Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

I think it is appropriate for us tonight to kind of take another tack, a little more specific. We know that the President's privatization plan for the Social Security system is a bad one. It means benefit cuts across the board to the tune of 40 percent for most. Under the President's plan, middle-class workers earning $58,000 a year would be hit with a 42 percent benefit cut. And the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), who was here last week, said very eloquently that this Social Security system is a system that is put together and was put together to solidify the country and to talk about our common interests, our common goals, and our common humanity, and how we have an obligation in this Congress to maintain that system and not to say and begin to promote the kind of attitude that says, hey, everybody is on their own. They go here and they make the kind of money that they want. They invest in the stock market, and if they go belly up in the stock market, they are on their own. And that is basically what the President's plan says.

We have a system that works, a system that is a safety net for many American people who have struggled. But the point I think we need to make tonight, which we have touched upon over and over and over again, is the issue of jobs in the United States of America. If we are not participating in an economy that is growing, there are not going to be the kind of resources put into the program.

I was at a town hall meeting on Social Security a couple of weeks ago, and I had a lady stand up, my age, and say ``I do not want to put 4 percent of my Social Security taxes into a private account'' because she figured out the math. She makes $19,000 a year. Four percent of $19,000 a year is not enough to retire on even if the stock market is going gangbusters.

So this may sound nice to have private accounts. If one is making $150,000 a year, they know how to invest their money. They know how to pull it out and put it back in. The President's plan does not allow that. So if we say the same exact thing to someone who is making $19,000 and they are allowed to invest their 4 percent of $19,000 a year, there is not going to be enough there for them to retire, and they are going to lose their Social Security benefit.

This is a risky proposition, and it is why only 30 percent of the American people are saying this is a good idea. It makes me become more and more aware and concerned that this is a whole ploy. While we are cutting food stamps and we are cutting Medicaid, we have the whole country having this debate about Social Security over here. And we do not want to talk about what is going on in Iraq, and we do not want to talk about the kind of cuts that are being made in the veterans' health care program. We have to keep the discussion on an issue that is highly volatile and has been known to be a third rail of politics.

Now, I want to share with the American people and our friends who are here tonight a chart. We are talking about jobs and job creation in the country. This chart shows the U.S. trade balance in goods, durable goods. This goes from 1979 to 2004. In 1979 we had a trade deficit of $24 billion, in 1979. And we do not really need to see the numbers. We just need to see the bars. And it slowly got worse, got better in the early 1990s and then the dipsy-do all throughout the 1990s. But in 1998 our trade deficit in goods got to $230 billion. That was in 1998. And then from 1998 to 2004, a $651 billion trade deficit in the United States of America. We are buying $651 billion more worth of goods than we are selling.

If we want to fix Social Security and we want to have enough money in our local communities to fund our schools and our libraries and Medicaid at the State and Federal level, we need to fix this problem, or we are never going to have enough money to do anything. Four percent of whatever one wants to put in their side account is never going to be enough because we are going to have more people for 19 and 20 and $30,000 a year than we are for 70 or 80 or 90. And this is the main culprit.

And today Secretary Snow came out with the weakest report on the Chinese currency manipulation that we have ever seen and basically gave the Chinese a free pass when they are manipulating their currency by 40 percent. That is why this number looks like it does.

I am going to get the other chart out here that is dealing with annual trade with China. There are three different graphs here. The gold graph, the gold line, with the blue dots is what we are importing from China. This starts off in 1985; it ends up in 2004. The blue line is what we are exporting to China, and then the trade balance. What we are importing from China is going through the roof, $200 billion of goods coming into this country. We are exporting to China virtually nothing. The trade gap just with the Chinese is $162 billion; $162 billion we are buying from the Chinese without the ability to sell.

We are not making this up, Mr. Speaker.

This is not the ``Kendrick Meek Report.''

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, he brings up a great point because over the next 10 years, and I do not know if he said this before I arrived, in the next 10 years we are going to have to borrow $2 trillion to fund this privatization scheme. Over the next 20 years we are going to have to borrow $5 trillion. This is billion. We have to borrow $5 trillion to fund this privatization

scheme. So it is just brilliant that he brought that up in such a timely fashion because it ties into this.

As we are running a $162 billion trade deficit with the Chinese at the same time that they are stealing our manufacturing, stealing our jobs, we are borrowing the money right now for our annual deficit that we have, from the Chinese, $500 billion.

So what do we have to do to fix this problem? One, we have to balance the budget. But if we are already borrowing $500 billion from the Japanese and the Chinese, why would we then go out and say let us go borrow another $5 trillion to roll the dice on and play roulette?

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly right. We are going on the record of what this administration has consistently told us and told the American people, and the gentleman is exactly right. With the prescription drug benefit we were told it was $350 billion, then it became $400 billion, we passed it at 3 in the morning here. Then a month or two later, after the election, it turned out to be $700 billion, and then it went to $1.1 trillion. When we passed it, it was $400 billion. And someone in this administration told the actuary who had the real numbers, do not tell Congress.

Wait a minute. That is not telling the American people. I represent 700,000 people; the gentleman represents 700,000 people.

They withheld the administration from your constituents and my constituents, and we made a faulty decision here on the House floor where many Members would not have voted for it. When we go back and look at the war, what we were told about the war: we are greeted as liberators, we will use the oil for reconstruction and it will only cost us $50 billion when we have already over $300 billion invested in the war; all of these things that turned out not to be true.

Here we are today being promised a scheme that we have to borrow $5 trillion to implement. It is bad enough we have to borrow it and pay it back; we have to pay the interest on it too. Talk about sticking it to the next generation.

Lockbox.

Not personal. It is not personal.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman brought up a great point, and we will share some more information from the Department of the Treasury of the United States of America. This is the national debt, and I believe this is moving. You can go to a Web site, next week we will have to bring the Web site up so you can see, but this is actually always moving: $7.79 trillion in debt that the United States owes other interests. Your share of the debt, I say to the gentleman from Florida, $26,349.

Not just yourself. Your wife, your kids, my wife, constituents, people watching at home, if you are watching this program.

Everybody, $26,300 you owe.

The point I would like to bring up and highlight again is what the gentleman brought up, talking about what college students owe. The average college student owes 20,000 bucks.

Yes, even further behind. So someone out there watching, a parent that has a kid in college, the average college debt, $20,000; average share of the national debt that you owe, $26,000.

And, think about it, if you are having a baby this year and project this number out, if we keep going down the road we are going down, because we already had to lift the debt ceiling in Congress several months ago that raised this even further so the United States could go back out and borrow even more money, so here we have a situation where we owe this, each individual owes this.

Now, if a baby is born today, guess what? They owe this right out of the gate. So project this out, this number, $26,349, project it out 18, 20, 22 years and imagine what that number is going to be if we keep going down the road we are going down now, and then add to that what college tuition costs are going to be 20 years from now. They have doubled over the past 4 or 5 years, I know for sure in Ohio, and I know in Florida, so let that rate continue and let this rate continue and let us keep borrowing money and have to pay interest on that. Let that continue.

So we are saying that a young baby that is born today has a tremendous tax burden on their head, from the national debt that they owe, their share, plus what they are going to owe for going to college; and if they go on to get a master's degree or advanced degree, it would be even more, and then the President's proposal to borrow $5 trillion more. What are we doing to the next generation? At the same time, we are not making the proper investments in health and education and the kinds of things that will eventually move the country forward.

Mr. Speaker, the Web site is www.house.gov/budget.democrats underscored, to get the deficit ticker to see what the real number is as this continues to move.

The same in Ohio. 315,000 folks that receive survivor benefits. 16 percent of people who receive a Social Security check in Ohio, 16 percent of them are survivor benefits. So this is a program that helps people who lose a parent at a very young age, they are under the age of 18 and they need a little assistance.

And that is what the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) talked about last week is a sense of community where we are going to have a system that protects and looks out for each other, gets each other's back. I think it is very important that we recognize that Social Security is really the best system, because it inherently embodies what is best about the country, and I think it is great.

I want to just raise a question here. We are kind of running out of time here. We only have a few more minutes left. We have a little bit of time.

But we have less than we had when we started, and we are closer to the end than we are to the beginning, so I am going to try to make a final point or two towards the end here.

The question really, and I want to ask the people at home, is this: What do you think, someone watching at home or if you are having a discussion with your friends over dinner, or your family over dinner tonight, what do you think the greatest crisis is in the United States of America?

What do you think this Chamber and our friends across the hall and the White House, what do you think we should be focusing on? Do you think that this problem that is 47 years away or 40 years away or 35 years away? We have all kinds of different numbers, we will give you the benefit, say 35 years away. Do you think that is the greatest problem facing the country, or do you think that the 40-some million Americans without health insurance, maybe that is the greatest crisis facing the country, or do you think the rising costs of health insurance, if you are a small business owner, or you are in a union and you are trying to negotiate a contract or you are trying to run a school system, and you are the superintendent or you are the teacher, maybe that is the greatest crisis facing the country.

How about, and I am sure in your district just like mine, Youngstown City Schools, Akron City Schools, Cleveland City Schools, 80, 85 percent of the kids qualify for free and reduced lunch. Maybe that is a more imminent crisis than a Social Security issue that is, you know, 40 years out.

