Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I wish the majority cared as much about creating jobs as they do about undermining women's reproductive rights.

Contraception is basic preventive women's health care. Simple as that. It should be affordable and widely available. Women should have access to it without a copay, no matter where they work.

Birth control saves lives. Women should give it up just as soon as men forfeit coverage for viagra.

Contraception is guided by sound science and best health care practices. The majority on the other hand is motivated by divisive and inflexible ideology.

The Republicans should take their own advice. They say they hate big government. Well, I can't think of any government bigger and more intrusive than the one that tells women how to conduct their personal lives and what to do with their bodies.

Mr. Speaker, it is February 29, a date that exists only once every 4 years, and yet this is the third February 29, the third leap day, that we've been at war in Afghanistan.

I have my granddaughter here with me. She's 8 years old. She's not lived in the United States when we were not at war.

Last week in particular, we were exposed to the grave dangers and the fundamental flaws of our Afghanistan strategy. The week started with the burning, accidentally, of several copies of the Koran by U.S. troops. That sparked days of violence and protests throughout the country. Angry Afghanis tried to storm U.N. compounds and other Western installations.

At our largest military base, thousands, including many who worked at the base, gathered to throw rocks and shout ``Death to America.'' Days later came the killing of two NATO soldiers, shot in the back of the head while working at their desks inside the Afghan interior ministry. The killer was apparently a Taliban insurgent who had infiltrated the government security forces and penetrated what is supposed to be one of the most secure buildings in Kabul.

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that police officers, the ones we are supporting and training to keep militants at bay, are losing patience with our continued military occupation of their country. One of them told The Washington Post:

Afghans and the world's Muslims should rise against the

foreigners. We have no patience left. We will attack the

military foreign people.

In response to all of this, General John Allen has ordered the removal of all NATO personnel from Afghan government ministries in and around Kabul. Out in the field, some U.S. soldiers have been instructed not to engage too directly with Afghan security forces, even though the training of these forces is at the heart of our very mission in Afghanistan.

Mr. Speaker, can there be any doubt, given what has happened over the last week or so and the last 10 years, that our 10-year military occupation is losing and not winning over there? The hearts and the minds of the Afghanis have been lost to the United States.

The amazing thing is there is talk that the recent unrest might delay the withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan. If anything, we need to accelerate that withdrawal. It's this war that has sewn the seeds of resentment and mistrust. It's this war that has increased instability and strengthened the insurgency. It's this war that is fraying the partnership and heightening the tension.

Mr. Speaker, what if we engaged Afghanistan in a different way-- peacefully, rather than forcibly, not in war? What if we sent--at a fraction of the cost and pennies on the dollar, I might add--what if we sent civilian experts to help rebuild Afghanistan and invest in its people?

What if we focused on humanitarian aid instead of military aggression? That's the SMART Security philosophy that I've been advocating for many years now.

I'm convinced that such an approach would show the way to greater peace, greater security and prosperity in Afghanistan. We can't begin to do this soon enough. Despite everything that's happened--not just this past week but over the last decade--the Pentagon continues to tell us the Afghanistan strategy is sound and it is succeeding. Do they think we're not paying attention?

It couldn't be clearer that what we're doing isn't working. It's time for SMART Security, Mr. Speaker. It's time to bring our troops home, and the time is now.

Mr. Speaker, on February 27, 2012, I was unavoidably detained and was unable to record my vote for rollcall No. 50. Had I been present I would have voted:

Rollcall No. 73: ``yes''--Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011.

Madam Chair, we've just spent the last few hours in an Education and Workforce Committee markup debating the disastrous Republican rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Not content to undermine K 12 education, the majority adjourned the markup so they could come down here and inflict damage on higher education, as well.

Through the repeal of two important Department of Education regulations, H.R. 2117 undercuts college students' ability to be assured a quality education for their investment. Congresswoman Foxx's bill repeals two Department of Education regulations intended to protect consumers, students, taxpayers, and the money that we invest in higher education because it doesn't hold the spending accountable to ensure that there's real progress for the dollars that we invest.

This bill doesn't do anything to solve the problem of how to make college more affordable for more people. Why are we doing this? Why aren't we addressing the absolutely looming student loan interest rate hike that will drastically increase the cost of college? If Congress doesn't act by July, more than 7 million students will face an increase of approximately $2,800 in higher costs.

At a time when a sluggish economy is making it hard for young people to

find work, why aren't we standing here talking about cutting the barriers to higher education? Why aren't we opening a pathway to the American Dream? Why are we restricting access to a college education? Why aren't we working for these kids instead of against them? I don't understand this. We should be working together to increase accountability. We should be protecting taxpayer investments. We should be opening the door to higher education. Instead we're debating this wasteful partisan piece of legislation.

