Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, last night the President reiterated his plans to send more troops to Iraq, despite bipartisan opposition in Congress and the opposition of most Americans.

Iraq is in a civil war. The violence that plagues Iraq is increasing, and our troops are caught in the middle of Iraqi sectarian violence. We have lost 3,032 of our brave men and women in this war.

Mr. Speaker and Members, despite the fact that the President talks about his surge, or what we know it to be, an expansion, we have to remember, these are not new boots on the ground. These tours are being extended. These tours are being extended, and some of our men and women in the military are being asked to extend their tours two and three times. They are also shortening the length of time that these soldiers have at home. Many of them, who have been on two tours and expect to go home and spend a little time with their families, are being told, no, you won't be able to spend the time that you thought you were going to be able to spend. You have got to come back after having been home a shorter period of time. Even the National Guard. They are now eliminating the limitations on how many times they can be called up for Active Duty. So these are not new boots on the ground.

As the Iraq Study Group noted in its report, ``Attacks against U.S. coalition and Iraqi security forces are persistent and growing. Total attacks in October 2006 averaged 180 per day, up from 70 per day in January 2006. Daily attacks against Iraqi security forces in October were more than double the level in January. Attacks against civilians in October were four times higher than in January. Some 3,000 Iraqi civilians are killed every month.''

The United Nations estimated that more than 34,000 civilians were violently killed across Iraq in 2006, with an average of 94 killed every day.

The U.S. Department of Defense claims that the number of Iraqis that are trained and equipped is increasing each month. In fact, they claim that there are almost 300,000 Iraqis trained.

However, our troops are in a difficult situation, and they cannot trust many of those who serve in Iraq's security forces. For example, American troops often complain that Iraqi police and soldiers tip off the targets of raids ahead of time. American troops also say that Iraqis flee during some of the security operations. It is also reported that the Iraqi desertion rate is high among those who serve in Iraqi security forces. Sending more U.S. troops to Iraq will only put more of them at risk.

Mr. Speaker, and Members, I am worried. I am worried that our Nation, our Commander in Chief is on the path to confrontation with al-Sadr and al-Sadr City, and I believe that this is going to be disastrous.

First of all, I don't trust Maliki, who is friends with al-Sadr. Remember when the President of the United States went to Jordan to meet with Maliki, he was stopped from going into that meeting by al-Sadr. He finally did meet before he left Jordan, but that was an exercise of power by al-Sadr. And I don't want this confrontation.

There are over 50,000 Iraqis in that militia, and I don't want our soldiers, with so-called Iraqi soldiers working with them, fighting with us, who may desert them, who may tip them off, to confront this militia. I want our soldiers out of there before it happens.

On Saturday, I will be marching with Representative Lynn Woolsey and thousands of other Americans who want to end this war and bring our troops home. The rally that is going to be held here in Washington, D.C., will attract millions, and we will send a clear message to President Bush and his administration that we have had enough. It is time to bring our troops home, and it is time to use diplomacy to stabilize Iraq and the Middle East region.

Mr. Speaker, and Members, we have Members of Congress who voted to support the Commander in Chief. They

voted to go into this war. But many of them are saying to us today, if they had known then what they know now, they never would have taken that vote to send our troops into that war.

Of course, we don't have to say it, but we must remind people over and over again, there were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no reason for us to go into Iraq. We have destabilized Iraq. We are destabilizing the entire Middle East, and we cannot win with this strategy that the President has employed.

And I would simply say to my colleagues, please do everything you can to help get us out.

Mr. Speaker and Members, tonight the President of the United States will address a joint session of Congress to offer his assessment of the state of the Union. He is expected to spend a lot of time talking about domestic issues and will reportedly spend some time on the war on terror. However, very little, if any, of his State of the Union address will discuss the war in Iraq.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States has bungled the management of this war, and he certainly needs to explain further why he feels that escalation will suddenly turn the situation in Iraq around. The reality is that escalation will not bring us success. The President pushed forward against the advice of many Members of Congress, the joint chiefs of staff, and many experts in and outside of government. Even the Iraqi Prime Minister did not want more U.S. troops sent to his country.

Since Friday, January 19, 2007, 27 members of our armed services have died in Iraq. These deaths bring the total number of U.S. servicemembers that have died in Iraq since the war in Iraq began to 3,029. More than 22,000 others have been seriously injured.

