Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, we are going to be brief. We just wanted to make a few more points here before we wrapped things up.

One of the issues that is a major issue for the country, for the Congress, for the American people, for people living on border states, is Customs and border protection.

We sat here many nights, Mr. Meek and I, and listened to our friends come on the other side and give 5-minute speeches, 1-hour speeches, on the issue of immigration, on the major threat to the United States of America of illegal immigrants coming over our border.

In this homeland security bill that our Republican friends filibustered today and yesterday, there is $8.8 billion for Customs and border protection. $1 billion is provided for border security fencing and tactical infrastructure, along with 3,000 additional Border Patrol agents being funded.

Now, we have a bill that they agree with. I mean, you want to talk about the Potomac Two-Step, Mr. Meek? We have got a bill here that, across-the-board, everybody agrees with. You ask them why they are not voting for it, and they say, because we are against earmarks.

We say there are not any earmarks in here. Now why are you voting against it? Politics.

We have got to get past this, especially on an issue so critical as this.

Now, we added $27 million for 250 additional Customs and Border Patrol Agents for commercial operations and validations of commercial vehicles, verifying that trusted shippers have placed necessary security measures mandated in the SAFE Port Act. I mean, I don't understand. I mean, you know, this is my fifth year here, but I don't understand.

We are trying to pass a homeland security bill, and one of our friends, our buddy from North Carolina on the other side, said today that we should have passed the defense bill first. That was his big argument he made today, when we just passed a defense supplemental bill for $120 billion, with close to $100 billion of defense spending in there. We just passed one, and the funding goes until September 30th.

We are talking about protecting the homeland, Mr. Meek. We are not talking about all these other great things we are doing. This is essential. This is our constitutional duty, is to protect the country. Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, Mr. Meek, creates this House right here, and that is our first obligation, to make sure that we support that.

So I think it is important that those folks who are at home find out what is going on in this bill. Those folks in our own congressional districts across the country, who are members of law enforcement, who are police, fire, they need to know that we had millions and millions, and it probably adds up to billions of dollars, in here.

One of the things you hear about is intra operable communication grants. If you hear from our local police and first responders, it is that they don't have the proper equipment in a crisis situation to communicate with each other. So we put in here $50 million to continue a program to help local police, firefighters and first responders to talk to each other during a crisis.

Fire grants, $800 million; that is $500 million above the President's request

to address communications and staffing problems facing local fire departments.

Emergency management performance grants. And $300 million for all hazard grants, State and local emergency managers, national emergency management agency performance grant report. There is a $287 million shortfall in that program. We are trying to fix it. We are trying to fix it. And we had a filibuster last night until 2 in the morning last night.

Two points I want to make before we wrap things up here tonight. I appreciate what you've said.

One of the provisions in this Homeland Security bill, and I keep going back through here to see what our Republican friends filibustered, and we have heard a lot over the last couple of years about airport security, obviously after 9/11.

I want to share with the American people, Mr. Meek, and get into the Congressional Record exactly what is in this bill for transportation security. There is $6.62 billion, $307 million above last year, $219 million above the President's request.

There are three major components of this bill: Explosive detection systems, there is $849 million for procurement, installation and maintenance of equipment to protect commercial aircraft. This allows the TSA to address the most pressing needs identified in their recent aviation baggage screening study. They studied it and said, here is what we need. We said, here is $849 million, get what you need to make the American people safe when they fly.

Air cargo explosive screening, $78 million, which doubled the amount of cargo screened on passenger aircraft.

Our friends on the other side of the aisle filibustered this bill. It did not pass because of what they were doing.

Secure flight certification, TSA would certify that no security risks were raised by TSA secure flight plans that would limit screening of airline passenger names only against a subset of the full terrorist watch list, another mechanism to protect the American people.

Three major components of protecting the people when they travel, make this process easier and safer at the same time; our Republican friends filibustered this issue last night and today.

I want to end with one point. Conservatism is dead. I want to be completely clear about this. This isn't a George Bush, Madam Speaker, has screwed things up so bad we can fix it if we are just more conservative. Republican House, Republican Senate, Republican President, implemented the neoconservative foreign policy and implemented the conservative agenda without any inhibitions, without any barriers. It was all implemented.

Their tax policy, their spending policy, their foreign policy, their domestic policy, all passed the Congress and was implemented, and we have the largest gap between the wealthy and the poor since 1929. We have a foreign policy disaster that doesn't even need an explanation it is so atrocious. From the Middle East and all over the world, we are less safe today than we were just a few years ago because of this philosophy on government.

They have run down government for a decade and a half to two decades now, and when you turnaround and you need health care or you need FEMA to be able to react to a natural disaster, it doesn't work because you ran it into the ground. The philosophy doesn't work. It is not enlightened. It is not flexible. It is eight key words, and if you can't fit the whole problem of society and the complexity of society into those eight key words, then it doesn't work. And that is what we have seen happen.

We need a government that can change, that is responsive, that adapts

to the needs of our society. And our conservative friends have wrecked it. Now we have the keys to the car, and we are trying to do some things that are constructive. And we understand that they were incapable, Madam Speaker, of governing, but it doesn't mean that they should then impede us from doing it. That is what we want to do here.

Port security, border security, fire grants, police, first responders, all of these things are in this bill that our friends filibustered, and you will see our agenda implemented. You have already seen it in the increase in the minimum wage. You will see it with more community health clinics. You will see it with funding of Head Start. You will see it with Early Start and after-school programs, safer food. You will see it with transportation investments. You will see it from the Democratic Congress.

Their agenda has been implemented over the last 6 years without anybody to stop them, and it doesn't work, period-dot. The field mouse is fast, but the owl sees at night.

Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Meek. It's always an honor and a pleasure to be with you. If I don't get an opportunity to, I'd like to wish you a happy Father's Day.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 8 p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, June 14, 2007, at 10 a.m.

I started wearing pink ties, because we had the whole goddess thing going on.

While we are hitting on the war, I think it is important for us to maybe go back and reevaluate

why the Democrats have the position of redeploy out, wind this thing down, and I think it is important for us to go through some of the numbers.

Mr. Meek had already mentioned the number of troops killed. We have had another nine that were killed in the last couple of days, and our hearts and prayers go out to all the families that have been affected by this and who have lost soldiers over there. The most heartbreaking thing we have to do is go to these funerals and see a 20-year old kid who has been married for a year with a 7-month-old son or daughter.

It is heartbreaking when we don't even know what winning is. Ask the President. What is winning this war? What does that mean now? We can't really get an answer from the President.

But a couple of things, why we think the President and his policies have made this situation worse. The number of insurgents in Iraq in 2003 was 5,000. The number of insurgents in Iraq in March of 2007 is 70,000, all Sunni, mostly Sunni. What I love now is the President is starting to say, Mr. Speaker, ``bin Laden is now saying we need to attack Americans in Iraq. See why we got to stay there?''

No kidding. Right? No kidding. Bin Laden? Of course. We have 150,000 soldiers in a war zone. Of course, bin Laden is going to say go hit them over there.

But the problem is that we are creating more terrorists. And if you are trying to win the hearts and minds of people, okay, the number of civilian casualties in Iraq since the invasion, estimates range from 54,000 to 76,000. Those are innocent civilians in Iraq. Do you think we are going to be able to go over there and win their hearts and minds if we are killing innocent civilians with the bombs we are dropping? This needs to be won diplomatically. When it needs to be won diplomatically, it becomes very difficult when you have 50,000 to 75,000 civilian casualties.

One more thing, and then I will wrap my portion up here. The average daily number of daily attacks by insurgents in July of 2003 was 16 daily attacks in 2003. The number of daily attacks by insurgents between November of 2006 and February of 2007, 149. From 16 to 149. We are aggravating the situation. We are making it worse, and the surge is making it worse.

I yield back to my friend.

If I could just say, as we have increased the number, the incubation that a lot of our friends on the other side have supported, where more and more not only insurgents, but as Ms. Wasserman Schultz has said, more and more al Qaeda, more and more terrorists; so if you have a situation where you only have, for the sake of the example, 100 al Qaeda, and then we have the war, and now we have 1,000 al Qaeda, and then the President says well, we need to fight them over there or they are going to come over here, we have 900 more coming gunning for the United States because of the inability to actually execute this war.

To say we are making progress, and we have some amazing ability to find some of this information out, the number of hours per day of electricity in Baghdad prior to the war was between 16 and 24 hours a day. Now in May of 2007, the number of hours per day average 5.6 hours per day. That is feeding the problem that we are having over there.

Production of barrels per day prior to the war, 2.5 million. Production of barrels per day in May 2007, 2.16 million, so almost 400,000 less than prewar production.

Unemployment rate in Iraq went from 20 up to 40 percent in December of 2006. This problem has increased. I know our friends on the other side of the aisle continue to try to tell us there are improvements, but the statistics tell us otherwise.

Chief cardinal, too, so if she wants to talk about gas, I want to talk about gas.

All we really have to do is talk to some of the soldiers who are over there and who have come back, which I'm sure most of us have. And when they explain what's going on on the ground, it's mind-boggling to think in cities of 140, 150, 160, 170,000 we've got American troops, for example, on the west side of the city, with 1,000 Iraqi troops on the west side of the city, and 1,000 on the east side and 1,000 Iraqis; 2,000, 4,000 total for the whole city, 2,000 of the 4,000 being American. How are you going to control a city of 170,000 people? And a surge of an extra 1,000 or 2,000 is not going to make a difference. It's going to make it worse.

This surge is not the first time we've tried this. This is like the fourth time, and every time that we've tried a surge in certain areas there has been an increase in the number of daily attacks, not a decrease, because it incites the area, and you still don't have enough.

And we've all said from the beginning, if we went in there with 3- or 400,000 troops, where we were able, after the statue fell, to secure the State, to secure the country of Iraq, that would have been a different story, and all the looting was going on and the museums and everything, and then Secretary Rumsfeld said, well, they're just blowing off steam. At that point, you lost control and it went all downhill from there.

But my point is that you talk to these soldiers who are on the ground, and they see that they can't handle this situation the way it is and that the only way to do it is through diplomacy, is to try to patch up some of these political problems, which gets worsened because of the innocent civilians that are dying in Iraq, which makes them not like us.

In a very practical way, we're pushing. I mean, I think this Congress has done everything that it can do, but if we're not getting any help from our Republican friends, a couple have shown great courage to try to end this thing, but not getting the support where we can override the President's veto.

Now, this is the stark reality that is frustrating for all of us, the Speaker I know for sure, and all of us, is that we're trying to end this war. The first bill we passed had a hard deadline. The second bill we passed had a goal to get out. The President still vetoed that, Mr. Speaker, and we're trying the best we can within this institution to move this iceberg, as you say.

But the President consistently vetoes these bills that we're trying to pass. And so now we're to the point where we've got to figure out what's the best we can do, and it looks like the best we can do is try to get him to at least have these benchmarks that are in there, report back in September, July and September, with some of this, and get our veterans the support and the funding they need.

Nobody likes that. I don't like it. I don't even know if I'm going to vote for it, to be quite honest. I'm so frustrated with the President at this point, but we've got decisions to make as to can we take a step in the right direction even though it's not as far as we want to go.

But I think this is a call, Mr. Speaker, for the citizens of this country to step out and step up, not the ones that we see wearing the pink, not the ones that we see with the bull horn, but if we're going to end this war, it's going to be average people who support our philosophy but have yet to say anything, and not in your district or my district but in districts where their representatives come down here and support the President.

You can't sit on the sidelines on this one, not as a politician, but as a citizen you've got to come out here and help us do this, and I think there needs to be a direct call to a action.