And I just ask the American people to ask themselves, what do you think the great crisis is in the country today? The fact that the trade deficits, the debt, the annual deficits that we are running? To me, I share my opinion, those are the issues. That 85 percent of the kids in a school district in Ohio qualify for free and reduced lunch, that 50 or 60 or 70 percent of those kids live below the poverty line. That to me is a crisis.

How are we going to compete with the Chinese workers? How are we going to compete with the Indians if we are not able to educate our kids and our kids are living in poverty? To me that is the crisis. That people do not get the kind of health care that they deserve, that if you have a lot of money and you are able to get yourself into the Cleveland Clinic or some of the great hospitals around the country, you are going to be fine, but if not you are on your own.

I just think that is it. Thanks for reiterating it. It is just what is the crisis? What do you at home want us to deal with, because we work for you. What do you want us to deal with here? And we are trying to bring up issues like China and how we are going to deal with that tremendous threat, and the administration brushes it off.

You know, we want to deal with health care and the amount of poverty, not necessarily for compassionate reasons, although some may feel that way. But because we need everyone playing. We are going on the field now with only half a team, and that is getting very dangerous.

So as we wrap it up, I want to share again, send us an e-mail, 30somethingdems @mail.house.gov. Do I have time to read?

I want to read the e-mail.

I just gave it. 30somethingdemocrats@mail. house.gov. Send us an e-mail. I want to read one, we only have time to read one here, from Mark Sanchez from Las Cruces, New Mexico. We are making it out West, somewhat of a political junkie, 25 year old active duty service member stationed out there.

And last week he saw us talking about Social Security, very hot topic. He considers himself very informed, and it bothers him to a great degree that those in my age group do not care about what the President and Congress are doing.

I personally feel that the President's plan for Social Security is not one with the people in mind, but rather one with his friends on Wall Street in mind. I may be young, but I am not blind to record deficits that are causing this country to go deeper and deeper into debt.

I believe the President's plan is wrong for America. I believe this is an

issue that can be addressed and thought over as time goes on while more important matters that are hurting this country are addressed. He said very similar things to what we were saying, issues such as health care, immigration and energy are problems that face Americans now, not 30 years down the road.

I am happy to see that you are willing to stand up for the people rather than special interest groups that have too much control in Congress these days. Please keep up your hard work because it is needed.

People like you keep his personal hopes alive for one day standing on the floor of the House of Representatives and debating issues and problems that face our country. So we have an aspiring Member of Congress here, Mark Sanchez. So thank you, Mark, for sending that in.

Again, 30somethingdems @mail.house.gov. You also go to the site I gave you earlier to check out the deficit clock too.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of The Reverend Michael H. Harrison, Sr., for his decade of inimitable service to the Youngstown community.

After serving the United Baptist Church in Akron for 10 years, Pastor Harrison was called to lead the 125-member congregation of the Union Baptist Church in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1995. In just four years, the Pastor built the congregation to more than 650 people from our community. Today, thanks to his work, a new sanctuary of the Union Baptist Church can seat over 800 worshippers.

In addition to his tireless commitment to his church and congregation, Pastor Harrison has shared his leadership with countless other civic and religious organizations. He is Chair of the African- American Leadership Commission and is also the 1st Vice President of the Ohio Baptist State Convention. The Pastor previously served as President of the Baptist Pastor's Council of Youngstown and vicinity. In 2004, he was honored as ``One of the World's Most Beloved Pastors'' by Gospel Today Magazine.

I commend The Reverend Michael H. Harrison, Sr., for his selfless dedication to our community.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Damion DeRobbio, whose heroics in the face of a neighbor's house fire saved the life of a 6-year-old girl.

On April 22 of last year, Mr. DeRobbio rushed to the aid of a frantic mother, whose daughter, Mackenzie, was trapped in her bed, blinded and suffocated by smoke. After several attempts to get into the burning house failed, Mr. DeRobbio persevered, smashing the little girl's bedroom window and squeezing through the tiny opening. Mr. DeRobbio crawled over the shards of broken glass, sustaining cuts on his knees and shoulders, and seized Mackenzie from her bed. He then passed her through the window to a waiting police officer before climbing out himself.

For his actions, Mr. DeRobbio was awarded the Carnegie Medal by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, and deservedly so. However, recognition was certainly not what motivated this hero on that night more than a year ago. Were it not for Mr. DeRobbio's selfless bravery, this inspiring story could have easily been one of tragedy and loss.

So today, on behalf of all of his neighbors in Ohio's 17th District, I honor Mr. DeRobbio for his valor.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for being here and raising the intellectual level of this debate that we usually have.

Mr. Speaker, I had a town hall meeting last night on Social Security in Green, Ohio, just south of Akron. And it was 2 or 3 to 1 against any kind of privatization.

There was one point I wanted to share tonight. There was a woman who was there who said she was actually for the private accounts until she, I think, found out a little bit more about them. The 4 percent that the President says that you can divert and put into a private account, she made $19,000 a year. Now, 4 percent of her income, of $19,000 a year, is never going to be enough for her to be able to retire on.

And there was a gentleman who was there who said that he made 30-some thousand dollars a year his whole life, never any more; he did not have any money to put extra into these personal accounts. What he would have put in, he went back and did the math, would

have never worked out to him receiving the kind of money that he would have been able to get through Social Security.

So it may sound good that you are making a lot of money every year that, hey, I will get a little extra and put that in the market too. But what about those people who are struggling now more than ever, making 19, 20, 25, $30,000 a year. Four percent of that is peanuts to say that you will be able to retire on.

So as we have this debate about the personal accounts, I think it is very important for us to recognize that diverting 4 percent of your Social Security taxes into this is never going to be enough for this to retire on.

That was really the only point I wanted to make here. I want to thank the gentleman for joining us. Throughout, since I have been here, he has been the guru on the budget. We all follow his lead. So I thank him very much.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity here to address the House on an issue that I think has become more and more pertinent to the American people and to the American economy. One issue that I hear about almost as much as I hear about the Social Security issue back home in my district, which is northeast Ohio, I hear about the issue of China. We cannot, I do not think, speak of any kind of economic recovery in the United States of America or talk about providing middle-class people with high-wage, high-paying jobs until we figure out the issue of China. I am going to have a brief discussion here tonight and show some charts just to kind of outline what has been happening here in the United States of America.

Quite frankly, I feel like it was an issue that was not discussed enough in the last presidential election. I feel like this is an issue that the American people want the politicians that are here in Washington, D.C., in this Chamber and leaders in government to talk about, and we have not been. Hopefully, with some legislation that I have offered with the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the China Currency Manipulation Act, this issue will become and come to the forefront of American politics. I just want to share with the American people some statistics, some charts that I think help outline exactly what has been happening.

This first chart here is the State crisis. It outlines here how many manufacturing jobs have been lost in the United States from June of 1998 to February 2005. As you can see, the red States here have lost more than 20 percent of the manufacturing that they have in their States. You can see the red from Maine, mostly in the Northeast-Midwest quadrant, Ohio, Michigan. Ohio lost 216,000 manufacturing jobs. Then between 15 and 20 percent of manufacturing jobs lost are in the deep blue or the deep purple, Georgia, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, between 15 and 20 percent of manufacturing. These are the high-wage, high-paying jobs that have health care, that have a good retirement, that have a good pension. These are the kind of jobs that drive the middle class forward. And these are the kind of jobs and the kind of companies in Ohio and elsewhere that pay taxes, that workers pay taxes. They vote for school levies. They vote for mental health levies. They vote for library levies. They vote for all the things that are needed to help lift up local communities. What has happened because of this crisis that we have here, local communities are beginning to suffer. They are not able to pass the police and fire levy because the 216,600 workers who no longer work in a high-wage manufacturing jobs are left to go to Wal-Mart, are left to go to Super K or Kohl's and make very little money without health care benefits. If we think that we are going to maintain the kind of prestigious global power that we are today and hopefully will continue to be, there is no way we can do this by replacing General Motors with Wal-Mart or replacing Wal-Mart for General Electric. That is not going to be a great America in the 21st century. This graph, this billboard here, illustrates that point.

And so the issue of China inevitably comes up, and how are we going to deal

with it? Because we know, whether you are the owner of a small machine shop or a mold shop or in some light manufacturing, it is the Chinese goods that are coming into the United States that are helping wipe out the manufacturing that is here now. What is happening is the Chinese are manipulating their currency, and they are manipulating their currency to the rate of 40 cents on the dollar.

I have a factory back at home. They make tubing when you put up the sprinkler systems in industrial facilities and commercial facilities. It is called Wheatland Tube. Wheatland Tube has been a great company and still is. They have invested over $8 million in the United States over the past few years. Their product is competing with a Chinese product. The Chinese are shipping their tubes into the United States. When the Chinese product, fully assembled, completely at the end of the manufacturing process, when it arrives in the United States of America, that Chinese tube is the same cost as the raw materials that Wheatland Tube has to buy. Wheatland Tube has not even begun the process of making their tubes. But the Chinese tubes have already been manufactured and produced, arrive in the United States less than the cost or the same cost as the raw materials for the United States company.

How can the United States company compete with that? It cannot, and that is why the United States in the previous billboard looked like it did.

This is a graph that has the U.S. annual trade with China. This line here, the gold line with the blue dots going up, is imports. These are Chinese products coming into the United States, and it goes up to $200 billion in 2004. And we can see where it was in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, and it slowly began to rise.

