and ask for more money to pay down our own interest on debt. The States do not have that luxury. The States have to balance their budget. How do they balance it, well, they do not balance it out of thin air. They raise tuition prices, raise fees on hunting and fishing licenses, they raise the driver's license fee, and simple services to local government. Then they cut their commitment to local governments and school districts. When they do that, the school districts do not have the credit card. They have to balance their budget. When they balance their budget, the senior feeding program that everyone counts on to be able to provide a warm meal for seniors, the after-school program for kids, and I am not just talking about poor minority kids, I am talking about kids in rural America, where families have to work two, three jobs to make ends meet, these sorts of things take place. The quality of life of our communities is just not a priority here.

So when we say well, we are sending you a $150 check, in the final analysis it is going to end up being a lot more. And gas prices are on their way back up again. I do not want to get started on that.

Let me mention quickly what 30 somethings will be handed if we do not make drastic changes here in Washington. We talk about the good, bad and ugly, and we will give credit where credit is due, but we will also point out where there is trickery in what they are sharing with us.

On July 2, the Labor Department announced that in the month of June, 11,000 manufacturing jobs were lost and only 12,000 jobs were created in June for the total population of America, less than half of what was widely expected. So what the Labor Department is doing, they will make these projections, these grandiose projections and then they will fall short.

The President had to explain himself by saying we are not necessarily gaining jobs, but we are steady and the economy is solid. It is all in the words. Thank God for institutions such as the Children's Defense Fund which also announced that almost 60 percent of teenagers lost their job last month, and that is the highest June jobless rate since the data was first collected in 1949. The gentleman from Ohio and I were not even on earth in 1949, but this should not happen in America in 2004 as it relates to young people. I do not even want to get started on the minority numbers. It is 77 percent, even more. So when we look at it and we look at individuals that need jobs and summer jobs, even in Florida where you have Walt Disney World and Busch Gardens and Universal Studios and all of these fine amusement parks, there was a big thing in Florida, there was an uptick in jobs, but many jobs are summer jobs. Some 5,000 are summer jobs, and they provide very little health care benefits, if any at all. When you start looking at a healthy America, it is not necessarily the case.

It is almost like some of these infocommercials, buy this and it will help you lose weight. You wait on the UPS guy to show up, and the bottle is not as big as it looked on television. I will tell you right now, Americans, we

have to understand that we have an opportunity, we cannot change it, we can do all we can in this great House and we give respect to this House, no matter what control it may be under at a particular time, but guess what, we are all Americans and we have to uphold the American dream.

Part of that dream is a better tomorrow, and that is just the bottom line. If given the opportunity, and I am talking about Democrats, if given the opportunity, to be able to set the agenda, to say health care is a priority in this House, real health care; making sure that your child is educated, that is a priority.

Senator Kerry says he wants to give a $4,000 education tax credit every year to make sure there is money in your pocket to pay for tuition. When we see tuition prices going up, that is a tax, in my opinion. That is a tax on young Americans and working Americans. I cannot tell you how many parents that are my age, I am 38 years old, that actually are having to do the prepay college deal. Oh, I have to put this money away because there is no guarantee that my children will be able to educate themselves. At the same time, they are trying to provide health care. We do not want any handouts, but we want to make sure that they have a fair shake at what previous generations have had.

Mr. Speaker, 3 months ago at birth, a child born already owes the Federal Government over $23,000. So now we are a part of this Congress that oversees the highest deficit in the history of the Republic. I want to say that again. Since we have been the United States of America, today, this year of 2004, this Congress is overseeing the highest deficit in the history of the country.

Now, I am going to tell you I do not take any great pride in that nor privilege. The fact that we have men and women that are over in Iraq right now, sand in their teeth trying to do the best that they can and will fight on behalf of this country as long as this country asks them to fight, but the individuals that are here in shirts and ties are making bad decisions. So we need to make sure that we have the kind of leadership that is going to make the right decisions, make sure that we are fiscally responsible. I want to say that again, to make sure that we are fiscally responsible, making sure that we are spending the taxpayer dollar in the right way, not just saying that I have a couple of friends, happen to know the CEO of super mega company X, and they are happy. That is their constituent, their base.

Our base is individuals who punch in and punch out every day; and I encourage every American, because I am only one vote, maybe I can influence a few others, but I am only one vote and you are one vote. Okay. But they have to do their part, that they have to reevaluate the leadership, that they have to be tough on their Congressman and Congresswoman and they have to be tough on their local elected officials. They have to be heard, because if they are not heard, ladies and gentlemen, you think the last 4 years was a superroller coaster ride, what will happen in the future when there is really no accountability from this administration to do the right thing on behalf of everyday working people?

Well, there are a few Republicans that joined us in that philosophy, those individuals who raised their right hand at the beginning of this Congress.

This is about who is for real and who is willing to put their future in the House on the line on behalf of what they believe in. That is what it is about. And guess what? We have elections here in this House every two years. And guess what? Any American can run for office when they are ready.

And another thing that we have to do, we have to do and we have to live through the day, because guess what, tomorrow is not promised. As it relates to doing the right thing, the right thing is making sure the Americans get their fair shake out of this Congress.