The insurgent attacks against the United States military have become more and more brazen. In one of the attacks over the past weekend, insurgents wore uniforms that looked like official U.S. uniforms and used vehicles that the U.S. and Iraqi officials use. According to press accounts, Iraqi guards at a government compound allowed several vehicles traveling in a caravan through checkpoints because they were wearing what appeared to be legitimate U.S. military uniforms and driving cars commonly used by foreigners. Once the insurgents were inside the compound, they attacked and killed five of our troops. Witnesses say that the attackers targeted only U.S. servicemembers and not the Iraqis who were in the room. Elsewhere in Iraq, 12 Americans were killed when their Blackhawk helicopter was attacked, and 10 others were killed in fire fights with insurgents.

Mr. Speaker, Iraq is in a civil war. The level of violence is growing each day, and increasingly our troops are caught in the middle of it. By adding more troops, as the President plans to do, we will only increase the risk of more U.S. deaths and injuries.

Nearly everyone agrees that the war will not be won through military means. Instead, there is general agreement that stability in Iraq and the Middle East will only come about through intense diplomatic efforts.

The President's Iraq policy has failed. Sending more troops to Iraq will only make the situation worse. As the saying goes: when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Mr. President, I would urge you to stop digging and bring our troops home.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what bothers me about what is happening in Iraq. Our military, our troops don't know a Sunni from a Shiite from a Kurd. They are with Iraqi soldiers who don't like them oftentimes, who desert us when there is a confrontation, and who undermine us. There are those who believe that the way that the insurgents got into the compound was they were allowed in there by Iraqi soldiers.

How can we win in the middle of a civil war? We can't win. It is time for the President of the United States to come up with a reasonable exit plan. We have not asked, and nobody is saying, Quick withdrawal. Withdrawal in 24 hours. Some would make you believe we are saying that, but we are not. We are talking about a well thought through reasonable plan for getting out of Iraq. Some people would like to say, Oh, if you don't continue to support the President's request for additional funds, that you are deserting the soldiers. Not so.

And the Members of this Congress have got to have the courage to stand up and explain the difference between the sound bites and what those on the opposite side of this issue would describe as our efforts of getting the soldiers out and the truth. The truth of the matter is we all know there is enough money in the pipeline to credibly come out of Iraq in a timely way.

Madam Speaker, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the President began talking about going to war with Iraq. In the fall of 2002, with the midterm elections heating up, the President increasingly talked about the threat Iraq poses to the United States and its allies. On October 10, 2002, the House voted on H.J. Res. 114, the Authorization For Use of Military Force Against Iraq resolution. It passed the House by a vote of 296-133: 215 Republicans voted for the resolution, 6 voted against it. 81 Democrats voted for it, and 126 voted against it.

Madam Speaker, in light of what many of our Members know today, they perhaps would not have voted for that resolution. As a matter of fact, day in and day out as I talk with my colleagues, they recount all of that which was told to us by the President of the United States and others on the opposite side of the aisle, for the most part, about why it was so important to go to war with Iraq.

They told us there were weapons of mass destruction. They told us that the troop levels that they were sending were necessary. They told us about the cost of the war. They told us that oil revenues would be paying for the reconstruction. They told us we would be greeted as liberators. They told us we would be able to contain sectarian violence.

Well, Madam Speaker, I have colleagues that are here this evening who will recount perhaps some of what they were being told and the way they trusted the Commander in Chief, they trusted our President. They were concerned about the safety and the security of our Nation.

So we have with us tonight some of the brightest, most hardworking, most respected Members of the Congress of the United States. They are going to remind us of what we were being told and how they came to their decision and what they are thinking now.

Leading that discussion will be my dear friend from Missouri, that is my hometown, my birthplace, who I have gotten to know very well. He is the Chair of one of the most important committees of this House, the Armed Services Committee, a highly respected gentleman, Representative Ike Skelton.

I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

I thank the gentleman, and before the gentleman leaves the microphone, would you please confirm for me that did you not have a son that served or is serving in Iraq?

Thank you so much.

Thank you so very much. We appreciate your service, we appreciate your work, and we appreciate the fact that you sit here every day trying to manage this most important problem and crisis that we have and the fact that you have your son who is put at great risk. Thank you very much.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher), who is a member of the Armed Services Committee, who is the chair of the New Democrats, one of the hardest working members of the California delegation who will present.