The exports, what we are shipping to the Chinese, is this blue line, coming straight across. We are not able to increase our exports. And the funny thing is, if the Members remember back when we were signing all these trade agreements in the 1990s, when we were talking about we have to open up markets and we have to export products from the United States so that other people will buy them and we will make them here and we will ship them off and it will be great, that has not happened with the Chinese.

We were told when we signed PNTR, Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, most favored nation trade status with the Chinese, we were told there is 1.3 billion people in China, we want to sell our products to the Chinese. It has not happened. It simply has not happened. These are the goods we are importing, these in the blue line is what we are exporting, and it is not working out. And when we look at the top 15 exports from the United States to China, three are either waste or scrap products, three of the 15. Four of the 15 are raw materials or agricultural products, and six of the 15 are parts, which basically means we are exporting parts, raw materials, scrap, to China, which are manufactured there and shipped back only to be imported here in the United States.

The gold bars are the trade numbers with China, the deficit that we have, $162 billion trade deficit with the Chinese. We are importing $162 billion more than we are exporting to the Chinese. They are wiping out the middle class in the United States of America because of our trade policies here and because we are allowing the Chinese to manipulate their currency.

Now, if the currency situation was fixed in China, if they were not gaining a 40 cents on the dollar advantage, Chinese products that were made in China, the price would go up; and if the price goes up and they still try to ship it to the United States, our goods here would be more competitive, and then the Chinese would have currency that had more value so that when we shipped products, when we exported products to China, our prices coming from the U.S. would actually be cheaper to the Chinese consumers.

And the Chinese agreed, when they came into the World Trade Organization, that they were going to be fair brokers and they wanted to be a part of the global system. And we are not seeing much action by the Chinese. And, quite frankly, we need to be firmer here in the United States. And that is why the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter) and I, along with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner), who signed on to our legislation, the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Manzullo), AFL-CIO, China Currency Coalition, a lot of the small business trade groups, this is not a Republican or Democrat issue. This is an American issue. This is an American issue. And if we do not fix it, there is not going to be a middle class in the United States of America, and we are going to continue to see some of the older industrial cities and industrial areas in our country continue to struggle. Whether it is the county funding, police and fire, schools, we are not going to be able to survive.

This is a startling, stunning chart. This is the U.S. trade balance in goods. The U.S. trade balance in goods. The goods deficit which covers manufactured products hit a record $651 billion in 2004. And from 1998 to 2004, a $421 billion jump, just in these few years, from 1998. These are the hardcore manufacturing products which contribute to job loss here in the United States: steel, supply chains for all of the major corporations that have moved and have altered the trade balance with the Chinese to the tune of $651 billion.

So we have to ask ourselves, why do we continue down a road where we are losing, we are losing this battle? And I do not know about anyone else, but I keep score, and when we are losing, we need to stop doing what we are doing and fix it and apply the pressure to the Chinese that we need to apply until they fix at least their currency problem that is cheating everyone else who is trying to buy their products and in the U.S. up to 40 cents on the dollar. They are cheating.

And the reason this is so urgent for the United States of America to act now and not wait 10 years from now, not take the slow, diplomatic process that we have been taking, the reason it is so imperative is right now we are buying all their products. Right now we are consuming all of the Chinese products. They need us now. They need us now. And when they need us, that is when we have leverage to move.

Now, we also need to balance our budget because the Chinese are helping fund our $500 billion deficit. So we ought to do our job here. But at the same time, we need to recognize what the U.S.-China Commission said and told Congress, submitted a report. First it said that the overall trade situation with the Chinese had an overall negative impact on the United States, overall negative. A bipartisan commission, people from the Reagan administration, people from the Clinton and Carter administrations, totally bipartisan.

The Chinese trade has overall negative implications on the United States. That is scary enough. But they went on to say that we have about a decade in the United States, about a decade, to fix this problem because at some point we are not going to be consuming as much as we are, because we are not going to have the kind of money here that we have now. We are not going to have the kind of wealth to be buying if we continue to go down this road. If jobs that pay $50,000 or $60,000 are getting replaced by jobs that are paying $30,000 or $35,000 without health care benefits, there is only so much we can consume, and that is what is happening. The jobs replacing the jobs that are leaving are $10,000 to $12,000 less a year without health care benefits.

So how are we going to keep up? And what the U.S.-China Commission has told us is that we have about a decade and we had better fix it now. And that is why this is so urgent. That is why we see bills, the Schumer-Graham bill in the Senate, talking about putting on 27 percent tariffs on Chinese goods coming into this country to try to stem some of this tide that is coming in, or whether it is the WTO-compliant Ryan-Hunter bill that is gaining a lot of support here in this Chamber because Members are beginning to recognize that this is a real problem in the country.

Our bill does not violate any of the WTO rules. It is compliant with the World Trade Organization, which I am not exactly thrilled with the World Trade Organization. I do not like the way they operate. I do not think it is a democratic body. I think it rubber

stamps decisions for multinational companies. There is no doubt about it. But what happens a lot here is someone will put a bill up that will say put 27 percent tariffs or 30 percent tariffs on Chinese goods and a lot of people in this body will say that is not WTO compliant, so we will not even look at it.

So the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter) and I went out of our way with a lot of very smart people to compose a bill that is WTO compliant because we want to get over that first hurdle. And we have because we have a good bill, and that is why it is gaining the kind of steam it is gaining. WTO compliant. And it allows the President to recognize currency manipulation for what it is, and that is a subsidy; and so it should be seen as any other kind of subsidy that other countries give in order to ship products into our country and hurt us domestically.

Currency manipulation is no different. If we are gaining 40 cents on the dollar, then that is subsidy; and it is no different than any other kind of subsidy. And our bill gives the President the tools he needs. We want to work with the administration. We have got three Chairs of Republican committees on this bill with the AFL-CIO, with the China Currency Coalition, with a tremendous amount of trade groups, mostly Republican small business owners. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. And it is time for us in Congress to get the guts we need to make this happen because it is hurting average people in the country.

This is the U.S. manufacturing employment from January of 1999 to March of 2005. And we can see here that in January of 1991 we were at about 17.3 million jobs, manufacturing jobs; and we hit the recession in the early 1990s and we came out of it and peaked out in 1998-1999 at over 17.6 million manufacturing jobs. Not too bad. And then we peaked off in the end of the century; and when we hit January of 2001, here comes the downward slide, from 17.6 million in 1999 all the way down to under about 14.3 million jobs in March of 2005.

Look at this slide in U.S. manufacturing. And, again, it is the manufacturing jobs that are the jobs that have the high wages. They are the jobs that pay a decent wage, a real wage. They are the jobs that provide health care. These are the shops that are part of communities all over the country. These are not the big multinationals who can have the wherewithal to pick up and go over to China and ship the products back. These are the people who live in our communities who donate to the church. They are the small business owner who would donate to the school and give that little extra and the workers who had solid work can work overtime and contribute to their union and to their church and to the civic organizations in local communities, which would be the tax base that supported a lot of the local community.

We have all been there. In Northeast Ohio, it seems like it happens all too much, where a local company that has been in your community for 100 years, or 50 years or 60 years, all of a sudden cannot compete anymore. Then the county and the city and the local school district loses hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the crunch, the squeeze on the people in that community continues, and it ultimately results in a weaker United States of America.

Just a few final charts here.

We were told MFN, PNTR, NAFTA. Now we want to pass CAFTA here, which I do not think is going to make it. Now we are being told here in the U.S., and we were told all throughout the nineties, we are going to sign these trade agreements, and it is going to be really great, because the low wage jobs are going to go to the other countries and we are going to keep all the high-tech, high-wage jobs here in the United States and it is going to be a panacea here. Everyone is going to have a good job and work with their brains and not with their hands, and it is going to be great.

This is the total trade balance in advanced technology products. These are the millions of U.S. dollars. We had in the early nineties a surplus of millions and millions of U.S. dollars, all throughout the early nineties, throughout the mid-nineties into the late-nineties, and then we began the decline. These are advanced technology products. These are the things that appear in the computers. These are the things that appear in your cars, that you do not really know how they work, in airplanes, in televisions. We are losing this too.

We were told we were going to win on these. We are still losing on that too to the tune of millions and millions of dollars in deficits in the United States of America. This is a trend we need to begin to turn around, or our kids are going to be left with a country that is not as strong as it should be.

So we have been told, as the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) said about an hour ago in this very Chamber as we were talking about a lack of job creation and more or less tied to Social Security, the key in the United States of America, if we are going to compete, is we are in the process of creating a new economy and we do not really know what it is. We want to help with the Chinese and we need to fix the currency manipulation problem, and I think we are applying a lot of pressure to the Chinese now with some of the legislation we have here. Hopefully they will be able to do it on their own and we will not have to implement the kind of reforms here in the U.S. to give the President the power to do that. We want that done.

But, at the same time here at home, we cannot talk about our trade issues, we cannot talk about China, without fixing the problem here at home. We need healthy and educated students in the United States of America who have access to a quality education in any school in the country, because that is the only way that they are going to move themselves forward, that is the only way they are going to be able to lift themselves out of poverty, that is the only way that these communities are going to be able to create and generate enough wealth, enough wealth, to be able to fund their schools and provide for libraries and all the different sorts of services that need to be funded. So we need to focus on education, as well as dealing with the China currency manipulation issue.