Just to let you know, Mr. Speaker, we are sending a letter to the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops from me and several other Members, asking them to reengage the war issue; that this is the issue of our day and that they need to be more active and they need to get involved in their local parishes and demand that their citizens get off the pews and start participating and getting legislators to move off the dime. We've got to do this by September, or in the fall while we're beginning the process for 2008. Or we're going to continue to be here and legislators are going to continue to get away with voting to support the President when 71 percent of the American people don't think he's handling this job properly.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to be before the House of Representatives once again with the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) to share with the American people and our colleagues some of the issues that are facing the United States of America today, and that I think will have ramifications for the future of this country.

The past few weeks here have been very exciting as we continue to try to press the President of the United States to find his way in Iraq and begin the withdrawal of our troops.

I think it is important for the American people to recognize the position of the majority party in the House of Representatives and the position of the majority in the United States Senate represented by Speaker Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid in which we are trying to begin the process of winding down the war in Iraq and expanding the global war on terrorism.

The war in Iraq does not have anything to do with the war on terrorism, and we hear from the President consistently that if we don't fight them over there, we are going to have to fight them over here. I think it is important for us to recognize that only 2 to 3 percent of the people fighting in Iraq are al Qaeda. We are in the middle of a civil war in a country that 70 percent of the citizens of that country in

Iraq believe it is okay to shoot American soldiers. That is where we are in the middle of this civil war, a religious civil war between religious groups and ethnic factions in which Americans in many instances are the targets of this civil war now.

We have seen in the last 4 months, Mr. Speaker, the deaths of more Americans in that 4-month period than any other 4-month period during the war. It is getting worse by the day. Many of us continue to talk to soldiers who come back and go back and forth, and they are very discrete with us and they share with us information that they are maybe not willing to say publicly. But if I have heard it from one soldier, I have heard it from 15 or 20 from my district and around the country who I have talked with. And they inevitably say: What is winning? What is winning this war?

We ask the President time and time again: What does winning mean? We are beginning to try the process that the President keeps vetoing of winding this war down.

When you have a scenario where you have a couple thousand or 3,000 or 4,000 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers in cities of over 100,000 trying to secure and trying to find out who these insurgents are when they all dress in civilian clothes, they all drive civilian cars. No one has a uniform on. No one is driving a tank. This is a guerrilla war that we are in the middle of. It is becoming very, very difficult for us to secure it. I believe we have missed the opportunity to secure that country because we lack troops.

I don't want to take all of the time up tonight. I know Mr. Murphy is such a courteous New Englander that he would probably let me, but I think it is important that the citizens of this country know that the Democratic Party is trying to end this war. We want timetables. We want accountability, and the one thing that we are saying to the President of the United States, two things, this is not going to be an open-ended war and you are not getting a blank check.

I yield to my friend.

Just to think about the lack of planning and details for the whole deal, as these Iraqi troops are supposed to stand up, we are supposed to stand down. That is why in our supplemental we said let's work something out. There was no exact formula, but as one brigade of Iraqi troops are trained to the level the President certifies, we bring one home.

If the whole premise of the President's policy was as they stand up, we stand down, he has been saying that for such a long time, and that was in our supplemental bill that we passed a couple of weeks ago.

I know our good friend Steve Israel from New York and Ike Skelton have been promoting this idea for a long time, and that was in there. That is the kind of thing that the Democrats are doing.

But to focus on the lack of planning, not to beat a dead horse, but we now have soldiers over there who are in charge of two, three, 400 Iraqi soldiers. One person that I know who is in charge of 400 Iraqi soldiers, do you know how many interpreters he has to communicate with?

One. He has one interpreter to help him communicate with 400 Iraqi soldiers.

Now these are all of the things that were not accounted for before we went into this place. That's what we are saying. There is a time and a place for military action. Afghanistan is the one we all cite, where they were harboring the al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

But now we have put these soldiers in a position where they are losing their friends. They are in dangerous situations. They don't know how long they are going to be there. Their tours keep getting extended, and you can't keep doing this to our soldiers.

And then you have a natural disaster in the United States and you don't have enough Guardsmen and -women to address the local problem.

Let's fix this. Let's work together to fix this problem and let's work with the President. Let's work with the members of the minority party in the House and the Senate to say let's start winding this thing down. That's what we want to do, and that's how I think we are going to begin to regain some credibility in the world. We are actually going to be pro-troop, pro-soldier by getting them out of a position that they can't survive in. We see the death tolls going up and we see what's happening at Walter Reed, and when you look at what we were able to do, immediate funding for the troops for the next 60 to 90 days and an evaluation of how we are doing, is that too much to ask?

I yield to my good friend.

Absolutely. We have another thing to add to the list of the promises that were made that we rehashed here many, many times. When you look at we are going to be greeted as liberators, we only need $50 billion, we can use the oil for reconstruction, you know, all of these things that were told to us before the war that ended up not being true, we have something that we can add as we have seen this week, May 12 edition of the news, and comparing it to this statement that the President made on the Iraqi government, New York Times, January 28, 2005, ``But asked if, as a matter of principle, the United States would pull out of Iraq at the request of a new (Iraqi) government, he said,'' the President said, `` `Absolutely. This is a sovereign government.' ''

May 12, 2007, fast forward, majority of Iraq lawmakers seek timetable for U.S. exit. Majority of Iraq's parliament members signed a petition for a timetable governing withdrawal of American troops. The American people want us out. The Iraqi parliament wants us out. Seventy percent of the Iraqi citizens think it is okay to shoot an American soldier. This President is the only one in the world who thinks it's a good idea for us to stay there, and it's the same person who told us this slew of inaccurate data, information, tactic, strategy 5 years ago.

So we are trying to fix this problem, and we are having a heck of a time getting past this President. And he is the President and he does have the veto power, but he needs to recognize we want accountability. He's not getting a blank check, and this is not going to be an open- ended war.

Let's look at what we are just trying to do. All we're saying is we're going to give the President, he wants $100 billion and we're saying we want to give you $30-some billion, and then D.C. lingo, fence the rest of the money in, the other $50 or $60 billion, until he comes back, the President comes back to us in July and is able to articulate to the United States Congress and the American people and the world what exactly the progress has been. And if you have progress, then you will be willing to come and make that argument to us here. And then we will have another vote, and we will decide if we are going to release the rest of the money or do something else, begin winding it down even quicker.

But I find it very disturbing, Mr. Speaker, that the President of the United States is not willing to come to the United States Congress, created by Article I, section 1 of the Constitution, the people's House, and articulate why our soldiers are still in Iraq, why we're not having success, why benchmarks aren't being met, why the Iraqi soldiers aren't being trained. You come back to the United States Congress and you tell us what the situation is, and then we control the money, and if there's progress we will give you more. If it continues like it's been going, we're going to give you enough to get these kids back home.

I appreciate it, and you're absolutely right.

And we have got an obligation to do that, and the ramifications of this war are being felt all over. And one of the regrets that we have had is that we continue to run up this huge budget deficit in order to pay for the war. And it's time for us to start challenging those people who have been doing well, those people that this primarily has been the burden of this war, has primarily been the responsibility of those families and those soldiers who have been fighting in it, and the burden that they have faced has been much greater than anyone had anticipated. And so I think it's important for us to also recognize in our supplemental bill what we have been able to do and what we have tried to do with some of this additional money.

Almost $2 billion for defense health care for those soldiers who are serving their country currently, that we put an extra couple billion dollars in there above the President's request to deal with the health care issue for those who are serving their country right now in this most dangerous time.

We also added an almost additional $2 billion for veterans health care and made sure that we are taking care of our veterans when they come back. We are going to see a tremendous surge in veterans health care when these soldiers get back home, and we want to make sure that they have the resources necessary to do that.

We don't want this to be a country that promises you before you go to war all kinds of Cadillac coverage and then when you get back you're left on your own. The Democratic Party had attempted to fix that through the supplemental process, and again, that bill was vetoed.

$500 million in there for post-traumatic stress disorder, which is going to be a huge problem given the kind of environment that these kids are fighting in.

$500 million in there for brain injuries, again a major problem with those soldiers who are coming back injured.

We're trying to take care of our veterans, and we're doing a good job, but we keep getting this process and these bills vetoed by the President of the United States, and it is very important that we begin to recognize that this can no longer be a stumbling block.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, the Democratic-led Congress, in our budget authorization bill several weeks ago, put in there the largest increase for veterans spending in the history of the veterans administration. We are trying to take care of our veterans, and we are doing it in spite of what the President is trying to do by consistently vetoing our bills.

We are putting the money forward, we are asking for some accountability, we are taking care of our veterans, we are taking care of our soldiers, we are making sure that they don't leave to go over to Iraq without the proper body armor, the proper Humvee, up-armored Humvees, and the proper amount of rest.

Our soldiers are getting worn out by continuously extending their tours, by sending them back second, third, fourth tours, their families are having problems, high divorce rates. We are seeing it all over. It's time for us to refocus.

Then, when you look at who else is being affected by this situation that we have in Iraq, you are also seeing the issue with the National Guard readiness. We have seen, unfortunately, over the last couple of weeks, because of the natural disasters and the tornados, especially in places like Kansas, where the National Guard does not have the equipment, in many instances they don't have the manpower to try to deal with the issues that they are facing in their own State. There are so many issues that are being affected.

Let me just share with you some of these problems that we have and what we are trying to do to address that. We put in, in the last supplemental bill, $2 billion not requested by the President for a new strategic reserve readiness fund, of which $1 billion is for Army National Guard equipment shortfalls. We are trying to address it.

The President vetoed that too. So bad enough you are vetoing health care for our soldiers, you are vetoing health care for our veterans to the tune of $2 billion; you are vetoing veterans health care for post- traumatic stress disorder; you are vetoing health care for those soldiers who come back with brain injuries. You are also vetoing an extra $1 billion for Army National Guard equipment.

I mean, come on. We are trying to move this process forward. You know, it's a typical D.C. move, that if it's not your idea, we are against it. You know, if I didn't come up with it, I'm against it. That has been the President's attitude. We can't have it, because it's not us that is suffering; we are in air conditioned quarters. We got offices, cars, nice meals, you know. Our families are here with us.

It's the soldiers who are suffering, and their families who are suffering, bearing the brunt of this war.

This is Lieutenant General Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau: ``The Governors are rightly concerned that while the personnel part of the Guard has never been better, never been more ready, the equipment piece to the National Guard back here at home has never been less ready, and they are trying to resolve that obvious disconnect. The message is clear what we have, and the budget does not produce the level of readiness that they feel comfortable with.''

Just being admitted. That's being admitted by the chief of the National Guard Bureau. This is the Government Accountability Office report from 2007, just a couple of months ago in January. This is a nonpartisan bureau that we have here: ``The high use of the National Guard for Federal overseas missions has reduced equipment available for its State-led domestic missions. At the same time it faces an expanded array of threats at home.''

Reduced equipment available for our National Guard; our soldiers, not having the proper body armor; our Humvees not properly up-armored; our soldiers not getting the proper rest; our veterans not getting the kind of health care that they deserve; our defense, our soldiers in the Defense Department, not getting the level of health care and attention that they need and that they deserve; and an American public that wants this war to be over. Sixty percent say that it was a mistake to go in the first place.

We have an obligation to respectfully and orderly wind this war down and begin a surge of diplomacy in the Middle East, asking our neighbors in the Middle East, asking the United Nations to take part in a peace- keeping effort in Iraq, making sure that our soldiers are there and the periphery, a certain number, to make sure that we are still in the region to a certain extent to protect against some kind of Iranian influence.

I yield to my good friend, who I know has been very busy tonight. Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to honor your commitments.

I yield to my good friend from Florida.

Take your time.

Well, I appreciate you coming down and articulating that. And it's been consistent since we've gotten in with the first 100 hours as to what we're doing now, what we plan on doing, what we've passed out of this House, what we've passed out of this House sometimes on several different occasions.

And if you look at the two major supplemental votes, you look at, you know, what did we do in the first one is we put timelines in there, deadlines in there, date certain we're going to get out of there.