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from California, not only for the statement that she has made this evening, but I believe that you are an example of one of our highly respected Members of Congress who trusted the President, who believed what he was saying when he offered all of the reasons why we should be going into the war, and to have lost your support, I think, is the kind of significance that everyone should have an appreciation for.

We have come to that point in time where supporters who believed in the President are now withdrawing their support and urging him to abandon the failed policies that took us into that war.

Next, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn). He is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, another one of our respected Members in this House who supported the Commander-in- Chief when he brought to us all of the flawed evidence, that we did not know was flawed at that time, and he has taken a lot of criticism for it, but he certainly has clarified his understanding now and he has a statement that he would like to bring forward this evening. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

I would like to thank the gentleman for that very clear statement as one who voted to support.

Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman for that very clear statement as one who supported the war in Iraq who has withdrawn that support and is sharing with others his feelings about why he supported it and why he no longer supports it.

Madam Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from California, one of my colleagues on the financial services committee, Representative Brad Sherman.

I thank the gentleman from California. And I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey, Representative Steve Rothman, who serves on the Appropriations Committee, he is on the Subcommittee on Defense, and on the Subcommittee For Foreign Operations. This is not the first evening he has been on the floor; he has made it clear, but he even goes further tonight in helping to clarify and make it known where he stands on this war.

I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for all of the time and effort he is putting into helping us get out of Iraq.

Madam Speaker, I yield to Mr. Bill Jefferson from Louisiana.

I thank the gentleman from Louisiana for that very clear statement.

And now, Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Oakland, California (Ms. Lee), who has given so much leadership on this issue. She has been with us constantly, urging us to get out and coming up with the prescription for how to do it.

I thank the gentlewoman from California for all the work she is doing.

We heard earlier from Members who had voted for the resolution to go to war, who have since changed their minds. Fifteen Members signed up for tonight, but some had to leave. They waited as long as they could. And so we will continue to bring to the floor those Members who have changed their minds.

Tonight not only do we have Ms. Lee, who just joined us, but we have Representative Keith Ellison from Minnesota, one of our newer Members who has been consistent on getting out of Iraq. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 58, honoring a good friend, Muhammad Ali, on the occasion of his 65th birthday and to extend best wishes to him and his family. The Gentlelady from Indiana [Ms. Carson] is to be commended for bringing this resolution to the House in celebration of an icon of sportsmanship, fortitude, perseverance, and peace.

On November 20, 2005, I was honored to have given remarks during the grand opening of the Muhammad Ali Center in downtown Louisville. This educational and cultural center was established to give visitors a glimpse of Ali's life and experiences and to help inspire them to pursue their dreams by applying their maximum potential.

Ali is many things to many people: a world champion, an Olympian, an innovator, a world-class father, husband, and friend. In his 21 years of boxing, he won 56 fights out of 61 and is the first boxer to win the heavyweight championship three times. He achieved the incredible feat of winning an Olympic gold medal in the 1960 games at the age of 18.

However, his legendary charisma, charm, and genius did not stop in the ring or at press conferences. What makes him a true pioneer is the fact that he was principled enough to say no to the Vietnam War. The words he spoke in refusing the draft made a stark social commentary during that time and taught America a valuable way of thinking. Those words taught us that war should always be a last resort and that before we over-commit ourselves elsewhere, we must fix the problems that exist right at home. This philosophy has tremendous relevance to us today in the context of the War in Iraq. Many Americans feel that we should re- align our priorities to address problems at home instead of fighting a war in Iraq.

I wish Muhammad Ali a very happy birthday. For his outstanding contributions to sports and sportsmanship and for the lessons on peace and conviction to principles that he gave the world, I sincerely thank him. His legacy and record of achievement have earned him the title of ``the Greatest of All Time.'' I support this resolution.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California, Mr. Miller, for this time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the College Student Relief Act, a bill that will lower the interest rates that college students pay for subsidized loans from the current fixed rate of 6.8 percent to 3.5 percent over 5 years.

This is a fair bill that pays for itself by reducing the profit that the top lenders make from subsidizing loan debt, and it gives help to lower and middle income students who want to go to college but cannot afford it.

The Project on Student Debt states that over the past 10 years debt for graduating college seniors has increased by 108 percent. For graduates from public universities it has more than doubled, increasing by 116 percent.