This is the budget the President submitted on education. Fifty appropriations will be below current services in the billions of dollars with that budget. You can see there are cuts of $2.5 billion in 2006, $6.2 billion in 2007, and then the same and even greater in 2008, 2009, and, by 2010, cuts of $11.9 billion in the various education programs.

Something the 30-Something Group and I have been working on for a good many years now is college tuition and the Pell Grant. The Pell Grant, when it started, would account for 80 percent of a student's college tuition, 80 percent. Today a Pell Grant accounts for a little over 40 percent of a student's college tuition. An average student graduates with over $20,000 in loans.

Here is what we are doing, the outpaced college tuition compared to what the Pell Grant is. Here is the Pell Grant minimum award, here in light purple, the Pell Grant maximum award in the navy blue, and then the average cost of tuition and fees in a four-year public college setting.

You can see how much it outpaces that, so this grant here no longer meets the need of what the average college student needs in order to go to school and get an education and allow them to compete.

So we have our work cut out for us. I commend to the American people this week's Newsweek, May 9 and the title, ``China's Century, a Special Report.'' ``China's Century.''

The reason this is so urgent for us is not because America is perfect and not that America does not make mistakes, because we have, and we have articulated many of them on the floor here over the years, and we will continue to make mistakes. But when the question comes as to who will lead the world in the 21st century, will it be the Chinese? Will it be a Communist regime that is currently manipulating their currency? Will it be a Communist regime that is spending mass amounts on their military budget? Is it the Communist regime that has no concern for worker rights? Is it the Communist regime that has no concern for the environment? Is it the Communist regime that has no concern for human rights? Is it going to be the Communist regime that has no concern for religious freedom? Is it going to be the Communist regime

that will promote and implement a policy of forced abortions on their own citizens?

Or will it be the United States of America? Will it be the country that has promoted the middle-class, the country that does stand for freedom? We have many warts, but we do promote democracy. There are disagreements on how we go about it, but this is a democratically elected body here of human beings, of American citizens who make human mistakes. But this is a lot better, and this country is best to lead the world in the 21st century, not a Communist regime who has no concern for the human rights of other citizens.

That is what is at stake here in this whole debate. We could talk about currency manipulation and trade and funding and all these different political issues, but the bottom line with this whole situation is who is going to lead the world in the 21st century? If you want it to be the United States of America, we better use this window of opportunity to play tough with the Chinese; to tell them to fix their currency manipulation, or face the consequences.

This body needs to provide the President with the tools that he needs to be tough with the Chinese and force them to fix this issue, and then we come back home and we fix and fund and implement education reform and funding for education and funding for health for young children and young students all over the country, and let us get ready to go to battle in the 21st century with healthy, educated kids who have an opportunity at schools all over the country, with access to the arts and speech and debate and drama and music and foreign languages.

We can do it, but we have got to make it a priority and we have got to make it a goal. And this all starts, Mr. Speaker, with making sure the Chinese, if they want to participate in the global economy, they do it in a fair way. They agreed to play fair, and now they are cheating.

This body is primed to act, and we are going to act. It is going to start with facing down the currency manipulation problem and not allowing the Chinese to cheat to the tune of 40 cents on the dollar.

Mr. Speaker, this is again another edition of the 30-something Hour where the gentleman from Florida and I will take an opportunity to talk to the 30-somethings, not only of Congress, but of the country, and try to articulate the best we can the issues that are facing the country today and how those issues will affect future generations. I think being in the 30-something Group and being young or being a student in this country, Leader Pelosi has asked us to do our best to reach out to young voters across the country and not only talk about issues like education, budget deficits, the importance of the Pell grant, the importance of No Child Left Behind, but a lot of other issues.

Some previous speakers tonight have mentioned a couple of different things on economic policy in the United States of America and why corporations, multinational corporations find it easy to leave the United States, and it is because of the litigation, it is because of the environment, it is because of the overregulation, it is because of the high taxes. But if you look closely at why businesses are leaving the United States of America, you will see that they are going to countries that have no health care program, they do not have any environmental laws, they do not have any human rights laws; and the previous speaker suggested that maybe they go to Africa because they have cheaper natural gas costs, or go to Russia.

Russia is a country that is moving away from democracy, moving back to its Communist roots of the past several decades, tightening control of the media. Russia is not exactly a great place to do business. And the wars that are going on in Africa, left and right, and the different countries on the continent, not exactly a good place to do business.

What we ask corporations and multinational corporations to do in the

United States is to meet your obligation to the country. Corporate profits are the highest they have been in the history of the country, and corporate taxes are the lowest they have been in the history of the country. And if you want to talk about education, we have a No Child Left Behind program that is completely underfunded. It is underfunded in Ohio by over $1 billion a year. Fifty percent of the kids who live in Youngstown City School District, in my district, live in poverty; and 85 percent of the students that go to Youngstown city schools qualify for a free and reduced lunch.

The corporations, the multinational corporations have gotten every single thing they have wanted from this Congress. Ninety-three percent of the tax credits and tax breaks out of the energy bill go to subsidize oil and gas companies. The pharmaceutical companies get buyouts, billions of dollars through the Medicare program with no price controls, with no ability to reimport the drugs, without giving the Secretary of Health and Human Services the ability to negotiate down drug prices, and you want us to feel sorry for the pharmaceutical industries, the credit card companies, one of the most profitable businesses in the country, push through a bankruptcy bill that screws consumers to the wall. Fifty percent of the people that file bankruptcy file because of medical reasons, either their own or someone in their family; and you tell me if you have a sick child and there is only one way to pay for it, you do not pull out the credit card and zip it through. You most certainly do.

The days of defending the multinational corporations that have no loyalties to this country need to be over. But that is consistently what happens here, because they raise the money, it goes into the coffers, and the majority party runs elections and spends a lot of money and buys a lot of TV ads.

Talk about the environment. These businesses are moving, like when they cross the border into Mexico, the maquilladoras that they go to, former American companies that move to Mexico, now leaving Mexico and going to China; the rivers in Mexico are some of the most polluted rivers in the world. Inhumane. You can tell where the people work in Mexico because the little shacks that they assemble have the name of the corporation that they work for. That is where they live. We need to start exporting our values in this country, not just our jobs.

And I think that the multinational corporations and the big boys who are here are able to fly their corporate jets into Reagan National Airport and walk around the halls of Congress and spread around a lot of money have gotten everything they want.

And it is the small business people in my district who own the mold shops, the machine shops, the small little shops that are in the supply chain who do not have the wherewithal to move to China. Who is sticking up for them?

The number one problem in this country is health care. Health care costs are going up 10, 15 percent a year. 45 million people are uninsured, a health care system that is disastrous, and we haven't even touched it in this Congress. Haven't even touched it.

And I think it is a shame that we are able to get up here, and some Members of this body are able to get up here and talk about how the poor corporations are not getting a fair break. 85 percent of the kids that get free and reduced lunch in Youngstown, they are not getting a fair break, and in Cleveland and in Akron, and in all other areas of the country, in the urban cores people are not getting a fair break.

And until this Congress starts paying attention, you want to compete with the Chinese, you want to compete with the Indians, you better make sure our citizens are healthy and educated, and make sure that we protect a lot of the social safety net that we have in place today, including Social Security.

And until we recognize that it is programs like Social Security that have helped lift people out of poverty, or that 5.2 million children live in families that receive Social Security, and that the Social Security benefits in 2002 lifted 1 million children under the age of 18 out of poverty. And now we are talking about getting rid of this system.

Now, we are here to talk about Social Security, and the long-term implications of what the President has proposed. Before we get into it, I wanted to make a point that I think is extremely relevant to the debate on Social Security, and something that I hear. And I have had three or four Social Security town hall meetings in my district, and have a couple more coming up. I hear from average people who just come and sit, and afterwards we open it up to question and answers.

And inevitably at every meeting, we will have a couple of people who either, from the microphone, or come up to me after, say the way to stop, or the way to fix Social Security is to create more jobs in the United States and have more people working at a higher wage to pay into the Social Security system.

Now, I do not know if long term that fixes the whole problem. But I think it makes a tremendous point. And I have spoken here many times at this podium about what is going on with the Chinese. And the Chinese at this point are cleaning our clocks. And I have small business people in my district who are literally months away from folding up the tent because they are not able to compete anymore with the Chinese.

And so the first point is, we need to grow the economy. We need to create jobs. We need to increase tax revenues so we can balance our budget. And what is happening? 2004 we had over a $10 billion trade deficit with China, just with China alone. The actual trade deficit is much higher. But, China is flooding our markets with their exports, and we are having very much trouble trying to get our products into their markets.

And what becomes scary, as we begin to run these high deficits, not only trade deficits, but budget deficits is that the money we are borrowing, last year close to $450 billion, that was offset by a Social Security surplus, around $450 billion deficit last year, 41 percent of the debt is coming from foreign-owned countries, or is owned by foreign countries, 41 percent.

So as we continue to run these deficits, we are borrowing money from the Japanese, from the Chinese, from all kinds of different countries who are getting more and more leverage over the United States, whether it is on domestic policy or foreign policy, and so it becomes very, very important, as we talk about Social Security, to make sure that we do not put ourselves in a position to owe other countries a lot of money.

