Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman yielding me this time, and thank the gentleman for the good work he does on health care on the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Davis motion. Under H.R. 1, Medicare, pure and simple, ends as we know it, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means has predicted and has worked towards, it ends in 7 years. In 7 years, regardless of what Republicans tell us, Medicare will be replaced by a voucher to cover part of the premium for health insurance. As the voucher goes into effect, seniors out-of-pocket costs increase. Medicare no longer, under the plan of the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), under H.R. 1, under the Republican plan, it no longer guarantees seniors and disabled Americans access to the health care that is deemed medically necessary for them. The government would contribute a set number of dollars to an HMO or some other health insurance; beneficiaries foot the rest of the bill. The government may, although they have not under HMOs so far, may save money; but every dollar the government saves comes out of middle-class and lower-income seniors' pockets.

So much for the Medicare entitlement, so much for guaranteed benefits, so much for choices that matter: Choice of hospital, choice of doctor. I love it when Members on the other side of the aisle say seniors want more choice. They want choice of hospital and doctor. That is what Medicare gives them. They are not asking for choice of insurance agent or insurance company or maybe even choice of glossy HMOs brochure, they want choice of hospital and choice of doctor. That is what Medicare has given seniors for 38 years.

I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle say Democrats do not have a solution. First of all, you have to tell me what the problem is before we offer the solution because Medicare clearly, except it does not have a prescription drug benefit and it is too expensive for some seniors, and we need to fix that, but other than that, seniors are happy with the way Medicare works. They have full physician choice, and they

have full hospital choice. I love how the other side of the aisle argues for market-based competition. That has certainly worked to keep the price of prescription drugs down. It is good for going to the grocery store and buying a new stereo, but it does not seem to be working for prescription drugs or HMOs.

Seniors would choose an HMO over traditional Medicare if traditional Medicare were funded as well as it should be, I do not think so. But what I think about this, Mr. Speaker, what I think about the Republican efforts to privatize Medicare and turn it into a voucher system to change, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the leading Republican expert in this Congress on Medicare says, to change, to end Medicare as we know it.

When I think about that, it dawns on me what the Republicans want to do. They have never, Republicans have never really appreciated and liked Medicare. In 1965 when Medicare was passed, only 11 Republicans in this whole body and the other body voted for it: Then-Congressman Bob Dole voted no, then-Congressman Gerald Ford voted no, then-Senator Strom Thurmond voted no, then-Congressman Donald Rumsfeld voted no. Republicans did not want to create Medicare.

Then many years later, the first time Republicans were in control of this body, the first thing Speaker Gingrich did, the first time they were in the majority, the first thing he tried to do was cut $270 million from Medicare. Why, to give a tax cut to the most privileged people in society, wealthy Americans. They do not like this program. They want to privatize this program. They want to turn Medicare over to private insurance companies, private HMOs, so instead of choice of physician and hospital, you will have choice of glossy insurance company brochure, you will have choice of insurance agent, choice of insurance company. That is not the kind of choice senior citizens want.

Mr. Speaker, every time since Mr. Gingrich in 1995 tried to cut Medicare, every other time Republicans have had an ability to do something to try and weaken Medicare, they have tried to do it. President Bush said in a State of the Union speech, he said if you want to get prescription drug coverage, you have to get out of Medicare and go into a private HMO to get it.

The Democrats simply want Medicare prescription drug coverage to be done through traditional Medicare, not turned over to insurance companies. When you look at what Republicans think about Medicare, the lack of support in 1965, the lack of support in 1993, the lack of support in 1999, the lack of support in 2003, you know the system works, you know the Republicans do not like a government program like that.

Mr. Speaker, I ask for support for the Davis motion to instruct. It makes sense. We want to preserve and protect Medicare, not privatize this system and turn it over to the insurance industry which just happens to give millions and millions of dollars to President Bush and to Republican candidates.

I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding. When you talk about cost savings, you can talk about a lot of things but the greatest opportunity we have to save money for the Medicare program is to put the prescription drug benefit inside Medicare and then use the buying power of 39 million Medicare beneficiaries to bring the price down. That is what the Canadians do. That is what the French and the Germans and the Japanese and the Israelis and the Brits do. They use the buying power of millions of seniors, of millions of citizens in their country to get the price down.

That is why Americans pay two and three and four times the price of prescription drugs that anybody else in the world pays. But probably the reason for that is, again, as the insurance industry, it goes back to who is helping the Republican Party. The drug industry has already given $60 or $70 million to President Bush's campaign and to House Republicans and Senate Republicans. That is why this prescription drug benefit, H.R. 1, and every other House bill that comes to this floor sponsored by the Republican leadership will never deal with the high cost of prescription drugs simply because the drug industry, who frankly is way, way too influential in this body, the drug industry simply will not let my Republican friends bring a bill to floor that will cost them a lot of money.

Mr. Speaker, 1838, former President, then- Congressman, John Quincy Adams came to the House floor because he was prohibited, as were the other Members of Congress, from debating the most important issue of the day.

Conservative leadership in the House of Representatives between 1838 and 1842 had passed a rule prohibiting and banning the discussion of slavery on the floor of the House of Representatives. Then-Congressman John Quincy Adams came to the floor, day after day, week after week, sharing letters from his constituents, many of them from women who could not vote in those days, sharing letters from his constituents asking, pleading with the House, that they debate the issue of slavery and that they ban and wipe away that blot on American history.

In some ways similarly today, Members of this House have not had the opportunity to debate the issues of Iraq, of keeping our troops safe in Iraq, of providing and supplying our troops, of the corruption and the incompetence in the Pentagon and in the Bush administration in supplying the troops and turning over so many public dollars to private contractors.

As a result, I would like to share some of those concerns. Since we are not debating the issues on the House floor, I would like share some of the concerns with letters from my constituents.

Sabba, from Richfield, Ohio, writes, ``The Bush administration had no concrete evidence confirming the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bush completely disregarded the United Nations' dissenting opinion.''

You can see in letter after letter I am receiving in Ohio, and my colleagues, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Jones) and Members from both parties in Ohio are receiving from all over the country, people's concerns that the President and the administration may not have leveled with the American people about all of these issues.

Margaret of Strongsville writes, ``Please don't throw money into a vast pit which will affect us all for another several generations.''

Margaret is referring to the $1 billion a week that the President is already spending in Iraq, a third of that money unaccounted for, going to private contractors, many of them the President's friends, and that is where she and so many others believe there is so much waste and so much pork.