I am going to talk about a few statistical issues, talk about the voter suppression, and if you can do your e-mail thing. See, I do not want to even give the e-mail address out, because that is your thing. David Letterman has his Top 10. You have the e-mail address. You have a couple of e-mails after you read the e-mail address. This is what I like watching you do, because you do it so well.

You mentioned something as it relates to the tax cut and really what it means to working Americans. Health care premiums are escalating, middle-class tax increase, I must add. Health care costs increased by 13.9 percent nationwide last year, the third year in a row double-digit increases and the largest increase since 1990. Florida, the State that I am in, the Florida region health care insurance premiums have increased by 65 percent since the beginning of the Bush administration.

Nationally, the increase in family health care insurance premiums over the past 3 years has tripled. The amount of the tax cut that is ongoing for middle-class income families over 4 years, now, that is fact. Okay.

Also you have the college education issue. We talked about that. We talked about raising taxes on college. These are raising tax on middle- class working families. Guess what? Millionaires and billionaires, they do not have to worry about paying for college, because nine times out of 10, their kids are welcomed into the university and their grandchildren are welcomed there because of the legacy, because they have given money to the institution. But guess what? Those individuals, I mean, we may not know their story, we are not saying that we are upset with them. We are just saying that we should not have two Americas. We should have an America that everyone has a fair shake at a fair opportunity towards higher education.

When we look at the whole situation, and I cannot help but continue to talk about Florida, because it is the reality in many of the States that are out there, the cost of college education has increased by 29 percent in Florida's region since the beginning of the Bush administration.

At the same time, Republicans are refusing to increase funding for Pell grants and also for Perkins loans to defray the costs of higher education. The cost of college has increased steadily in the Florida region. Tuition for a 4-year public college education has increased by $852 over the past 3 years.

I will tell you, this is from the college board. There are a number of issues that are out there, but I just want to say that it is important that we share this information with the American people. It is important that they understand that they do have a choice in the matter. It is important that they know that Democrats in this House are willing to be able to carry a bucket of heavy water on their behalf, because we look forward to the opportunity.

Matter of fact, we pray for the opportunity to be able to govern, to be able to make a better situation and homefront as it relates to health care costs, health care access, making sure that we have a stronger America in the future, that our children when they graduate and they walk across that stage with that diploma, or as an individual walk across the stage, at a technical high school, that they are guaranteed a future in this America, that they do not have to move offshore for the job that they have trained and hopefully educated themselves for, that this it will be here for them and that this government will not have them in debt, leaving a 4-year institution and even those individuals that are fortunate enough to qualify for future student loans to get through a graduate program.

This is about America. This is not about what the people of Iraq want or what people of another country want. This is about making sure what Americans want. I can tell you, there is no partisanship there. I mean, so leadership is important, and we need it and we need it desperately.

Last point, and I want you to do the e-mail and read the e-mails and do the e-mail address, we want to give a big shot out to Rock the Vote. We are getting a lot of response from the voter suppression issue. I just want to share with the Americans we had supervisors of elections telling people that they could not register to vote if they go to school. Right now we have a lot of young people that are in school, summer school right now. The fall semester will start in mid-August.

Ladies and gentlemen, when you go back, you can register where you are going to be in September or late August, and definitely in November you can register to vote there. There is a 1975 Supreme Court decision that was made saying that if you are registered in school, even if you are from Sioux City, Iowa, and you are going to school in Georgia, you can register in Georgia.

Rockthevote.com.

That can give you more information on voter suppression. I want to thank those individuals that have sent us e- mails and said, listen, we thank you for letting us know. We had one young man who had to go and get a lawyer to register to vote in America. Can you believe it?

I know you have to give the address out and then read the e-mails.

You said you were looking at the e-mails, and I thought you were going to read those. What you are saying as it relates to 61 percent, we will have more Americans writing their name on the orange juice at home after they graduate.

I will, when I have time.

Some demographic.

There is nothing like family. Nothing like family.

I say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), it was an outstanding pleasure once again. God has made it able for us to come back again to be able to speak to the American people and Members of the House.

Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the opportunity to address the American people and Members of the House tonight.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 4 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, July 7, 2004, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure once again to address the U.S. House of Representatives and the American people and also Members of the Congress. I just want to first say that as my colleagues know, every week, the 30-Something Working Group, under the leadership of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader, we come to the floor to address the House and the American people to share with them what is going on that is good for young people in America, young working people and families, and also what is not going so well, and come with not only constructive ways that we can make things better for Americans throughout this great country of ours, but also make sure that we point out issues that may harm them in the future or that will harm them.

Tonight, we have the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez) and also the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), who are my partners in this effort. I would be remiss if I did not, number one, say that it is a pleasure being here with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) again. One more week, we made it, another week in America, and also the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez), who is from the great State of California and who has so much to contribute to our dialogue.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of Americans who are just holding on to their clicker right now to hear exactly what she has to say and how she says it. I know that the gentlewoman from California has another engagement, and we definitely want to hear from her.