Now, we are going to go over here briefly exactly what President Bush's privatization plan is and what it does and why it is dangerous to the American people, and then talk a little bit about what the President has said over the past week as he began to put some meat on the bones of his proposal.

If we privatize the Social Security system, we are going to have to borrow a lot of money, $1.4 trillion in borrowing the first 10 years of the President's plan. So, in addition to the $7.7 trillion, $7.976 trillion debt that we have today, we are going to have go out and borrow another $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years to meet the demands of a privatized Social Security system.

This massive borrowing will endanger our economy, and, as I already stated, increase our indebtedness to foreign countries. Why in a time when we are competing against the Chinese in a way we have never had to face this kind of stiff competition, why would we want to go out and put ourselves in a position of economic weakness and go out and have to borrow more money from the Chinese in order to fund our annual deficits?

That is bad economic policy. It is bad politics. It is bad geopolicy for the United States of America, because it weakens us when we are trying to deal in the international arena, and it raises taxes on our kids and on our grandkids.

Now, we just found out last week in my family that my brother and his lovely wife are going to have a little baby boy. Now, this little baby boy, when it is born in October, will owe $27,000 the minute he is born. Owe $27,000 to the government because of the debt that we have, the $7.97 trillion debt. And then if we tell my brother's little son that we are also going to go out, and we are going to borrow another $1.4 trillion, with a T, over the next 10 years, then all we are telling

that newborn baby is, we are going to increase the burden and put it on you.

See, we are going to borrow it today, and we are going to leave it for you to fix one day. And that means increased taxes for the next generation. And we are playing today and borrowing all of this money like the bill, like the bills never come due. And that is what is irresponsible. And that is what we want to point out.

And I think that is one of the main reasons why the country in some polls even show the President's approval rating at 32 percent. That is why the country is not gravitating towards this program no matter how many cities and how many States the President wants to go to. And I think it becomes evident.

Now, here is the chart which is really hard to believe. And I think these numbers have changed slightly. But, this is a ticking clock. This is always moving, and it is moving rather quickly. The national debt today is 7 trillion, $796 billion. $7.97 trillion is what the United States owes other countries.

So if you are born today, you owe $26,349 the minute you are born. If you are sitting at home on the couch watching C-SPAN or Everyone Loves Raymond or some other show, you owe $26,349 to the Government.

And so add this up to a baby who is born today, factor it out 18 years from now. If we continue running at the clip we are running at $500 billion deficits every year, what is this little baby going to owe when he or she is 18 or 22? And then you add on top of that a family who has to not only pay this back, but also borrow money to go to college, and tuition rates in Ohio, and I know in Florida, have doubled over the past several years, over the past 5 years for sure.

If we continue going at that clip, what is that little child going to owe when they are 22 and they graduate college? They are going to owe this, multiple that out 18 years. They are going to owe the money they borrow for college, multiply that out with what the cost of living is going to be 18 years from now. What are we doing to our kids? And that is what this whole debate is about.

This debate is about a program that has been successful, and it is about a program that we need to maintain, and we need to project out into the future and make sure that we guarantee the benefits of the recipients of the program.

Now, the President last week did a press conference and did several events, my good friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek). Also I see my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is here as well, and the President put a little meat on the bones last week. He took this plan that was a skeleton, and last week he put some meat on the bones. And we had based most of our comments up to this point, not only in the Democratic and Republican caucus, but in the 30-something Working Group, we have made sure that we talked about what the President's blueprint was.

But, last week, the President confirmed for us exactly what we had talked about, that a privatized Social Security plan would mean benefit cuts for middle class Americans. And so the President, by outlining his plan last week gave us some figures. And we did some math.

He gave us his projections, and we did the math. If the President gets his way, someone earning $37,000 would have a 28 percent benefit cut. That means they would lose one-quarter of their Social Security. One-quarter. And you are not making a lot, you are only making $37,000.

Someone earning $45,000 would have a 42 percent benefit cut. 58,000, you would get a 42 percent benefit cut. And, finally, someone earning $90,000 would have a 49 percent benefit cut. So you made $90,000, you would lose half.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Ohio. Thank you for joining us. I would like to make perfectly clear here that you are not in the 30-something group age range.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) gracing us with his presence and his maturity and his distinguished nature.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) who is also mature, distinguished, and of very good nature.

I do. Does the gentleman watch it?

What is the gentleman's favorite show?

SportsCenter.

Does the gentleman watch any of the old shows, the ``Archie Bunker'' reruns and ``Cheers''?

``Three's Company.''

Does the gentleman ever watch ``Married With Children''? It has some very funny reruns.

Ed O'Neill who plays Al Bundy is from Youngstown, Ohio.

No, we should do that.

I will work on that right after we get this Social Security thing going. We will have Ed O'Neill Boulevard in Youngstown. We will do it.

He is definitely in the fight to protect Social Security.

If Al Bundy is not against privatization, who would be?

We think it is funny anyway.

When the gentleman is talking about a program like Social Security, when we are talking about the most productive program, the most efficient program that the government runs and a proposal comes along in which the President has the wherewithal to defend it, the Congress has the ability because of the party structure to pass it, then you can be sure there is going to be a big fight. And you know what, the Founding Fathers would want a big fight about this.

You fight about big things. You fight about big ideas. And I do not think there is anything wrong, and I think we have a constitutional responsibility to have a big fight.

Article 1, section 1, the people govern, the Congress has a say. And the rules of this House and especially the rules of the Senate protect the views of the minority. So we have an obligation to stand up here at 9:23 at night and try to do our part in communicating our message. And we respect the President, respect the office, respect the other side of the aisle. I have many friends over there. Good friends. But we are allowed to disagree on major issues. And I hope we can get back to what happened in 1983.

That was off camera.

I think that is a great point. We are putting everything on the credit card right now. And in the President's proposal, how does taking money out of Social Security and putting it into the market fix the Social Security system and make it more solvent than it is? As we said many times here, the magic number is $5 trillion over the next 20 years.

Five trillion dollars will have to be borrowed by the United States over the next 20 years. How does that make our country stronger, if we are out borrowing?

That may not be the real number. The gentleman is exactly right. That may not be the real number, and why is the President more worried about a deficit in 2041 of maybe $300 billion, which the Social Security trust fund will be running at a deficit, instead of a $600 billion deficit today? I do not understand why he and this administration is so overly concerned with kind of the long-range deficit that can be fixed with tinkering with this program instead of worrying about what is happening every single day, as the heart and soul gets stolen out of the United States economy, with the loss of manufacturing, the loss of business, the jobs placement, the jobs that are leaving, are $10- to $12,000 less without health care benefits.

Counties and cities are going bankrupt all over the country. They cannot afford to put on police and fire levies. I think two-thirds of the school property tax levies for schools in Ohio the last election cycle failed. I mean, this is eroding the heart and soul of the country day by day by day. This slow drip keeps happening, and it seems like instead of worrying about 2041 when we are to plug a little leak, we need to address the geyser that is happening right before us.

Mr. Speaker, that is a great segue into a couple of the e-mails that we received last week that I think put a human face on what you were just speaking about.

We got one from Denise Harmon who was from Evanston, Wyoming. She says: ``Hello, I'm 40, so I'm one year over the age group you are looking at.'' But, again, we are here talking about a lot of other issues and not just the people who are in their 30s.

``I have some IRA's, a mutual fund, a retirement plan with stocks, bonds, and annuities started through my previous employment, a 401(k) type plan with my employer, and a pension as a State employee in Wyoming.''

Denise goes on to say, ``I am very uncomfortable with the idea of using private accounts for Social Security. My mutual fund lost half of its value and at the rate it is earning, will take another 5 to 8 years to get to the rate of my deposit.''

So, just as you said, she lost sounds like thousands of dollars here and it is going to take another 5 to 8 years to get to the rate of her deposit. So, if she was planning on retiring in say 2002 and her 401(k) or mutual fund was cut in half, then she would not be able to retire if that was Social Security.

It sounds like she has some other things going on here, but what we are saying with the privatization is that your Social Security would be your mutual fund and it would be subject to the whims of the market. It would no longer be a guaranteed benefit, and when the gentleman from New York was here, he explained it great. Here is the stock market up and down, up and down, up and down, but here is the Social Security program, slowly growing, slowly paying out benefits to meet with the wage index so you maintain your buying power, and this is exactly what Denise is talking about.

She goes on to say: ``Everyone else I know, from my retired father to my peers to my kids who have mutual funds in their names for college funds have been burned by the private financial sector.''

And this is something that really hits home: ``My grandfather lost his railroad pension in the 1970s (he worked for Rock Island Lines) when Rock Island went out of business. He relied on Social Security and Medicare. He required nursing home care due to dementia and died with nothing, in fact, he probably cost the government because the company he gave his life to defaulted on him.

``Social Security is meant to be the no-risk retirement backup system. You shouldn't allow people to gamble with that money.''

And do not forget to remind Americans that Social Security also pays for the disabled and for children whose parents die early.

I want to thank Denise for writing in. That was great.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

It has been a beautiful experience; I enjoyed it thoroughly. I want to give everyone at home some e-mails.

We also received another e-mail from a Karan Szatko from Overland Park, Kansas, and she wanted to thank us for talking about and to our generation and the issues that really matter. She is hoping to get more involved in government and getting her voice heard and doing what she can to help this great Nation we all love.