This bill is needed because we want students to receive a college education without the stress of leaving with massive amounts of debt that will force them into jobs just for the sake of saving their credit. Furthermore, we do not want students to decide not to enter college because they are afraid of acquiring unmanageable debt.

According to Baum and O'Malley, in 2002, loan debt caused 14 percent to postpone marriage, 30 percent to postpone buying a car, 21 percent to wait on having children and 38 percent to wait on buying a house.

This bill chips away at the opportunity gap that keeps students of needy families and communities of color at the bottom of the ladder of success. Half of the students with Federal loans come from families with incomes between $26,000 and $68,000. The lower end of this range is close to the national poverty level for a family of four of $20,000.

Many parents who want to send their children to college have to take on large debt, rather than invest in homes or their retirement.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for the strong position you have taken on the floor today as you have presented this bill, and I would like to ask my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle, if they had an opportunity to reduce the interest rate on their mortgage loans by 50 percent, on their automobile also by 50 percent, or any of their other debt, would they think it was such a terrible thing, as they think about this that we are doing today?

I ask my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, today Representative Woolsey, Representative Lee and I introduced a bill that would conclude our involvement in Iraq and bring our troops home. The bill, H.R. 508, is entitled, Bring Our Troops Home and Sovereignty of Iraq Restoration Act of 2007. The bill has 16 original cosponsors. Representative Woolsey was on the floor a moment ago, and she shared with you some of the provisions of that bill.

I will reiterate, I will repeat, if enacted, the bill would repeal the use-of-force authorization passed by Congress in 2002 and requires a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops and contractors hired by the U.S. Government within 6 months of the enactment of this bill.

The bill authorizes the President to support an international stabilization force in Iraq, if the Iraq government requests such a force, but U.S. troops would not be permitted to participate in the international force.

It would turn security activities and military operations in Iraq over to the elected Iraqi government within 6 months of the date of enactment.

It would prohibit the U.S. from establishing permanent bases in Iraq.

It would cap the number of officers and employees of the United States assigned to the U.S. embassy in Iraq at 500.

It would accelerate the training and equipping of Iraq military and security forces, and pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.

It would provide assistance to the Iraqi government in recovering cultural and historical artifacts that have disappeared since the U.S. invaded in 2003.

It will do a number of other things, but let me wrap this up by saying it would fully fund veterans' health care, including mental health care, for our returning veterans.

Mr. Speaker, I am spending an inordinate amount of time on this issue, along with many of my other colleagues, and I have chosen to be a major cosponsor on this bill because I feel it is absolutely my responsibility to not only articulate what is wrong with this war, but to do everything that I can to encourage the President of the United States, the commander in chief, to bring our troops home.

I think it is important to do this because we have lost over 3,000 American soldiers. As a matter of fact, I think it is about 3,034.

I look at the continuing devastation in Iraq, and I see that just day before yesterday I believe over 100 Iraqis were killed and maybe twice as many was injured and we lost four more American soldiers.

This has got to stop. We are in control. We can stop this. I am encouraging our Commander-in-Chief to bring our troops home, and to pursue diplomacy, save lives. Because I believe if they continue down the path that they are going, we are going to have a real blood bath in a short period of time.

This surge, this expansion of the war that has been advocated and pursued and pushed by this President is absolutely the wrong thing to do. I know that he has been advised and he has accepted the advice that he is to go into Sadr City and he is to confront al-Sadr, who is the head of a tremendous militia. They have over 50,000 signed up in that militia and more coming each day. I don't want our American soldiers to confront that militia. I don't want our American soldiers in the middle of this civil war. I don't want these young boys who come from our cities and our towns and these young girls who come from our villages and our hamlets of America to be caught in between Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds. They don't know a Sunni from a Shiite. We don't speak the language. We haven't trained people. Even the soldiers that are supposed to be embedded doing the training can't speak the language. They are depending on interpreters. And let me tell you, even some of the soldiers that we are training in Iraq are turning their backs on us. They desert our soldiers in the middle of a conflict, in a confrontation. These are the ones that we are training, that we are depending on to take over the security of Iraq somehow. It is not going to happen.

We have to leave, and we should not be deterred from the mission of leaving because someone is going to accuse us of cutting and running. We know how these sound bites take place. We know what people do when they want to promote their position. They will mischaracterize what is being done. We have got to have the courage to stand up and stand up for our American soldiers.

I support and cosponsor this new bill. I would ask my colleagues to support it.