Marvin of Akron, Ohio, says, ``The request must be carefully scrutinized and unnecessary expenditures removed.''

Thomas of Akron, Ohio, writes, ``How much debt is acceptable?''

What he is writing about is he understands, as most Members of this House do, I think, on both sides of the aisle, that the $87 billion is put on a government credit card. We are going to spend our children's and our grandchildren's money, in large part, because Congress has voted a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. The average millionaire in this country, as Thomas knows from his letter, the average millionaire in this country gets a $93,000 tax cut. Half of Ohioans get no tax cut at all. Yet, we are not going to rescind that tax cut for the richest of Americans, for the American millionaires

that get $93,000; we are going to put this war on a credit card so that that $87 billion plus the $80 billion that Congress has already spent, plus the tens of billions more that we know President Bush will ask for, will be paid for by our children and our grandchildren.

Crystal of Akron writes, ``Please think long and hard before you spend $87 billion. To what end?'' We hear that over and over and over.

When I read these letters, Mr. Speaker, one thing also that comes out is people understand that of this $1 billion a week we are spending in Iraq, one-third of it goes to private contractors. Most of those private contracts are unbid contracts, and most of that money is going to friends of the President. Halliburton, Bechtel, corporation after corporation, if you look at FEC reports, you see those corporations, the employees of those corporations are giving hundreds of thousands and, in some cases, millions of dollars to the President's campaign. And to make that even worse, Mr. Speaker, Halliburton, the company where the former CEO is now the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, Halliburton has received over $2 billion in government contracts, over $1 billion in unbid, unaccounted for contracts; and Halliburton is still paying Vice President Cheney, still paying Vice President Cheney $13,400 a month. Vice President Cheney is receiving $13,000, more than $13,000 a month, $160,000 a year, from this company that gets unbid contracts of taxpayer dollars to fix Iraq, to supply the troops, to do whatever that Halliburton is supposedly doing.

Halliburton's profits have gone sky high while they have the go on these contracts, while they have paid the Vice President of the United States. It is just amazing to me. All of us in this body should be incredulous that we are spending this kind of money, giving this money to a company like Halliburton, with unbid contracts, literally hundreds of millions of dollars a week, and then this company turns around and pays Vice President Cheney $13,000 a month.

Mr. Speaker, I close with the last letter, Anthony from Akron, Ohio: ``Bush needs to face up to these facts. I am 16 years old. I myself feel that growing up in America will now be tougher because of all of these things that are going on.''

Mr. Speaker, end the corruption, end the incompetence of the Bush administration in Iraq, do it right. Fix Iraq the right way. Stop the corruption. Stop the incompetence.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, my fellow Ohioan, with whom I share one county, Lorraine County. I appreciate the good work the gentlewoman does there and throughout our State and especially the leadership that the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) has shown. People that watch C-SPAN and people who have followed these issues know that the gentlewoman from Toledo has done more for justice and trade agreements than perhaps any Member of this body. Way before my time when we started working together against NAFTA in 1993, she was doing this for the decade before that also. So I thank her for that.

The gentlewoman has done a particularly good job in talking about the big picture. I want to talk a bit about Ohio and what it means in a State of our size, the seventh biggest State in the country, I believe, and a State that has been hit, not quite the hardest but darn near the hardest of any State in the country in terms of lost manufacturing jobs. One out of six manufacturing jobs in Ohio is gone. That means for every six people in manufacturing, the day that George Bush put up his right hand and took the oath of office, one out of those six people across my State, our State, has lost his or her job in manufacturing.

Those are the best-paying industrial jobs. They are the jobs that send kids to college. They are the jobs that buy homes. They are the jobs that buy cars. They are the jobs that put food on the table.

At the same time, we have seen this economy managed by President Bush go from a major budget surplus to now a $500 billion budget deficit. And that is not counting the $87 billion that the President is pushing through the Congress to spend on Iraq, where one-third of that money goes to private contractors and much of that money goes to unbid contracts to the President's friends. Halliburton, the largest contractor in Iraq, is still paying Vice President Cheney $13,000 a month. It boggles the mind. While Americans are suffering, jobs are lost, the manufacturing basis is worst than decimated, literally, that we are helping to enrich a company with private contracts where it is still paying the Vice President of the United States $13,000 a month.

When you talk about the trade deficit the gentlewoman mentioned, we now have a $450 billion-a-year trade deficit. The trade deficit for August of this year was greater than the trade deficit for the entire year of 1992. In 1992 we had a trade deficit, if I recall, of about $39 billion. The trade deficit of a couple of months ago, 1 month was $42 billion.

As the gentlewoman said, every billion dollars in a trade deficit translates into 20,000 lost jobs. So when we are talking about a trade deficit of $40 billion, $45 billion a month, you are talking about hundreds of thousands, millions of jobs certainly in the course of a year, we are losing in manufacturing; $100 million trade deficit with China in about a decade ago. Now we have a $100 billion trade deficit with China, a thousand times greater than just about a decade ago.

President Bush's answer is always more tax cuts for the most privileged. The average millionaire in this country gets a $90,000 tax cut. Half of Ohioans got zero dollars in tax cuts; $90,000 for millionaires, zero for half of Ohioans, and only a few dollars for most of the rest of Ohioans, while one out of six Ohioans who worked in manufacturing has lost his or her job.

The President's answer, tax breaks for the most privileged and more trade agreements. The President is now in the middle, as the gentlewoman knows, working to negotiate an expansion of NAFTA. He wants to expand NAFTA to Central America, something called CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement. He then wants to expands CAFTA and NAFTA to the FTAA, Free Trade Act of the Americas. That will double the size of NAFTA. It will quadruple the number of low-income workers in the free trade area, the Western Hemisphere area.

What does that mean? That means a continued hemorrhaging of jobs. We know we have lost in our State, I believe the gentlewoman said, 150,000 manufacturing jobs. We have lost 150,000 manufacturing jobs in Ohio. It is not like a normal recession that this President helped to cause. It is not a normal recession where people get their jobs back after 6 months or a year. These jobs are lost. They are in Mexico. They are in China. They are in these places that the gentlewoman was pointing out.

When the President's answer to every economic problem is more tax cuts to the most privileged on the one hand, and more trade agreements that hemorrhage jobs to Mexico and China on the other, it troubles me to think what our future is.