I urge all Members to vote ``no.''

I thank my friend and neighbor for yielding.

I don't know how many of my colleagues have visited the California north coast that Mr. Thompson and I represent. If you haven't, I don't know what you're waiting for. The waters off our shore are quite simply the most abundant and exquisitely beautiful on the face of the Earth. Our commercial fishing industry depends on this thriving marine ecosystem; these waters are invaluable to the research of university scientists; and more than 16,000 tourism jobs in Sonoma County alone depend on these open, beautiful waters. If the majority were truly interested in helping job creators, they would not be supporting a drill-everywhere approach.

Actually, oil and gas resources available off our coasts don't come close to justifying opening this area in the first place to any drilling; and even in parts of the country where there is oil, I believe the costs to our natural environment are much too great when we start punching holes in the ocean floor. We have learned nothing, it would appear, from the Deepwater Horizon disaster if we don't pass this amendment.

We can and we must address our energy security challenges with a stronger commitment to green technologies and to clean and renewable energy sources. And we can start by saying no to drilling in northern California. I strongly urge my colleagues to support the Thompson- Woolsey amendment.

Madam Speaker, it was an ancient Greek playwright who originally said: ``Trust is the first casualty of war.'' More than 2,500 years later, those words still hold painfully and tragically true.

Tomorrow afternoon, I will join several of my colleagues in meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis who has embarked on a brave truth- telling campaign about the war in Afghanistan.

After two combat deployments to Afghanistan, Lieutenant Colonel Davis has written two reports--one classified, one unclassified--in which he tells what he has seen. As part of his assignment with the Rapid Equipping Force, he traveled across Afghanistan several times, spanning some 9,000 miles, and visited with hundreds of troops as well as with Afghan civilians and Afghan security forces.

What he saw were Afghan police who stay in the safe harbor of their checkpoints while allowing the Taliban to roam free. What he saw were Afghan local governments completely unprepared to protect and provide for their people. What he heard were stories of, in his words, ``how insurgents controlled virtually every piece of land beyond eyeshot of a U.S. or International Security Assistance Force base.''

Madam Speaker, this is not exactly the story we've been getting from top military brass when they report on the status of the Afghanistan war. Lieutenant Colonel Davis' experience is yet one more example of how we're not getting the entire story.

As he puts it:

Senior ranking U.S. military leaders have so distorted the

truth when communicating with the U.S. Congress and American

people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan

that the truth has become unrecognizable.

He continues:

This deception has damaged America's credibility among both

our allies and enemies, severely limiting our ability to

reach a political solution to the war in Afghanistan.

Madam Speaker, after everything Americans have sacrificed--the lives, limbs, the mental capacities of thousands of our people, the billions of dollars every month, our global reputation, and credibility--the least we are owed is the unvarnished truth. For the price the Nation has paid, we deserve transparency and not the propaganda we're receiving. A good start would be to declassify the National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan as well as to publicly release the classified version of Lieutenant Colonel Davis' story.

Some have suggested that Lieutenant Colonel Davis is a publicity seeker. My only response to that is, I certainly hope so. I want the message out. Goodness knows, the other side of the story, the official party line that the Afghanistan war is a strategic success, has gotten plenty of publicity over the last decade. It's about time that a different version of events got close to equal time.

I hope my colleagues, in particular those who have supported the Afghanistan war year in and year out, will read what Lieutenant Colonel Davis has written, and I hope they will consider the significant risk he has taken and the patriotism he has shown. I look forward to meeting Lieutenant Colonel Davis today, and I look forward to the Nation finally heeding his words, honoring his courage and vindicating his story by bringing our troops home.

Mr. Speaker, on February 15, 2012, I was unavoidably detained and was unable to record my vote for rollcall No. 50. Had I been present I would have voted: rollcall No. 50: ``nay''--On Ordering the Previous Question.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the 150th anniversary of San Rafael City Schools, an institution with a long and proud legacy of service to the young people of Marin County. San Rafael City Schools dates almost to the foundation of our county itself, and its history reminds us of the powerful role our system of public education has played in shaping the character and direction of our communities.

The first of the San Rafael City Schools--the fourth public school in the county--was opened in San Rafael in 1861, just over a decade after Marin County was founded and California was admitted into the Union. In a city numbering only several hundred residents, this first school counted 25 students in its first year, and it remained the city's only public school for 26 years.