Today, Representative Woolsey, Representative Lee and I introduced a bill today that would conclude our involvement in Iraq and bring our troops home.

The bill, H.R. 508 is titled ``Bring the Troops Home and Iraq Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2007.''

The bill has 16 original cosponsors.

If enacted, the bill would:

Repeals the use of force authorization passed by Congress in 2002.

Requires the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops and contractors hired by the U.S. government within 6 months of the enactment of this bill. The bill authorizes the President to support an international stabilization force in Iraq, if the Iraqi government requests such a force, but U.S. troops would not be permitted to participate in the international force;

Turn security activities and military operations in Iraq over to the elected Iraqi government within 6 months of the date of enactment.

Prohibit the U.S. from establishing permanent bases in Iraq;

Cap the number of officers and employees of the United States assigned to the U.S. embassy in Iraq at 500;

Accelerate the training and equipping of Iraqi military and security forces;

Pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy;

Provide Iraqi government assistance in destroying/cleaning up land mines, unexploded ordnance and depleted uranium shells;

Provide assistance to the Iraqi government in recovering cultural and historic artifacts that have disappeared since the U.S. invaded in 2003;

Provide compensation for Iraqi noncombatant civilian casualties-- except for those individuals that participated in the armed insurgency after May 1, 2003; and

Fully fund veterans healthcare, including mental health care, for our returning veterans.

This bill stands in stark contrast to President Bush's proposal to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq.

The President proposes more of the same, while we provide a way to remove our troops from the sectarian civil war in Iraq, return our troops to their loved ones and begin the process of restoring our credibility throughout the world.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4, which requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate with drug companies for lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries.

American seniors are not getting the best possible prices for the drugs that keep them alive and in good health. A study by Families USA shows that the median drug prices among Medicare plans for the top 20 drugs prescribed for seniors is increasing at a rate of 7.4 percent per year. That's more than twice the rate of inflation. These price increases are passed on to seniors in the form of higher premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.

Clearly, the Medicare prescription drug program has not resulted in the lowest possible prices for seniors. But it has resulted in record profits for drug companies. In November, the New York Times reported that the Medicare prescription drug program has proven to be a bigger financial windfall for big drug companies than even the most optimistic of Wall Street predictions.

The Veterans' Administration already negotiates with drug companies for lower drug prices for American veterans. In the Families USA study, the lowest price charged by Medicare prescription drug plans for all 20 of the top drugs was always higher than the lowest price obtained by the Veterans' Administration.

I am a great defender of our Nation's veterans. They have served our country with honor, and they deserve the lowest possible prices for their drugs. But so do our Nation's seniors. There is no reason why the U.S. Government should negotiate lower drug prices for veterans and not for seniors.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I urge the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate in good faith for lower prescription drug prices for American seniors.

Mr. Speaker and Members, last night the President of the United States addressed the Nation. He had promised us that he was going to come up with creative solutions because he acknowledged his failures. He has designed what he called ``a new way forward.'' That is another one of his sound bites.

He tried to cloud the escalation by saying sending 20,000 new troops was a surge of some kind. There was nothing new or creative about his message.

Remember, it was the President of the United States who promised us that they were going to get rid of the weapons of mass destruction, only for us to find out there were no weapons of mass destruction.

Remember when he rolled out on the battleship saying ``Mission Accomplished''?

Remember when he promised us that we would get the proceeds from the oil in Iraq and that would be used to rehabilitate Iraq?

Remember when they promised us that we would be welcomed with open arms and we were winning the war?

Well, there this is no new real exit strategy. This is no new way forward. As a matter of fact, this is a new way backwards. And then on top of that, he had the audacity to tell us he wants a billion dollars to give to the Iraqis for jobs and employment. Give me some of that money for our cities and our rural communities. We could really use it. We have to oppose the President on this escalation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker and Members, I am here on the floor this evening along with some of my other colleagues who have been working for almost 4 years to bring to the attention of this House the mistakes, the errors, the misdirection of the President of the United States as relates to the war in Iraq. We have Members on this floor this evening, many of my colleagues, who have not only spoken time and time again about what is going on in Iraq, but they have spoken in their districts and around the country, helping people to understand that there are some of us here in the Congress of the United States who do not support this war.

We support our troops. They are there because they have been told by the President of the United States that they should volunteer to serve because our country was at risk. But we have been trying to help people to understand what is happening, what is not happening.