So, hopefully, these 30-somethings, it sounds like they are having some effect on some, and I just want to give everyone the e-mail. You can e-mail us through Leader Pelosi's office: [email protected] or you can get on our Web site at Democraticleader.house.gov/30something.

So send us an e-mail, drop us a line if you have any stories that you can relate to us that we may be able to share here on how this may affect your family.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

No doubt about it, of all the Social Security meetings that I have had, not one citizen in my district has stood up and said anything to the effect of let us take a close look at these private accounts. Young people included have been coming. I have three universities in my district, and even the young students still recognize it.

We get kind of cynical maybe every now and again up here and think that somehow that spin and manipulation somehow will always work; and the facts maybe do not always get out, but I find it very heartening that the President can go out and try to sell a proposal and poll after poll after poll continues to show him losing support on this. I think it is very heartening to know that the American people pay very close attention to these issues especially when they affect their pocketbook like Social Security does, and they look closely at what the President is talking about, and yet they still disagree with what the President is saying.

It is very good, and I think that the key factor is that the President's proposal weakens Social Security. It does not strengthen it.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, it makes you wonder. You go 60 days. You do not sell your program. In fact, it gets progressively worse every trip that you make, and then you decide that, well, we are going to go out for another 60 days.

It makes you wonder if this thing is not a distraction from some of the real issues that we are facing today, and I hate to be cynical in the 30-something group. We are supposed to be the optimists of this body, but it is very difficult for me to believe that this maybe is not a little ploy to distract and say, look over here while we cut Medicaid, we cut food stamps, we cut community development block grants, we cut veterans benefits. Look at the real issues today. The President is trying to say this is a great crisis; 2042 is when we have before there is any structural change at all in the program.

Gas prices, I am sure my colleague is hearing about that in her district because of the oil costs, health care, immigration, issues, the Chinese and manipulation of their currency and dumping into our markets. Instead of saying we need to focus on an alternative energy program so that we could somehow reduce the cost of gas at the pumps, we are talking about a manufactured crisis that starts in 2042, not dealing with the day-to-day pocketbook issues that the people in my community and Florida have to deal with every day.

You can say that.

And growing.

Mr. Speaker, if I may interrupt the gentleman, I would add that tuition costs are doubling, and this number keeps growing every week. Every single day this clock is actually ticking here, $7.79 trillion. We lifted the debt ceiling a few months back, and this number is also ticking. So we are talking in a few months you are going to be up to owing the government or student loans or banks $50,000.

Imagine a kid being born today owes $26,000. Is that opportunity? Is that ownership? Is that freedom? All the big themes that we like to talk about in Washington, D.C. This is trapping a generation of kids.

Bingo.

If my wife says it is okay.

And we see where the Russians and Mr. Putin are beginning to crack down on a lot of the democratic movements, taking over a lot of the media, and when a guy like Mr. Yushchenko comes here from the Ukraine, with the scars to prove his fight for democracy, and he stands in front of this Chamber to address our constitutional body that we have, what kind of example is this to send? Yet in the same breath talk about freedom, talk about opportunity. Members would think that as either a legislator or executive, you would want to hear what the dissent is so if you were right, then you would be able to address the issue and explain why you are right.

I think why we see the President's numbers going down, he is speechifying. It is not a give and take at town hall meetings. He is kicking people out if they have an anti-Bush bumper sticker on their car, and pretending like they are the Secret Service. And that is reported. It happened out in Denver, and they are investigating it now.

Answer the concerns of the country, and we will see progress as you begin to advocate and argue for your side.

Funny, the gentlewoman would say that on her flight in from Florida she crunched some numbers, and my flight from Ohio is only an hour, from Cleveland; but I was able to work some numbers, too. We have mentioned here before that if we implement the President's proposal of diverting money into the private accounts, there will be a $5 trillion hole in our budget. Somehow we have to plug the hole. We are going to have to borrow the money and pay interest in order to fund the private accounts.

I did some math trying to figure out what $5 trillion could do for other programs. And since this is the 30-something Hour, I wanted to focus on Pell grants and we were able to get it printed off the cocktail napkin that comes with the Diet Coke and the peanuts on the plane. For Pell Grants, $5 trillion over 20 years could raise the maximum Pell Grant from $4,050 to $59,500. Right now 5.3 million students get the $4,000 maximum, but with the $5 trillion we could have 23.7 million students receive $59,500 worth of college grants to go to schools.

Mr. Speaker, $60,000 would take care of undergrad, masters, and Ph.D. It would get students educated. Many people do not need $60,000 for just a bachelor's degree, so we could cut it in half and give $30,000 to 47 million students.

This is just to illustrate a point. Just think if we plug a hole in a risky ponzi scheme that we are going to have. But imagine if we made this significant investment in education. Imagine the value that would be created from that.

We did a study in Ohio, and for every dollar the State of Ohio spent on higher ed, the State of Ohio would get $2 back in tax money. Imagine what the return on this investment would be. It would be significant. We would have educated, well-rounded citizens participating in democracy, more tolerant, more creative, creating wealth in our society.

What kinds of investments are we making otherwise? We are going to borrow and plug a hole with $5 trillion. What value do we get from that? We are losing jobs left and right, and the biggest crisis is a problem that is in 2041 when we are 70 years old.

Mr. Speaker, from where I come from, that is a moral issue. That is a moral issue. What do we do with those people who need the help, who access or utilize this program as an insurance program when they lose a spouse at a young age and they have kids, they have survivors, which is a third of the program. That is a moral issue, and we talk a lot about morality, and it has been so narrow and focused on just a couple of issues.

Are we going to say as a country you are on your own again and roll it back to before we implemented the Social Security program? It has been successful. It works, and there are a lot of people out there who have benefited. This was an issue at one of my town hall meetings. There were three or four who came, and it was strictly based on survivorship, disability, and people who have just had a lot of bad luck.

We try to pin labels and say this certain segment is lazy, they do not want to work, they want the easy way out. There is a lot of people trying to make their way out working very, very hard. And for one reason or another, they are sick and make a couple of bad decisions. It is amazing. The more I get out and hear these stories, how many people, one car accident, one sick family member, one death in the family, and the whole thing collapses. This program has been there to say to those folks we are here for you and the government is going to be here, society is going to be here to help you.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to make a point. He mentioned dissent and debate, and we talked a little bit about it here tonight. This body has a constitutional obligation to voice our concerns and our opinions. And that is why the rules of the House are set up so that we can get an hour here to talk about it and voice our concerns and talk about what we believe and what our approach would be. And I think it is important that we do get out here, and I think the Democrats have done a great job, leaders in both Chambers have done a great job, of fulfilling our obligation to our constituents to go out there and at least recognize that the President's plan is not resonating, and that we have an obligation to go out there and be critical if we need to be and say that the plan is extreme and say the plan is radical.

I do not think there is anything wrong with that, because in 1994 and the years leading up, the other side was very critical of the President for a long while. They have gone back on what they said they were going to do in 1994, balanced budget amendments and balancing the budget, and this thing just keeps going up and up and up. So they obviously have not fulfilled some of their goals that they set, but they were critical of the President, and they had a right to do that, and they won the House back. And now they are overstepping. Now we are being critical. And I think the American people are going to see that the Democratic Party has something to offer.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, no doubt about it. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), in fact, today was at Columbia University, New York City, 300 young people at 8:30 in the morning. College students, when that alarm goes off at 7 o'clock, 7:30 when they are in college, they hit that snooze button and they hope they make their 10 o'clock class. But there is so much concern here for this, and we know it is resonating.

And I think this group especially, since the gentlewoman from Florida joined us specifically, we have had more of an impact here, but I think we have seen the polls and the decline in support by young people for this kind of risky scheme, this risky proposal. And I think we will continue to see it because they recognize the fact that long term this is bad for them.

And one thing I would mention to the people that are watching at home, ask themselves is this legislative body, is this President addressing issues that face them day to day, affect their day-to-day life? Are we dealing with issues that will help them? And I think the answer is no. We are not dealing with oil, gas prices. We are not doing anything to try to find alternative energy sources. We are not doing anything to increase funding for Pell grants or No Child Left Behind. We are actually cutting benefits for veterans. If a veteran is sitting at home right now, their co-pay is going to go from $7 to $15, and there are going to be user fees assessed to them. All these things are happening. So if people are sitting at home and they are not involved or engaged in the political process at all, they have to ask themselves, ``What are they doing in Washington, D.C. that is going to help my life?'' And really nothing. We are talking about a manufactured crisis that is going to happen in 2042.

I want to read one quick e-mail. I know we have gotten hundreds of these, but I want to read one. This is from last week. ``My name is Susan Parker.'' Susan lives in Severna Park, Maryland. She is 33, becoming ever more involved in politics. A few weeks ago she watched the dynamic trio up here on C-SPAN discussing why the Bush administration's plan was not good for the citizens of the country.

``I was glued to the TV. I started taking notes, and from those notes I e-mailed letters to my Representative, Senators, and several letters to the editor. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the inspiration and for speaking out so consistently.''

So these young people are starting to get involved, engaged, writing.