As San Rafael began to assume its role as Marin County's population center, the school system expanded rapidly to meet new demand. A second elementary school was added in 1887, and in 1888 the county's first high school, which expanded further in 1899. New elementary schools were added again in 1904 and 1909, followed by an even more intense series of construction projects mid-century, eventually numbering over a dozen new, expanded, or retrofitted facilities. Today, 12 schools serve San Rafael's nearly 6,000 students, including separate districts for K-8 and high school education.

Since its founding, San Rafael City Schools has been an anchor for local families. It has played an integral role in the strength and success of San Rafael and Marin County, sending generations of Marin young people into the world with the preparation necessary to tackle our country's challenges. More recently, the special role of San Rafael City Schools has been recognized in the bond measures city voters have supported to support extensive infrastructure modernization projects.

Mr. Speaker, I ask you to join me in celebrating the sesquicentennial of San Rafael City Schools. This is an institution that represents the democratic promise of public education to empower every individual, and in so doing foster and uplift an entire community.

Mr. Speaker, Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke testified on Capitol Hill last week and warned us that deficit reduction ``should be a top priority'' and that current spending projections are unsustainable. In response, the gentleman from Wisconsin, who chairs the Budget Committee, said that we needed to get our fiscal house in order, otherwise, ``it's going to get ugly pretty fast.''

To him, I would say: It's already ugly. It's really ugly for 13 million Americans who woke up this morning without a job to go to. And it would get uglier still if we embraced his vision of a shredded safety net and a voucher program that ends Medicare as we know it.

Here is what I find particularly distressing and disturbing: for my colleagues in the majority, every other sentence out of their mouths is about reducing Federal spending, and yet the programs they want to cut are the very ones that are keeping working families afloat. They never seem to aim their ax at the part of the budget that has shot through the roof the last 10 years and now eats up more than half of discretionary spending. I'm talking, of course, about the Pentagon budget.

It doesn't make any sense that the military industrial complex has gotten a virtually blank check while important domestic programs--and also important civilian international programs that promote national security--look for change in the couch in order to survive.

If we're in belt-tightening mode, then we should all be in belt- tightening mode. But if there are Federal dollars available--and there certainly are--I want to know why we can't make strong investments in the food stamps program, Head Start, or Pell Grants. If there's enough money to give the Pentagon a staggering $700 billion-plus a year, I want to know why we can't make relatively modest, but meaningful, investments in paid family leave or early childhood education.

The good news is that the President of the United States gets it. With the support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he is taking a strong first step toward putting the brakes on runaway defense spending.

But I think that we need to do more and we need to be much bolder. When we spend more on defense than the next 10 nations combined, clearly our priorities are out of whack.

The Cold War has been over for 20 years, and yet we still have tens of thousands of troops stationed in Europe. This makes no sense at all. Something else that doesn't make sense: our presence in Afghanistan. And it's not just the peace and justice folks who are calling for the end of this misguided adventure. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L. Davis, Army ``brass,'' is asking, ``How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?''

He goes on to say, ``You can spin all kinds of stuff, but you can't spin the fact that more men are getting blown up every year.''

Mr. Speaker, what we need is a fundamental overhaul in the way that we think about protecting America. We need to be smarter about national security.

SMART Security means replacing weapons systems with humanitarian aid and development. It means a civilian surge instead of a military surge. It means peaceful diplomacy instead of military devastation. It means lifting up and empowering innocent Afghan people instead of occupying their country and perpetuating a war that has killed them by the thousands.

This SMART Security approach is not only the better way to protect our interests and keep our country safe, it comes at a fraction of the cost of what we are spending.

Mr. Speaker, for the sake of our national conscience, also for our national treasury, it's time to do the smart thing and bring our troops home. Don't ask me; ask Colonel Daniel Davis.

Mr. Speaker, there are few things more universal to the health and lives of women than birth control. It is basic health care. It's essential to women's economic independence and professional fulfillment. In fact, with the swearing-in of our new colleague from Oregon, we now have 94 women in Congress. My guess is there would be about half that number without the benefit of contraceptives. That all began 40 or 50 years ago.

So, when the Speaker said this morning that Congress must overturn the President's policy ``acting on behalf of the American people,'' I'm not really sure what he's talking about because the President's decision is on the right side of common sense, sound science, and public opinion. It enjoys support from a majority of Americans and a majority of Catholics.

Let me add that many of my House colleagues who want to deny access to contraception are the same ones who want to cut programs that help women and families facing unwanted pregnancies.

I applaud the President for standing up to reactionary forces and standing up for women's health care and women's freedom.

