Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the war in Iraq is in its fifth year, but the Bush administration still refuses to develop a realistic, strategic plan for the Middle East and Iraq.

The Iraq War has destabilized the region, and the United States must reassert and protect its fundamental national security interests by actively taking the necessary steps to stabilize the Middle East.

Today Congress will debate a plan which stands in stark contrast to the delusional policies of the Bush administration which have sapped our military readiness, strengthened al Qaeda, wasted our resources and betrayed the trust of the American people.

There is a way forward, and we must be bold, courageous and strategic. Without leadership in the White House, we must continue to exercise leadership in the people's House. And I assure the American people that we will.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague.

I am happy to be here tonight with my colleagues to speak about the issue that predominates in the minds of the people of this country, certainly in the minds of my constituents.

We are in a disastrous and unnecessary war in Iraq. I have received literally thousands of letters, phone calls and e-mails from the constituents of the Second District of New Hampshire, the people I represent, the people who sent me to Congress, telling me one thing loud and clear: They want us out of this miserable war. They want our troops out of the impossible trap of being caught in multiple sectarian conflicts.

I have only been in office for 6 months, yet I have received thousands and thousands of communications from the people I represent. It is past time to change course.

Now, when we do change course, and it is inevitable that we will change course, we must do it responsibly and with a view towards ensuring that our core values and our vital national security interests are protected. We are not talking about precipitous withdrawals. Today, when we passed the Responsible Redeployment From Iraq Act, we made sure that we set a stage for a responsible course for redeployment of our troops, not a precipitous withdrawal.

Day after day, poll after poll, letter after letter, plea after plea, the American people, and certainly the people of New Hampshire, are demanding we bring this war to a responsible end. As we sit here today, we unfortunately are witness to a stunning lack of leadership, a failure of leadership, a failure to face the reality from the Bush administration.

The President's sad and sorry statement today was counterpoint to the mistakes that have been made in the past. In the absence of leadership from the White House, Congress has the duty to pick up the ball. We have the duty to exercise the moral leadership, the courage and the boldness that the American people know will be necessary to forge a responsible and comprehensive strategy to protect our security interests and lead this country back to a place where our military is strong, where our troops are fighting the right fight against al Qaeda, and where the American people's trust is restored in their leadership.

So I am glad to be here tonight, and I yield back to you, Ms. Sutton.

Thank you. It's very moving, as we stand here, to think about the real impact, the effects of this misbegotten war on the people of this country. The war is a cancer on the body politic that it is our job to deal with. It's unfortunate.

We were sent to Congress, those of us who are here, largely to serve as catalysts for change. The legislation we passed today is that beginning, and I recall standing here where I'm now standing in the well of the House of Representatives a few weeks ago to welcome to this chamber men and women who had recently served their country, who were coming from Walter Reed, who had come from other military hospitals where, as my friend from New York Mr. Arcuri points out, the costs of dealing with the traumatic injuries that have been inflicted on more than 25,000 people in this war have not even begun to be calculated on the chart next to me. They run into so much money that the mind cannot grapple with it.

These brave men and women came to the floor. They came on crutches. They came in wheelchairs. And each one is a story of bravery and of sadness for me because I saw people whose lives were shattered, people without one leg, people without two legs, people without two legs and a arm, people without two legs and an arm, with traumatic brain injuries, and veterans in addition to the active duty wounded warriors who came here to meet Members of Congress and talk to us about the difficulties they were having in their lives, veterans for whom the Veterans Administration was not responsive, and we have dealt as a new Democratic majority with those issues as well.

I tried to think of what I could say. There was one soldier who sat in the front row with a young lady, it was his wife or his fiance, who wanted to talk to us about what was really happening in Iraq. And he started by saying, I have three things to tell you. He said, number one, they're not telling you the real story about what's going on there. Number two, and he stopped because he'd forgotten number two. He couldn't get to it.

He had traumatic brain injury. I ask myself, what will it take for the President of this great country of ours, for those predominantly on the other side of the aisle who support a surge which has weakened our security, strengthened al Qaeda, weakened our military, continued the destruction of our reputation in the world; what will it take for this President to face the reality of what his policies have created, to come before the American people with courage and dignity and say, ``We have made some terrible mistakes, and it's time to correct them. We will change course, because I know it's the right thing to do. I know we must do it. We honor the service of all those who have served in this conflict. But now we will go and we will fight al Qaeda where we need to in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We will deal and set our strategy in the Middle East so that we can effectively deal with the threat of Iran, the threat posed by Syria, the threat posed by Hezbollah in Lebanon, the threats posed by Hamas and Fattah in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. We will, once again, reassert our leadership in the world with the moral courage, with the principles and the values and the dignity that the American people expect. We will face up to our past mistakes, but we will lead into the future with a comprehensive strategy to protect American security''?

I am waiting. The American people are waiting. Congress is waiting.

Enough name calling. We are all in this together. This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. The comprehensive strategy that we have adopted today is an American issue that will move us forward. The real honor that this President and those who oppose a new direction can do to those brave men and women who came to this floor shattered is to acknowledge the past mistakes and move forward to strengthen America and protect us all.

Madam Chairman, I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote against Rep. Lamborn's amendment to the Interior-Environment Appropriations bill which would slash the funding for the National Endowment of the Arts. The NEA has suffered deep cuts over the last decade. It is time for a new direction in supporting the arts in America.

America's global competitiveness relies on a creative, thoughtful citizenry, and funding the NEA has been proven to produce just that by funding artists, arts organizations and arts education.

Students with an education rich in the arts have better grade point averages in core academic subjects, score better on standardized tests, and have lower drop-out rates than students without arts education.

Creative thinkers are our innovators, our visionaries, and our leaders. Investing in their development is an American priority.

Support for the arts means supporting good business. The arts industry: Supports 5.7 million full-time jobs; generates $104.2 billion in household income; generates $7.9 billion in local government revenue; generates $9.1 billion in State government revenue; and generates $12.6 billion in Federal income tax.

But beyond all the statistics demonstrating the importance of the arts in education and in our economy is the clear reality that money spent supporting the arts is a crucial investment in America's lasting legacy. For long after we are gone our artistic creation will survive.

This Amendment is a shortsighted attempt to strangle an agency that does amazing work for the people of this country. I know firsthand what is done with the few dollars awarded through the NEA.

I stand today to ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reject this amendment and fund the NEA, which encourages creative thinking and the creative economy.

Mr. Speaker, I'm here tonight with my distinguished colleague from Florida (Mr. Klein) to talk

in this Chamber about accountability, and to talk about our security in the Middle East, our strategy for the war in Iraq, the problems the American people face with the leadership of this country, which does not seem, at the very top echelon, the President and the Vice President, to be able to respond to the clearly expressed will of the American people, the facts on the ground in Iraq, the advice from esteemed military commanders and generals who understand the situation in Iraq.