And you stated, I think, so articulately, that the Iraqi soldiers, if they know we're going to be there, then they're going to continue to rely on us. And if you leave the training wheels on the bike, you're never going to learn how to ride on two wheels. And it's time to take the training wheels off, Mr. Meek.

I appreciate it.

Use www.Speaker.Gov to access our Web site. E-mail 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov.

Mr. Meek, as always, it is an honor, a pleasure, and a privilege to just share this floor with you, my friend.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 252, recognizing the 45th anniversary of John Glenn and his historic 1962 orbital flight aboard Friendship 7.

I commend my colleague, the Honorable Zach Space for his efforts on this resolution and am honored to be an original cosponsor.

John Glenn's orbital flight and his many extraordinary achievements in war and peace are appropriately enumerated and memorialized in this resolution--and it is an amazingly long account. Without doubt it is an unsurpassed record of accomplishment that includes six Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, and the only Ohioan to serve four consecutive terms in the U.S. Senate.

At Cape Canaveral on February 20, 1962, John Glenn blasted into space and became the first American to orbit the Earth. After several excruciatingly long launch pad delays, people all over the world and every school child in America heard Scott Carpenter's lift off directive--Godspeed John Glenn--soon to be followed by the cool voice of the pilot: ``Roger. Zero Gs and I feel fine. Capsule is turning around. Oh, that view is tremendous!''

As he reached an altitude of 162 miles at a velocity of 17,500 miles an hour, the excitement quickly turned to tension and apprehension when the flight instruments indicated that a loose heat shield threatened a safe return. While the capsule skated back through the atmosphere, Friendship 7 reported a real fireball outside. To our great relief the plume of parachutes and splashdown told us that after a nearly 5 hour flight, Glenn was safe and sound back on Earth.

On February 26, 1962, John Glenn was received with a standing ovation before a Joint Session of Congress in this chamber. Parades in Washington, New York, and New Concord, Ohio, soon followed. Friendship 7 is now prominently displayed in the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum near Orville and Wilbur Wright's 1903 Flyer, Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis and Apollo XI.

John and Annie Glenn celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary on April 6th. Annie is a true American hero for her extraordinary personal efforts to overcome stuttering. Her public efforts to help others with speech and communication disorders are nationally recognized. She received the first national award of the American Speech and Hearing Association for inspiring those with communicative disorders. The National Association for Hearing and Speech Action annually presents the Annie Glenn Award to an individual achieving distinction despite a communication disorder. She is a national treasure.

In 1941, John Glenn was on his way to Annie's organ recital at Muskingum College

when he heard over the car radio that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. His patriotic public service began shortly thereafter when he volunteered for military service and continues today through his work at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at the Ohio State University.

In a lifetime of accomplishment he found in adventure and challenge he met with courage. John Glenn is an American hero. He has proudly served his Nation as soldier and statesman and he still likes to fly.

I join my colleagues in urging the passage of the resolution.

I appreciate that, and I think you are exactly right. There was a misrepresentation of the facts of the legislation that was put forth to the White House. I think it's important for us, for us to go over in a snapshot of what the supplemental bill did that the President just vetoed.

What this bill did was increase by $1.7 billion the amount of money that was going to defense health care for the troops. What it did was it increased veterans spending by $1.7 billion above what the President wanted. We tried to make law the benchmarks that the President set up for progress in Iraq on January 10, his benchmarks, and he vetoed that.

Now, the President is vetoing his own statements, if that is not confusing enough. The key component of this piece of legislation is the piece that says that our troops can't leave here and go to Iraq if they don't have the proper body armor, if they don't have the proper equipment, if they don't have Humvees that are up armored, and if they don't have the amount of rest that they need. That is what the President just vetoed.

I think this is a pretty sad day in American history when you have the President of the United States trying to win a PR battle and using the troops as hostage. Those are not my words, those are the words of General Paul Eaton, who just said, after the statement, this is what he is saying on the President's veto, ``This administration and the previously Republican controlled legislature have been the most caustic agents against America's Armed Forces in memory. Less than a year ago, the Republicans imposed great hardship on the Army and the Marine Corps by their failure to pass the necessary funding language. This time, the President of the United States is holding our Soldiers hostage to his ego. More than ever apparent, only the Army and the Marine Corps are at war--alone--without their President's support.''

Terrorism around the globe is up 25 percent. Stop doing what you are doing to make terrorism increase by 25 percent. Enough of the scare tactics that if we don't fight them there, they are going to come here and get us. The same scare tactics that they have been trying to employ for the past 5 years, this is the same group of people who told us, as was stated earlier, that the oil money would be used for reconstruction, it would only cost $50 billion, and now we are upwards of some $500 and some billion after the 2008 budget, going to be greeted as liberators. All of the statements that have been made in the past 5 years have been wrong, colossal mistakes.

The same people that said the mission was accomplished are the same people that are now telling us we don't want any timetables, we don't want any deadlines, we don't want any goals for when we maybe should possibly, at some point, get out of Iraq and redeploy out. We don't want any of that. They expect, after all these mistakes, all of these blunders, that somehow we are going to trust them.

I am sorry, but you know what? Between now and when the President decides it's time to get out, how many more soldiers are we going to lose? How many more kids are we going to go up and see at Walter Reed who have brain injuries and post-traumatic stress?

That's the difference between today and a year from now. That's the difference between a deadline and an open-ended war, kids getting killed and innocent Iraqis getting killed. You know, I think that this is the height of arrogance that this veto showed by the President.

Can I interrupt you and just make a highlight? In the President's speech today he said that the incident levels are down.

I hear you too.

I totally agree with you. I think the first step for most people who find themselves in a massive hole and going in the wrong direction, or following someone who continues to lead them down the wrong road, is to not follow that person any more.

What the Democratic Congress has provided is what the American people sent the majority of the Democrats down here for in November, and that is to take this war in another direction, take our foreign policy in another direction. That is what this supplemental bill has done. The American people wanted us to take care of the veterans, and we increased $500 million for post-traumatic stress disorder, $500 million additional for brain injuries, that is what the American people wanted, for us to fix the veterans's problem.

They wanted to make sure, they got tired of hearing about kids over there without body armor. So we made sure that no kid could go over there, or soldier or adult who is going to Iraq will not be over there without the proper equipment, body armor, up-armored Humvees, the proper rest when they get back, for over a year, let them rest. We gave the American people what they wanted, and what the troops deserved.

To have that vetoed by a President who has been wrong on every single major foreign policy and domestic issue over the past 6 years doesn't make any sense to the American people, and it certainly doesn't make any sense to us. You look, and it's getting better. You hear this all the time, it's not getting better.

It's not. If it was getting better, do you think you would have this uproar from the American people? Do you think you would have all of these new Members of Congress if things were getting better?

In a report that just came out, National Counterterrorism Center, terrorist incidents in Iraq rose by 91 percent from 3,468 in 2005 to 6,630 in 2006 and getting worse. Innocent Iraqis are getting killed all the time, and they believe it's because the American soldiers are there, because the American presence is there. That is what they believe, and we are saying we need to redeploy out of these major centers and stop policing a civil war. That is exactly what's happening.

One of the things we wanted to do in the supplemental that the President just vetoed is hold the Iraqi government accountable for training their own soldiers. You know, the President has always said, when they stand up, we stand down. Then they keep telling us that the Iraqi soldiers are standing up, but we are not standing down, which means they are not standing up.

We wanted to put benchmarks in there so that the Iraqi soldiers would have to meet them or were leaving. Now, you can't give people open- ended situations in which they can get out of. All we are trying to do is hold the Iraqi government responsible.

I don't like saying it, because I didn't support this war from the beginning. To go in there and knock everything around and then say you are not doing what you are doing, but the bottom line is, if you do not get yourself trained, if you do not, as a country, get your police force ready, and your military ready, we can't stay here forever.

And, Mr. Speaker, I don't think that is too much to ask. And the response from the President through his Secretary of State, Secretary Rice, signaled Bush's opposition to, ``Any war spending bill,'' check this out, ``that penalizes Iraqi's government for failing to make progress.'' We are not going to punish them for failing to make progress. Are we in a therapy session here?

I will be happy to yield.

That is right.

And let's be clear about this whole issue of deadlines. There was a deadline that came out of the House version, for the political junkies that are paying attention, Mr. Speaker. There was a hard deadline that came out of the House version, not in the Senate version. And the compromise that just went to the President had the goal, just the goal of maybe getting out of Iraq. No hard deadline, just the goal, because we knew that he would veto a hard deadline. And as much as we don't like it, he is the President of the United States. But there is the goal of leaving. This President, Mr. Speaker, can't even think about the goal of getting out of Iraq. He doesn't even want to talk about it.

There is no deadline in this supplemental that he just vetoed, no hard deadline at all. The language said, the goal of getting out. So let's be very, very clear.

Now, when people ask, well, why do we need to get out. People I think feel why. There's a lot of really good examples, not just from Democrats as some of our friends may like to think, but from a variety of others.

Here's what is happening in Iraq, as the Washington Post reported, ``A department of the Iraqi Prime Minister's Office is playing a leading role,'' this is the Iraqi Prime Minister's Office, playing a leading role ``in the arrest and removal of senior Iraqi Army and National Police Officers, some of whom had apparently worked too aggressively to combat violent Shiite militias, according to U.S. military officials in Baghdad. Since March 1, at least 16 Army and National Police Commanders have been fired, detained or pressured to resign. At least 9 of them are Sunnis.''

So now they are removing police and military people that are cracking down on the wrong, somehow the wrong group of terrorists. And some folks say this is not like Vietnam.

How about Senator Hagel, leading Republican, conservative. I read today he had an 85 percent rating from a conservative think tank. So he is clearly a conservative Republican. He just got back from Iraq. Here's what he says in Mr. Novak's column of yesterday, or 2 days ago. ``This thing is coming undone quickly, and Maliki's government is weaker by the day. The police are corrupt, top to bottom. The oil problem is a huge problem. They still can't get anything through the parliament. No hydrocarbon law, no deBaathification law, no provincial elections.''

That's Chuck Hagel, our friend in the Senate, our colleague in the United States Senate. Republican from Nebraska; 85 percent conservative rating from a conservative group here in Washington.

We're saying that we need to change direction, Mr. Speaker. We're saying that the Iraqi government has had over 4 years to try to piece this thing together, and that we've done all that we can do. And the American people do not want to lose any more soldiers to this war. And we want a deadline. We want to get out. We want to get out with respect. We want to get out with dignity, we want to get out and protect our troops.

But it turns out that the presence of the United States in Iraq is inciting violence. We're inciting the civil war. We're the ones being attacked, as well as others around. And in April, it's been the sixth highest month of American soldiers getting killed in the entirety of the war.

Let's fix this. Let's go in a new direction. This is not time for bravado. This it not time for ego. This is time for the American people to come together and the Congress to come together, the President to recognize that this has not worked, and for us to try to re-establish some level of credibility in the world. And this President needs to listen to the will of the American people.

And I want to make one final point, because we have this tremendous debate in the country that is not always framed the right way. But I want friends who we run into in the street, and someone says I'm pro- choice and I'm pro-life, and I think we're all pro-life. But the debate has been framed as such that pro-life Americans take their role and their issues very seriously.

And I find it extremely ironic, as a pro-life Democrat who voted for the partial birth abortion bill, that this President has two vetos. His one veto is on stem cell research, because that's a pro-life issue. And his second veto is to continue a war in which thousands of American soldiers have been killed and injured, and in which tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens, innocent, many of them, have been killed. And by keeping this open-ended, by keeping this open- ended, we know that there will be more death and destruction.

So I find it ironic that this President has two vetos; one pro-life, supposedly, and the other pro-war. And how they reconcile that on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, I'll have no idea. But I think it is important for us to recognize how sometimes dysfunctional the philosophy, Mr. Meek, of this President and this administration has been.