Last night the President addressed the Nation with a new plan that he called a ``new way forward.'' Now, Mr. Speaker and Members, the President of the United States has come up with a lot of proposals since this debacle in Iraq. What he announced last night has been tried before, and he has failed at almost everything that he has attempted.

Now the President is talking about sending 21,000 troops to Iraq. Where are they going to come from? Whose family is going to have to make the sacrifice? Who are these young people who continue to volunteer and are told that they are going to be serving for a certain period of time only to be stopped from going home when they thought they would be going home? Under the President's plan, troops will have shorter amounts of time between deployments and longer deployments to Iraq. The length of Army deployments will be increased from 12 months to 15 months. Marine deployments will be increased to 12 months from 7 months. So where are these troops going to come from?

The President had announced that the Iraqi Government had committed to a series of benchmarks, including another 8,000 Iraqi troops and policemen in Baghdad. So what if they have committed to a series of benchmarks? So what if they don't meet them? Then what? What do we do? The President did not say if they fail on the first benchmark that we are going to get out of there.

No. He just simply one more time said to the American people: Trust me. And I don't think that many of us are willing to continue to trust that the President of the United States has a vision for where he is going with all of this.

The President also said that they were going to force passage of long delayed legislation to share all revenues among Iraq's sects and ethnic groups. Now, we have heard this oil story before. If you can recall, when the President first went into Iraq, they said they were going to get the revenues from the oil; it would help pay for the cost of the war, and it would pay for the reconstruction of Iraq after we have torn it up. And then, of course, the President asked that the American people support him in getting $10 billion for jobs and reconstruction in Iraq.

Well, now that the oil revenues are not forthcoming, this is a President who has spent, spent, spent, created a deficit. This is a President that refuses to support many of the domestic programs that many of us would like to see. We would like to see more affordable housing. We would like to see better schools. We would like to see comprehensive universal health care. But we cannot get the support of the President of the United States for these domestic needs. But he tells us, now that he has messed up, led us into war under false pretenses, that we are now to pay for it, and there is no oil revenue there to do it. Well, I think that my friends are going to join me in helping to unfold what has taken place.

At this time I would like to yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

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

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would like to thank the gentleman for all of the hours he has put into this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

I thank the gentlewoman for all of the good work she does.

I now yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlelady for all of the hard work she does on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson).

I thank the gentlewoman from California, and I now yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio, Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones.

Thank you very, very much.

I now yield to one of our new Members of Congress, a gentleman who comes with a great background and who has hit the floor running, Representative Keith Ellison from Minnesota.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker and Members, I wanted very much to be on this floor this evening with Eleanor Holmes Norton first because I want to show my strong support for her, her work, her love for the District of Columbia and for the way she has used every bit of her time and efforts to fight for voting rights for Washington, DC.

I admire her spirit, I admire her commitment and I admire the way she has educated the entire Congress of the United States on this issue and forged a relationship with people on the other side of the aisle to get us to the point where we are.

I know that it is disappointing sometimes to feel you have come so close, and it still hasn't happened, but I am convinced it will happen, because of you, Eleanor Holmes Norton. It will happen because you will not allow it not to happen.

So I wanted to be here this evening more than to simply talk about the unfairness of not having voting rights. We all know that. I wanted to be here tonight to say to you, sister, I am with you. I have marched, and I will march again. I have sat in, and I will sit in again.

I started on this issue when I was in the California State legislature, and sometimes I feel a little guilty because I don't think I demonstrated long enough and hard enough to show how much I care about this.

I come from a time and place in St. Louis, MO, where I was educated in an elementary school called the James Weldon Johnson elementary school, with strong teachers who taught us the Constitution. We learned the Declaration of Independence. We learned what happened with the British and about the Boston Tea Party, and we learned about Patrick Henry, who declared, ``Give me liberty or give me death.''

So, whether or not it was intended, it was instilled in us that in this America, despite the fact that we had witnessed discrimination, we had been marginalized, that we have a right in this democracy to participate fully.

I really believed that, and if it was not intended, then they shouldn't have taught it to us, because we didn't think they were talking about somebody else. We truly believed they were talking about all of us.

Mr. Speaker, there is not a day that passes as I look around this Capitol that I am not reminded of the slaves that happened to build these marvelous buildings. I am reminded on a daily basis of the people who work right here in the Capitol, in these buildings, who live in the District of Columbia, who hear us wax eloquently day in and day out about democracy and participation and the Voting Rights Act.