First, I want to just share a few things as an update real quick. We still have the voter suppression issue that is alive and well in America. We have been getting the vote out through the Rock the Vote effort and also a lot of other folks who are out there, making things happen, sharing with young people who are going to be on college campuses this fall, that they can register where they are going to school, whether it be community college or wherever. So we ask them to go do Rock the Vote because we still have a problem with supervisors telling people even in summer terms that they cannot register.

Once again, in 1975, the Supreme Court spoke to that issue saying, you can vote when you go to school so that your voice can be heard in this upcoming election. We have other issues that we will touch on throughout the hour.

Mr. Speaker, I will now yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez) to please share with us some of the issues that are important to her. I know the gentlewoman will talk about some news dealing with issues facing young people here in America today.

Mr. Speaker, I was really appreciating the dialogue here. I know I am not a veteran myself, being from the State of Florida, I can tell that we have a number of veterans, very patriotic veterans that are very concerned from St. Petersburg to the Panhandle, to Miami, Florida, we have a VA hospital where veterans just need to see the ophthalmologist and it takes 6 months for them to see him.

Meanwhile, World War II dedication, remembrance of D-Day, politicians falling all over themselves wearing flags talking about we love you, we love you, trying to get in a photo op with these patriots, even patriots of past wars whether it be Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I, out there trying to take a picture on these Memorial Days and Veterans Days, but the real issue is this: How do we treat them outside of Veterans Day and Memorial Day? That is the real issue.

The real issue is when the rubber meets the road and the reality after each one of those holidays they still have long lines and they still have inadequate and underfunded VA centers.

So when we look at the credibility of United States and our efforts, I will tell my colleagues for all of us here who care so much about our troops, and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) knows today in the Committee on Armed Services that it is not a question about do we love and appreciate the troops' commitment to the sovereignty and the United States and our friends abroad, that is not a question, I mean, will the troops fight for 20 years? They will fight for 20 years if they have to fight on the behalf of the United States and our reputation. But it is the management of not only the country, but also VA services that we will go into in a minute, and also what is going on in Iraq right now.

And I must say that for every turn this Congress has given this administration credit when credit was not due, but on behalf of the efforts that were in and people that we have in forward areas throughout the world, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is just so very, very important that we bring point to this.

If I can, my colleagues, I always read the paper. I know that there are some people who said they do not read the

paper, but I will leave that alone. We know who that individual is. But this is the Dallas Morning News. ``Iraq Trust Gap.'' And this editorial is from this paper. And I must say that the President is from Texas, right?

Dallas is in Texas. I want to make sure. I am from Florida so I want to make sure I have it right.

They are saying, ``You have got a credibility problem, Mr. President.'' Now, this is the hometown paper in a home State that is saying that there is an issue. It goes on in this editorial.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez) this is important that the American people understand this is not the Ryan-Meek-Sanchez report, but this is the Dallas Morning News. I do not sit on that editorial board.

What has happened here as it relates to this editorial, it is saying, ``Mr. President, we backed you for President of the United States, we backed your decision to do certain things in this country.'' But I will tell my colleague as it relates to other people in this democracy like the 9/11 Commission, that is made up of Democrats and Republicans, okay, that have said there is no link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and you are saying yes, there is, as it relates to the war, the preemptive strike that we took in Iraq when we keep changing the reason why we went into Iraq, there is an issue there.

So that is the reason why 76 percent of the American people feel that we were receiving too many casualties in Iraq. I must say to the families to the four Marines that lost their lives within the last 24 hours that my heart goes out to them. And every Member of this Congress, Democrat and Republican, appreciate their service. But it comes down to the management of the war and also the management of the country.

We cannot separate ourselves like a quarterback to a receiver when it comes down to bad news from the war saying, well, whatever they want on the ground we are going to give them, but otherwise you are telling them what they are going to have. Do not separate yourself on those issues coming up.

And I will tell my colleague what is so very, very important as it relates to credibility, as it relates to veterans affairs, as it relates to a real health care plan, as it relates to reducing the deficit, there are a lot of people saying, oh, we are going to take the deficit down but we are having to have action here on Thursday that will separate the boys from the men and the girls from the women when it comes down to the vote of who really cares about the growing deficit in this country.

I pull no punches when it comes down to what happens in the management of this war, how we approach June 30 and beyond. We have a question of command, who is going to be in charge afterwards of American troops and what happens with their safety. It also comes down to the issue of how long we are going to be there? How are we going to bring other world leaders into it? When one has a G-8 summit with the hopes of hopefully someone will say, hey, we are sending more troops and that does not happen, something is wrong.

So it means that 135,000, 137,000 troops in theater right now are going to be in theater for some time to come with really with us saying, well, there will be elections in December. I say to my colleague from California we cannot even have elections in Afghanistan. Okay. I am not belittling Afghanistan, but Iraq and Afghanistan are two different issues.