And so, let's, on the anniversary of ``Mission Accomplished,'' and recognizing the failures of the past, let's do what Americans do, and that's fix the problem. Americans are full of problem solvers, and that's what we do in this country. We fix things, whether it's the car or the computer, or the truck, we fix things.

And I hope that the President will find it in his heart to sit down with Speaker Pelosi, to sit down with Leader Reid and the leadership from this Congress, and draw on the knowledge of Ike Skelton, the Chair of our Armed Services Committee, who's been in this institution, I think, over 30 years. Draw on the knowledge of Jack Murtha, who's been in this Congress almost 40 years on the Defense Appropriations Committee. And stop listening to those people who got us in this situation.

I yield to my friend.

Can I share with the American people and our colleagues one more? First, I thought it was interesting, and our crack staff here, the President gave his speech in front of the Jefferson Memorial. We've got a great quote, 1789, when Jefferson wrote a letter to Madison talking about war. ``We have already given one effectual check to the dog of war, by transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body, from those who are to spend to those who are to pay.''

And I think it would be appropriate, if Mr. Bush is going to use President Jefferson as a backdrop, that he should recognize at least his philosophy on some of these issues.

But a quote from General John Batiste, retired general. Today, and this is on his response to the President's veto. ``The President vetoed our troops and the American people. His stubborn commitment to a failed strategy in Iraq is incomprehensible. He committed our great military to a failed strategy in violation of basic principles of war. His failure to mobilize the Nation to defeat worldwide Islamic extremism is tragic.''

``We deserve more from our Commander in Chief and his administration.'' That is Major General John Batiste, retired general.

It has been a pleasure being here with you today. I hope this week, with the leadership of Leader Pelosi, that we continue to stand strong behind the American people. And you can be assured, Mr. Speaker, that when Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid are there tomorrow negotiating that they will be representing the will of the American people, the 65 percent of the American people that want a deadline to get us out.

30somethingdems@mail.house.gov for any e-mails that the Members may want to send us. The charts that we have here, some we showed tonight and some we didn't, are all on our Web site www.speaker.gov/ 30something. And, again, the e-mail address is 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Robert D. Fitzer, a longtime clarinetist, music educator, and community activist in the Mahoning Valley.

Robert Fitzer was born in Youngstown, Ohio to former YSU Dana School of Music faculty members James Fitzer and Dolores Severino. By the time he was in 8th grade he was a member of the Youngstown Symphony Youth Orchestra. He studied clarinet at Northwestern University, where he was a member of their

Symphony Orchestra and their Symphonic Wind Ensemble. Robert studied at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria and in the International Festival Institute in Round Top, Texas. He has also received coaching in chamber music by Grammy-award winning cellist Yo- Yo Ma.

As a musician, Bob Fitzer has performed at Carnegie Hall, recorded Grammy Award winning music, and collaborated with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He has performed on motion picture soundtracks, Broadway shows on tour, and with rock bands such as Yes and Styx. He has performed with the United States Navy Band and the Blossom Festival Concert Band. Bob also served as soloist in 2004 with the Youngstown State University Symphonic Wind Ensemble.

Bob Fitzer has been a faculty member at YSU's Dana School of Music for 11 years. He teaches a studio of 24 clarinet majors and has formed clarinet choirs, trios and quartets. He has also served on the faculties of Trinity University in San Antonio and Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. In addition, he also conducts classes at his private clarinet studio in Youngstown.

Bob Fitzer has also been involved in the community life of Youngstown and Mahoning Valley. He has served as president of the Citizens League of Greater Youngstown and as a volunteer counselor at the Help Hotline Crisis Center. From 1995 to 2001 Bob Fitzer was co-host of WYSU's Commentary Cafe radio show. During that time I was granted the honor of being one of his guests.

Bob Fitzer spent a lifetime contributing to the art that this world so desperately needs. Currently, Bob Fitzer needs the comfort of that art and the friendship of his friends as he fights cancer. Bob, we wish you well and we pray for you and we hope you find the comfort and friendship that you have so freely provided for others throughout your life.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Margaret Nicholas, a member of the Hungarian Reformed Federation of America, Branch #227 in Warren, OH. Mrs. Nicholas was named a Fraternal Most Valuable Participant for the week of October 2, 2006. These Fraternal MVP's embody a spirit of generosity, dedicating their time to the betterment of their communities through their charitable endeavors.

The HRFA was founded 110 years ago, with the mission to preserve, promote, and support the cultural, religious, and linguistic traditions of Hungarians in America. Mrs. Nicholas has long been active in the Warren branch of the HRFA, currently serving as the Branch Manager.

Over the years, Mrs. Nicholas has been involved in many charitable activities, among them assembling care packages for troops serving overseas, which she has done since the days of the Vietnam War. Over the past two years, she has helped deliver over 4,000 cookies to the VA hospital in Brecksville, OH for the annual Join Hands Day. She is deeply involved in her church, helping to cook sausages to raise money for missions, organizing a vacation bible school, as well as serving as both a deacon and an elder.

I would like to commend Mrs. Nicholas on her outstanding devotion the improvement of the lives of people, not only in her community but across the country and around the world.

I wish it was just $20, Mr. Meek.

I am trying to pay attention to you, but I'm thinking to myself, you do owe me money.

I'm kidding.

For the record, Mr. Speaker, that was a joke.

As we listened to the debate over the past couple of days, we heard a lot from our Republican side, this is about the kids and you have to do this for the kids. I am thinking to myself as I am listening to the debate that it was the Republican Congress since 1994, post-Bill Clinton, when it got out of control in the last 6 years with President Bush, Republican House, Republican Senate and Republican White House, that garnered almost $3 trillion more of debt for our country, as you just pointed out.

Now, if you are concerned about the kids, the first thing you don't want to do is leave them in a worse position than even you were in. Quite frankly, if we keep going down the same road that the Republican- led Congress and President steered us down, that is a road of debt and deficits and borrowing money from China and Japan and OPEC countries and some of our best competitors.

Slingshot it in.

One of the other critiques we heard last night and today about the Democratic budget is: More government spending. They want the government to spend the money instead of the individual.

Well, I'm sorry, I don't know how you expect to fund veterans' health care if the government is not going to do it. Who do they want to do it? Wal-Mart? Home Depot?

Congress.

I appreciate that.

And $3.6 billion from the resolution, continuation resolution from last year, for veterans' spending. That increase is government spending. Because we have to fund health care for veterans because it was the government that sent the veterans out.

Now, I am not saying that every dollar the government spends is good, but I remember last year under the Republican budget and the year before under the Republican budget passed by a Republican House and passed by a Republican Senate, signed by a Republican White House, that gave $14-15 billion in subsidies to the oil subsidies, that was government spending; and our friends on the other side of the aisle weren't very critical when public tax dollars were going to corporate welfare for the oil companies when they were making the greatest profits they have ever made. That is government spending.

What we are doing, not raising taxes, the same revenues as the President's budget had, we are going to reprioritize that money and we are going to take that money and spend it on our veterans and invest it in education and increase the Pell Grant almost $4,600. We are going to take that money and cover thousands and thousands and thousands more kids under the SCHIP program, the State Children Health Insurance Program. That is the difference between these two budgets.

When the President says he is going to veto this supplemental bill that is going to get us out of Iraq, you know what else he is vetoing, $1.7 billion increased over the President's recommendation for veterans' health care. That is in the supplemental bill that he says he is going to veto.

Also, $1.7 billion above the President's request for defense health care for our soldiers. The President says he is going to veto that.

There is $500 million for post-traumatic stress disorder for soldiers coming back. The President says he is going to veto that.

There is $500 million in there for brain injuries; and we have both been to Walter Reed visiting the soldiers with the level of brain injuries that we have never seen in combat. So $500 million, the President says he is going to veto that.

Almost a billion dollars in the supplemental for children's health insurance, and the President says he is going to veto that. That is what the President is saying he is going to veto.

We hear a lot about government spending, and we hear a lot about the kids. You can't send these kids off to war and, in many instances, adults off to war, and then when they come back your argument is we don't want government to spend money. That doesn't cut it.

Let's look not only at the supplemental but with the budget the President presented. We, the Democratic budget, increases the Pell Grant to at least $4,600 from a little over $4,000 now. As you said, we are constrained by the $3 trillion of debt that was created over the past 6 years by our friends in the Republican party.

But this Democratic budget rejects all of the things that the President recommended. Here is what the President wanted to do for higher education. He wanted to eliminate the Perkins loan program. He wanted to eliminate the Federal supplemental opportunity grants, and he wanted to eliminate leveraging education assistance partnerships. He wanted to completely eliminate them.

Now, we are competing with 1.3 billion people in China and over 1 billion people in India. The key component to economic growth in America in the next decade or two or three or four or probably for the existence of this country is to invest in education, and when you look at what the Democrats have done in the first 100 hours, we cut student loan interest rates in half for both parent loans and student loans, and here we are in our budget and we raised the Pell Grant in the CR as well, and here we are raising again the limit for the Pell Grant to $4,600. That is investing in education.

When you look at the billions of dollars we are going to put into children's health care to make sure that every kid in the United States of America has access to health care, those are investments that are going to pay off in the long term, and that is going to lead to a strong America, a strong economic growth.

Now, our friends on the other side, and I do not want to talk too much about this, but it has been levied against us that the Democratic budget is somehow going to raise taxes. We have the Brookings Institute, we have the Center for Economic Policy, and we have the Concorde Coalition, three independent folks who have said we are not raising taxes; and I am going to tell you why we are not raising taxes right now.

We are going to fix the alternative minimum tax. It has been creeping into the middle class, and we are going to provide 23 million Americans with a tax cut because we are not going to allow the AMT to go in and creep into their tax levels.

Not only does the budget not raise taxes; we include tax relief where the child tax credit stays on, marriage penalty relief stays on, 10 percent bracket tax deduction stays on, and a deduction for State and local taxes all in this bill.

I want to say one further thing on the tax issue, that the same people claiming that the Democrats are raising taxes are the same people that said that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They were the same people that said that it would only cost us $50 billion in Iraq, and we are already to the $500 billion mark. They were the same people that said we would be greeted as liberators. They were the same people that said they would be handing roses out to the Americans. Same people, same President that said mission accomplished, you know, same person that said we are in the last throes, the Vice President's comments on the war.

So they are the same people saying that we are raising taxes, and all I want to say to the Members is this, the American people can reserve judgment on whether or not this budget does it. We know it does it, but they can reserve judgment. Keep your 2006 tax returns, keep your 2007 tax returns, make a copy of them, and next January and February, March, April, when you get your taxes back, you compare your 2008 tax returns to your 2006 and your 2007, and you will see that there is absolutely no difference.

Then you can add those comments that we have been getting here over the past couple of days, you can add that to the column of weapons of mass destruction, and last throes and mission accomplished. Just take that comment on its axis and put it in the column with the list of all the other issues that have been in some ways misrepresented here on the House floor and across the country.

So I am proud of this budget. I am proud that the Democratic budget invests $50 billion to cover children. I am glad we are investing in veterans health care, and those are things that need to be done. Those are not things that individual families can do. Those are the things we can only do collectively as a society, as a community.

I am so proud that you have had the opportunity to come down here and lead this debate, as we are beginning to wrap up. I think it is important to say that the Democrats have heard the call from the American people in the November election. The country wanted to go in another direction, and that is really what we have done.

Well, I think the American people will be very glad when they see this budget. They are going to be very glad over the past couple of weeks and really over the past 100 days of all of the accomplishments led by Speaker Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn and Rahm Emanuel and John Larson, and really the amazing leadership we are getting from our leadership in our caucus and the real teamwork on behalf of our freshmen Members and the different aspects of our caucus.

I have never been prouder to be a Democrat than in the last couple of weeks on this floor and to pass that resolution last week that is going to get us out of Iraq responsibly, invest in our veterans, make sure they get the kind of health care they need, the first 100 hours, where we began to bring some fiscal discipline to the House, cut student loan interest rates in half, repairing student loans, invested in alternative energies, invested in the stem cell research and some great advances, creating new sectors, raising the minimum wage, all of this was done in the first 100 hours.