It is so clear what we need to do in terms of restoring American manufacturing, but it is so wrong what the President has decided to do. More tax cuts for millionaires, $90,000 on the average; more trade agreements, expanding NAFTA to Latin America and continuing to hemorrhage thousands, hundreds of thousands in the case of our State, manufacturing jobs south of the border, east of the border, across the ocean or wherever.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from New Jersey. I do not have the technical expertise that the gentleman, the physicist, has.

I, for 8 years, ran Ohio's election system, then the sixth largest election system in the country, an election system where we saw in Presidential elections 4.6 million Ohioans go to the polls. In gubernatorial years, we might see 3.2, 3.3 million people go to the polls. In primary and special elections, elections in odd number, mayoral years, township trustee year, we would see fewer people, but what underlined all of that, and I think my friend from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) spoke this very well, was how important confidence in the system is and whether it is everyone for everyone, confidence in an accurate count is paramount.

The confidence as far as the voter is concerned that my vote will be counted is paramount. Confidence that the candidates running for office or the advocates for the issues on the ballot or the opponents to the issues on the ballot, but all of the stakeholders, the players, the candidates, the participants they must be confident that the elections are held fairly and honestly. The media which cover the elections, which write about the elections, which analyze the elections, it is equally as important that the media have full confidence in the electoral process, that every vote is counted.

While the technology is different from my career in the 1980s, from 1983 up through 1990, certainly the technology is different, I also saw technology evolve during those 8 years I was Secretary of State. In some counties, when I began, they used a simple paper ballot. Some counties used a machine. Some counties used that punch card. We began to see new technologies, counties using different methods of casting votes and counting votes, but in every one of those cases, in every one of those counties, what stayed paramount was the confidence that the votes would be counted properly so that the voter had confidence,

the candidates had confidence and the media had confidence that this was a fair operation.

They were confident because we, as election officials, there were people that ran the State election system, that ran each local precinct, each polling place, each local board of election, we could show to them that votes, in fact, were counted fairly. We had paper trails. No matter how they were voting we were able to show that, yes, the votes were counted correctly.

We had plenty of people protest. We would have recounts, but during the recounts, people would be able to watch representatives of both sides to make sure the votes were counted fairly, and they always were in the end, and this is what my concern is.

I am not a Luddite anymore than my physicist friend from New Jersey is. I am not against progress. I do not have any of those fears, but I am concerned as I hear people in my District in both parties express those concerns that we are voting on computers, and we do not have paper trails in some of this equipment.

Then I hear some sort of irresponsible statements made by some executives from some companies who are active participants in these elections, and I hear comments from people I know around my State that that scares a little bit, and I do not think this is a question of fear, but it is a question of concern, and I am just asking this Congress to pay special attention to this whole process so that people can continue to have confidence in the election system.

Every election is a big election. This election next year, I think we will see the highest voter turnout we have had in decades because I think people have such strong feelings on all sides about the way the country is being run today, and I want to be able to say in good conscience, say next October as we lead into the November election, that I have full confidence in the way that votes will be cast and full confidence in the way that votes will be counted. It is what we owe the people. It is what our republic is based on, one person, one vote, and one person, one vote only works if every one of those one voters have the confidence in the election that they need to have.

So I thank my friend from New Jersey for his yeoman's work and leadership on this.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey, my friend, and I appreciate hearing the comments from the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sandlin) and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), and I

thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for his night after night work on exposing the kinds of corruption that we have seen in this whole process.

We all know about this corruption. We know that we are spending $1 billion a week in Iraq. We know that $300 million, 30 percent of that $1 billion a week is going to private contractors, most of them friends of the President, most of them major contributors to the President. One of them, Halliburton, used to be the company where the Vice President was CEO and a company that still pays the Vice President $13,000 a month. We know all of that. We know about the corruption. We know about the waste. We know it continues. But what bothers me, what bothers me probably the most about that is what Halliburton and these private contractors are not doing.

Last month, early this month, I had a meeting with 25 families in Akron, Ohio, in my district on a Saturday morning. It was going to be about an hour and a half meeting and ended up being over 3 hours, with 25 families who had loved ones in Iraq. What I heard was how our government, and our government, unfortunately, now includes a privatized military worth $300 million out of $1 billion that goes to Halliburton, and our government has simply failed these service men and women. The stories are legion; we are all hearing them in our districts. I heard them for 3 hours that day. We do not have safe drinking water for our troops. Hundreds, thousands of our troops are getting, have gotten dysentery. We do not have sufficient antibiotics in many cases. We do not have, and this is the most shocking and the most troubling, we do not have enough body armor for our men and women in uniform. One-fourth of servicemen and -women lack the body armor they need; and that body armor will not be available until December, we are told by Mr. Bremer, the person the White House has hired, that President Bush has hired to oversee the rebuilding of Iraq, and by Mr. Rumsfeld.

Mr. Speaker, I am incredulous that we are spending $1 billion a week, 30 percent of that money going to the President's friends, and many of it, much of it in an unbid contract, as the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) has shown us; yet we cannot find enough money to provide safe drinking water for our troops. We cannot supply and protect our troops sufficiently. We do not have enough money, or the wherewithal to get the antibiotics to them that they need, and we do not have sufficient body armor when President Bush knew we were going to war at least a year ago, and still cannot have enough body armor for our men and women there.

So I do not get it. We have seen this kind of corruption and incompetence on the part of the President, the White House, the military, the civil authority, the military leaders. We are seeing brave men and women over there. But the people who are running this operation, we are seeing corruption and we are seeing incompetence, and we are seeing a small number of companies get incredibly rich. We are seeing the President's campaign chest fatten every day.

Tomorrow the President is going to be in Columbus, Ohio, in my State, raising several hundred thousand dollars, maybe $1 million. We are hearing that every week he is going out on a funding trip. Vice President Cheney, about the only time he is in public is for a fund- raising trip. They always raise money from Halliburton and Bechtel and these contractors.

So, I mean, think of this circle. We are spending $87 billion this Congress is about to appropriate. We are already spending a billion dollars a week. A third of that money goes to private contractors who are friends of the President, who give money to the President's campaign. Yet where is the focus on protecting and supplying our troops? I guess it is not criminal, but it is just incredible to me that the President of the United States is so intent on fundraising and so intent on feeding his political friends and getting these political contributions in return, that this White House, and this administration, and the military brass and the civilian leaders that the President has appointed to run Iraq have taken their eye off the ball. They have lost focus on the most important thing over there and that is the supplying and protecting of our troops.