Mr. Speaker, it's Groundhog Day. Phil saw his shadow this morning, and winter will last 6 more weeks.

But what comes to mind for me is that old Bill Murray movie called ``Groundhog Day,'' where he wakes up and the same thing happens day after day after day. We're living our own version of ``Groundhog Day'' right now, because every morning, for the last 3,700-plus mornings, the American people have woken to a Nation at war.

Every morning, we've woken up to the same scenario--thousands and thousands of our fellow Americans in harm's way, occupying a foreign nation as part of a reckless policy that is costing us at least $10 billion a month.

There was some encouraging news, however, just yesterday as Secretary of Defense Panetta said that our combat role in Afghanistan would be over as soon as the middle of next year, which is a year earlier than we've been talking about. That would be a long overdue but welcome development, a belated recognition that this war is doing more harm than good in every way we're involved.

I'll believe it when I see it, though. The goalposts have been moved too many times to put much confidence in a single statement. What I've heard so far is a little too vague to take to the bank, especially since Secretary Panetta maintains that some troops would still remain through 2014 in an advisory role and that the commander on the ground, just this morning, is reported on the news as sounding less than enthusiastic in his response.

What I'd like to hear, perhaps in conjunction with Secretary Clinton and the head of USAID, is that, as our military role recedes, we will use all the civilian tools at our disposal to improve the lives of the Afghan people, because the real challenge and the best way to advance our national security interests is to eliminate the crushing poverty and to address the overwhelming humanitarian need in Afghanistan.

That is what's at the heart of my SMART Security proposal. Instead of military force, instead of unmanned, amoral drones that don't know the difference between killing an insurgent and killing a child, how about we send American compassion to Afghanistan? How about we send our very best experts in education, health care, energy, agriculture, legal reform, government transparency, and whatever else we have to offer that they may want to learn from?

Even if Secretary Panetta sticks to this timetable, under the best case scenario, we have another 500 or so mornings and perhaps another Groundhog Day ahead of us, at least 500 more days of the same old, same old--Americans dying on a mission that is not making America safer or Afghanistan freer.

The time has come. In fact, it came a long time ago. Let's make tomorrow different from the thousands of days that preceded it. Let's end the war in Afghanistan now and finally bring our troops home.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, across the United States, anguished families are sitting down at their kitchen table. They're reviewing their financial situation. Many are trying to figure out how in the world they're going to afford their personal long-term care needs or that of a loved one or another family member.

People who've worked hard their whole lives, who are already coping with a sluggish economy, are being crushed under the weight of long- term care costs, depleting their savings and sometimes spending themselves into bankruptcy.

As we know, Mr. Chairman, long-term care is not covered in most health care plans. If you're already old and sick, you probably can't qualify for a separate long-term care policy; and if you can, it's likely to be insanely expensive. Medicare pays only for the first 100 days of nursing-home care, and Medicaid is only available to the very poor. But you don't have to be poor to be overwhelmed by nursing-home costs that average $72,000 a year.

We can't forget that we live in an aging society. As our largest generation, the baby boomers, move into their retirement years, and while advances in science and technology have, thankfully, allowed us to live longer, it means that many of us will require more extended, more expensive care. All this has created a perfect storm in which the long-term care crisis will get even worse, not better.

In the coming years, Mr. Chairman, we're going to find ourselves in turmoil over long-term care. So why aren't we putting our heads together on both sides of the aisle and coming up with ideas to solve this dilemma? After all, we're all going to be old.

Instead, we're here today because the majority appears to want to repeal the one modest attempt to help Americans cope with long-term care costs. If the program needs improvement, I ask them, then let's fix it. That's what taxpayers are paying us to do, not throw up our hands and walk away from this problem.

But my friends in the majority seem to have a different version and vision of public service. It seems that instead of providing service to the public, they view it as their job to dismantle and disembowel any government investment that improves the lives of regular people. Nothing seems to drive them to distraction like the commonsense reforms of the Affordable Care Act. They have no innovative health care ideas of their own. They're simply nostalgic for the cruel and unfair health care system that we have finally begun to leave behind us.

So we need to be building on health care reform. We do not need to be whittling away at it. Vote ``no,'' my colleagues, on the repeal of the CLASS Act.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening in support of Congressman Michaud's motion to instruct conferees.