And, really, it all comes down to accountability. Because Mr. Kline and I came to this body as a result of the elections of November 2006. And in those elections, the American people spoke loudly and clearly. In my home State of New Hampshire, they said we need a new direction in Iraq; our strategy is not working.

The war in Iraq has not made us safer. The war in Iraq is not enhancing American security. The war in Iraq is not stabilizing the Middle East and advancing our true national security interests. The war in Iraq is costing billions and billions and billions of dollars, sapping our military strength and readiness, and leaving us, as a Nation, poorer and unable to respond to conflicts around the globe and the urgent need of domestic priorities at home, the needs of working families here in America who need the kinds of funds that are being diverted into a war that is not working, that need to be used at home to help take care of Americans.

Now I'd like to yield to Mr. Klein.

Mr. Klein, one of the things I think about is the change in the dialogue that has occurred since the Democrats became the majority party here in the House of Representatives as a result of the elections of November 2006.

And I know that there are many people in this country who are extremely frustrated. More than 70 percent of the people in this country, the statistics now tell us, are committed to changing course in Iraq, despite the intransigence, the stubbornness, the refusal of the President to face reality, despite the refusal of the Vice President of this country to meet his own obligations to the people of this country. But the dialogue has changed.

It's very important, I think, to take stock of what has happened, where we are now and how we are moving forward, and also to talk about the accountability of the administration and the Republicans, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who have stood foursquare up until now with the failed policies of this President.

The picture that I have put up here is a picture of President Bush with virtually the entire Republican delegation standing with him when he rejected the Democrats' attempt to set reasonable guidelines for troop readiness, for benchmarks, for Iraqi accountability, and a timeline for the responsible, strategic redeployment of American troops to protect our security.

We've heard a lot in the past few days, in the past few months from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who keep blasting Democrats. They say, well, we're not getting anything done. But Democrats have stood up time and time again to help push a new direction in Iraq. And frankly, and unfortunately, it's been our Republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have not helped move this along, who have not stood up to their President and said to our President, this is an American issue. We must all work together for a responsible strategy that protects American security.

Now, after 6 months in the majority, House and Senate Democrats really are changing the debate on the war. We're insisting that the Bush administration and the Iraqi Government be held accountable. We need benchmarks to measure progress, or the lack thereof. We need to challenge the stay-the-course strategy, and we will continue to challenge this President's stay-the-course strategy.

And what is not too surprising to me now, as we sit here today ready for the July 4th recess and about 6 months into the 110th Congress, under pressure from responsible Democrats and the American public, an increasing number

of Senate Republicans are now distancing themselves from the President's policy, even as our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, our House Republicans, continue to cling to it. The question is, when will the rubber-stamp House Republicans face the reality, join the Democrats, together with the American people, in demanding a real change and a responsible, strategic redeployment of our forces from Iraq? That, as you said, doesn't necessarily mean and shouldn't mean, in my view, that we bring everybody home in a precipitous fashion. That's what the Republicans continue to claim Democrats are talking about, but nothing could be further from the truth. Because the Democratic Caucus and the American people understand that what is needed is a responsible, strategic redeployment to protect American security.

Mr. Klein, I want to pick up on a few points you made, because as I have traveled around New Hampshire, I have met with numerous veterans and lots of folks in the active military. The people in New Hampshire are not especially liberal, left-wing people. They are Americans.

This issue is really an issue of what it means to be a patriot. Because we all want the best outcome we can possibly make for this country, for our troops, for our veterans, for our wounded warriors. We want to do the best we can for America. On whatever side of this debate about the proper policy, I think we all need to respect each other's views on that.

I find that in New Hampshire. But what I find is a deep yearning that this country is accountable to the American people, that our government is accountable to the American people in a way that sets us on a course for being number one.

Now, I don't mean that in any big, bullying way, but number one because, up until recently, in my years--I have been around for 56 years--this country stood on its values. We stood on the principles of truth, justice, fairness, equality, and opportunity for all. That is what the American people expect from their government. That is where they want our country to go. They see that the war in Iraq has diverted us from being as great as we can be, from fulfilling the true promise of America both in the blood and treasure of our brave soldiers lost in the sands of Iraq.

They also are very concerned. I speak to people about some of what happened and the mistakes that were made that produced the issues that we are in today. They are very concerned, for instance, that while 9/11 was caused by al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan with the Taliban, that the Bush administration not only implied but said that somehow, Saddam Hussein and Iraq were tied in with al Qaeda at the time of that attack. It just wasn't so.

We have made some serious mistakes that they see. They see that the object of going in, occupying Baghdad and immediately firing the civil service, de-Baathification, firing the Army, simply provided fuel for the insurgency, provided people and weapons to fight against stability in Iraq. They see those questions.

Now the question they are asking is, where to? Where do we go from here? The good news is that some of the Republican Senators have begun to see the light. I just want to quote one of our distinguished colleagues who is in the Senate Chamber, Senator Richard Lugar, the distinguished Republican from Indiana, the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, who said, ``In my judgment, the costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved. Persisting indefinitely with the surge strategy will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term. Our security interests call for a downsizing and redeployment of U.S. military forces to a more sustainable position.'' That was a speech by Senator Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, on the Senate floor on June 25 of this year. He is beginning to face the reality and getting ready for a new direction in Iraq.

We have now been joined by our distinguished colleague, Jason Altmire from Pennsylvania. We are delighted to have you with us. He often speaks with the 30-Something Group. It is a real treat to have him with the New Member Caucus tonight. The Class of 2006 welcomes you, Jason.

Mr. Kline, thank you very much for those thoughts. I expect that over this July 4th recess, a number of our colleagues, especially those on the other side of the aisle, will probably be hearing from their constituents about their concerns about the current course in Iraq, the failure of this administration's strategy, with the surge and the way things have been handled, the numerous mistakes, both strategic and implementation and in conception have deeply, deeply hurt us.

I know the American people, as we are here in Congress, especially in discussions with Democratic Members on the Armed Services Committee, are deeply concerned that American readiness, that our readiness to deal with other conflicts that may arise, not be jeopardized, and we are going to take important steps and have taken important steps to improve the readiness that has been hurt by these deployments in Iraq.

At some point we are going to talk a little bit more about what it has meant for our veterans, but we have been joined by another distinguished colleague who I would like to introduce. Joe Sestak, a member of the class of 2006 from Pennsylvania, came to this Congress with an extraordinarily distinguished career, serving our country in the military in the Navy.