I would like to see some answers. We apparently are not getting them. I hope tonight, if some people from some of the top brass of the Pentagon are watching, some people at the White House, maybe they can give us answers. I asked Mr. Bremer at committee questions about this. We do not seem to be getting any answers there.

I am nonplussed by it all, Mr. Speaker. I hope that this administration can do better so that our troops have safe drinking water, our troops have the body armor they need, our troops have the antibiotics they need.

We can simplify this reconstruction of Iraq so we are not wasting huge amounts of money, so we are not doing it through unbid private contracts, so that we are doing it through a competitive bid process so Americans can feel more comfortable that our troops can be safer so that this operation will work better.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, if I may, may I say the actions of the administration are corrupt and incompetent?

Mr. Speaker, I mean, it is not the Clinton administration, although we still seem to hear that from time to time. It is the Bush administration. May I say that?

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from New York.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) and the good work they have done. I have come to the House floor night after night since July sharing concerns about the treatment of our men and women in uniform in Iraq, concerns about the basis of our Iraq policy, concerns about the $87 billion we are spending in Iraq, in addition to the $1 billion a week we have already been spending; about the corruption and the ineptness of the Bush administration and their all-too-often focusing more on the private contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel than they have on the safety of our armed services and our troops.

And as a result, Mr. Speaker, I have shared these from my constituents night after night since July about these issues. I would like to do that again this evening.

Paula from Akron, Ohio, writes, ``We need to be concerned with our troubled economy at home. This country doesn't have $87 billion to send overseas when we have an education system that is in shambles and millions out of work.''

Cory of Copley, Ohio, writes, ``Please do not give the administration another blank check so they can continue their oil wars. Tell them to pull out of Iraq and let the U.N. take control. The administration has lied to the country. Please do your part in returning our country to the people.''

I think Cory was talking about some of the statements from some of the top leaders in this country about weapons of mass destruction and other issues which have proven to be not true.

Karen of Broadview Heights writes, ``We have been way too patient with men who clearly do not know what they are doing and who do not care how much of the taxpayers' money they spend to do it.''

Michael of Strongsville writes, ``I think it is either irresponsible or insane, or perhaps both, to have huge tax cuts at the same time we are spending huge amounts for war.'' What Michael is referring to is that this Congress and the President have passed a tax cut where the average millionaire gets a $93,000 tax cut while half of the people in my State got literally zero dollars in a tax cut. ``I hope our legislative branch of government,'' Michael writes, ``deliberates long and hard before coughing up another $87 billion.''

Colette of Strongsville writes, ``To give them $73 billion more to continue their real aim, contracts for Halliburton, Bechtel, and others in corporate America, would be a crime against the people in the United States who now reel with economic deterioration at home. It is time to hold those accountable who led us into such a dark place in our Nation's history.'' What Colette is talking about, Mr. Speaker, is that we spend a billion a week today, before the $87 billion appropriation, a billion dollars a week in Iraq today.

The President has by and large privatized the military in the sense that one-third of that billion now goes to private contractors, Halliburton, Bechtel, other major companies, all of those companies are major contributors to the President, to his campaign. The President has raised almost $100 million already. Much of it comes from these companies.

I would add too that Halliburton, the company where Vice President Cheney, before Governor Bush tapped him as his running mate, Vice President Cheney was CEO of this company. He still is receiving $13,000 a month from Halliburton while Halliburton is getting, literally, hundreds of millions of dollars in unbid contracts.

So what we see, Mr. Speaker, and what Colette obviously is upset about, is we are privatizing, in many ways, much of the military, $300 million a week going to these private companies in unbid contracts, and those companies are still paying, in one case, the Vice President of the United States $13,000 a month.

Sandy of Hinckley, Ohio, writes, ``It is of extreme importance for the future of this country to hold President Bush accountable. We lost a great deal in human life and money for claims that even President Bush cannot now and does not now defend.''

Vera of Strongsville writes, ``I want my tax dollars rebuilding us, not Iraq or any other country. $87 billion would go a long way here in the United States. Secretary Rumsfeld and his team need to be replaced with some honest and caring people who will tell the truth and do the best things for the Iraqi people and will bring our troops home safely.''

Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago when the $87 billion was approved by this body, I had an amendment that required that all U.S. companies which relocated their headquarters to an offshore tax haven would be ineligible for any government contracts. In other words, if a company moved offshore to avoid taxes, they could no longer get any government contracts to do work in Iraq.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration opposed that amendment. The Republican leadership in this House

would not even allow that amendment to be offered. That is what I mean, and what many of these letter writers mean, when they talk about the corruption and the incompetence of the Bush administration and the failure of the Bush administration to provide safe drinking water and body armor and other things for our troops to protect them and supply them in a faraway land.

Mr. Speaker, the company from which Vice President Cheney, the sitting Vice President of the United States, the company from which he continues to draw $13,000 a month, Halliburton, is back in the headlines.

The latest example of impropriety from the Vice President's company comes in the form of price-gouging gasoline in Iraq at the expense of American taxpayers. Halliburton is overcharging United States citizens, as reported in The New York Times, as reported in studies, to the tune of $250 million, money we are not spending on prescription drugs for seniors, money we are not spending on education, money we are not spending on highways. Halliburton is overcharging U.S. citizens $250 million, a ploy that independent experts have termed simply ``highway robbery.''

Here is how their scheme works: Halliburton procures gasoline that they generally get from Kuwait, gasoline that can be bought in the Persian Gulf for 71 cents a gallon. It could be transported to Iraq for no more than 25 cents per gallon. It is brought to the United States, to New York Harbor, for under a dollar. So they buy it for 71 cents; they transport it to Iraq for 25 cents. That brings the total to 96 cents a gallon. Halliburton then adds on its profit margin 2 to 7 percent, bringing the price total to $1.03 a gallon. Yet Halliburton charges the Federal Government, the government where Dick Cheney is the Vice President, the government where the Vice President, Dick Cheney, used to work for Halliburton and still gets $13,000 a month from Halliburton, Halliburton charges our government, us taxpayers, between $1.62 and $1.72, an extra 60 or 70 cents per gallon, a profit margin of over 55 percent. That is the $250 million which independent experts have called highway robbery from Halliburton.

To add insult to injury, the American taxpayer subsidizes that cost when it is sold to the Iraqi people for between a nickel and 15 cents a gallon.