When you add to that the supplemental and the $1.7 billion and the billion dollars for vets and the additional $1.7 billion above the President's request for health care for our soldiers, and you add this budget of $50 billion that is going to go to poor kids to make sure that they get health care so they can go out and get up on their feet and go to school healthy, ready to learn and move forward and get a good job and pay taxes and advance their families forward, break the cycle of poverty, these are the kind of investments that we are making, increasing the Pell Grant to $4,600. Key investments.

So I am proud of what has been going on here, and it has been a pleasure to rekindle this kind of debate that we have, and I really appreciate your friendship.

With that, do you have any closing comments? I am going to wrap it up here. 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov. If anybody wants to e-mail or see any of the charts we have had, you can go to www.speaker.gov/ 30something.

I am sorry to interrupt you, but we are leaving tomorrow, and I will not see you till after the Final Four where the Florida Gators and the Ohio State Buckeyes may have a rematch, and I just want you to know everybody in Ohio is looking for some revenge.

I appreciate what you are saying, and there are a couple of points I would like to add.

When the President says he is going to veto the supplemental bill, he is going to veto a $1.7 billion understand increase for veterans. We have seen Walter Reed and heard the stories from across the country. We know we have more veterans coming back. He is going to veto a $1.7 billion increase from his recommendation. And then he is going to veto a $1.7 billion increase for defense health care for our troops, not yet veterans but still needing access to care. And $500 million is for

post-traumatic stress disorder. And $500 million is for brain injuries.

Those of us who have been to Walter Reed have seen these veterans who are more affected than any of us. They are the ones that are hurt. They are the ones with the brain injuries, and we get in and we try to put in $500 million in addition to what the President wants for brain injuries, and the President threatens to veto it.

That is $500 million for post-traumatic stress disorder, and the President threatens to veto it. We put in this supplemental bill, Mr. Speaker, rules that the Department of Defense and the Pentagon say we need. That if you don't have the proper equipment, you shouldn't go off to war. If you don't have the proper rest, you shouldn't go off to war. If we can't put the proper armor on your Humvees when you are on patrol in Baghdad, you should not go. The President said he is going to veto that.

So the President is saying he is okay with sending our American troops to Baghdad to drive in a Humvee that is not up armored, to send the soldiers out in the field without the proper body armor, and to sending kids back when they have only been home for a few months, sending them right back. That is what the President is saying he is going to veto, Mr. Speaker.

I am not okay with that. And the Democratic Congress is not okay with that. And the Senate is not okay with that. And the American people are not okay with sending our troops to Baghdad to ride in Humvees that don't have the proper armor on them. Period. That is the debate. That is what the President says he is going to veto.

Let's be very, very clear about what the Democratic Congress has passed and put in front of the President and what he is threatening to veto. Now, we have even given him a few months to get done what he wants to get done. Many of us want our troops home now, I'm one of them, but I recognize there are a lot of us here, and we need to have some level of compromise.

All we are saying is if there is not progress by July, we start bringing our troops home. The war has already been longer than World War II. If you haven't done it by now, it can't be done. Bring them home.

But if there is progress, we will give them until October. If they don't meet the benchmarks that the President set out, Mr. Meek, in January, and these are the President's benchmarks. These aren't the Speaker's benchmarks or Senator Reid's benchmarks; they are not Kendrick Meek's benchmark. They are not mine. These are the benchmarks the President of the United States set out in his speech of January 10.

All we are saying, is you have been able to say one thing and not live up to it. You have certain goals, and then not get there, and we just all go on our merry way. What we are saying, is you've got to be accountable for the benchmarks you have set out. If they don't meet those benchmarks, we are coming home. We are bringing our troops home.

So I think it is very important that the American people understand what is going on. You mentioned Katrina. Everybody wants to talk about there is pork in this bill and this and that; the majority of this goes to the troops, and the next biggest chunk goes to Katrina relief. We are trying to free up money to rebuild the gulf coast.

And the hold-up the whole time has been that the President and the Republicans want a 10 percent match from a local community in order to draw down 90 percent of the Federal money. And we wonder why the coast isn't getting rebuilt, it is because the towns have been completely destroyed. They don't have the 10 percent match, Mr. Speaker. They are wiped out. They don't have police, they don't have fire, they don't have roads, sewer, anything.

And the former leadership in our last Congress was so ideological they said no, you have to have your 10 percent match, and then billions of dollars did not get down to the gulf coast. That is what the President is also going to veto. I feel strongly about this.

Here is the difference we are starting to see. When Members turn on the television, Mr. Speaker, and they see what is happening with the Attorney General's Office, when they hear about $10- 12 billion in Iraq that nobody knows where it is, and now all of this information that is coming out, hearing about the gulf coast, hearing about Halliburton. If a truck blows a tire, Halliburton puts in for another truck instead of putting a new tire on the truck.

Yes, just moved to Dubai. You would think that with all of the taxpayer money they get, they would at least stay in the country.

But all of this is not just coming out by coincidence.

There have been 104 hearings related to the Iraq War. Oversight and accountability. One of the key responsibilities of the United States Congress is to provide oversight to the executive branch agencies, and we did not hear about any of this stuff for 6 years when the Republican House and the Republican Senate sat on their hands while all of this was going on. This is not stuff that is on the news. This is not stuff that just happened. This is stuff that happened when the Republican Congress was in charge.

Now, I understand that we are all loyal to our political parties, but at some point, when it begins to hurt the American people, you need to provide the oversight of their tax money and the kind of inadequacy that has been going on in Iraq.

Now all of the sudden they want to change course. Now all of the sudden

the commander in the Middle East is running around saying that we do not have time. You know why they do not have time? Because we are putting the heat on them to get things done. 104 hearings on oversight. That is our responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, I am excited and I called my mom on the way over here, and I was just saying, this is really great because we are actually getting things done to help people. That is what is exciting about this is that next year at this time, all of us are going to be able to go back home and campaign about how many thousands of kids in your congressional district now have access to health care because of what we are going to do through the SCHIP program.

All of are going to be back home. We are going to be able to talk about the increase in the Pell Grants, and how many more kids have access to higher education. We are going to be able to go into the VFW and the American Legion and talk about the highest increase in the history of the Veterans Administration, who supports the troops. I am excited about the opportunities that we are going to have over the next year to go out, and as our Speaker said, this is a movement of hope for the American people.

You know what I have heard? Do you know what I have heard from folks around the Capitol, people who don't make a lot of between, $100,000, between $50,000 and $100,000. Do you know what I heard them say? I don't mind paying taxes. But if I am going to pay taxes don't give it to the oil companies and corporate welfare. If I am going to pay taxes out of the $50,000 I make a year, living in D.C., very expensive town, don't spend $2 billion of it a week in Iraq. I don't mind paying, but if I am going to pay, give it to the poor kids who need health care. Make college more affordable. Make investments in our economy. You know, I think most people recognize they have got to pay their own fair share. But what they get frustrated about is where it goes.

Now, are you telling me Halliburton is going to get billions and billions and billions of dollars out of a guy or a woman who makes $50,000 a year, who is paying those taxes? And then that same company moves off, out of the country? No respect for anything. But I want to make a point here as we begin the wind down.

Mr. Speaker, many people have made comments on this floor over the past several hours that our budget somehow raises taxes on the American people.

Now, we are big on third-party validators here. I am going to give you three, this is the Hamilton project at the Brookings Institution. ``The budget would not raise taxes.''

Would not. Now this is the Center on Budget and Policy, statement, March 28 ``This claim about raising taxes is incorrect. The House plan does not include a tax increase.'' That is a third-party validator.

We have one more. This is the Concord Coalition. This is the gold standard of the budget hawks. This is bipartisan, this is deficit hawks, Republicans, Democrats. In an issue brief of March 28, quote, ``Thus, to be clear, the budget resolution does not call for or require a tax increase.'' That was three, separate, third-party validators.

I am just going to make this statement, and I am going to kick it to one of my friends. The same people that are saying we are raising taxes are the same people that said we would be greeted as liberators. They are the same people that said, you know, we use the oil money for reconstruction, the same people that said it would only cost us $50 billion to run the war in Iraq, the same people that said we are in our last throes, the same people that said mission was accomplished, those are the same people that are saying that the Democratic budget is going to raise taxes, which three third-party validators have not say. All I am going to say is this. Let's ask the American people to reserve judgment.

Next January and February, when you file your taxes, you compare them to the taxes you filed this year, and you will see that the Democrats have not raised your taxes. Reserve judgment, keep your sheets, keep your forms from this year, and you will see next year that we have not done it, and that will be one more that you could add to the list of inaccuracies that have been levied towards the American people.

I am not going anywhere.

Thank you.

Those are trillions of dollars.

I have got it right here, Mr. Meek.

I would like to ask to submit this for the Record, Mr. Speaker.

So this will be listed and memorialized in the Congressional Record, the organizations who have endorsed the 2008 budget.

The following organizations have endorsed the 2008 Budget

Resolution:

American Academy of Pediatrics, March 27

American Association of People with Disabilities, March 26

American Association of School Administrators, March 27

American Association of University Women, March 27

American Farmland Trust, March 28

American Federation of State, County, and Municipal

Employees, AFL-CIO, March 27

American Hospital Association, March 28

The American Legion, March 21

American Public Transportation Association, March 23

The ARC of the United States, March 26

Association of Child Support Attorneys of Los Angeles

County, March 27

Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, March 27

Association of Public Television Stations, March 27

Audubon, March 27

Catholic Charities USA, March 27

Child Support Directors Association of California, March 27

Coalition on Human Needs, March 27

Committee for Education Funding, March 27

Computer & Communications Industry Association, March 28

Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, March 26

Catholic Health Association, March 27

Council on Competitiveness, March 28

Defenders of Wildlife, March 22

Disabled American Veterans, March 21

Electronic Industries Alliance, March 28

Emergency Campaign for American's Priorities, March 27

Environmental Coalition (including American Rivers,

Audubon, NRDC, Sierra Club, Wilderness Society and many

others), March 26

Families USA, March 26

Food Research and Action Center, March 27

Independent Budget, March 21

Information Technology Association of America, March 27

Information Technology Industry Council, March 27

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.,

March 27

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, March 28

League of Conservation Voters, March 27

Military Officers Association of America, March 26

National Child Support Enforcement Association, March 27

National Low Income Housing Coalition, March 26

National Women's Law Center, March 27, 2007

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, March 27

National Association of Counties, March 27

National Association of Federally Impacted Schools, March

27

National Association of Police Organizations, Inc., March

28

National Committee to Preserve Social Security and

Medicare, March 27

National Council of La Raza, March 27

National Council of Social Security Management

Associations, March 27

National Council of SSA Field Operations Locals, American

Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, March 27

National Education Association, March 26

National Head Start Association, March 27

National School Boards Association, March 27

Ohio Child Support Enforcement Agency Directors'

Association, March 27

OMB Watch, March 26

Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International North

America, March 27

Student Aid Alliance, March 27

Symantec, March 28

Technet, March 28

Transportation Construction Coalition, March 23

Trout Unlimited, March 26

The Trust for Public Land, The Conservation Fund, The

Nature Conservancy, and Land Trust Alliance, March 27

United Cerebral Palsy, March 26

United Spinal Association, March 27

US Action, March 27

U.S. Public Interest Research Group, March 27

Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, March 21

Wider Opportunities for Women, March 23

Appreciate that.

Exactly. Budgets are priorities. They are blueprints for what you stand for and what you believe. And the Democrats and the Democratic budget is something that I think really is going to invigorate the country. It is not going as far as a lot of us want it to go, but the fact of the matter is we are left holding the bag of a Republican-led Congress and President that added almost $3 trillion in debt to this country, and we have got to deal with that. That is the stark reality of the budget situation.