He is a gentleman who understands military, military matters, military operations. He is deeply committed to American strategic interests and is in the forefront of those in the Democratic Caucus who are intent on seeing a new direction in Iraq.

I would like to now turn it over to you, Joe Sestak.

I thank you for those comments. Coming from someone with the kind of military experience you have, they ring especially true.

You know, often on the floor of the House of Representatives, what we have experienced in our first 6 months is political rhetoric that masks some of the deeper, more complex and nuanced issues that really are worthy of discussion in deciding as a nation how to move forward.

It is really what the American people have been asking, not only of us here in Congress, but especially of their President, their Vice President, the leaders in the White House, who have been responsible for this unfortunate failed policy. And what the American people, who are a generous, compassionate and patient people, have been deeply yearning for, is a real discussion of the kind we are having now, that points the way towards American security. Because, as you point out, we have created, unfortunately, more instability in the Middle East.

And now, however we got into it, we have to make the best of a bad situation because we are all in this together. That is the spirit with which we as Democrats are trying to talk to our Republican colleagues.

There has been a lot of name-calling on the floor. They call us cut- and-run and say this and that and the other thing. But as you have so well put, we are talking about a strategy. Strategy is the key word. It means a strategic redeployment to protect American security.

If we just step back for a moment, I want to share some of the thoughts of a very esteemed retired general, General William Odom, who addressed us recently about the situation there. He said, Look at the situation we are in. Our troops are in a sea of hostile people, approximately 7 million in number, and growing in hostility every day. Fully 80 percent of the Iraqis want the occupation to end. Fifty percent of them think badly enough about us that they would sanction violence against Americans.

We are surrounded in Iraq by unfriendly nations, Iran and Syria. We have problems with Hezbollah in Lebanon; Hamas and new issues for Israel. Israel's security has been threatened by the instability in the Middle East because, unfortunately, our misadventure in Iraq has emboldened Islamic jihadists in the region. It has not made us more safe, but has grown the Islam jihad movement. It has been the best recruiting device they have had.

So he understands the importance of what to do when American troops find themselves caught in the middle of not one civil war, as he put it, but in the middle of multiple civil wars. He addressed the concern, which is a valid concern on the part of all of us, of what will happen in Iraq when we redeploy in a planned strategic way. People are concerned. What will we leave?

We have a government at this point which is essentially not working. It is hardly a unity government. They can't get themselves together to have their army stand up or get the ministers to work together. They seem to have fallen into tribal allegiances.

But what General Odom pointed out in recent discussions with experts in the region, including generals of countries whom we have worked with, they have pointed out that it is highly likely that when we leave Iraq, when the American troop presence, which is the cause, in their view, of much instability, is gone, that Iraq--it is not going to be great, but the kind of cataclysmic events that people are predicting, in their view, won't occur because the Iraqis have had a long history of tribal conflict even within the Saddam Hussein regime. And remembering that Iraq was forged in 1916 out of separate tribal entities by the British and French in a grand deal, there has been an undercurrent of these tensions, which the tribal leaders, they believe, are going to work out.

Personally, I believe ultimately there will be a political solution in Iraq that the Iraqis must determine for themselves. Our military presence cannot impose a political solution; only they can. In my view, based on the research that I have done and based on discussions with experts in the region, I think it is highly likely that Iraq will devolve into some kind of autonomous regions, perhaps three autonomous regions. In Kurdistan, one representing the Sunnis, one representing the Shia, who then use the central government for certain federal purposes, but one which recognizes, as their constitution wants to go to, that a political solution, trying to hold together this government which isn't working, won't work for them, and they will find once we are gone and they no longer have us as a crutch, they will find the political solution they need to carry their country forward.

And if we, as a true world leader, redeploy strategically and wisely and then use our diplomatic resources to bring neighbors, allies, friends, reunite a real coalition in the world to help, we may be able to have the kind of result of a stable state that will help us not only in the region but around the world. And it is what the American people want.

It is this kind of discussion and this kind of thinking that the President ought to be having with his generals. I hope that as we sit here tonight talking about Iraq, and as we prepare to return home for July 4, I hope that President Bush is in the White House and I hope he is talking to his generals about what the plan ought to be for a strategic redeployment. But I fear that he is not doing that at this point.

Mr. Altmire, why don't I throw it over to you.

Thank you.

Admiral Sestak, we have a few moments left. I turn it over to you for some of your closing thoughts and then I will wrap up.

I thank all my colleagues, Mr. Sestak and Mr. Altmire from Pennsylvania, Mr. Klein from Florida. It has been a truly interesting discussion tonight focusing on strategy, the complexity of a world that has changed but which Democrats are facing with boldness and leadership to help take our country and the world in a new direction, to reverse the damage that's been done by the administration and reassert our role as a leader in this world on our principles and our values, not merely our military might but only using our military might in service of the good judgment our leaders exercise in the pursuit of peace.

As we leave for our July 4 recess, I want to leave us with this thought. The Army says that it will leave no soldier behind. And as we discussed here tonight, the Democrats in Congress have committed to leaving no veteran behind. We have voted and passed the biggest increase in Veterans' Administration spending for health care and needed services in this country's history.

The chart I have here shows in dramatic form what has happened over the past few years. From 2003 to 2008, the VA is treating many, many more Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. We've been in a conflict where our soldiers have been deployed, redeployed, redeployed and redeployed again, two times, three times, four times. Whereas compared to World War II, when their active duty tours were 180 days, they're now seeing 15 months, wreaking havoc on the soldiers and their families at the same time. As General Odom put it today, they're experiencing cataclysmic events every day, new kinds of injuries, polytrauma, traumatic brain injuries, PTSD have created great complexity in our VA system.

So as we go out on July 4, I would ask us all to think about what supporting our troops really means. In my view, supporting our troops means employing and following a course that is a real, smart, strategic effort to protect American security by redeploying our troops from the middle of a civil war in which they don't belong, number one. That is truly supporting our troops, because they are owed the policy that the civilian leaders should be following. That is what our troops are owed and our veterans are owed when they come home, the best that we can give them. No more broken promises from the White House. No more broken promises from the Republicans who have cut the budgets time and time again, who have cut health care in the VA, who have imposed fee increases on our veterans. No more. We will leave no veteran behind. The Democrats promise that. We have followed through on our commitment.

And I am so proud to stand with you all as Members of the 110th Congress to help lead this country in a new direction and be the kind of world leader that the American people expect and deserve.

Thank you very much and good night.

Mr. Speaker, last week, Republican leaders sent a letter to the White House vowing to support the President's plans to veto essential legislation to protect our homeland, put thousands of new agents on America's borders, and invest in our country's priorities.