My constituents in northeast Ohio remember seeing gas prices skyrocket the afternoon of September 11, 2001, as some gas station owners sought to make profit from a national tragedy. It did not work for them when they tried that kind of war profiteering. Unfortunately, it is working for Halliburton, and my constituents are outraged that Halliburton is making money at our taxpayers' expense ultimately from a national tragedy.

The Bush administration has asked for an additional $2 billion for the Iraqi oil sector. One billion of that would go to buying gasoline, cooking gas, kerosene, and diesel fuel for Iraq; and it costs about $4 million a day. Halliburton will continue to pocket outrageous, some might say corrupt, profits.

All taxpayers bear the burden of unbid contracts, of price hikes, of inadequate supplies for our troops in Iraq. We are spending $1 billion a week in Iraq. That number will go up as Congress just appropriated last week $87 billion more for Iraq, as we had already appropriated $70 billion before that. We are spending $1 billion a week. A third of that money is going to private contractors. A lot of that money goes to Halliburton and Bechtel, companies close to the President. Companies which are major contributors to the President of the United States in those unbid contracts simply are not accountable.

At the same time, this administration has not been able to supply and to provide for our troops. Not enough safe drinking water for our troops. Too many of them have come down with dysentery. Not enough body armor, Kevlar jackets for our troops. One quarter of them do not have body armor. The administration has said by December, even though they knew they we were going to war a year ago, they would finally get the body armor to our troops. All of that against the backdrop of $1 billion a week, $300 million of that going to unbid contracts to companies like Halliburton. And, again, understand, Mr. Speaker, Halliburton is still paying $13,000 a month to the Vice President of the United States.

The private contractors seem to have all the money and supplies they want, but our troops do not. Something is wrong with this picture.

The gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) offered an amendment to cure this gasoline gouging problem, this highway robbery problem where Halliburton has taken $250 million extra from U.S. taxpayers. I cannot understand how Members of this body can support Halliburton as it continues to gouge the U.S. taxpayers. In almost a party-line vote, this House of Representatives rejected the amendment that would have stopped the abuses from Halliburton from the Vice President's company, that would have stopped this highway robbery.

The administration continues to give Halliburton a free hand to exploit American taxpayers for every last dime they could get. Halliburton should be ashamed. This Congress should be ashamed. The administration should be ashamed for that kind of a ripoff of U.S. tax dollars especially in wartime.

Madam Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, my motion instructs the conferees working on the Medicare prescription drug coverage bill to abandon provisions in the House bill that would privatize Medicare by turning it into a private insurance voucher program. The public has asked this Congress and President Bush to supplement Medicare by adding prescription drug coverage to the Medicare benefits package.

You may remember early this year, almost a year ago, President Bush proposed a prescription drug plan only if people left fee-for-service Medicare and went into a privatized plan. Clearly, the public rejected that. Even members of his own party said no to that. The American public has not asked this Congress, has not asked President Bush, to dissolve Medicare and replace it with a private insurance voucher program.

The voucher provisions in the bill have nothing to do with prescription drug coverage. The voucher provisions do not supplement Medicare, the

voucher provisions destroy Medicare. They choke off funding for the program and force enrollees back into the private insurance market to try their luck.

If you do not believe me, Madam Speaker, ask the bill's authors. Ask these questions:

First, under the voucher provisions of H.R. 1, will every senior be guaranteed access to the same reliable health coverage, regardless of geographical location, regardless of a senior's income, regardless of health status? If the authors are honest, they know the answer is no.

Two, will the Federal Government's financial commitment to Medicare automatically keep pace with the costs of the health care seniors need? If the authors of the bill are honest, the answer is no.

Three, will the private health medical organizations, private HMOs which accept Medicare vouchers, will they be required to provide ongoing, reliable coverage to Medicare beneficiaries? In other words, will HMO cost-sharing and benefit levels be predictable year after year, will beneficiaries even be able to rely on the same plan being available next year and the year after? Again, if the authors are honest in answering that question, they will admit the answer is no.

History also says that senior after senior in this country in State after State and district after district and plan after plan have seen their coverage drop as they are unceremoniously dumped from their Medicare HMO. Today, Medicare offers reliable medical coverage to seniors and disabled Americans, regardless of where they live, how much they earn, or their health status. Enrollees go to the doctor of their choice and the hospital of their choice.

The insurance voucher provisions in H.R. 1 simply throw all that away. Under these provisions, seniors will be given a voucher to cover part of the cost of their health coverage. They will then be required to shop in the private insurance market, what they had to do before 1965, before Medicare was available, shop in the private insurance market for whatever HMO happens to be in town that year.

Over the last 4 years, HMOs participating in Medicare+Choice enrolled and then unceremoniously dropped 2.4 million Medicare beneficiaries. That means 2.4 million of our senior constituents got notice in October or November that, come January, they would have to find another place to deliver their health care.

By undermining the existing Medicare program, by forcing seniors to pick and choose between and among private insurance plans, the voucher provisions in H.R. 1 would ensure that every Medicare beneficiary has an opportunity, an opportunity to be abandoned by their HMO.

The core Medicare program, the program that would be replaced if the voucher provisions in H.R. 1 make it into the final prescription drug bill, the core Medicare program does not drop anyone, period. In fact, over the last 4 years, one of its most important roles has been to pick up the pieces when HMOs abandoned seniors and left town, to clean up after privatized Medicare+Choice HMO plans abandoned seniors. The fee- for-service, traditional Medicare, has had to clean up afterwards.

Under the voucher provisions in H.R. 1, the core Medicare program would itself be abandoned. Proponents of the voucher provisions, proponents of Medicare privatization, say that seniors deserve more choice. That is what we are going to hear today. That is what we have heard for years from my friends on the other side of the aisle, that seniors deserve more choice. That is why vouchers are such a good thing.

But does anybody in this body really think retirees are clamoring for their choice of HMOs? Just like you and me, seniors want their choice of doctor, they want their choice of hospital. They do not want their choice of insurance companies. They do not want their choice of insurance agents. They do not want their choice of HMO brochures. They do not want their choice of enrolling in one fly-by-night HMO after another fly-by-night HMO has dropped them.

Proponents of the voucher provisions claim that private HMOs operate more efficiently than the core Medicare program, so they say first of all you get more choice with an HMO, so you can choose among insurance company brochures and agents. They say you have more choice in HMOs. Then they try the second myth, and that is the myth that HMOs operate more efficiently than core Medicare.