But, again, I would like to say this. This President has threatened to veto the supplemental bill that adds an additional $1.7 billion for veterans, an additional $1.7 billion for defense health care, $500 million for post-traumatic stress, $500 million for brain injuries. That is what the President is going to veto when he says he is going to veto the supplemental.

The American people are way ahead of us on this war, and the national intelligence estimate said that the war in Iraq has created more terrorists and has made the terrorist situation worse, Mr. Meek. This war has created more enemies for us, has created more terrorists that are gunning for the United States. So to say that by coming home that that somehow is going to make us less safe is inaccurate and inconsistent with the national intelligence estimate and the basic common sense of most Americans.

So as we move forward in a new direction in Iraq and the budget blueprint that we have that is going to move the country in a new direction domestically, without raising taxes, as the Concord Coalition said, the Democratic budget is not raising taxes. And the Center on Budget and Policy is saying the Democratic budget is not raising taxes. I will say, and another third-party validator, the Brookings Institute, says the Democrats are not raising taxes in their new budget.

I want to repeat this. I am asking, Mr. Speaker, for the Members of this House who know the facts, who will vote on this bill, they know we are not raising taxes, and that is why we are going to get broad support on it.

But for the American people to compare this year's tax returns that they get, reserve judgment on the Democratic tax policy, compare this year's to next year's, and you will see that your tax rates are the exact same, the exact same. And you will have one more piece of evidence to put in the column of we will be greeted as liberators, the same thing, the same column as we are in the last throes, the same column as mission accomplished. You will be able to put the Democratic budget and the Democratic tax policy in that same list.

We just want them to meet the benchmarks that the President set on January 10 of this year. We are going to hold the administration's feet to the fire.

30somethingdems@mail.house.gov. For any e-mails you may want to send, www.speaker.dot.gov/30something. All of the charts that Members may want to look at are all available on these Web sites. www.speaker.gov/ 30something.

The sense I am getting from my district now is that this is all fine probably if everything is going okay for everyone else. But the fact that things aren't going well, people are struggling to pay for their health care and college tuition. They are living paycheck to paycheck, bankruptcies are up, foreclosures, and kids are getting killed because of an administration that has been less than forthright with the facts. I think that is what is stirring among the American people.

That is what happened in the election in November; and I think quite frankly the key to moving the kind of agenda we want to move here is going to be organize and tap that energy that is back home in a lot of our districts. Unless we do that, we are going to struggle. But I think we have the wind at our back. We have the American people at our back. They like what we are doing. There are good responses from the bill we passed on Friday.

We have got to get out of Iraq, and this President does not have the credibility to I think withstand the kind of pressure that is coming from the American people. The American people want out. They are tired of watching what is happening. Five more soldiers got killed, more kids maimed, more kids injured, more kids at Walter Reed, more kids go into a VA system that is less than adequate, and the American people are looking for the kind of changes that you have talked about, Congressman Meek has talked about.

The bottom line I think is this, and whether you are talking about the war or anything else. For the war, it is like, well, there is only two options here. We either go down the road the President has taken us down and keep going or we have this alternative that we presented to get us out in the next year, hopefully earlier. An alternative to not going with our proposition is to continue to give the President a blank check, continue to have kids get killed, continue to not have a plan with absolutely no explanation as to what we are doing over there. No one even knows anymore.

To go along with the President's budget means that as we look through our notes here and the research we did, 1 million children who are currently covered under the SCHIP program will get cut out of it. Our plan, invest $50 billion to cover millions of children who are currently uninsured. Which way do you want to go? I mean, this is not brain surgery. The President wants to continue to give tax cuts to the top 1 percent. We want to cover kids with health care, without raising taxes.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Speaker, but this Congress wants to add up to $50 billion to cover $50 million of new children on the State Children's Health Insurance Program. We want to get the Pell grant up to at least $4,600 and we reject the President's proposals for cuts.

Now, imagine the leadership in the United States of America in 2007, Mr. Speaker, 2007 where he is going to say we want to not fund Pell Grants, we want to not fund children's health insurance and we want to continue to spend $2 billion a week in Iraq.

We said that you said these are the benchmarks, and guess what, we are going to hold you accountable for what you have said, because up to this point, you have been saying whatever you want and there has not been the kind of force of law which we passed out of here on Friday.

Is that not interesting that the soldiers we talked to, Mr. Speaker, at Walter Reed, back home, the kids that have gone, come back, gone, come back, and they are going back again, the reason you hear about why these kids want to go back and you think why would you want to go back, they want to go back because their buddies are still there. They feel like if they go back that they will be able to save their lives.

The last couple of funerals I have been to with kids who were stop- loss and were supposed to come home but ended up staying longer than they probably should have and ended up not making it back, the reason they wanted to go back in the first place was to protect their friends, and that is the heroism, that is the valor, that is the nobility of the cause. That is why these kids go back.

To talk about that the debate last week, and many of us did not get an opportunity to speak for a variety of different reasons, but to hear, Mr. Speaker, some people say that if we bring these kids home, somehow that is going to make us less safe here in the United States, is an appalling argument, that this administration and this Republican Congress would rubber stamp this war to go over there, and that National Intelligence Estimate has told us that this war has created more terrorists, not less. It has created terrorists, Mr. Speaker, and then now that we have thousands and thousands and thousands of more people gunning for us here, these folks have the audacity to tell us, Mr. Speaker, that somehow us bringing our kids home is going to make us less safe.

Now, that, to me, is appalling and to continue that kind of disjointed logic is unacceptable to me because we have kids in our districts who are not back home. They are either in Iraq, and many of them have gotten killed under the guise of the war, and to tell us that by bringing our kids home and getting them out of a civil war is going to make us less safe does not make any sense because all of the intelligence in the whole world is saying this war in Iraq has completed the final piece of the fanaticism of the Middle East.

We have given anyone who kind of wanted to join but did not really want to, they are now joining. They are now a part of everything. They are now a part of the terrorist groups. They are now a part of the terrorist organizations. They now hate the United States more than they ever have, and so I find the whole operation appalling.

Civil war.

On behalf of the American people, I think they are trying to see what we are trying to do. We are trying to end this war, stop the killing of our own kids, stop the maiming of our own soldiers, get them out of a civil war, try to calm down what's happening, stop the $8-plus billion a month that we are spending over there, and try to take some of that money and invest that into our own students, our own kids.

I was, just before I got here, having dinner with an old friend of mine, who is a Republican. He said, we have spent $400 billion, soon to be $500-and-some-billion dollars on this war. Can you just imagine, we could have covered all of our citizens for health care, we could have paid for everyone's college education, and, you know, gotten some stuff done in this country.

Instead, we have $500 billion, we have well over 3,000 kids have gotten killed, adults and soldiers, some 25,000 maimed or injured and God knows how many innocent Iraqi civilians, many of them children.

Our e-mail is 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov if any Members would like to e-mail us or visit us at www.speaker.gov/ 30something, e-mail us, 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov.

All of the new statistics from our budget will be on there, I am sure.

I think this is an appropriate time to make the announcement of our key staffer for years and years and years here at the 30-something Working Group, Tom Manatos has gotten engaged. He is going to be married to a beautiful young Republican.

Who works at the White House, and the engagement, I guess, was blessed by the Greek Orthodox archbishop. How about that for off to a good start?

Right up to the staff level.

Mr. Speaker, we yield back the balance of our time.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank Father McCarthy for your inspiring prayer.

Albert Einstein once said that ``Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.'' And for almost 46 years Father Tom McCarthy has served the Diocese of Youngstown as a priest, and in that service he has lived that motto.

A Warren native, Father McCarthy attended St. Mary's School and St. Mary's High School, which was the predecessor to my alma mater, John F. Kennedy High School. After his seminary training, he was ordained on August 15, 1961 in St. Columba Cathedral by Bishop Emmet Walsh.

Those who know him would describe Father McCarthy as pastoral, charming, gregarious, a great friend, funny, everything Irish, and above all, holy in his service to God.

Father McCarthy has served at many parishes in the Youngstown Diocese, including St. Ed's in Youngstown, St. Joseph's in Austintown, St. William's in Champion, St. Michael's in Canfield, Blessed Sacrament in Warren and St. Joseph's in Mantua.

Father McCarthy has also spent much of his career in service to other priests. He has served as Diocesan Director of Vocations, Priest Personnel Adviser, a member of the Priest Personnel Board, and for 6 years served as a director of that board. Father McCarthy also spent time in Chicago as president of the National Federation of Priests' Councils. Since 2003, he has served as the Bishop's Delegate for Retired Priests.

I am happy to have invited, along with my colleague, Charlie Wilson, Father McCarthy to Washington, D.C. I thank him for his service to our community, for his prayer this morning, and for his many, many years of service to the Catholic Church.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate it, and no more important than the Ways and Means Committee, of which you serve on, and all your hard work over the past 4 years in the United States Congress, previous to that in the Florida Senate, previous to that in the Florida House, following in your mom's footsteps, who was also an appropriator in the United States Congress. So it is an honor to follow in her footsteps.

I think there is a couple of very important points that we want to make in regards to this bill that we have before us on Thursday. It passed out of the Appropriations Committee last Thursday, and this, in essence, in fact, in reality, is the piece of legislation that will help change the course of our Iraq policy.

The President has had free rein for the past 5 years from a Republican Congress that just went along with everything that he wanted to do, and I found it funny this weekend, as we were watching some of the weekend shows, and I was watching Meet the Press and former Congressman Tom DeLay was on, Richard Perle, one of the top, President's top defense advisers was on, and they were arguing that

if we pull out of Iraq, that somehow the sky's going to fall, okay, and that this whole thing, that Iraq is going to turn into a catastrophe, and it is going to fall apart; it is going to spin out of control.

I just could not help but to think that these people, Mr. Speaker, have absolutely no credibility to comment on what is going on in Iraq. They can talk and they can say what they need to say, but the bottom line is they have expressed their opinion over the past 5 years, and it is difficult to find any statements that they have made that have been either factual or predictions that they have made that came true.

I want to say a couple of things about this bill that we are going to pass.

We are saying basically and General Petraeus is saying this. Now they are saying that we are going to need until summer to figure out whether or not the surge is working. In our bill that we are passing, that we are going to pass on Thursday, it says by July 1, which is the summer, that if by July 1 there is no progress being made, that we immediately begin to withdraw our troops down in 180 days; and if by October 1 the President does not certify that the benchmarks that he came up with are met, we begin to get out of there; and at the absolute latest, we start withdrawing March of next year and have everybody home by August of 2008.

Here is what I want to say, because here is the big argument that we had. We are saying that there are benchmarks that they need to meet, and if they do not meet them, they are deadlines, and we are coming home. What we are hearing from the other side is that you cannot have benchmarks, you cannot possibly have any benchmarks, you cannot tie the President's hands. Well, actually, it is funny.

Thursday it passed out of committee.

That is right.

That is right, and now all our friends on the other side are saying, you cannot possibly set a deadline, you cannot possibly tie the President's hands. Very interesting when you go back and do a little research.

In June of 1997, when our troops were on their way to Bosnia under President Clinton, House Republicans brought to the floor an amendment that would, guess what, set a timeline and a date certain for withdrawal from the U.S. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, a mission that was only 18 months old. So all of the Republicans who say that we cannot possibly be for a timeline were for a timeline 10 years ago in Bosnia.

Now, our friend from Indiana Mr. Buyer, who we had a nice debate with over the resolution a few weeks ago, offered an amendment that by December 15, 1997, President Clinton was required to report to Congress on political and military conditions in Bosnia. By June 30 of 1998, all troops had to be withdrawn. That was an amendment that the now-ranking member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs offered in 1997, and you will never guess all of the Republicans, members of leadership today, who voted for that amendment, and now all of the sudden they are saying, you cannot possibly be for a timeline or a date certain, and on and on and on.