This sudden and newfound interest in fiscal responsibility is nothing more than hypocritical rhetoric. It does not match their actions or their record. Under Republican leadership, earmarks and deficit spending exploded.

For 6 years, Republicans and President Bush set the standard for fiscal mismanagement and turned record surpluses, created in the last years of the Clinton administration, into record deficits. And the President has refused to change course, once again proposing a budget for the upcoming year that does not find balance within the next 5 years.

Unlike the President's budget, the final Democratic budget blueprint brings us out of the red in the next 5 years, while also investing in critical homeland security initiatives. Instead of threatening to veto this essential legislation that the President claims is his top priority, President Bush should work with the Congress and sign this important legislation into law.

Mr. Speaker, when Democrats took control of Congress earlier this year, we vowed to restore accountability here in Washington. Unfortunately, President Bush is stubbornly resistant to any changes in the status quo.

Case in point: Earlier this year we passed the Accountability in Contracting Act which cleans up government contracting abuses and no- bid contracts that companies like Halliburton and KBR have made infamous. The bill overwhelmingly passed here in the House, and yet the Bush administration says it currently opposes the bill.

We've all heard about the $100 million compensation packages that executives walk away with at the same time their company is laying off their employees. So we in Congress passed a corporate accountability bill that enhances the accountability of corporate management shareholders by allowing a nonbinding vote by shareholders on executive compensation plans. But the administration opposes this legislation in its current form.

Mr. Speaker, despite opposition from the President and his party, Democrats will continue to serve as a catalyst for change to care about ordinary, hardworking Americans and bring real accountability here in Washington.

Mr. Speaker, last week the President's new war czar told the Congress that the troop escalation plan is failing and that the American people should expect sectarian violence in Iraq to continue.

Finally someone in the administration is making sense of the situation on the ground in Iraq, but honesty does not make up for the fact that President Bush continues to stubbornly oppose any change in war policy.

In the wake of the deadliest 2-month period in the war, 231 U.S. service men and women were killed in April and May. The facts on the ground show an increasingly grim picture.

In fact, a recent internal military assessment shows that the U.S. military's plan to secure Baghdad against a rising insurgency is falling far short of its goal. To date, according to the document, only one-third of the Baghdad

neighborhoods are under the control of American and Iraqi security forces. The administration's goal was to have the entire city under control by next month. Clearly, that is no longer possible.

Despite the continued stubbornness of this President, the Democratic Congress will continue to demand that we move this war in a new direction.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his tremendous leadership on this committee.

I rise in support of H.R. 1427. This bill provides an overhaul of the government-sponsored entities, and it creates a much-needed, unified regulator for all GSEs.

Now, it was the high-profile accounting scandals at Fannie and Freddie in recent years that demanded that Congress restore accountability and strengthen oversight in these institutions.

So this bill creates a strong, independent regulator at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank System with broad powers comparable to those of Federal bank regulators. The bill also creates an Affordable Housing Fund to be managed by the new GSE regulator.

I want to thank Chairman Frank for creating the Energy Efficiency Task Force on the Financial Services Committee. I am pleased to serve on this task force, chaired by my colleague from Colorado, Mr. Perlmutter. The task force is dedicated to greening the financial services community, and in connection with H.R. 1427, we included an important provision that would incentivize Fannie and Freddie to purchase green mortgages. This provision is a great first step toward our goal.

This is a bipartisan bill, and it is widely supported by financial institutions, lenders, housing industry participants, housing groups and other financial service providers.

So when I hear the colleagues on the other side of the aisle speaking against the unified regulator, they are standing against accountability and oversight. And when I hear them speaking against an Affordable Housing Fund, they are standing against poor people in this country who need our help.

Mr. Speaker, it appears that congressional Republicans are finally coming around to the possibility that the war in Iraq cannot go on indefinitely.

This weekend House Republican leader John Boehner said if this troop escalation plan is not working by September or October, a plan B would need to be explored. This timid response is a sign that the Republicans see the writing on the wall and are desperate to hedge their bets on a failed policy.

The minority leader's timetable of this fall comes just days after Mr. Boehner joined President Bush in abandoning the benchmarks for Iraqi success the President himself established in January. Last week the minority leader and almost every Republican joined the President's call for an open-ended commitment of American troops and tax dollars in Iraq. Now feeling the pressure from the Americans who wisely support benchmarks and timelines, it appears that the Republican leader is backtracking.

The American people and the majority of this Congress will stand firm in supporting our troops and showing leadership for a new course in Iraq. Let's hope the minority leader lifts his head out of the sand, and he and his party and the President join us in moving Iraq in a new direction.

Well, I thank my friend from Connecticut and my friend from Pennsylvania for being here. You know, I'm on the something side of 30, but we are all new Members here tonight. And we came here, in large part, because the American people are way ahead of the politicians in this country. And the American people have had it with this exercise in Iraq. In overwhelming numbers, they, in their wisdom, have had it, and they spoke loud and clear to that in November of this year and that, in large part, is why we, and many of our colleagues, are now privileged to serve in the House of Representatives.

And what we have done today in passing the Iraq accountability bill is truly historic. And it started here in the House; it went to the Senate through the wisdom of our founders. There was a conference of House and Senate leaders. The bill came back here in slightly altered form. And now, as we sit here tonight, speaking about this bill, it's on its way to the desk of the President of the United States. And the President of the United States has a choice to make about the direction of this country. He, now, has a choice to make. He has a choice to make about supporting the troops. He has a choice to make about holding the Iraqis accountable, as he said he was going to do. He has a choice to make about supporting our veterans. He has a choice to make about supporting our wounded, whose care has been a disgrace, as many of us have seen. The President of the United States has these choices to make.

Now, we have had a lot of rhetoric in the chamber today, and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle called this shameful. They accused us of weakening America. They essentially questioned our patriotism. They said we didn't support the troops, and that is poppycock. It's disinformation. It's not true.

We all, whether we are Democrats or Republicans, and I know this is true of the people in this country, care deeply about this country. And what we want to see is an America with real strength that is protecting the real security of the American people, and that is leading the world, as we once did, as the most credible of nations, as the nation which, in World War II, stood up to lead the fight against fascism, and then had the courage to put Nazis on public trial in the Nuremberg war trials because we were strong enough to have a transparent due process system. We weren't afraid. And we shouldn't be afraid in resolving this conflict in Iraq, in acting with the real strength that means real security.

Now, our brave troops have done everything that we've asked of them. They fought through an invasion, and after that, it was an ill advised invasion, but then, through the incompetence and mismanagement of this administration, they have been left in the quagmire of a civil war.