Before I part ways, I am going to have this hanging in my office. This is ``Rock the Boat,'' the little coffee stand on it. ``I Love Social Security.'' You can go to rocktheboat.com and get some information, or e-mail us at 30-something Democrats at mail.house.gov, or go to the Web site, democraticleader.house.gov/30something. So this is it right here.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, that is what this is about. When the country goes in the wrong direction, the population, the population can shift it and move it in the right direction. That is what is happening here.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

I think he makes a great point, and I think the phrase that he has used in the past that is applicable to the Social Security debate is the ``Potomac two-step.'' They want us looking at Social Security over here and having this debate and flying around the country and talking about what needs fixing and a crisis that really does not exist, and we have numbers that say it does not exist, but we still want to have this debate over here.

Meanwhile, on this end, we are cutting Medicaid. Health care costs have gone up 50 percent over the last 5 years; education costs of college tuition up 36 percent. No one wants to talk about these issues. No one wants to talk about the fact that Youngstown city schools, the district that I represent, 85 percent of the kids who go to that school qualify for free and reduced lunch.

We do not want to have that debate. We want to have a manufactured debate. And I think the gentleman is exactly right. That is exactly what is happening here, and I think it becomes more and more important on us to fight this on a couple of different fronts. One is to make the argument that Social Security is solid up until 2041 and that we need to make some corrections maybe on a bipartisan way but make sure that the benefits are guaranteed, make sure that no American is going to get a reduction in their benefits, especially the 50 percent of the people who qualify for Social Security, in which Social Security lifts them out of poverty. So I think it is very important for us to broaden this debate over here and not just talk about Social Security but to talk about all these other issues.

One of the issues that I have been working on with Members of the other side, trying to somehow get the attention of the administration, is the issue of China, manipulating their currency up to 40 percent. We had a hearing today in the Committee on Armed Services.

A joint hearing with the Committee on International Relations and the Committee on Armed Services. I appreciate the gentleman's correcting me.

Constructive criticism. I appreciate that.

We had a discussion about the Europeans wanting to lift the arms embargo on China, which has been the Europeans cannot sell all these different types of military arms to the Chinese. The ban has been on since Tiananmen Square in 1989. Now the Europeans are saying we want to sell to the Chinese. So here we have this huge country that is growing at a rapid rate, and now we have even some of our allies wanting to sell arms to a rapidly growing Chinese government.

Unbelievable.

If the gentleman would further yield, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely right. Maybe one day I will even be his constituent, that one day I will move to Florida.

But I think the point that the gentleman from Florida brought up is the issue of the perennial budget deficits that we are having it seems every year in this Chamber, $400 to $500 billion a year, and I think when we talk in the 30-something group that we have established here, the reason we like to talk about and highlight the deficit is because long term that is going to have the most detrimental effect on members of the 30-something generation, 20-something, teenagers, born today.

We have huge numbers. Our debt is rising. Our deficit is going up and up and up every single year. And now to implement the Social Security plan, $5 trillion to implement the President's version of his privatization, $5 trillion over the next 20 years. We already have almost an $8 trillion national debt. Let me move this over.

These are today's numbers. And this clock is ticking by the second. But $7.7 trillion is the national debt today and ticking. Maybe we will be able to get the technology here where this will keep moving, $7.79 trillion national debt today.

And I think this is the most staggering number. Someone sitting at home watching this or sitting up in the gallery, their individual share of the national debt is $26,300. So if one is born today, welcome to being born in the United States of America, they have a $26,000 tag on their head.

If the gentleman will yield, I appreciate the gentleman sharing that information.

The real question is, we have to agree on this, and it is not a Democrat or Republican thing. This baby that is born with a $26,000 debt on their head, we do not know if that baby is a Democrat or a Republican. We have an obligation here for the next generation. And for many, many, many years our colleagues were standing in the well on that side talking about a balanced budget amendment, talking about fiscal discipline, talking about tax and spend. Now we are borrowing and spending.

This is worse. It is bad to tax and spend, and I do not think any of us advocate that. But to borrow and spend, because you are borrowing, you are spending and then you are paying interest on the money that you borrow, primarily from the Japanese and the Chinese banks. That is reckless. It is bad foreign policy, it is bad domestic policy, it is not conducive to providing opportunity for the next generation, your kids and the young kids that are coming up.

When you talk about funding health care, Medicare, Medicaid, education, tuition costs, Pell grants, No Child Left Behind, how are we going to compete with 1.3 billion Chinese, how are we going to compete with over 1 billion Indians in the next couple of decades, when we have kids, students, that are unhealthy and not getting the proper education that they need, and at the same time we are leaving this kind of burden on their backs?

Now, I have to excuse myself. I have a meeting I have to be at 3 minutes ago. But I want the gentleman to carry on here because this is important. I think the best thing we can do in our 30-something Caucus and our 30-something Working Group that our leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), has helped us establish, is talk about this, because if there is one thing I hope that I can say in my tenure in Congress and the gentleman's is that somehow we were able to fix this and make the kind of investments that the young students need and that they deserve and that will lead to the kind of opportunity that the gentleman and I have had.

If the gentleman will yield further, exactly. When you add on it the $26,000 that you are born with that is going to keep accumulating every day, especially when we are running $500 billion annual deficits, and you add on to that, just picture the baby born today, and this clock ticking, 18 to 22 years out, say 22 years out, that number keeps going up and up and up, and maybe next week we will have the math and figure out what it will be based on inflation. And then add on to that college costs rising at the rate they have been over the past 4 years.

I know in Ohio alone they have doubled, and I think average college students graduates with a $20,000-some debt, and that is not even if they go after a masters or Ph.D. or law degree. It is about $22,000 for the average college student's debt.

So you take the 26, you add on the 22, now you are talking close to $50,000; and then project that out 22 years. So your baby born today, if you want them to go to college or get a masters degree or law degree or Ph.D., you are talking at least $100,000, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. That is not providing opportunity. At the same time, they are competing with billions, over 1 billion Chinese workers and over 1 billion Indians. So this is becoming very dangerous for the long-term prospects of our country.

If you want to e-mail us, 30something democrats @mail.house.gov. 30something [email protected].

I have enjoyed this. I look forward to us coming back next week. I hope this in some way has broadened the discussion and deepened the discussion on the issues facing the country.

I yield back to my very good friend from Florida.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to also take this opportunity to thank the gentleman from New York for having this Special Order.

I grew up going to Catholic school, 12 years of Catholic school at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grade School and John F. Kennedy High School, and I received my first holy communion under this Pope. I was confirmed under this Pope, and I was married under this Pope. And for those of us who are involved in the political system, not only here but around the world, one of the things we tend to notice is that in many ways international figures are inconsistent. And I think as we celebrate the life of this great Pope and this great statesman, I think it is important for us to recognize his consistency and how he was consistent with all of his philosophies through the Church and through his life. And whether one always agreed with this Pope or not, regardless of the political pressure that was being put from certain quarters in certain interest groups on certain countries, the Pope was always very consistent.

He was prolife on abortion. He was prolife on the death penalty. He understood that we honor not only the Holy Church, but God and the rest of us through our actions, and this Pope, through his actions, and what he advocated for, always for the poor, always for the disenfranchised, always for the workers, always for those people who did not have a voice, this Pope did not have to worry about the political implications, and he acted out of a position of love, and he did not always do it when it was just convenient for him or for the Church. And that is very important.

When the war in Iraq came before this Chamber and came before the international community, it was this Pope who took a firm position. And, interestingly enough, throughout the war it was this Pope who was one of the only international leaders we would hear talk about the innocent civilians who were getting killed throughout the war in Iraq. And whether or not the war was justified is a debate for this Chamber, but I think it is important for us to recognize that this Pope understood that those innocent lives were

God's children, too, and the Pope made sure that the conscience of the world paid attention to that.

One or two final points about the example of this Pope. A lot of religious issues and a lot of religious connotations have been made over the past few years and have made their way to the forefront of our political discourse here. And I think this Pope has taught us through his life on how we have to understand and utilize a religion consistently and the philosophies consistently.

But on the issues of Christianity, the issues of nonjudgment, which is the highest ideal of the Christian faith, not to judge, and for this Pope to go to the mosque, to go to the synagogue, to disagree with one on issues of the day, but yet never judge one personally or never judge one's country personally is a lesson for all of us. The man who spoke for the poor, the man who spoke for the disenfranchised, the man who spoke for the workers, and the man who taught my generation of service, and in the Catholic schools and in the Catholic Church one of the great doctrines is that we have a responsibility regardless of what we are doing to make money or to protect one's family or to help one's family survive, we have an obligation in some capacity to serve others. And this Pope in many ways served all of us with his intellect, with his knowledge, with his commitment, with his example of nonjudgment and tolerance.

We have a lot that we can digest that this Pope has shown us, and I hope that those of us in this body and around the world will use this celebration as an opportunity to get to know this Pope in a better way and a deeper way and hopefully implement his example in the day-to-day workings of this Chamber.

I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I have a slight cold so please forgive me, but we are back with the 30-something Hour, and I will be joined by my two colleagues from Florida here in a few minutes.

We want to continue this debate that we have been having in the United States over the past several months, a debate that the President has initiated in saying after the campaign that he wanted to have a national discussion in regards to the issue of Social Security and the Social Security solvency and where Social Security is going to be in the next few years and the kind of changes that we have to make in the country in order to deal with it.

Those of us on this side, and I think many on the other side, have very many concerns about this because Social Security, quite frankly, has been one of the most successfully administered Federal Government programs in the history of the United States of America.