The war against terror, I will tell you this, if we cannot have elections that we are postponing for the second time, Secretary Wolfowitz of the Secretary of Defense, he said the U.N. was not able to register folks. I wonder why the U.N. is not able to register. It is a safety issue in Afghanistan. There is a safety issue in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez) is 110 percent right as it relates to what our commitment should be to these men and women that are putting their lives on the line; and after every young person that walks into a recruitment office to offer themselves as patriots to the country, that is the least they deserve is to be able to at least get 80 percent of what they were promised.

Right now, they are not getting that; and what is so very, very unfortunate with the growing deficit that is taking place in this Congress, and this is the reason why I take the opportunity along with you and others like the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) to make sure that we give voice to the growing deficit and the lack of commitment to our veterans of what we know will be adequate and strong health care in this country, providing them with that.

We have veterans that are close to 100 years old that are out there who have needs; and we also, from the statistic that the gentlewoman gave earlier, 70 percent of the individuals that are in Iraq right now and Afghanistan, they range from the age 18 to 30. So now we are talking about fathers and mothers with young children that hopefully their commitment to our country will mean that the country that they defended and stood under the flag for, some of these individuals came back without a leg or an arm or years that they can ever pay their families back, the anguish that their families have to go through when they hear about troops that were killed or a roadside bomb that went off, and they have to hold their breath and shudder when the doorbell rings because it could be someone from the armed services to share with them that Mom's not coming home or Dad's not coming home.

The least that we can do is follow up on our commitment; and I think bring that kind of not only tender, loving care but oversight to this Congress, that our Democratic leader, our whip and others, those of us on this side of the aisle, even though we have good Republicans that want to do these things for veterans. As you know, some of the bills that we pass here, it takes some Republican votes, but to be able to bring the kinds of leadership that is going to be ready to attack this issue and say, veterans, you put it on the line for us, we are going to follow through on what we told you, you are going to be respected even when you hang up the uniform, we are going to keep your honor throughout the wars that you fought in the past and the one you just fought and the time that you spent serving this country on our call. We are going to do everything we can to help you.

You know something, that is not Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green Party. It is not really north, south, east, west. If you put it on the line, citizen or noncitizen I must add, if you put it on the line for this country, the least that we can do is do what we said we are going to do for you, and you should not have to worry and should not have to come marching up like the VFW and many others saying, please, please, Congress, do not have us waiting 8 months now, because we are already waiting 6.

You are part of that solution, and we thank the fact that you have joined us on several occasions and you are part of us.

I just want to say quickly that we talk about priorities in America. I am so glad on the Democratic side of the aisle, and even some Republicans within this process, that we believe in keeping the deficit down, not increasing the deficit, not playing games about how we are going to decrease it in the future; but this is my credit card and the reason why the numbers have not changed is the fact the Congressional Budget Office, they are going to have a mid-session review in July, and this deficit number is going to change. Unfortunately, it may not change for the better, but this is a big number right here, and this is the U.S. Treasury and down here you have the Republican Congress. That is there.

I want to share with the American people that the Democrats here in this House, we can only do so much to bring the deficit down. We can try to build coalitions and try to come up with resolutions, but the majority of the House is Republican. The majority of the other body of this Congress is Republican. The White House is Republican.

I must go back to say that in the Dallas Morning News, I wanted to read just one segment of this editorial at the beginning so that it is important that we have the kind of diverse thinking. You mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, how important that we have balance in this process to be able to bring about accountability.

``A time comes in most administrations when supporters tell the President he has a problem. Bob Dole told Ronald Reagan he should worry about the deficit. Tip O'Neill,'' who was one of the great Speakers of this House, ``told Jimmy Carter he better improve his icy relationship with Capitol Hill. And George W. Bush told his father that the White House chief of staff John Sununu needed to go.''

There comes a time that some of us in this process have to voice our opinion, and that opinion is based on the American people. My colleague is from the State of Ohio, I am from Florida, and the gentlewoman (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez) is from California; and I will tell my colleagues that as we look at the security of the country, as we look at the deficit, and I am going to tell you this honestly, I take no pleasure in being a part of the 108th Congress and presiding over the highest deficit in the history of the Republic. The 108th Congress, since we have had 108 Congresses, and we are a part of it, we have the honor or the dishonor to stand over or be in control of the highest deficit in the history of the Republic. I would not be able to sleep at night if I was calling the shots or the Democrats were calling the shots to be able to make the deficit what it is.

This amendment that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has, who is the ranking member on the Committee on Appropriations, coming up on Thursday will set forth the priorities of this country: that we care about our veterans and we care about protecting the homeland, not that we care about millionaires, millionaires getting a tax cut on top of a tax cut that is permanent.

The American people need to understand this is not homeland security for Democrats. This is homeland security for the Republic. It is not veterans benefits for Democrats. This will be veterans benefits for the Republic, for men and women that put it on the line, for VA workers, many who are veterans, who put it on the line in serving other veterans.

So as we look at this time of patriotism that one may say, then it is only appropriate for us to put our money where our mouths are. What Mr. Obey is trying to do on Thursday in this great House is to vote on trying to do something on behalf of those individuals who have done something for us.

And pay for it, not increasing this number, not increasing this number, but hopefully having this number go down, so that we do not have to knock on the bank door of China and say, hey, guess what, we need to borrow more money because we need to pay down our deficit.