And I want to turn now to the words of somebody with far more military experience than me, to talk about the effect of what we have done here in the Congress tonight. Major General John Batiste, United States Army Retired, said, this important legislation sets a new direction for Iraq. It acknowledges that America went to war without mobilizing the Nation, that our strategy in Iraq has been tragically flawed since the invasion in March 2003, that our Army and Marine Corps are at the breaking point with little to show for it, and that our military, alone, will never establish representative government in Iraq. And Major General John Batiste said, the administration got it terribly wrong. And I applaud our Congress for stepping up to their constitutional responsibilities because this Congress, as Major General John Batiste has recognized, unlike the rubber stamp Congresses that have preceded us for years now, is finally the accountability Congress. We are holding our government accountable by passing the Iraq accountability act, which forces the Iraqi government to take responsibility for their own stability.

We are into the fifth year of this war. Hundreds of billions of dollars, and still, no progress on reforming the Constitution.

What about reconciliation? What about all the ministries in the Iraqi government fighting amongst themselves? What about the Sunni/Shia divide that al-Maliki does not seem to want to face and deal with? The Sunnis and Shiites killing each other, and our troops in the middle of it.

So we hold our government accountable to our troops, to our returning soldiers and our veterans. This accountability Congress has held oversight hearings to investigate government mismanagement and corruption in Iraq. We found, for instance, in oversight hearings, that this administration shipped $12 billion of cash over to Iraq without accounting for it, and gave it away to Iraqi ministries to use as they would, without ever asking for a single shred of accounting. No paper trail, no nothing. We're restoring accountability to contracting, ending the massive waste caused by no bid contracts.

And the contractors in Iraq, just so we are clear, on this, we now know that, in addition to the 150,000 troops, give or take, currently in Iraq, there are 126,000 private contractors. And as John Murtha so eloquently talked about the floor tonight, we've got a situation where our brave soldiers are standing there, they are making $25,000 a year, let's say they are pumping gas and doing some security details. And next to them there's a private contractor making $80,000 a year doing the same job. Some of these private contractors, we heard, are making $300,000 a year. That's more than any government official in the United States government. And you want to know where our billions and billions of dollars have gone.

So we're restoring some accountability to government with the Iraq Accountability Act tonight. We're restoring openness and transparency to government, to repair the fabric of our democracy that has been undermined in the course of this administration.

So this President does have a choice to make tonight. And I think of the

words of Zbigniew Brzinski, the former National Security Adviser, who called this war an increasingly immoral, futile exercise in presidential hubris, because, my friends, I'm sorry to say that the President of the United States has said that he's going to veto what Congress has passed. He is going to essentially turn his back on the will of the American people. He's going to go against the advice of retired generals in droves who've come out to talk about the reality. And I believe the American people are going to be disappointed in that veto because they want a new direction in Iraq. And that is the course we have set tonight. I'll kick it back now to Mr. Murphy.

Madam Speaker, the interesting thing about what this bill does, I mean the reality of what it does, is it gives this President an opportunity, it gives him a fabulous opportunity, to face reality, as a leader should, and understand that he is being given the opportunity for a new direction, for a new direction that is tough and smart, and smart about our security, because it is designed to make sure that our interests in the Middle East are taken care of in a responsible way. The American people know that. They want us to be responsible in the way we resolve the situation in Iraq.

Major General Paul Eaton addressed the notion of why this is so responsible when he said, ``This bill gives General Petraeus great leverage for moving the Iraqi Government down the more disciplined path laid out by the Iraq Study Group. The real audience for the timeline language is Prime Minister al-Maliki and the elected Government of Iraq.'' Because it gives the general, it gives the President, the leverage to say, folks, it is time that you stepped up, to say to Prime Minister al-Maliki it is time you stepped up. Are you serious about reconciliation? Are you serious about the political stability that Iraq needs? Are you serious about the economic stability Iraq needs? Are you serious about it, or are you just waiting because we are going to be there forever? Because right now, the President has made an open-ended commitment, and this bill responsibly puts an end to that open-ended commitment.

Now, the folks on the other side of the aisle have said, time and time again, that this somehow weakens us because it gives notice to our enemy, whoever that may be. They say it is al Qaeda. We are in the middle of a civil war. There is some al Qaeda there to be sure. What Major General Paul Eaton said is, ``The argument that this bill aids the enemy is simply not mature. Nobody on the Earth underestimates the United States' capacity for unpredictability. It may further create some sense of urgency in the rest of our government, beginning with the State Department.''

Because we have got to ask, where are the diplomats? Where are the diplomats? There are some provincial reconciliation teams on the ground, working around the country and they are talking about more. But where have been the diplomats? Where has been the diplomatic effort that everybody acknowledges is really what is necessary to bring some stability in the Middle East?

Why did it take Speaker Pelosi to go to Syria to begin some dialogue? Because everybody recognizes that we have got to talk to people, even those who are our enemies in this complex world in the 21st century.

So this bill gives the President, it gives the generals, the leverage to forge a new direction.

I thank the gentleman.

You know, I was hopeful that we could bring both sides of this House together on this bill because our goal is a common goal, to achieve real strength and real security for America.

We all honor our troops. We have a difference in opinion, apparently along party lines primarily, about how best to achieve that. Our friends on the other side of the aisle, and the President, apparently, think that an open-ended commitment and putting more troops into a city of 7 million people into a civil war is the way to do it. We believe that there is a smarter way to help the Iraqis step up and to achieve that security.

Let me just talk briefly about what this bill does, because it really does three important things. First, it adopts the military's own guidelines for troop readiness, training and equipment. We've been sending our soldiers without the right equipment, without adequate training, and without enough

rest between deployments. They're stretched. They've been deployed two times, three times, four times. The length of their deployments have been stretched. And we've adopted the military's own guidelines to say that before troops are sent to Iraq they must be properly equipped, they've got to be trained, they've got to be ready to go.

I can't understand why the President would veto a bill that adopts the military's own guidelines for troop readiness. Because by his veto, he will therefore be rejecting the military's guidelines for troop readiness. He will be saying to the American people, I am perfectly satisfied with sending troops that aren't ready into combat.

The second thing this does is it fully funds the troops, as we have said. In fact, it provides $4 billion more than the President asked directly to the troops. So if he vetoes the bill, he will essentially be saying I'm vetoing, I'm rejecting funding for our troops. I am rejecting the funding that he asked for. I don't understand how he will do that, but that's what his veto will mean.