My Republican friends know that Medicare operates more efficiently than HMOs. HMO administrative costs, Madam Speaker, are actually five times higher than traditional Medicare. Private insurance premiums have consistently grown faster than the cost of providing Medicare, not just recently, but over the past 30 years since the time Medicare first existed.

H.R. 1 will not reduce Medicare spending unless, and this, I guess, is their third point, unless the Federal Government caps its contribution to Medicare.

So privatized Medicare HMOs are not more efficient, privatized Medicare HMOs do not give more choice, and privatized Medicare HMOs do not cost less, do not save the government more, unless government simply caps the money. In other words, unless seniors pay more out-of- pocket.

That is the cost control mechanism in H.R. 1, seniors picking up more of the cost. That is not efficiency; that is betrayal of our senior constituents.

The American public asked this Congress and this President to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, not to privatize and dismantle Medicare. This motion tells their conferees to keep their eye on the ball. The voucher provisions would undo 38 years of reliable cost- effective health care for our Nation's retirees.

I urge my colleagues, Madam Speaker, to take a stand on behalf of seniors, on behalf of disabled Americans, and on behalf of taxpayers who finance Medicare. If you want a Medicare program with a prescription drug benefit, you vote ``yes.'' If you want to privatize Medicare, if you want to cost-shift health care costs to seniors, if you want more HMOs and privatization of Medicare, then you vote ``no'' on this motion. It is an easy choice. Vote for the motion to instruct.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), who has been a leader in health care in the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardoza).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard my friends on the other side of the aisle talk about, particularly the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson) talk about that privatized HMOs are so efficient. And I hear that over and over and over. Just because they are private business, that they must be extraordinarily efficient, that they must do such better work than the government could do. But my friend from New Jersey also knows that, in fact, Medicare, traditional fee-for-service Medicare has one- fifth the administrative costs as a privatized HMO, as an insurance company, as a health care plan that he is talking about.

I would like to give one reason why and just read a couple of statistics and then ask for my colleagues' ``yes'' vote on this motion to instruct.

In the year 2000, the Inspector General documented that in a survey of Medicare+Choice, privatized Medicare, plans, that they tried to bill taxpayers for $116 million in inappropriate administrative costs. Now, this is one of the reasons that private insurance is so

much more administratively cumbersome and wasteful than is traditional Medicare. The private insurance industry tried to bill the government $250,000 for a meeting with foods, gifts and alcohol; $190,000 for a sales award meeting in Puerto Rico; $157,000 for a company's 150th anniversary party; $100,000 for sporting events and theater tickets; $69,000 for holiday parties; $37,000 for wine and gift tickets; $1 million in lobbying, they have got their monies worth there, that is for sure; $25,000 for a stadium luxury box. That was in 2000.

In 2001, the Inspector General again looked at $97 million and asked for billed charges from private insurance interests to the government: $284,000 in entertainment costs like stadium skyboxes, sporting events; $90,000 for golf club memberships; $30,000 for a Christmas party; $3,400 for cost of alcohol at various functions.

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that traditional Medicare works. It works because it gives full choice of physician, choice of provider, choice of hospital; not choice, as private insurance does, not the choice among insurance agents and insurance HMO brochures.

Traditional fee-for-service Medicare works because it is reliable. It will always be there. You will not find yourself unceremoniously dropped like 2.4 million seniors have been for Medicare HMOs. Ultimately, traditional Medicare is more efficient than these private insurance plans with huge salaries, huge bonuses, huge stock benefits and wasteful extraneous spending as I just outlined. I ask my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the motion to instruct.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, back in 1838, the conservative leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a rule prohibiting the discussion of slavery, essentially banning the debate of slavery in this body, which was the largest blot on our national heritage. For 4 years, people were not allowed to debate the issue of slavery on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Former President, then Congressman John Quincy Adams, night after night, day after day, week after week, came to the House floor, and not being able to debate slavery, he read letters from his constituents, most of them women, who could not vote in those days in the middle of the 19th century. So he read letters from his constituents protesting government policy on slavery.

Today, we have seen in this body the continued suppression of debate on whether or not the Bush administration told the truth about Iraq, a continuation of disallowing of amendments that would have provided and supplied for our soldiers better than they have been, and that the military is able to, and so, as a result, Mr. Speaker, today I want to read letters from my constituents about some of those issues.

Sharyn from Fairlawn, Ohio, writes: No to $87 billion to Iraq. Yes to education that has suffered under President Bush. Yes for the creation of jobs that have suffered under Bush. Yes for giving financial aid to the small business manufacturing industry that has suffered to the point of near extinction. Let us get our country back.

Sharyn of Fairlawn, Ohio, was talking about the fact that we have lost 3\1/2\ million jobs since President Bush took office. In my State of Ohio, one out of every seven manufacturing jobs has disappeared, much of it because of bad trade agreements, and much of it because of Bush economic policies. One out of seven jobs has disappeared.

Erica, from Clinton, Ohio, writes: To continue writing blank checks to the team responsible for the deplorable mess in Iraq is throwing good money after bad. With the current team overseeing the reconstruction of Iraq, there will be no end in sight to further demands for additional monies. Keep large corporations from making important decisions in Iraq.

What Erica from Clinton, Ohio, is talking about is the fact that the Halliburton corporation and many other companies have received large, unbid contracts from President Bush and from the Pentagon to rebuild Iraq. It is the same company, Halliburton, which still is paying its former CEO, present Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney, still paying Vice President Cheney $13,000 every month.

So we have Halliburton, which has gotten literally billions of dollars in contracts, many of them unbid gifts from taxpayers, unbid contracts. Hundreds of millions of dollars in unbid contracts, billions of dollars overall. Halliburton has gotten this money and much of it is not accounted for. Yet the Vice President of the United States is still receiving $13,000 a month from this company, not to mention Bechtel and other corporations, most of which are friends of the President and major contributors of the George Bush reelection campaign.

Celia from Strongsville writes: No more money should be allocated for Iraq until we make Bush's administration accountable for it and tell us what he is doing with it.

Again, she is talking about Halliburton, the $13,000 a month to Vice President Cheney, and all the money unaccounted for going to these large corporations which are major contributors to the President.

Celia continues to write: You cannot cut taxes and continue to increase spending without bankrupting the next generation in this country. When Congress appropriated $87 billion last week, at the President's demand, understand every one of those $87 billion was borrowed money from the next generation.

Celia then closes by saying: I used to think Republicans were more fiscally responsible than Democrats. I know that is not true any more.