When we talk about sacrifice and commitment, we have to make some tough decisions here in the Congress, and I will say that we dodge making those tough decisions constantly when it comes down to doing the things that we should be doing. And the good thing about our democracy is that we can tolerate one another's opinion, and being able to share the truth with the American people is important too.

And in this House we have a Democrat and Republican side, with the one independent, and I think it is important that we have the diversity of arguments but at the same time speak to all American people about the issues that are facing us.

We were talking about veterans, talked about the deficit, because it all intertwines with one another. In the past we have talked about 43 million Americans without health insurance that are working, I must add. We have talked about student fees being at the highest rate that they have been in the past history. We have talked about how the banking industry is trying to get students out of having the option to be able to lock in a low interest rate versus sending them back to a veritable interest rate where they will end up paying more in the long run.

But I think it is important for us, and I think this work towards force protection in Iraq, that we talk a little bit about the management from the Pentagon of this effort in Iraq.

I will say that the individuals that are wearing the shirts and ties, just like I shared today with Secretary Wolfowitz, who is the Under Secretary under Donald Rumsfeld, it is something fundamentally wrong when the Department of Defense is not handling the war in the way that it should be handled.

And if we have not only Members of the Congress, but members of the press that say, hey, you know something? Things are not going all that well in Iraq. One may think that everything is good and it is productive. We support our troops. We stand with our troops. That is not the question. The real question is as it relates to Abu Ghraib and other prisoner abuse issues that are out there on how we are managing that issue, how we are managing that issue and how the people at the top are going to be dealt with who set forth the culture.

Now, I am not saying that Secretary Rumsfeld was there at Abu Ghraib. I am saying that there is policies that have come out of this administration that have put a light on interrogation, and it is also mismanagement and also a lack of training in a prison that Saddam Hussein had in Iraq that was known for abuse and torture.

Now, for the administration to say we have dealt with that, it is over, it is done, next subject, we have to move on to winning the war, well, let me say, when it comes down to insurgents and the recruitment of insurgents, our lack of attention to that issue is so very, very important.

The first person to go down in this thing was an enlisted man. That is interesting. The Pentagon appointed a two-star general to oversee the investigation, knowing full well that this two-star general could not go above his rank, define wrongdoing anywhere else as it relates to the Department of Defense or the chain of command.

The four-star general in control, General Sanchez, said, well, maybe you all need to appoint a four-star. Secretary Brown, I would say Secretary Rumsfeld, appointed a four-star. Guess what? Out of the Secretary's office to oversee the ongoing investigation into Abu Ghraib.

I think it is important for the American people to understand, it is not totally how we feel about the handling of the investigation. It is how the world feels, how the handling of the investigation is done, because guess what? We cannot do this on our own, and if we are looking towards force protection or troop protection, it is important that we let the Iraqi people know that we are doing everything we can, no matter where it is. At the top or the bottom, we are going to get to the top and the bottom of the situation.

And it is important that on behalf of those troops, those that have served, Reservists, National Guard that have now returned, in their honor and their respect for our effort in Iraq, we have to make sure that not only enlisted men and women take fault for what took place, but it is important that individuals up the chain of command also takes fault for what has happened. And I will say right now the truth will rise to the top, and since we are talking about 18- to 30-year-olds, 70 percent of the force that is over there, I want to say, we cannot sit by and watch these individuals play the Potomac two-step and go around the responsibility for what has happened.

It has happened under his watch, it has happened under Secretary Rumsfeld's watch, and I have said it before and I will say it again, there comes a point where you, say hey, maybe I have done all that I can do for this effort. Maybe I need to allow someone else to do it. But come this November, Democrat, Republican, independent, they will make the choice if this administration does not make the choice as it relates to new leadership and making sure that we get good information about this war and making sure that we have good management of this war to protect American lives.

People talk about how Iraqis feel. I care about how Americans feel. Seventy some-odd percent of American people feel that we are taking too many casualties in Iraq. Seventy some-odd percent of individuals feel that decisions that are being made on this war are hurting our image throughout the world. We cannot do this on our own.

I know the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) knows that. But I am not pleased. I know many Members of this Congress are not pleased with the way things are going. I have said it once before that our troops would fight 20 years if they had to fight on behalf of this country. That is not a question. Do we support them? You are doggone right we do. But we cannot sit here and allow the mismanagement of this war to continue.

Mr. Speaker, let me correct myself. It is one of the home State newspapers in Dallas. I know that the American people associate the President with Crawford, Texas. Let me just say very quickly that we encourage the e-mails that we have been receiving. The gentleman can give our e-mail address out and then I will give another e-mail address out, but the gentleman from Ohio can go ahead and do that. David Letterman has his Top 10. You have the e-mail. I am going to give out this e-mail address so I do not want to take that away from the gentleman.

This is your role.

No, sir.

In closing, I just want to say that our next 30 Something hour will be on Tuesday, July 6. That is after Independence Day which is going to be a festive celebration, I understand, here in Washington, D.C. There will be fireworks on the Mall to celebrate our independence once again. They can check the Web site which is the Democratic Leader Web site, democraticleader.house.gov/30something to get that information. I would also like to commend the WWE which is our wrestling component here, World Wrestling Entertainment, for their voter registration effort of the 18 to 30 demographics.