And finally, we provide a responsible way to redeploy that actually answers the concerns that people had about flexibility for our military commanders on the ground. Because what we do is we set a date based on benchmarks for the Iraqis that the President himself set out in a January 10 speech for the beginning of a strategic redeployment, and we give the military commanders the flexibility on the other end to reach the target goals. So if the President vetoes his own announced benchmarks for the Iraqis, I just don't understand it because he will be vetoing what he said in a speech to the American people on January 10 as his idea about what the Iraqis ought to be doing for themselves. He set the benchmarks, and now he said that he intends to veto his own benchmarks. It's beyond me to understand why he's going to veto what he said he wants to do.

If I can just go on for one more moment. I want to talk about some of the other money in this bill because this is really important. People have complained, I've heard it at home, about what they think is excess domestic spending in this bill. But here's what this bill does in terms of funding that is related to supporting our troops.

This bill provides $3 billion more for mine-resistant ambush- protected vehicles for troops in Iraq.

That's not pork. This bill provides $2 billion more for a Strategic Reserve Readiness Fund to meet the troops' readiness needs.

That's not pork either.

It provides $1.1 billion more for needed military housing. Does that sound like pork?

The bill honors our returning veterans by providing $2.1 billion more for military health care than the President requested, including $900 million for post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury care and research, and $661 million to prevent health care fee increases for our troops. Because what they are now facing under this President's policies is getting sent off to war to fight for their country and coming home to find that their health insurance costs more, that the military health system is too overloaded to take care of them, and that the veterans' system has been overloaded beyond capacity.

Now, if the President vetoes these increases for the veterans and wounded warriors that his policies have created, it will be something that I don't understand and I don't think the American people are going to understand. And so he has a challenge in front of him. He has a challenge and a choice to make. And maybe between now and when this bill hits his desk, he will have one of those moments on the road to Damascus and decide that he will face the reality and do right by our troops, do right by the American people, do right by this country and set a new direction in Iraq.

I will kick it back to you, Mr. Murphy.

Well, as I said at the beginning of the hour, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Altmire, I'm on the ``something'' side of 30, but I am glad to be with you because I am hoping that we, together, have brought an energy to this Congress that really has set a new tone and will help us set a new direction for this country, not just on the war on Iraq, but on health care, on energy, on education and all the policies that the American people want us to get to work on and we've been working hard on.

Before we go, I do want to say that Speaker Pelosi's 30-Something Working Group can be e-mailed at [email protected]. The 30-Somethings, whom I am now a proud guest, being on the something side, can be visited, and here is the Web site address on this chart, www.speaker.gov/30something/index.html.

So I invite everybody who has been working tonight to visit the 30- Something Web site for information on what the agenda for America is that Democrats have been working on. And I thank you for the opportunity to be with you.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) for yielding.

Mr. Speaker and distinguished colleagues, I am glad to be with you tonight to talk about where we have been

in the 110th Congress, where we are, and where we are going, because this Congress really has changed the direction of America.

If you think back to where we were over the past 6 years, this country was frustrated. Frustrated because of the squeeze on the middle class with fiscal policies that weren't working. They weren't working for the middle class and those trying to get into the middle class. They may have been working for those at the very, very tippy top of the financial scale, but not for anybody else. A frustrated middle class and an America which has come together because of a foreign policy which has made us weaker, which has ruined our reputation in the world, which has mired our brave soldiers in a civil war.

They asked for change in November. And in the past 3 months we have delivered substantial change. So tonight we are going to talk about the Accountability Congress. We have changed the Congress of the United States from a Rubber Stamp Congress that didn't hold anybody accountable for anything, but simply rubber stamped what the administration wanted to do without question.

They held no hearings, held no accountability over agencies, and we have replaced it with an accountability Congress that holds the administration accountable, that holds agencies accountable, and is accountable to the American people for making real progress.

So I am very proud to be with you tonight. And I look forward to the next hour when we get to talk about what we've done, where we are and where we're going.

I yield back.

I am glad you asked. Because in the campaign, as we went around, we all heard about the squeeze that our families were in all over this country, complaining about the cost of higher education and the difficulty they were having in paying for the loans that folks have to take out in order to pay for an education. Of course in order to be competitive in a global economy, we need more kids going to college, we need more opportunities for more people in this country.

In my home State of New Hampshire, we actually carry the highest debt-per-student in terms of student loans of any State in the country. So it has been really important at home in New Hampshire and around the country for this Democratic Congress and the new majority to take action.

Now, Mr. Ellison already talked about one of the things that was done in terms of making college more affordable by voting to cut student loan interest rates in half. We've talked about what we have done to restore pay-as-you-go rules, because once you've got fiscal responsibility, once we've restored fiscal responsibility that was absent from the 6 years that the Republicans were borrowing and spending us into a black hole of a deficit, we can start acting with a social conscience and help our college kids.

So one of the things we have done, as this chart shows, is we passed a budget, a Democratic budget that restores fiscal balance, it cuts the deficit, balances the budget over 5 years. And what it does for our kids in college is, first, we propose an increase of the maximum Pell Grant to at least $4,600, significant increase. Our budget, the Democratic budget, the responsible budget, the pay-as-you-go, balance- the-budget-in-5-years budget rejects all of the President's irresponsible proposed cuts to higher education, including that he wants to eliminate the Perkins loan program, Federal supplemental opportunities grants, and leveraging education assistance partnerships. The President's budget actually wants to take opportunities away from our kids going to college and families who are trying to send their kids to college. We have turned that around. We are going to make it easier and more affordable for kids to go to college

I thank you, Mr. Ellison. You know, I couldn't help when I was listening to Patrick Murphy, a brave veteran who served his country and came to Congress and is serving again, continuing his service, to think about how touched I was when he talked about his new baby. Because, really, what we are talking about here is a vision for this country and a vision

for the world that is going to take us on into the 21st century, because we face challenging new times. Things have changed in this country, and the American people know it. And in many ways they are far ahead of the politicians, they are far ahead of many of us. They understand that things have changed in this country.

The conflicts we face are different kinds of conflicts. It is no longer nation against nation. We face threats from a shadowy network of people, terrorists who would do us harm. And we have to be strong to be able to fight terrorism.

But what does being strong mean in the 21st century? The American people have demanded a new direction. They have demanded a new way to defend our country. They want us to fight terrorism, and we intend to fight terrorism; but we intend to do it with a greater focus on those who attacked us on 9/11, with a greater focus on homeland security, on making sure that we are keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Perhaps the greatest threat we face, which went by the boards because of this administration's preoccupation with fighting the wrong war in Iraq which has diverted us from really focusing on the concentrated effort we need from law enforcement, from intelligence, from military, from diplomacy, from the soft power that America, has been extending our cultural ideals and principles out into the world to show people that we are not merely going to bully people with weapons, but we are also going to stand on our ideals and principles.