These are the people who serve us day in and day out, and serve us well. You come into this Capitol late in the evening and you see who is working and how hard they work and what they do for all of us. And yet we walk past

them every day, and we don't stop to say, ``I'm so sorry. You should have the right to have the representation in the Congress of the United States that you deserve and we thought would have been guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.''

So, Eleanor Holmes Norton, thank you. Thank you for the love that you have for the District. I know that your constituents know this. You don't have to prove anything to anybody, because your daily work proves who you are and what your values are and what you care about.

I want you to know, November 7th gave us a new opportunity here. The people have voted, and the people have said to us they want to see change. The people are angry about what happened with Katrina. They are angry about Iraq. They are angry basically about injustice. And even those folks who oftentimes have been silent on the issue, they know injustice when they see it and feel it very deeply.

So I am hopeful that we will be able to use this time that we have to provide the leadership, to give you the support, to make sure we do justice by the District of Columbia and ensure that you get your voting rights.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California, Chairman Miller, and I rise in support of H.R. 2, the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007.

I am pleased that the Democratic leadership has taken a straightforward, no-holds-barred approach to expediting consideration of this legislation. And frankly, I am ashamed that it has taken so long to increase the minimum wage by so little.

What we do here today is a clear indication of the philosophical difference between Democrats and Republicans. My party, the Democratic Party, has tried to raise the minimum wage for nearly 10 years because we believe in live and let live. We believe that families should be fairly paid for their labor. We believe that wage earners, the true backbone of this Nation, should be able to put food on the table, roofs over their families' heads, clothes on their families' back and to have basic health care.

Mr. Speaker, $5.15 is totally unacceptable. No family can live on $5.15 an hour. Many wage earners are working two and three jobs, both husbands and wives and even their children, trying to make ends meet. Americans deserve better, and Americans expect their representatives to assist them in their quest for a decent quality of life.

Today the story will be written about the difference between those who stood up for the least of these and the those who came to this floor and continued to bring unconscionable arguments to deny low- income wage earners a mere $2.10 increase over their income in a 2-year period.

Many States could not wait for Congress to act, and they have undertaken to increase their wages. In my own State of California, the minimum wage effective January 1 of this year has increased to $7.25.

Mr. Speaker, 6.6 million people will benefit from raising the minimum wage. The economic gap between the rich and poor is growing. Too many people are living at or below the poverty line. When we pass this bill, we will all feel better about ourselves.

Mr. Speaker and Members, I come to the floor of the House this evening in advance of the President's speech that is scheduled for, I think, 9 p.m. this evening, where the President is going to announce his new approach to dealing with the debacle that he has created in Iraq. He has coined it, ``New Way Forward.'' He has referred to it as a surge, but we all know what this is. This is an escalation.

The President of the United States is probably going to announce that the surge has already started. There are reports in the news already that about 90 advanced troops from the 82nd Airborne will arrive in Baghdad today, I believe. And so this so-called surge that the President has begun is one that is taking place without the support of the American people, without the support of many of the Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.

Americans, and elected officials, in particular, are sick and tired of being misled, of not being told the truth, and trying to explain to our constituents what this war in Iraq is all about. Americans, basically, have come to the conclusion that this war has been mismanaged, that they have not been told the truth, that there were no weapons of destruction.

Oh, there were promises made. We were told by Mr. Rumsfeld that we would be welcomed with open arms; we would be seen as the liberators. The Iraqis see us as occupiers, and they want us out of their country.

We were told that we didn't have to worry about the cost of this war because there would be profits from the oil in Iraq that would not only help pay for the war but it would help to reconstruct the damage that has been done to Iraq by the occupation.

Oh, we were told not only would we have oil resources that would repay or pay for some of this damage, we were told that enough troops were going to be, Iraqi troops were going to be trained and that the numbers were growing and that they would soon be able to take over the security of Iraq.

None of that has happened. As a matter of fact, what we are finding is that our troops are being deserted in times of crisis and confrontation by Iraqi soldiers, that they are being undermined, oftentimes, by Iraqi soldiers, and that our troops don't know a Shiite from a Sunni from a Kurd. And they are very much so in harm's way because they really don't know what they are fighting, why they are fighting and why they are in Iraq.