Mr. Speaker, once again, as I always say, it is a pleasure to address the House of Representatives and the American people. Tonight I will be joined by some of my colleagues who will this evening be talking about the issue that is facing not only our military but our future as we start to deal with this effort against terrorism.

First of all, I would like to give my condolences to the family that lost their loved one that was held hostage. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family and your local community. Unfortunately, all too often now, violence has played such a very strong role in the way not only Americans live but also how individuals live abroad.

I just would like to make some opening comments. When we start talking about how we entered Iraq, claiming we were better than the dictator Saddam Hussein, which I do believe very strongly we are still, there are some decisions that are being made that are putting into jeopardy how the world feels about the United States of America and also how the world views our moral high ground, or what is left of it as it relates to abuse.

I think it is important for us to remember that Iraqis at the beginning gave us a great deal of credit. They were believing that we would deliver on our promise of providing security, safety and democracy that they could believe in and live under. Now revelations of prisoner mistreatment have really clouded the minds of many Iraqis that had hoped.

Some Iraqis saw us as being a part of holding out the flag of hypocrisy in the region due to the fact of the Abu Ghraib issue. The scandalous impact of opinions, especially of Iraqis and other members of the world, of photographs that have been made public throughout the Muslim world, is deeply repugnant to most Muslims.

I think it is also, Mr. Speaker, important for us to remember that as we start to look at what is taking place in Iraq, at the top of the week we thought it would be a good week for coalition forces as it pertains to the new Iraqi

government taking over by June 30. We thought the topic of the week would be Iraqi's soccer team joining the Olympics. But it was overshadowed by tales of a gentleman by the name of al-Dory, a 39-year- old father of three, imprisoned by coalition forces on August 6 of last year and was held until February 17 of this year.

al-Dory was arrested in his office in the oil ministry and initially interrogated at one of Saddam Hussein's palaces in the capital city. Suspected of being a member of an anti-U.S. insurgency, he was battered with the butt of a gun and hung from the ceiling in a way that injured his right arm. Last fall he was moved to Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, where humiliation of those in photographs was open and no longer secret.

By that time, he was released without explanation. al-Dory had lost 100 pounds of his 260 pounds. For the coalition forces, the mistreatment of this prisoner also may have transformed places like Abu Ghraib into insurgency recruitment stations.

Coalition forces told the Red Cross that 70 percent to 90 percent of the individuals arrested in the past year were mistakenly jailed, according to the Red Cross report in February. The United States also tried to remedy the issue by releasing several thousand of these young men, many of whom emerged bitter towards Americans in uniform.

This is what al-Dory said: ``Based on my experiences in prison, most of the guys who were released will go to join insurgents immediately because of the unjust treatment and the lack of response by the U.S. Government.''

But tactics like these, really, Mr. Speaker, do not work towards the safety of troops, and I will tell you that the culture that has been set in the Department of Defense and the blocking of giving information to this Congress to be able to respond to some of these issues are so very, very important.

Veterans that are listening to us now who have served in previous conflicts on behalf of democracy in foreign lands and also on behalf of our country, their honor is at stake. Their honor is at stake making sure that when people look at men and women in uniform, the world and Americans, that they are doing a noble job, which I believe they are, which I know they are.

It is some of the individuals that are making the decisions in the suits and the ties that I am growing more and more concerned about.

I am so glad that tonight I share this session and this floor of the House with two of my colleagues from Ohio. I would like to recognize my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to let the gentleman know, I just could not believe that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would respond, because I was there, would respond in that manner. I think that he is a man of honor but also, at the same time, we are looking at the way the Taliban is being funded. And they said that they harvested the crop early. That is what he said. I was there. This is once again not the Tim Ryan report, this is what actually took place. It is very serious.

I know that the Pentagon would like to save the lives of many troops, but it is some of the decisions that are being made at the top, not at the bottom, but at the top that is putting American lives at stake.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to my colleagues that how the United States is viewed in the world is important. Some people may discount it. Some people may feel, oh, well, who are they to judge us? Well, let me just say that the United States spearheaded the creation of the United Nations. Let us come together. I want the American people to understand. There are a lot of veterans out there that shed a lot of blood for this country, and I am so appreciative of their service. There are a lot of diplomats that have gone and stood in the eyes of communism, stood in the eyes of what was humane, I mean in trying to promote democracy and treating people in a humane way. And then now, for very few individuals at the top, and I am not talking about the troops. It is very interesting, when we start talking about the Pentagon, they have greater knowledge, especially of men and women in uniform than many Members of Congress have, and for Secretary Rumsfeld to okay an investigation by General Taguba to look at the Iraqi prisoner abuse, knowing all along that he was a 2-star general and he could only look at certain people, the first person that was court-martialed was an enlisted man.

General Taguba, who is an honorable man, he was doing what he was told just like many men and women in uniform, he was only able to interview MPs, number 1. Number 2, he was not able to go over his rank of a 2-star general. So this means from the very beginning, the fix was on.