So defending our country and staying strong means making sure that we have a responsible strategy to disengage from Iraq so we can deal with Afghanistan, and Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden is still hiding out, still directing al Qaeda; so that we can do what we need to do to go back and finish the job that this administration left unfinished. That is what defending our country means, because this war in Iraq, as everybody in this country is seeing, has left us weaker. It has caused more terrorism, more death, more disdain for the United States.

I am sorry for that. We want to see us return to the place in the world where people care about us because of our values and our principles, and that is one of the most important things that we are going to do in this 110th Congress.

We are going to improve our military readiness by making sure that we are going to rebuild a 21st century force, capable of projecting power and our ideals to protect our country and our interests, and that means new thinking. It means new thinking about how we deal with the conflicts we are in, how we deal with the conflicts in the future.

It means part of the reason that we hope the President takes his cue from the American people and faces the reality of the mess that he has made and changes direction is so that we can rebuild our military to make sure that we can face the conflicts of the future.

We are going to demand accountability, and we are going to end the rubber-stamp approach to congressional oversight of the war in Iraq and we have started to do that. We are going to continue to do that. We are going to fight the war on terrorism, and we are going to hold our own government accountable for failed policies. We are going to respond to the American people who want a new direction, and we are going to deliver on homeland security.

That is the first way. That is the first thing on our agenda. It is a new vision of what it means to be strong. It is a new vision of what it means to defend our country.

We can have all the military might in the world and we do. We spend more in our budget than all the rest of the world combined spends on defense, and I ask, you has it made us safer? Have the policies of this administration made us safer? The answer is no.

We see there has got to be a new direction. We see there has got to be a new vision, and that is what Democrats are bringing to this 110th Congress when it comes to defending our country and keeping us strong. There is a new definition of national security, and that is what we are all about.

I appreciate the opportunity to be with you all tonight and talk about where we have been, where we are and we are going to take this country.

We are going to defend our country and we are going to grow our economy, care for our children and families. We are going to protect our planet with a 21st century energy policy. We are going to deal with energy independence and global climate change. We have restored accountability, and we are going to keep on restoring accountability because in this 21st century we are in a global economy.

The Democrats and the new majority here in Congress are committed to growing our economy in a way that really spreads opportunities to everybody. It means fair trade policies that incorporate fair environmental and labor standards so that every American worker can operate on the same playing field.

We are going to grow the economy. We are going to invest in research and development. We are going to make sure that we are moving this country forward.

So it has been a great time to be with you tonight.

I thank the chairman. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding her time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 1361, the RECOVER Act. This bill provided a much-needed overhaul to the Small Business Administration and its disaster aid program. After a disaster, the SBA issues loans to help individuals and small businesses rebuild their lives, often shattered by storms and other natural disasters.

After Hurricane Katrina, the average time for the SBA to process a loan, not including closing, was 74 days, far above the agency's goal of 21 days. This is absolutely unacceptable.

As I speak here today, people all across my home State of New Hampshire are dealing with the aftermath of a recent powerful nor'easter. On April 15, 2007, New Hampshire experienced a severe storm that dropped almost 6 inches of water in a matter of hours. The State as a whole has experienced sustained power and communications outages, and there are currently over 100 local communities that are reporting significant damage to local infrastructure. Our Governor has declared a state of emergency.

More than 60 percent of the businesses in New Hampshire are small businesses. This program is absolutely vital to my constituents now more than ever. We owe it to our small businesses nationwide to have access to critical relief services. I encourage my colleagues in the House to support this overhaul of SBA disaster aid, and reject proposed amendments.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for being here with us tonight. I am delighted to be a new Member in the House of Representatives, the people's House, sent by my constituents to help restore the fabric of our democracy, which, during the past 6 years, has really been torn and undermined by a rubber-stamp Congress which refused to ask questions of an administration conducting its policies largely in secret, taking the American people down a path with counterfeit leadership, a leadership that used fear and intimidation to lead, instead of real leadership which helps people face reality, come together and seek common ground and solutions.

And for many people, when they think of the United States House of Representatives, they think of Congress as a body which raises revenue and figures out how to spend it. It sets taxes and sets a budget. And that is how a lot of folks think about Congress, and sure we spend a lot of our time doing that.

But there is another very important function of the United States Congress in our constitutional scheme, and it is completely independent of what party is in the White House, what party is in the majority in Congress, what party is in the majority in the Senate. It is the way that, in the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, they set up this great government of ours so that there would be checks and balances, there would be controls. And the accountability and oversight function of Congress is what we have restored with this Democratic majority.

There have been great leaders who have recognized that important feature and that important job of Congress. And I have got a chart here, a little board and a quote that is really important and talks a lot about what it means for Congress to exercise its function of accountability.

President Woodrow Wilson said, ``It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees. It is meant to be the eyes and the voice and to embody the wisdom and will of its constituents. The informing function of Congress should be preferred, even to its legislative function.''

So here is President Wilson, some years ago, recognizing that the oversight and accountability function of Congress is perhaps even more important than the legislative function.

So for this Congress, while the last Congress might have been called ``the rubber-stamp Congress'' or the last Congress might have been called ``the Katrina Congress'' because they presided over such a disaster for us, I bet that this Congress, under Democratic majority, is going to be ``the accountability Congress.''

Now, one thing that is interesting, I want to take us back for a moment as we sort of set the tone for tonight to talk about something that happened in ancient times. It has been said that the ancient Romans had a tradition. Whenever one of their engineers constructed an arch, at the capstone was hoisted into place, the engineer assumed accountability for his work in the most profound way possible, he stood under the arch. In the President's war on terror, the capstone he chose is Iraq, but it is everyday Americans, and especially our veterans, returning soldiers who are wounded and our veterans who stood under the arch as it crumbled.

Over the past few weeks, we have sustained blow after blow as the President's plan fell apart. But it is not the President who will pay the billions necessary to stabilize Iraq, it is not the President who slept in molding infested rooms at Walter Reed Hospital, it is not the President who lost his job because of a political decision. But maybe it ought to be.

The confluence of events of recent weeks, the Valerie Plame scandal, the Walter Reed scandal, the politically motivated firing of U.S. Attorneys, is the result of an administration that went too far for too long without any meaningful oversight, without any meaningful accountability, without a Congress to hold it accountable. It has been said that absolute power corrupts absolutely. And for years, absolute power is what our Republican colleagues, who were in control until November of 2006, gave to this administration.

Tonight, I come to the floor with my colleagues to talk about restoring accountability to government because the arch has fallen on us, and we are going to repair it.