We will continue to go through this debate. This will be the debate the next couple of weeks, but the Republicans in 1997, some of the top leaders in Congress today, supported a date certain that we would come out of Bosnia, withdraw the troops, and that was only 18 months into Bosnia and only $7 billion, and here we are today, 48 months, $379 billion, and over 3,200 American lives.

We are all important.

Those just happened.

The President has to deal with Congress now, and what is in this bill I think holds the President accountable. This bill does not just hold the Iraqis accountable, but it holds the President accountable.

The benchmarks that are in this supplement that we are going to pass are the President's benchmarks that he outlined in January that we need to hit. Now, if we do not hit them, then what do we do? The President says, do not tie my hands. We are saying, these are your benchmarks. We have been there for a long time, and if they do not step up, the Iraqi troops do not step up, it is time for us to go.

The bottom line is that there is no incentive for the Iraqis to step up because at this point they feel like we will stay there forever, and we are saying that we are not going to be there forever; get your act together.

Because I have to take off a few minutes early, and I want to go through real quick, I want to talk about what these folks who say they are going to vote against this bill, what they are voting against from the veterans' standpoint, okay.

Now, these are folks who consistently say, Mr. Speaker, we support the troops, work for the troops. We have got to get the troops back. I think we all believe that, but there will be an opportunity on Thursday to really put your voting card where all the rhetoric is.

Defense health care, we add $1.7 billion of an increase to the President's request. Here is what you are voting against if you vote against the supplemental. You are voting against an additional $450 million for post-traumatic stress disorder and counseling.

You are going to vote against $450 million for traumatic brain injury care and research, and if you have been to Walter Reed, as we all have, you will see unbelievable brain injuries.

You will be voting against $730 million to prevent health care fee increases for our troops.

You are going to vote against $20 million to address the problem at Walter Reed, and you are going to vote against $14.8 million for burn care.

Now, that is just defense health care. Now veterans health care. Now, we have got to support these veterans coming back; an additional $1.7 billion above the President's request for veterans health care.

If you vote against this supplemental, here is what you are voting against.

You are voting against $550 million to address the backlog in maintaining VA health care facilities. You will vote against $250 million for medical administration to ensure there is sufficient personnel to support the growing number of Iraqi and Afghanistan troops coming back. That was the major problem at Walter Reed because of the contracting issue, because some people had to make some money on the deal; $229 million for treating the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. It is a growing number, $100 million for contract mental health care and $62 million to help speed up the process.

Now, there are other things in here. We are going to talk about readiness.

But if you vote against this, that is what you are voting against. I would hate to see the political commercials that may be run if you are on the other end of this thing.

I mean, that is just, I wouldn't want to be in that position, but that is what is in the bill. So rhetoric is rhetoric, action is action, and it is $1.7 billion more for defense health care, $1.7 billion more for veterans health care.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be here for another session of the 30-something Working Group. We have had a very interesting week in Congress this week, and we want to share some of that with our fellow Members of Congress and those people paying attention for the record on the week of sunshine in the United States Congress.

In the past several days we have, as Democrats, continued to honor our pledge to try to open up government, knowing that the more information that we share, the more information that we have about the inner workings of government, the better off we are all going to be.

I think we have all seen over the past several years how a very closed, secretive government rules and what the end result may be of a very closed and secretive government. We are trying to fix that problem.

As you watch the news, Madam Speaker, as you watch the news every single day, it seems like we continue to hear stories about problems that we knew about many, many years ago, but we never did anything about it because you are not allowed to admit you make mistakes.

What we have tried to do this week is try to prevent the kinds of situations we have had with Walter Reed, try to prevent the kinds of situations we have had with Iraq, and try to prevent the kinds of situations we have had with Hurricane Katrina. All of these things were happening behind closed doors, and the people involved at the Pentagon or the Department of Defense, or whether it was in FEMA, the problem was people in the organization or in the agency or in certain departments knew things weren't going well or knew there wasn't a plan or knew we didn't have the proper people in place to execute whatever the exact role was of that agency, but nobody was allowed

to tell anybody or talk about it. And if you talked about it, you were fired.

We saw Hurricane Katrina on TV. We continue to see the war on TV, and we see what has happened at Walter Reed. Can you imagine people knew about what was going on at Walter Reed and didn't say anything? And then getting up in front of the TV cameras and say: We are for the troops, and you're not. That is a problem.

The new Democratic majority has begun the problem of fixing that problem this week. We are restoring accountability. This week we passed whistleblower protection and other government reform bills so that those people involved in the agencies who know how the agencies need to be run will not be subjected to the political whims of the day.

We want them to share with us what the problems are. We want them to share with us how we fix the agency or the department or the execution of the mission of a specific department. And I think it is important politically. As I am joined here by my good friend from Florida, Mr. Meek, I think it is important that we recognize what has happened since the Democrats have taken over.

Now we are not here to just say we are the only political party in the country and we are the best and this and that. We had a political situation in this country since 2000 where the presidency was Republican and for the most part the House and the Senate were Republican the whole time, and the Republicans have controlled this Chamber for 14 years. And a culture of coverup happened, to where the Republican majority in the House would not oversee or provide the proper oversight to what was going on in FEMA, in the war, and a lot of these other agencies.

And what has happened when the Democrats took over Congress and the American people said we need to bring a little balance to this situation, just look at what has happened. Walter Reed, who knows if that would have ever come up if the Democrats weren't poking around saying what is going on with veterans' health care?

All of the issues in Iraq. Today we passed a supplemental to begin to put the framework together to get our kids home from Iraq. And look at what is going on with Katrina and the oversight we are providing for that.

These are things that are happening because the American people put balance back into the government. And we want to continue to honor the pledges that we made previous to the last election. We want to make sure that it is not just the whistleblower protection, but it is the 67 hearings that we have already had, Democrats have already had on Iraq. Sixty-seven. No, it's even more.

I would be happy to yield.

And what is today, March 14?

In a couple of months we've had more hearings than the Republican majority had.

I think it is important for us to really recognize the importance and the results already of what has been happening. And I don't know if this is a coincidence or not, but Halliburton just picked up and moved; they just picked up and said we're moving out of the country.

Yes. And it is a shame that a company that gets that much public tax money would pick up and leave the very country that they get their money from to have their corporate headquarters.

But it is important that we are living up to our commitment. We are providing the oversight, 104 committee hearings. We are restoring accountability with the whistleblower protection; Presidential library donation; FOIA requests, where you can actually access documents in the government, freedom of information. So a lot of sunshine came down on the Capitol this week.

And I couldn't be prouder of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn and Rahm Emanuel and John Larson, our leadership and the Chairs of our committees for really applying the pressure and really trying to fix things and make things better.

I yield to my friend from Florida.

There is a surprise.

Will the gentleman yield?

Okay, make your point.

I didn't get invited to the White House.

I think we have gotten through that.

That just happened. And it is funny how the chiefs of staff are dropping like flies, first the Vice President's, and now the Attorney General's.

If I can make a point.

The Attorney General's office, with all these problems, let's think about the role and the mission of the Attorney General's office in the post-9/11 era. We now have Senators calling the current Attorney General not up to the job, I think was the phrase, he is not up to the job, and the other comments that those folks have made.

The thing is, this has been going on for a long time, and it's not until now where the threat of oversight looms, like impending danger.

If the gentleman will yield, there is no better way to support the troops than this supplemental bill that just passed out of our committee, and it will be on this floor next week. If you want to talk about sling-shotting the troops in, what we have done, and the Democratic leadership, and Mr. Murtha, Mr. Obey has been absolutely phenomenal as to what we have been able to do; $1.7 billion more than the President's request for defense health care. I don't know how you could vote against us; $450 million for post-traumatic stress disorder; $450 million for traumatic brain injury care and research; $730 million to prevent health care fee increase for our troops; $20 million to address problems at Walter Reed, and almost $15 million for

burn care; another $1.7 billion in addition to the President's request for veterans health care, $550 million to address the backlog in maintaining VA health care facilities, which has been a huge problem; $250 million for medical administration to ensure sufficient personnel to support the growing number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are coming back so that they can have the level of service that they need.

Now it's one thing to say you support the troops and then you turn around and you vote against a bill that has $4- or $5 billion in it to support the veterans and the troops coming back. It seems quite apparent to me that this is something that we need to do.

Believe me, nobody wants to get out of war faster than me. I want to be out this afternoon, tomorrow morning. Let's come back. This has been foolish to begin with, but there is a certain reality on logistical needs and diversity in the country of how we should do this.

So what we have done today was create a real framework for our kids to come back home, to let the Iraqis stand up, and put these benchmarks. I just want to talk for a minute about what these benchmarks are. Some people say, well, you are tying the President's hands, you are trying to micromanage more. We are not. That is not true.

The facts of the matter are these, the President and the Pentagon have benchmarks. So how many Iraqi troops need to be trained, what does the political situation need to look like? Have they achieved their political and military benchmarks that have been set by the President? All we are saying is that you have to show some progress towards those benchmarks by July.

Now, granted, we have already been in this war longer than we were in World War II. So by July you better show some progress as to meeting the benchmarks. If you are not showing progress, we will begin to redeploy out.

But if by July you are showing some progress, you will then have until October to actually meet the benchmarks. If you don't meet them by October, we redeploy. If you do meet them by October, we redeploy, because you have met the benchmarks.

This is just bringing this war to a reasonable end. What we have done today, I think the end is in sight.

I look forward to the old team being back down here. And I just want to continue as to what we are doing to try to fix this problem.

As I said, with the benchmarks and making sure the Iraqi soldiers stand up, but a key component of this, as Ms. Wasserman Schultz has just mentioned is that we are saying that our troops can't leave here, the United States, and go to Iraq if they don't have the requisite level of equipment and training. And I don't think there is anybody in the country who would want to send one of our soldiers or lots of our soldiers off to war knowing, and the legal term is mense rea, you know, with intent, send kids that don't have the proper equipment and training.

And the training part is something that Ms. Wasserman Schultz was just talking about. We have a readiness crisis in the Army. We are not capable now of handling another situation, military situation.

Now, I think if you would ask the American people are we overstretched, they would all say yes. And if you talk to the military families, they say, yes, we are overstretched to the point where we have kids in battle who don't have everything that they need. And that is unacceptable. And so in our supplemental bill, we are saying that if you don't have the training and the equipment and the proper amount of rest, you are not going.

Now, we put a waiver in there so that the President could waive it if there is a national security interest involved. But we don't like it. I know I don't like it. I shouldn't speak on behalf of everybody.

But the bottom line is, the President is the President. He is the Commander in Chief. He won the election in 2004. So we are left to deal with the situation.

And if you look at some of the polling in the country, 76 percent of Americans favor requiring U.S. troops returning from Iraq to have at least 1 year in the U.S. before being redeployed. That is a Gallup poll. Seventy-seven percent favor requiring U.S. troops to come home from Iraq if Iraq's leaders fail to meet promises to reduce violence there. And 76 percent of the American people don't think the Bush administration has done everything they could reasonably be expected to do to care for the needs and problems of veterans.

But the bottom line is the American people want accountability, and the American people want to change course. You don't see the kind of tidal wave election that we had in November without a message that comes with it. And the message is, we need to change direction. And the Iraq supplemental bill that passed out of the Appropriations Committee today and will pass

off the floor next week is that change in direction.

Is it everything all of us want? No. Are there things in there that we don't like? Yes. But we have to change direction in this war. It is not going well.

And you talk to the families and, you know, as a Member of Congress, I have made the phone calls, other Members of Congress have made the phone calls to parents. We have been to the funerals, and it is not good. And quite frankly, I don't want to go to any more. But I found out yesterday that I have got to go to another one.

This war has got to end, and it has got to stop. And what we are doing is the quickest way for us to go about bringing a reasonable, thoughtful end to this war, and that means getting our troops out of the middle of a civil war in Iraq.