No, he could not. I mean that is just the way it is.

No, you could not. But we would never, through what the Pentagon has said, we would never know whether the mistakes were made at the top. That is pretty much what I am saying.

So the way the deck, if I can, the way the deck is fixed now, that all of the investigations that are taking place need to be reviewed or what have you, will be done from the 4-star on down.

Now, Secretary Rumsfeld has appointed someone out of his office, a 4- star, that is going to go take over the investigation in Iraq. I can tell my colleagues that this Congress does not have what they need to be able to know what is going on with these investigations. This is actually putting American troops at risk. This is putting contractor lives on the line. And we will continue to see this abuse of prisoners that are taking our Americans that are taken and made examples out of, the first thing that this group said that has connections to al Qaeda has said, we are doing this because of Abu Ghraib, and we are not responding. The American Congress, we are not responding in a way to be taking this thing seriously.

We have the chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the other body who dared to have a couple of hearings and then he was chastised by his colleagues, including our chairman of the Committee on Armed Services.

So I think it is important that it is okay for Members to say how they feel. There is nothing wrong with that. We are doing that now. But I think it is fundamentally wrong when we know that we are becoming an incubator for more individuals to fight against American troops that will be in Iraq for some time to come.

So I think it is important that we remember that. I just wanted to mention this U.N. thing before I yield real quick.

I mean the gentleman from Ohio mentioned a minute ago of how the world thinks of us. Kofi Annan, Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations, a very honorable man, who has tried his best to be with us as long as he could. But now, we would like to renew our relationship with the Security Council of not having our troops or our military come before an international criminal court. This international criminal court was established by a treaty in 1998, a conference in Rome that would put forth saying prosecuting individuals responsible for most serious crimes, including genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The treaty was signed by 135 countries and was ratified by 94, including us, and took effect in 2002.

Just today or yesterday, Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the Security Council on Thursday to oppose renewing the resolution that would shield U.S. troops serving in U.N.-approved peacekeeping missions from prosecution before an international court.

He said, Exemption is wrong. This is from The Washington Post today. In light of what took place, the circumstances of abuse that took place, the detainees of Iraq and Afghanistan, I think it is very, very important that we pay very close attention to this.

Then check this out. China, of all people, said that they may veto the security council approving the United States this blanket exemption.

Mr. Speaker, that article is as follows:

[From the Washington Post, June 18, 2004]

Annan Opposes Exempting U.S. From Court

(By Colum Lynch)

United Nations, June 17--U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan

urged the Security Council on Thursday to oppose renewal of a

resolution that would shield U.S. troops serving in U.N.-

approved peacekeeping missions from prosecution before the

International Criminal Court, saying the ``exemption is

wrong.''

Annan noted that the United States is facing international

criticism for abuses of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. He

told reporters: ``It would be unwise to press for an

exemption, and it would be even more unwise on the part of

the Security Council to grant it. It would discredit the

council and the United Nations that stands for the rule of

law.''

The U.N. chief's remarks added momentum to a campaign by

supporters of the war crimes court to defeat the U.S.-

sponsored initiative. Senior U.N. diplomats said Annan would

press his case in a closed-door luncheon Friday with the 15

Security Council members.

``Blanket exemption is wrong,'' Annan said. ``It is of

dubious judicial value, and I don't think it should be

encouraged by the council.''

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United

States is well aware of Annan's position but will press the

council for renewal. The resolution, first adopted two years

ago, applies to ``current or former officials'' from

countries that have not ratified the treaty establishing the

court--which includes United States--and exempts them from

prosecution before the court for crimes committed in U.N.-

authorized operations. The council expressed an ``intention''

to renew the resolution each year ``for as long as may be

necessary.''

``It should be renewed the way the council said it would,''

Boucher said. ``And so we're still talking to other

governments in New York and discussing this with them.

The United States faces fierce resistance within the

council as the July 1 deadline for renewal approaches.

China has threatened to veto the resolution, citing concern

that it could be used to provide political cover for abuses.

U.S. and other Security Council officials say that China--

which also has not ratified the court treaty--is confronting

the United States because it recently supported Taiwan's bid

for observer status in the World Health Assembly. ``This

could have an impact,'' said one council ambassador, who

spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the issue.

China is sending a ``signal'' to Washington that this ``will

threaten the development of bilateral relations.''

U.S. diplomats acknowledge that they are struggling to line

up the nine votes required to pass the resolution. Six

countries--Russia, Britain, the Philippines, Pakistan,

Algeria and Angola--are expected to support the United

States, according to council diplomats.

France, Spain, Germany, Brazil, Benin and Chile have

indicated they will abstain. Romania's U.N. ambassador,

Mihnea Ioan Motoc, said his government will abstain unless

its vote is responsible for defeating the U.S. resolution.

The International Criminal Court was established by treaty

at a 1998 conference in Rome to prosecute individuals

responsible for the most serious crimes, including genocide,

war crimes and crimes against humanity. The treaty has been

signed by 135 nations and ratified by 97; it took effect in

July 2002.