Jack from Strongsville, Ohio, writes: Enough is enough. Let us stop losing American lives and get back to saving our country.

Ed from Strongsville, Ohio, writes: We seem to have no money for anything other than defense initiatives. The Iraq war has totally distracted us from the real issues of terrorism and from our domestic economic agenda.

What Ed from Strongsville is talking about is the President and the administration have lost sight of going after Osama bin Laden, lost sight of going after al Qaeda, lost sight of protecting us at home, lost sight of spending money on our security at home, from jobs to homeland security, and, instead, has gone into another country and is spending these untold billions on reconstructing Iraq.

Ed concludes by saying: It is time for a constructive effort to fiscal responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, many of us have received hundreds, thousands of letters from our constituents upset about this policy and they want some direction. They want no more corruption in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, subject to rule XXII, clause 7, I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on H.R. 1, Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003.

The form of the motion is as follows:

Mr. Brown of Ohio moves that the managers on the part of

the House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the

two Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 1 be

instructed to reject the provisions of subtitle C of title II

of the House bill.

Mr. Speaker, about 170 or so years ago, John Quincy Adams came to the House floor night after night reading letters from his constituents because the conservative leaders of the House of Representatives in those days passed a rule prohibiting banning the debate and discussion of slavery in the United States. He read letters mostly from women in his Massachusetts district protesting the cutting off of debate, the fact that conservative leadership in Congress simply did not want this discussed.

Today, 165 years later, I have come to the House night after night reading letters from any constituents, talking about corruption in the Bush administration, talking about the money we are spending on reconstruction in Iraq, talking about the billion dollars a week, a third of it from private contractors, money that goes to the

friends of the President and the companies and contributors supporting the President, and really wondering why this administration and the conservative leaders in this Congress will not allow us to discuss this.

I have gotten letter after letter from my Ohio constituents wondering why Vice President Cheney still gets $13,000 every month from the Halliburton Company, the company of which he was CEO 3 years before he was Vice President, a company that is still receiving millions, hundreds of millions of dollars in unbid government contracts.

Just last week I tried to offer an amendment to the $87 billion appropriations that would have stopped some of the corporate tax evaders who have evaded taxes at the expense of the American citizens. The amendment would have banned corporate tax evaders, tax dodgers, from receiving any contracts on the reconstruction of Iraq.

We know that Halliburton companies have broken Federal law, yet we still give them these contracts and they still pay the Vice President of the United States, this is on record, pay him $13,000 a month.

I will begin to share some of these letters.

Jill from Akron, Ohio writes, ``It is a disgrace that our government is willing to spend billions on another country when the education system in our country is crumbling.''

Dr. Steve in Hinckley writes, ``The Iraq war has not made it safer. It has harmed relationships with key NATO allies as well as helped fuel more anti-American sentiment in the Middle East. This has to stop.''

Francene from Akron, Ohio writes, ``Please do not vote for additional funding for this war. It took lies and deceit to get us into this war, and we should back off now and let the United Nations help rebuild the mess in Iraq that Mr. Bush created.'' She is talking about the things that the administration told us that simply are not true: the weapons of mass destruction, the al-Qaeda connections, all of those things.

Terence of Avon Lake writes, ``We need to hold the Bush administration accountable for their poor Iraq planning and nonexistent exit strategy. Please withhold the funds requested until they lay out an exit strategy from Iraq.''

One of the things that Terence is talking about is the fact that a year or 14 months after President Bush said he wanted to attack Iraq, we still do not have body armor for our troops. One-quarter of our troops still do not have body armor, are not going to have it at earliest until December; and I am hearing from families who just cannot believe that we knew we were going to do this, yet we are not taking care of the troops. We are not supplying them with antibiotics. We are not supplying them with safe drinking water. We are not supplying them with body armor, yet we are forcing them when they get leave, if they do, to pay for their own plane tickets home. Yet we are spending a billion dollars a week and a third of it is going to private contractors, many of them contributors to and friends of the President.

Eric of Akron writes, ``I am dismayed this country can find billions of dollars to pay for an unnecessary and illegitimate war in Iraq but cannot find in its heart to solve some of the real problems this country and the world are facing. I am saddened and I am sickened. Very few of you in Congress and the Bush administration are really looking out for the people of this country.''

Corky of Strongville, Ohio writes, ``It is time the American people hold the Administration accountable for lies in regard to Iraq. No more money or troops should be committed until a full investigation is conducted.''

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Speaker, I did not mean to say that. I was reading a letter and talking about the Bush administration. If I actually called the President a liar, I withdraw that. I do not mean to say that.

Mr. Speaker, is that time taken away from me during the parliamentary inquiry?

Mr. Speaker, Deborah of Akron, Ohio, writes, ``Please do not give $87 billion to President Bush. He and his advisors did not plan well for the rebuilding of Iraq.'' I think she is talking about the Kevlar jackets, the body armor that simply was not planned, even the war was planned maybe more than a year and a half ago.

``Control of this project should be under the authority of the U.N. We should help but not by throwing more money after a very unsuccessful plan by the Bush team. Maybe the President should ask his rich friends for the money since they are the only ones benefitting big time from his tax cuts.''

She is talking about the tax cut where millionaires get $93,000 while 50 percent of people in my home State and the home State of the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) got zero dollars from that tax cut.

I thank my friend from New Jersey for his persistent work in bringing the truth and bringing important issues to the floor of the House of Representatives night after night. We all have heard people in the administration, highly placed people in the administration, from the Attorney General to Mr. DeLay and leaders in the House of Representatives, Republican leaders, talk about patriotism in sometimes directly, certainly by implication, sometimes directly, question the patriotism of Americans, whether they are Americans in Congress or American people generally, question the patriotism of people who disagree with them on a whole host of issues.

I remember during the trade debate, during the Trade Promotion Authority whether we should extend NAFTA to Latin America that many of us were accused of not being patriotic because we did not want to pass these trade agreements, which incidentally tend to hemorrhage lots of jobs overseas in this country that never come back, manufacturing jobs, all kinds of jobs.