Every single one of us in this Chamber woke up this morning and came to work. We're lucky to have jobs, jobs that are a source of dignity and self-fulfillment. But, Mr. Speaker, 13 million Americans woke up this morning with no jobs to go to, with no salaries to help support their families. These 13 million Americans are jobless, not because there is something wrong with them, but because something is wrong with the U.S. economy and with the policies designed to keep 1 percent of the population comfortable at the expense of the remaining 99 percent. The recession happened to the American people. They didn't bring it on themselves.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle see it differently. Instead of willingly extending jobless Americans the hand up they're entitled to, the majority insists on punishing jobless Americans for their predicament. They want to manipulate the unemployment insurance program that everyone pays into, that everyone deserves to access when they fall on hard times. They want to give States the permission to use unemployment insurance funds for something other than unemployment insurance.

How convenient. I'd like to propose that we use war spending for something other than war spending.

States already have plenty of flexibility in designing their unemployment insurance systems, so this Republican proposal just appears to be an attempt to divert money away from unemployment, to erect more barriers to accessing these benefits at the very moment they're needed the most.

Here is an idea: Instead of undermining jobless benefits, why doesn't the Republican majority put its energy into a real strategy to create jobs for these unemployed workers.

This morning in the Education and the Workforce Committee, we heard from a Republican Governor who spoke positively about the imperative of job creation and of the importance of Federal investments in infrastructure, workforce and career training.

I hope my friends in the majority will listen to this fellow Republican. I hope they will stop playing games with unemployment insurance. I hope they will remove this provision that allows States to take the unemployment insurance money away from unemployed peoples and, instead, pass a big, bold jobs plan. That will remove workers from the unemployment ranks.

Mr. Speaker, tonight when the President of the United States addresses our Nation from this Chamber, we will hear some good news on the national security front. The end of the Iraq war, for example, is an impressive accomplishment, one that wouldn't have happened if bold progressives hadn't called for our troops to be brought home way back in 2005.

I'm also pleased the President's leadership will make it possible for our military strategic review to call for significant reductions in defense spending.

But on both of these fronts, ending our current wars and long-range national security strategy, I'm hoping for proposals that are bigger and bolder than what we've heard to this point.

Bottom line, Mr. Speaker, we need to end the war in Afghanistan, and we need to end it now, not 2014. Not at whatever other later date the military brass decides is appropriate. After nearly 1,900 American deaths and more than 10 years of bloodshed and mayhem, we owe it to our troops and to their families, as well as American taxpayers, to bring them home.

This war is not just a moral disgrace, not just a humanitarian disaster, Mr. Speaker; it's a strategic failure. We're spending at least $10 billion every month to prop up a regime in Afghanistan that is ineffective on its best day and downright corrupt on its worst.

Afghanistan continues to be racked by poverty and violence, and my belief is that by continuing to have military boots on the ground, we're encouraging more animosity towards the United States, giving the Taliban a recruitment tool, and thus, undermining our security.

Mr. Speaker, we need a new security program. We need a new security paradigm, an entirely fresh way of thinking about how to keep our Nation safe. Won't we make more friends and win more hearts and minds if we extend a hand of friendship to the rest of the world instead of rattling the saber at the first sign of trouble?

Actually, that's the heart of my SMART security platform. Why are we spending pennies on humanitarian aid for every dollar we're spending on weapons and warfare? Instead of a military surge, we need a civilian surge, one that lifts people out of poverty, rebuilds infrastructure, promotes education, especially for women and girls, and combats malnutrition and global health problems around the world.

SMART security is a renewed commitment to diplomacy, multilateralism, and peaceful conflict resolution. It would support a dramatic downsizing of the military industrial complex. Believe it or not, the Pentagon consumes 56 percent of discretionary spending with a budget bigger in real dollars than it was at the height of the Soviet threat. And with SMART security, we can reverse that.

Tonight I'm told the President will sound the theme of an America built to last. But no Nation, Mr. Speaker, that exists in a state of semipermanent warfare can be built to last. I worry about how we can be built to last when we have enough nuclear warheads to blow the world to smithereens many times over.

Now is the time, Mr. Speaker. Our common humanity compels us to bring the troops home from Afghanistan and implement a SMART security agenda. Now is the time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the Capps motion to instruct conferees.

This issue is just too important to get tied up in election-year politics. Failing to extend the payroll tax cut, unemployment insurance, and the Medicare doc fix will have real and lasting effects on our Nation's middle class. It will mean that fewer doctors will be available to care for seniors and the aging baby boomer generation. It will mean that people who have lost their job through no fault of their own will have the safety net pulled out from under them, and it will mean that working families will see their paychecks shrink.

Americans don't want partisan gridlock. They want jobs, they want economic security, and they want access to health care. I urge my colleagues, support the Capps motion and put our families first.