But this President plans on sending about 24,000 U.S. troops to Iraq. Five brigades of U.S. troops, about 20,000 soldiers will be deployed to Baghdad to suppress sectarian violence. An additional 4,000 troops will be sent to the Anwar Province to pursue insurgents.

Responsibility for security, he says, in all of the country's provinces will be turned over to Iraqi forces by November 2007. Oh, haven't we heard those kinds of promises before.

How can we put any faith in the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief, who first refused to send adequate numbers into the war? They were being told by their commanders and their generals that they needed more troops, but, no, Mr. Rumsfeld convinced, I suppose, this President that we didn't need it, and so we didn't send them. And now, at the 12th hour, we are talking about sending more troops.

It is too late. It is too late to have this escalation. We have lost. We have mismanaged. We have created an untenable situation, and there is a civil war going on in Iraq, and we can't manage it. We cannot undo the harm that we have created, and it does not make good sense to send our troops into harm's way.

Not only is our Commander-in-Chief sending more troops, the length of Army deployments will be increased from 12 months to 15 months. Marine deployment will be increased to 12 months from 7 months. In addition, the amount of time they spend at home to rest before returning to Iraq will be shortened.

Mr. President, mothers, fathers and families want their children and their relatives home.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for the time.

The special interest Republican Congress is at it again. Republican leaders are packaging three different bills together in one in order to force Members of Congress to pass controversial legislation together with popular legislation. And once again they have brought this complicated legislation to the House floor without providing an opportunity for meaningful debate and without allowing Members to review the text of the bill in advance.

Before the election they packaged tax credit extensions and an increase in the minimum wage together with an estate tax cut that benefits some of the richest people in the country. Now they are packaging tax credit extensions and an adjustment in Medicare payments to physicians together with a special interest giveaway to their friends in the oil industry. This special interest bill opens up 8 million acres of Florida gulf coast waters to offshore oil drilling.

The American people are sick and tired of these deceptive procedures. That is why we won the election.

Perhaps my friends on the opposite side of the aisle just want to provide one more favor to the oil industry before they lose control of Congress next month.

Mr. Speaker and Members, I thank the gentleman from Maryland and the Senator-elect for this time.

I rise reluctantly to support this trade bill. I say ``reluctantly'' because the bill includes several different trade provisions, each of which deserves to be considered on its own merit. These provisions should not be lumped together as a single bill and brought to the floor with no opportunity for meaningful debate or amendments. However, I strongly support the HOPE bill which provides duty-free treatment for apparel imports from Haiti, the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere.

On May 14, Rene Preval was sworn in as the democratically elected President of Haiti following a period of political instability and violence that lasted over 2 years. Now President Preval needs to provide economic opportunity for the Haitian people.

The HOPE bill will enable Haiti to manufacture apparel products for export to the United States. These trade benefits would only apply as long as Haitian apparel products do not exceed 2 percent of U.S. apparel imports. While these benefits are small by American standards, they will create jobs and promote economic development in this very small, impoverished country.

I would urge my colleagues to support the bill, given all of the questions they may have about the bill. I have worked very closely with the problems of Haiti and I think that we need to give them a chance. I, too, am concerned about whether or not workers will be exploited, but we can keep a close eye on that. Some of us are involved in a CODEL to Haiti as soon as we close down this floor and leaving tomorrow morning where we will be talking with President Preval and parliamentarians. Their greatest hope and their greatest desire is to get support of this trade bill tonight and to give them this HOPE program. Let's just give them a chance, again, despite whatever questions we may have.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 973, ``Recognizing Financial Planning Week.'' I want to thank Mr. Hinojosa and Mrs. Biggert for introducing the resolution. I am cosponsor of this resolution because I believe that we must acknowledge the importance of financial planning for all Americans.

This resolution accepts the goal of financial planning as a tool to enable families and individuals to achieve their financial and life goals. It recognizes the relevance of financial planners, many of whom are essential to American individuals and families planning for their futures.

Sound financial planning must be integrated into any comprehensive life plan. Many of the financial instruments and investments require basic if not advanced financial planning to be used productively. Financial independence is a goal that I strongly advocate. Without financial independence it is impossible to function and to meet future challenges.

The Financial Planning Association has designated the week beginning October 2, 2006 as Financial Planning Week. The House officially recognizes the importance of financial planning and financial planners in the process, and this resolution embraces Financial Planning Week. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.