But when I think about patriotism, I want to tell a story. I met 2 weeks ago in Akron at St. Paul's Episcopal Church with 25 families who had loved ones in Iraq, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, cousins, nephews, nieces, whatever. These 20 families talked about the treatment that their loved ones were getting by the United States military, by the administration, by our government. There were not enough Kevlar vests, not enough body armor for our troops, one-fourth of our troops do not have adequate body armor, even though the President of the United States knew that we were going to war well over a year ago. They are now saying, well, we will probably have enough body armor for our troops by December of this year. They talked to us about not having safe drinking water, hundreds and hundreds, thousands probably, of our troops have come down with dysentery. They talked about some shortage of antibiotics, that they actually had to go to the corner drug store and send antibiotics to their son, one in the case of a son, another in the case of a wife he had to send antibiotics to her. Many servicemen and servicewomen when coming home on leave, if they got leave, had to pay their flights home.

When you talk about patriotism, and then you look at the other side of that issue, while we simply, this administration is spending a billion dollars a week, a third of it going to private contractors, much of that money going to Halliburton and Bechtel and friends of the President and contributors to the President, when they accuse people who disagree with them, the administration, of a lack of patriotism, then I look and see we are not taking care of our troops but we are taking care of the contributors to the President? Hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to Halliburton. Much of that has been unbid contracts. Yet Halliburton still pays Vice President Cheney $13,000 a month. Halliburton contributes thousands of dollars, its executives and its company, thousands of dollars to President Bush.

And while our troops are not being supplied with Kevlar jackets, our troops are not being supplied with body armor, our troops are not getting safe drinking water, our troops are not getting the antibiotics they should get, this administration has the gall to charge injured soldiers $8 a day for their food at Bethesda Medical Hospital, in other hospitals around the country. At the same time we are shoveling money to contributors of the President. And they call us unpatriotic? And they call people who disagree with them unpatriotic? There is just no room for that in this debate. The fact is we ought to do this right. We ought to be working together in this effort in Iraq. We ought to come up with an exit strategy. We ought to come up with a plan. We ought to bring the United Nations in. We should not be shoveling money to private contractors who are friends of the President, who are contributors to the President, who continue to pay Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States, $13,000 a month. We ought to do this right.

The charges of lack of patriotism ought to stop. We ought to get down to business. We ought to do this right. We ought to make this work. There is just simply no reason for those charges to continue, whether they are from Tom DeLay, whether they are from the top people in the administration, whether they are from anybody else.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the yielding time to me and my friend from Wisconsin for his leadership on this issue.

In April, almost every Member of the House, myself included, voted $60 billion for our effort in Iraq. Unfortunately, since April that $60 billion has simply not been used well. We failed to protect and supply our troops adequately. We hear stories. I met last week with 25 families of people who had loved ones in Iraq. We are not supplying them with safe drinking water. We are not supplying them with antibiotics. In some cases we are not supplying them with body armor, and we are told in committee that body armor will not be available for every one of our soldiers there until December. What was the administration thinking?

We appropriated $60 billion. The administration has failed to submit any plan to the American people, to this Congress, to tell them how this is going to work, to tell all of us when there will be an exit strategy. This administration has failed to show any evidence that the United Nations is cooperating. We cannot get other governments, other countries to send money, to send troops, to send resources, and we failed in terms of accountability.

Today, Mr. Chairman, we are spending about $1 billion a week in Iraq. Three hundred million of that billion dollars is going to private contractors, and most of those private contracts are unbid contracts. So we are giving hundreds of millions of dollars to Halliburton and Bechtel and other friends of the President. Yet, we cannot protect

and we cannot fully and adequately supply our troops. We do not have enough body armor. We do not have enough safe drinking water for our troops. We cannot send our troops home on leave. We are making them pay for it. We are charging our troops for food when they are in the hospital in some cases. Yet, we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars that are going to private contractors, Halliburton, Bechtel and other friends of the President.

In fact, Mr. Chairman, Vice President Cheney still is receiving $13,000 every month from the Halliburton Corporation on the one hand, and we are giving them hundreds of millions of dollars in unbid contracts on the other. Vote no on the $87 billion. Do not give President Bush a blank check to continue the incompetence and the corruption and the ineptness in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I thank gentlewoman from Illinois for yielding me this time, and for her leadership on health care issues.

What is it, Mr. Speaker, what is it about Republicans and Medicare? There is always some Rube-Goldberg idea they have to change the public health system that has lifted millions of Americans out of poverty for the last 38 years, that has helped America's elderly live longer lives and healthier lives? Republicans always want to try some experiment, some Rube-Goldberg plan.

They tried means testing. They could not get that through the Congress. They tried to raise up eligibility age. They could not get that through the Congress. They tried these Medicare HMOs; and, unfortunately, they have gotten that through the Congress. And ask almost any senior how these Medicare HMOs are working, and they are not working very well.

They have tried an experimental medical savings account, a demonstration project which has not worked very well. Then the President said if you want a prescription drug benefit through Medicare, you have to get out of Medicare and get it through private insurance. That clearly is not flying with the American people. They always, always, always, over the last 30 years, every chance they have gotten, have tried to privatize Medicare.

Now, Mr. Speaker, they have this $174 billion tax scheme to, again, try to undercut and weaken Medicare. Medicare works because it is universal insurance. And universal insurance works because there are a lot of healthy people and a lot of people that are sick. Through universal coverage, it works for everybody. It works for the healthy 65-year-old who walks two miles every day and does not need much medical treatment, because she subsidizes the 80-year-old who may be sicker. Then when the 65-year-old gets sicker, other people will begin to help her, because it is a universal system.

Republicans, for whatever reason, I do not know if it is their friends in the insurance industry or what it is, or their political philosophy, or whatever, they want to fracture that universal coverage pool. I guess we really should not be surprised, Mr. Speaker. For 38 years, we have seen Republicans simply have not liked Medicare. They did not vote for it 38 years ago. Speaker Gingrich tried to cut $250 billion 10 years ago to, surprise, give tax cuts to the wealthiest people in this country. Dick Armey, the Republican leader 2 years ago, said, ``In a free society, we wouldn't have Medicare.'' Whatever that meant. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, just in the past year, said he wants to end Medicare as we know it.

They simply do not like this program. I wish they would come to the floor instead of sending these Rube-Goldberg kind of constructs that nobody really understands, just come to the floor and say; we do not like Medicare; we want to privatize it; we want to let the insurance industry run it. That is what the Republicans do in every one of these Rube-Goldberg kind of schemes.

Perhaps the worst is this $174 billion tax shelter, tax scheme, they are trying with the medical savings accounts. That is why the Schakowsky motion to instruct makes sense. We can take that $174 billion, instead of putting it in some kind of tax shelter or tax scheme, and use it for something that will really matter and that will help the seniors in this country.