Madam Speaker, I was thinking about what our colleague Mr. Welch talked about in terms of the investigation into the way in which the administration may have interfered for political purposes with the administration of justice by the United States Attorneys, causing the firing of United States Attorneys for political purposes. And it is interesting to me.

I come from New Hampshire, a small State. And probably many of the folks who may be listening tonight and many people in this Chamber, although there aren't too many, have heard of the name Daniel Webster. And Daniel Webster said a very important thing. He said: ``There is nothing so powerful as the truth.'' And, really, that is what we are talking about.

Our colleague Mr. Ellison talked about trust, and what we are really

talking about is bringing truth to government, bringing integrity to government, bringing openness, bringing transparency, authentic honesty back into the Halls of Congress and wherever oversight and accountability take us. And in terms of what is happening with the United States Attorney scandal, if we have learned one thing about this administration, it is how it responds to its critics. When someone says something they don't like, they get rid of them. The current U.S. Attorney scandal is really just the latest example.

And now folks are probably seeing that there is a conflict. The White House doesn't want people from the White House to come to Capitol Hill in the open light of day under oath to tell the truth to committees in Congress and committees in the Senate. And the question you have got to ask is, what is there to hide? Why not come, take an oath, tell the truth, and deal with the issues?

I started my legal career in New Hampshire as a prosecutor. I was hired by a good Republican, a man named David Souter, who is now sitting on the United States Supreme Court. And what I learned as a prosecutor from David Souter was that the critical thing about the prosecutor's role was that the prosecutor serves the people. My job was to stand up and serve the people of my State. The job of the U.S. Attorney is to stand up and represent the people of the United States. U.S. Attorneys don't represent the President. They don't represent any particular politician. They represent all of the people. And so their judgment has to be independent judgment in order to see that justice is done because what we are after is justice, not political retribution.

So you can imagine what happens in our great system of justice if instead of thinking about truth and justice, the United States Attorney is motivated by political influence. It perverts the system of justice. It means no justice can be had. So the investigations that are going on now, the accountability and oversight over the administration having the folks come down and talk to our committees is absolutely critical. It is fundamental to the preservation of the democratic fabric of this country, because if an administration, if White House officials can exert pressure on the United States Attorneys and remove their independence, then the people can't depend upon our system of justice.

So this may be one of the most important of the investigations and the new accountability that we are seeing in Congress. And, frankly, what I have said to folks back home is we are not going to let this go by without getting the answers. So when folks see the battle over the subpoenas, when they see the White House resisting having its people come down, folks are asking why. What are you afraid of? Let the truth come out. Let's find out what happened. Now, that is accountability. That is oversight, and that is why the American people sent us here.

Absolutely.

Absolutely, sir.

Mr. Ellison, that is called a Siberian express. That is not just a chilling effect. That is ice cubes in your shoes. That puts the fear in the prosecutor. Now, prosecutors are brave people, and these U.S. Attorneys were brave people standing up to do their job. But it has to have a chilling effect, and it is exactly what we are talking about. The independence of our United States Attorneys is the hallmark, the foundation of the Federal system of justice, and it has to be preserved. And that is why it doesn't matter whether the White House is Republican or Democrat. If this was a Democratic administration that was doing this, we would be doing the same thing if we were following Woodrow Wilson's advice and doing our job here in the Congress.

You know, I can give you a perspective on that. I won't take too long to do that.

My experience, and I had many years as a prosecutor and also many years as an attorney in court, is that the oath that you take to tell the truth is a powerful thing. It is a meaningful thing, and it is an important thing, because when a person swears to tell the truth, it has the effect of opening one's eyes to the importance and the majesty of the process that is involved in coming before a body, whatever body that is, and holding up your right hand and swearing to tell the truth.

What happens then is, frankly, the person who is going to tell the truth and swears to tell the truth is subjected to a host of requirements and possible penalties if they don't tell the truth. That also turns out to be a powerful motivator.

In this country we have trial by jury where witnesses come to tell the truth. We have investigations by Congress where witnesses come to tell the truth. And that really has proven to be the best, clearest, most open way in an open, transparent democratic government, like the one that we want to have and want to preserve, to get to the truth.

That is all we are asking. We are not intending to ask folks to say or do anything they didn't do or to tell us something that isn't so. We just want to get to the truth.

So a deal that has people behind closed doors without a transcript of the proceedings, with no way to review what has been said and no ability to do anything if they don't tell the truth, just doesn't cut it.

Thank you, Mr. Klein. It has been a pleasure to be with you here tonight and have this conversation with the people of this country about what oversight and accountability brings to government.

I started my remarks this evening with a quotation from former President Woodrow Wilson. And I want to go back further in time to end my remarks with a quote from John Stuart Mill who said: ``The proper office of a representative assembly is to watch and control the government, to throw the light of publicity of its acts, to compel a full exposition and justification of all of them which anyone considers questionable.''

And it is that light of publicity, the light that we shine with accountability that helps preserve this government and leads to an open and transparent government. I am privileged to serve on the Information Subcommittee of the Government Oversight and Reform Committee. One of the things that we did which is essential in terms of the accountability of government, we brought to the floor and passed in this Congress in a bipartisan way much-needed reforms to the Freedom of Information Act. It is an act which every citizen can take advantage of to gain information about the government, to hold the government accountable, find documents and information that is the citizens' right to have.

What we did was we restored the Freedom of Information Act to its rightful place where there is now once again a presumption in this government that the government should be open and disclose to its citizens what is going on, what it has for information and documents unless those documents fit into certain narrow exemptions. This has been a critical thing that we have done in this Congress.

I am proud to be a new Member and working hard for accountability. And when the American people see that they truly have an accountability Congress working for them to eliminate waste, fraud, abuse and corruption, to save taxpayer money, they will once again regain trust in their elected officials and in the people's House.

Madam Speaker, we have entered the fifth year of the war in Iraq, and thousands of soldiers have returned home wounded and in need of serious medical care. The situation at Walter Reed made it clear that changes must be made to ensure that our wounded troops receive timely comprehensive care that extends through the length of their condition.

To provide these crucial services, more is needed for defense health care than the President requested. The status quo is simply not acceptable for our troops who are injured while serving our country. We owe them our real support.

The emergency supplemental proposed by this Democratic Congress nearly doubles the amount of funding requested by the President for military health care. These additional funds will enhance medical services for active duty forces, mobilized personnel and their families, including: post-traumatic stress disorder counseling, traumatic brain injury care and burn treatment.

The funds will also help prevent health care fee increases for troops and address the problems found at Walter Reed.

Madam Speaker, passage of this bill supports our troops and will ensure that they receive the quality care they deserve.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Democratic Caucus, I offer a privileged resolution (H. Res. 253) and ask for its immediate consideration.