President Bill Clinton signed the treaty in December 2000,

but the Bush administration renounced it in May 2002, warning

that it could be used to conduct frivolous trials against

U.S. troops. The United States subsequently threatened to

shut down U.N. peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and East Timor

unless the council exempted U.S. personnel from prosecution.

That strategy has fueled resentment against the Bush

administration at the United Nations. More than 40 countries

have a standing request to discuss the resolution in a public

debate. A senior diplomat said most nations will use the

event to criticize the resolution, and to draw attention to

U.S. abuses of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.

``We think the resolution is not compatible with the U.N.

charter,'' one Canadian diplomat said. ``It's harmful to

international accountability for serious crimes and the rule

of law.''

China. You mean to tell me that we are at the point now that China gets to say something about the United States and how we treat individuals?

Now, American troops did not put us in this posture. This is the culture from the top of the Pentagon. And I will tell you this, if we want to save American lives, if we want to save the ways Americans think about us, if we really care about what happened in World War II, World War I and all of the wars after that up to this point, about the sacrifice, blood their grandfathers and fathers and mothers have shed, on behalf of how the world thinks that we are the good guys on the face of the Earth, then it is important and we should not allow this kind of leadership that is deeply flawed to continue.

I share with the gentleman, I was with the gentlewoman, I was with many Members of this Congress when I asked Secretary Rumsfeld, maybe you have done all that you can do at this point. Maybe you need to just say, I had a good run. Maybe you need to allow someone else to move on and lead the Pentagon in a way that it should be led, on behalf of saving American troops' lives.

I will tell the gentleman, we have maybe 10 more minutes. We shared with the majority side that we were going to go about 40 minutes so that their Member can get down here.

So I just want to say very quickly, it is important that we share that information. This is a Special Order that we thought that was important. As members of the Committee on Armed Services, to come to the floor to talk not about politics but to talk about our troops, to talk about the leadership of our troops as it relates to the shirts and ties over at the Pentagon, the folks that are not supplying the information that we need in the Committee on Armed Services for the correct oversight.

I believe there should be more oversight because that is the only way we are going to find out what actually took place, what memo was written so that we do not have to read about it in the newspaper. The thing is that I do not like coming in here and quoting the newspaper. I would much rather have some sort of memorandum or some sort of committee testimony that I can make reference to, saying that General X told me Y, or Secretary X told us this. We do not have that privilege. We have to read about it in the paper. We have to read about it in Time magazine. We have to read about it in Newsweek.

And for us to be 60-something-odd members of the Committee on Armed Services, the largest military on the face of the Earth, the most capable, able, agile, mobile military on the face of the Earth, for us to have to read the newspaper to understand what is going on, and taking from General Myers's testimony when he did come before us and in his 30-plus years of service he has never seen anything like this Abu Ghraib issue. He said that to us. He has never seen it.

So for us to have an event that has not happened in 30-some-odds years, or I do not see anywhere in U.S. history that this has happened, it is documented the way that it is documented, for that to happen and for us to put a two-star, as much respect that we have for him, to investigate the little guys and gals that were a part of this bad behavior, it sets forth a culture that it is okay. If you are in the Pentagon, you are okay. You are a protected class. Do not worry. No one will look into you or no one will call you down to the Hill and ask you some tough questions, because if they do, they will be chastised by members of the Committee on Armed Services. Unfortunately, from the majority.

And it is also unfortunate that we have to come to the floor to be able to share thoughts in a way that we should be able to share thoughts with members of the military. I would love to ask Secretary Rumsfeld questions about why he came before the committee, shared with us what he shared with us at that particular time.

We received the Taguba report 2 weeks after that. I have taken a look at the Taguba report. Many members of the Committee on Armed Services have looked at the Taguba report. But now we just received new information from the Pentagon.

So when are we going to get all the information so that we can represent our constituents in the way that we should and be able to protect and make changes in legislation that is moving through this process now to protect American troops, to save American troops' lives, to be able to carry out all of our missions as we look abroad in what we are trying to do. But if we are not getting the information, then who is? And if they are getting the information and it is continuing to be suppressed, then it is not going to help save the lives of American troops.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones) for coming down here this evening.

I also want to share with the gentleman that on the upcoming Tuesday we have the first Democratic hour, and we can share the information that the gentleman has pulled together.

We look forward to seeing that and sharing with the American people. A part of the reason why we came down to the floor was to bring to light some of the issues that needed to be illuminated a bit more and also talk about solutions. Solutions are having the Congress do what it is supposed to do, an oversight of the Department of Defense. Solutions are doing what the junior Senator from Missouri, Senator Truman, who became President Truman, in his committee that he had from 1941 to 1948 during World War II. To say that we do not have time to do this, we are at war, does not reflect on past history.

So I think it is important even if it is the good, bad and ugly, it helps the American troops, our troops be able to get the up-armor that they deserve.

It will probably have avoided us from having to put in this Armed Services bill reimbursing families for bulletproof vests that they bought. Why should they have to buy them in the first place? If someone is going into harm's way, they should have the equipment that they need. I think that is so very, very important.