There are only 2,000 al Qaeda members in Iraq. The war on terrorism needs to move back to Afghanistan, the country that harbored Osama bin Laden. And in this bill there is 1.2 billion additional dollars from the President's request to focus back on Afghanistan, because now Afghanistan, we are starting to lose our way in Afghanistan now because of the lack of focus.

So I think it is very important that the American people recognize what is in this bill. There are benchmarks there that the Iraqis need to meet. And if they don't begin to meet them and show some progress, we start moving out.

We have had 4 years for them to get their stuff together. And for whatever reason, they haven't. And think, contrary to what some of my friends on the other side have been saying, and the President has said, and people who have kids and everything realize this, this is very basic, that the President is saying, well, if you give them a benchmark, then they are just going to wait us out, and then we leave, and then they will take over, like everything is great right now, and then it will get bad. But it is bad right now.

What we are saying is if we communicate to the Iraqis that we are going to stay there indefinitely, then they will never get their stuff together because they are always relying on us. And what we are saying is, we are not going to be there indefinitely; you better start getting along with each other.

And I hate even saying that because I didn't want this war to happen in the first place. Now we broke them and now we are saying, get your stuff together.

But the bottom line is this, we are where we are, and they need to get together. And the political and religious factions need to get together. And if they don't, we need to leave. And if they do, we need to leave.

I think we have spent enough money, 400, going to be $500 billion in Iraq. $500 billion. And 3,100-plus lives, 20-some thousand soldiers who have been amputees, brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder. Enough is enough. Enough is enough. It is time to bring this war to an end. And that is what our supplemental ultimately does.

And so, in closing, I would just like to say, Madam Speaker, that the last 3 weeks we have had hearings in our Labor, Health and Education Subcommittee, and we have had great people testifying on health care in the United States, education in the United States, very interesting stuff. But there are two things that have really hit home to me as I was sitting through these committees with all these experts.

And we had the education experts saying to us that this may be the first generation of Americans who will not have the standard of living or improved standard of living, compared to that of their parents. That was one hearing.

And then the next hearing came in and it was the health care experts. And the health care experts were saying that this generation may be the first generation of Americans that do not exceed the life expectancy level of their parents because of the crisis that we are having in health and obesity in the United States. Literally, your parents may, if you are a kid, your parents may live longer than you live. First time.

And when you look at the money that we are spending to destroy and to kill, as opposed to the money that we spend to create and to build up, it is tragic. It is tragic. And I hate voting for this stuff, but we have to because we have got to get out of there.

But the bottom line is this, we are spending hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars, and the Head Start program that helps kids get off the ground is being cut by $100 million in the President's budget. We are going to fix that. That is not going to end up that way.

But when you look at we are spending hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars and flatlining funding on programs like Gear Up and TRIO that help young kids get into colleges and that we are not covering enough kids with children's health care, I hope we all remember this when we get through this war and it is time to make the proper investments in our country.

We only have 300 million people in this country. China has 1.3 billion. India has 1 billion. We need everybody on the field playing for us.

Let's put this war to an end. Let's bring our kids home with dignity, and make sure that when they get home these veterans have the proper health care that they need and that they deserve, and then let's start making some investments into this country so that we can be the best that we can possibly be.

Madam Speaker, you can e-mail us at 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov, or visit us at www.speaker.gov/30something and comment. All of the charts that were seen here are on display on the Web site.

And with that, we conclude our 30-something for the week, and we will see you next week.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding and his comments about the field mouse and the owl. It is very important for us to remember that wisdom that he gives us.

And I appreciate your running over here, hustling over here. I actually wasn't going to come. I have got some meetings tonight that I have to get at, but I saw you over here out of breath, and I thought I would come over and sling-shot you in.

I appreciate that. And it is an honor for me to be in the Appropriations Committee, and my friend on the Ways and Means Committee provides the ways and the means for us to get the job done.

One of the issues that we have talked about today a little bit is what the Democrats have been doing in Congress since we got here a couple of months ago. And I think it is very important, as we see all of the news stories about Walter Reed, as we see the news stories about the Attorneys General, we see the news stories about what is going on in Iraq, a year ago or 2 years ago, those stories wouldn't have even been possible because the threat of oversight hearings that Speaker Pelosi and the Chairs of our various committees have been executing is the exact balance of power that we were talking about prior to the elections last year. And the American people, very wisely, thought it was time for there to be some oversight.

But I must say, Mr. Meek and Mr. Speaker, that all of the thoughts that we had about what was going on in a lot of these various agencies we thought were bad, but we didn't know they were this bad. And I don't think anybody would have said the level of pressure, for example, in the Attorneys General situation, the level of incompetence and neglect at Walter Reed is just absolutely shocking. And we knew about it with the war. We saw the lack of execution in the war. We saw it in Katrina. And now, because the Democrats are in power, we are now able to begin to fix these problems.

The whistleblower reform strengthens protections for Federal whistleblowers to prevent retaliation against those who report wrongdoing, waste, fraud, abuse. This is how we begin to reform government, by allowing those people who are in the institution of government to be able to speak freely and to be protected and not to be bullied or prevented from somehow improving the institution.

The Freedom of Information request, we had some provisions here. More timely disclosure of government documents, restoring the presumption of disclosure to FOIA, helping FOIA requesters obtain timely responses, improving transparency and agency compliance with FOIA, providing an alternative to litigation, and providing accountability for FOIA decisions, opening up government, transparency in the 21st century. It is an information-based society, an information-based economy; and the more we open it up and allow the information to flow, the more we are going to be able to improve things.

One of the great problems we had in China several years with the SARS issue is that nobody knew about it and you can't fix problems that you don't know about. And whether you are in a family or on a team or in a business or running a government, you need to make sure there is free and open access to information.

Now, granted, there are sensitive issues, national security issues that need to be protected and need to be kept in order to secure the long-term future of the country. No one debates that. But when we are talking about government documents and the execution of an administrative or executive branch department protecting whistleblowers who may have information in order to make the government improve, this isn't to punish anybody. This is to improve the government. And that means some difficult decisions need to be made.

And I think, under the leadership of this House, we are moving down that road, step by step, very methodically to improve the lives of people in this country and to reform the institution of government.

That is what we are all here to do. We have had several other things that we had.

But I want to talk for a minute, Mr. Meek, if you don't mind, about oversight. I know you had mentioned oversight earlier in the evening, but what is going on and what has gone on already in this Chamber, as I mentioned, the Walter Reed thing came because of the threat of Democratic oversight and the committee oversight process that has already been going on.

For example, the war in Iraq, between the House and Senate, more than 97 oversight hearings have looked into the conduct of the Iraqi war. Ninety-seven. There is the big number hearings. And more are coming.

Tomorrow in the Appropriations Committee we are going to pass out the supplemental that is going to begin the exit of this war, begin the end of this war.

These are the same people, Mr. Meek, these are the same people who were in charge several months ago, and for the previous 14 years, that led to the dismal display that we see at Walter Reed, the conduct of some of the people in the Veterans Administration. The same people that had oversight then are now upset and trying to point the finger.

Shake and Bake. Right back at you.

Armored Humvees. Up-armored Humvees. Kevlar vests. The proper amount of rest.

I want you, Mr. Meek, to try to name me one person in this country that would dare send one of their own kids off to war without the proper equipment, that would not ride in a Humvee that was armored. And there are kids still getting killed in Iraq now because the Humvees are light armored and not heavy armored. They don't have the proper equipment and everything else. We are still losing kids because of that.

Not at all. We are starting to figure out what has been going on. Part of it, over the past few years, everyone kept saying 6 more months. Give them 6 more months. Six more months. Well, 6 more months, we are 4 years later 6 more months.

Going on 5. Sixty to 65 percent of Iraqis believe it is okay to kill Americans, to shoot at Americans. We are in the middle of a civil war and we need to get ourselves out of it, not get ourselves further into it. So these hearings are an important component of that, to try to pull ourselves out of this situation that President Bush has gotten us into.

I say that because--for several reasons. One is, some people say well, if you have an end date, then they are just going to sit back and wait until we leave. The problem with that theory is if we say we are going to stay forever, then they are never going to do their share, and the problem has been the Iraqi soldiers won't get trained, the problem is we can't get a political solution because everyone thinks we are just going to stay there and keep the situation intact.

They need a goal, and the goal is, in our supplemental bill, if you do not have improvement in some of the benchmarks we have in there, political and military, if you don't have improvement by July, we are getting out. If you are showing some progress, we will give you until the end of the year, until the fall. And if you haven't met the goals by then, then we are out.

You have got to meet your obligations. Believe me, I didn't support this

war from the get-go, and it kills me, it kills me, that we have got to spend $100 billion to get us out of a situation. That kills me.

This last couple of weeks we have had hearings in the Labor, Health and Education Subcommittee on Appropriations, and you see the millions of dollars the Bush administration submitted that they cut from physical education programs, art programs. They flatlined TRIO, GEAR UP, Upward Bound. All flatlined, with thousands of more kids going into those. Head Start. Only 60 percent of the kids eligible for Head Start get covered. There is a $100 million cut in Head Start, and we are going to go spend $100 billion?

I am voting for the supplemental, because I will do anything to get us out of there, and I believe this supplemental is the best step for us to take to get us out of there.

But it is not only what is going on in Iraq, Mr. Meek. I don't know if you had a chance to see this memo.

I would just like to make a couple more points to support you before I take off.

I don't know if you have seen this. I am sure you have as a distinguished member of the Armed Services Committee in your fifth year already. The memo from the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ortiz) chairman of the Subcommittee on Readiness, and Mr. Abercrombie, House Armed Services Committee, Air and Land Force Subcommittee, these are the folks in Congress on the ground. They submitted a couple of days ago for Members of Congress, editors, defense writers and other interested parties a memo on military readiness.

I want to say a couple of things that I think are very important on where this war has put our military readiness, an elective war in Iraq as opposed to a real threat to our national interest, and the situation it has put us in. And our distinguished gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) who sits on the Defense Committee could probably speak better than I can on this.

Short-term readiness in this memo addresses the needs of soldiers on the field today. Iraq and Afghanistan have been marked by a lack of adequate funding for equipment, from effective Kevlar vests and helmets to uparmored Humvees which are better able to protect our personnel from roadside bombs. Compounding the lack of equipment for both deployed and nondeployed units is the fact that if nondeployed units don't have the same equipment they will use in combat, their training is less than optimum.

So if you don't have a Kevlar vest to train in when you actually are in the field and have to wear one, it is a much different scenario, and you may not have the proper training you need.

Long-term readiness, military preparation for any challenges our Nation may face tomorrow, that encompasses everything from manpower training and equipment to preposition stores of military equipment strategically located around the world that, the Government Accountability Office reports, have been deeply ransacked for Iraqi operations.

Check this out. Roughly half of all of the ground equipment in the United States Army is in Iraq or Afghanistan, nearly half the ground equipment that the Army owns. Since the start of the war, the Army has lost nearly 2,000 wheeled vehicles and more than 100 armored vehicles. Harsh desert climate, mountain terrain, virtually continuous combat and the physical weight of extra armor is wearing out equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan at up to nine times the normal rate.

The Army GAO report details that the Army has not been keeping accurate track of what they have or what they need to reset the force, nor can they provide sufficient detail for Congress to provide effective oversight.

The National Guard, between 75,000 and 100,000 pieces of National Guard equipment worth nearly $2 billion are now in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of National Guard armories around the U.S.; and National Guard units are left with about one-third of their equipment. These urgent equipment shortages hit especially hard on the military's ability to train Guard and active Army units, and they are forced to prepare and train for deployment with minimal equipment.

We have a real problem where the American Army is not ready should we have another incident around the world, or should someone, heaven forbid, attack the United States, or should we have another Katrina. For this President to talk, Mr. Speaker, about protecting the troops and saving the troops and being on the side of the troops, this is being on the side of the troops.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the dean of the Ohio Democratic delegation.