We have talked over the past few months on how Social Security runs with only a 1 percent administrative cost. So there are a lot of government programs I think we all agree in this Chamber and across the country that are inefficient, that are ineffective, that maybe do not work, that maybe take too much money without getting the kind of results that we ultimately want.

Social Security is not one of those programs. Social Security has been an enormous success, and I think what is great really about Social Security in trying to advance this argument, I think why the President is having so much difficulty is that Social Security is a program that touches all of our lives.

We here in the 30-something Caucus watched our grandparents receive Social Security, and the story of my great-grandfather when Social Security was first implemented, he could

not believe when he got to America that he could retire and walk down to the end of the driveway and get his Social Security check and he would have dignity in his final years.

This program has been successful, and the President is having great difficulty making an argument that we need to somehow radically change the Social Security system.

The President's proposal is to say that those of us who are in our 20s and 30s and 40s, instead of putting our percent, our 6.2 percent into the Social Security system, will be allowed to divert a certain portion of that over into some private annuity or private account that we would be allowed to set up, and there are all kinds of math involved in this in the President's proposal that lead to someone who does put money into a private account to not receive the kind of benefits that they thought they were going to get in the first place.

But the main point is this: the Social Security system, the Social Security program may need change, may need to be tweaked, but it does not need to be privatized, and the President's plan does not fix the problem. It in no way, shape, or form fixes the long-term solvency issues that Social Security has, and there are many other ways we can go about fixing this program. It is good until 2042, into 2050 and even after that you will still get 80 percent of your benefits if we do absolutely nothing.

So there is no need to get crazy. There is no need to get crazy and try to make some radical changes to this program like privatizing it and somehow jeopardize and slash benefits for our seniors and our grandparents and our parents.

I am joined by the gentlewoman who has been on all the talk shows over the past few weeks and did a fantastic job. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Absolutely.

And, Mr. Speaker, when you just look at how the privatization process would be set up, you are actually taking money that would be going into the system out away from the system. And we do not even know, and the President's proposal from all the ones I have read, is that the 4 percent that I would be able to take and move into the side account, the business match will not go into the Social Security account either. So you put in your 6.2, the business puts in theirs, but if I divert 4 percent, then that is 4 percent less that the employer has to put in. So you are talking about taking out trillions of dollars. And I think if there is one point we want to make tonight, that will be it.

We brought our handy-dandy charts here. Privatization equals massive borrowing. There is only one way to fill the gap. We do not have money to plug a $2 trillion hole. And it says in the first 10 years of the plan, anywhere from $1.4 trillion to $2 trillion in borrowing, and over the next 20 years it will be $5 trillion that we will have to borrow just to plug holes in the President's plan. We are running a $400- to $500 billion trade deficit in a year, and we are going to go out and borrow $5 trillion? Where are we going to get $5 trillion to plug the hole in the Social Security plan? We are borrowing the money from foreign countries, and we are shifting the burden on to the next generation. It is irresponsible. It is lunacy. There is no reason to have to do this. So, again, push the taxes off.

Now, this is the chart I like, and Tom Manatos, from our staff, is responsible for this. This is it. The national debt, my colleagues. There are so many numbers here. And this is always changing. You can go to the United States Treasury Web site, and this ticker here will keep going and keep adding, but it is $7.7 trillion. And we are going to go out and we are going to borrow $5 trillion? This is our debt now, almost $8 trillion. And if the President gets his way and we have to implement the private accounts, we are going to go out and have to borrow $5 trillion, which is more than half the national debt that we have right now.

But here is the number you will love the most, your share of the national debt. Your share, one person sitting at home right now, if you are sitting there or if you are born today, you owe $26,000. That is what you owe because we spend more than we take in. Now, if we are going to add $5 trillion to this over the next 20 years, this number will almost double.

So when you think about a baby that is born today that owes this, and if we keep going at the rate we are going, running $500- to $600 billion annual deficits, and this number keeps going, and we are out borrowing money and paying more interest on it, and you live your whole life and this number keeps going up, and then at 18 you go out and borrow money to go to school, to get a bachelor's degree, master's degree, Ph.D., become a lawyer, you are going to borrow more money, what does this number look like? How are we providing opportunity for our children in the next generation?

We are being irresponsible here. The gentleman talked earlier here about the trade deficits and how we have to balancing those off and balancing the budget, but we are not being very kind to the next generation coming up.

Mr. Speaker, I yield once again to my colleague.

One bill that equals $1,000 stacked. Okay.

And that is not the way we did it in 1983. And everyone has been talking about this monumental national discussion and Tip O'Neill sitting down with President Reagan and Bob Dole, and we had all the great political figures of that generation coming together to say we are going to put politics aside, and we are going to fix the problem.

And we are not here to bash the President or to bash the Republicans or to bash anybody, but we are here to say we have issues here that are going to affect the long-term interest of the country. In many districts across the country we are losing manufacturing jobs. One of the main problems we have with this whole thing is we do not have enough taxpayers working and making a good living and paying into the Social Security System. My own opinion is that is what would really help fix this long term. But we are just here to say we want to sit down and work with you.

You cannot have a national discussion if you do not include the opposition into your town hall meetings. Boy, it would be great to go to a meeting and never have anybody stand up and question any votes you have had or anything like that. We cannot get away with that in our congressional seats, nor should we be able to. And so the President needs to come to Congress and work with us. We want to help him figure this out.

Now, private accounts, for us, are off the table. That is ridiculous. That is not going to happen. But we want to work with the President

And, Mr. Speaker, when you look at when you would want to actually take out the money, our colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner), who was here a few weeks ago with us, had a great explanation. The stock market goes up. The stock market goes down. The stock market goes up. The stock market goes down. Well, what if you are going to retire at the wrong time? What if you were planning on retiring in 2001, 2002, and your private savings account was cut in half? Now all of a sudden you are not retiring.

Social Security grows at a steady pace and keeps up with inflation and makes sure that you would be able to maintain the kind of buying power that you would normally have, and it is stable, and it is safe, and it is guaranteed.

Social Security, exactly, instead of having the up and down. And that is the kind of risk you are going to have to take on if you are going to put your money into some of these private accounts.

One point more before I pull up another slide here. Your share of the national debt is $26,000, and I think we really need to start looking in terms like this, because not only do business people always worry about what the next quarter's earnings are going to be, what is the next quarter's profits going to be, and we tend to always think what is the next election going to be like, because we get elected every 2 years, so there is no real long-term thinking. So I think it is important for us, especially during the discussions the 30-something group has, is to have this broad discussion: What does this look like to a baby born today and you add this on?

Then we have got the number here that the average college student has $20,000 of debt after going to college; plus a credit card debt, plus a car payment. So what we are trying to say here is that a baby born today has a tax on their head of at least, at least, and that is today, if the clock does not run, of at least $50,000 by the time they are 22 years old and graduating.

Mr. Speaker, you add in inflation and the fact college tuition is doubling, add in all of the other factors, and the bankruptcy bill, which I will not go into, we are not serving our country well and we are not serving the next generation well when we do this. I think we are being very shortsighted and selfish. It sounds good; we are going to borrow money. Wall Street is going to make a killing on the whole deal. It sounds good, and sometimes if it sounds too good to be true, most often it is.

The fix there to save Medicare solvency was to spend an additional 500 to $600 billion, not to do anything with the cost of prescription drugs, not to allow for reimportation, not to allow the Secretary of HHS to negotiate down the drug prices with some of these drug companies.

The gentlewoman is exactly right. When I think of a crisis going on in my district right now, many of the school districts that I represent, half the kids live in poverty. That is a crisis because those kids are going to be taking from the system instead of creating wealth and paying taxes and contributing to the system. That is a crisis.

In Mahoney County, which encompasses the city of Youngstown, there are thousands of kids who have lead poisoning. There are 2,000 kids, young kids who have lead poisoning in Mahoney County at a level by which it actually affects their cognitive ability which puts you on a level of slight retardation. It is unbelievable. Those are the crises we have in the country: health, education, making sure that the poorest among us have some kind of security.

If Members went to Youngstown, Ohio, and tried to convince the residents there that the biggest crisis in the country starts in 2042, they would laugh at you.

And to not do anything about cost for the prescriptions I think illustrates and speaks to the point better than anything else that too much money drives what is going on down here. They are not worried about Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Goldstein. Sometimes the decisions here are about who raises us a lot of money.

Mr. Speaker, who would pass a $500 billion prescription drug bill that is now $700 billion, $800 billion, $900 billion, we do not even know what the real number is, and not do anything about trying to control the price of prescription drugs, and then turn around and come in and say drugs are not the issue, cost is not the issue, Social Security is the biggest crisis in the country now?

Let us not forget as we begin to start wrapping things up, we gave this administration a lot of leeway, a lot of rope with the war, with the prescription drug bill and the war that the taxpayers would not have to pay anything more than $50 billion because we would use the oil money for reconstruction and be greeted as liberators. We are going to be in and out, and all of the things we heard before the war turned out not to be true.

And everyone who was telling them there were no weapons of mass destruction, they ignored them; and to now push the blame off on some bureaucrats is unfair. And that was the war. We all know that. And then the prescription drug bill started off $400 billion as we sat in this Chamber, because many of our fiscal friends on the other side of the aisle did not want to spend more than $400 billion. After the bill was signed, 2 months later, all of a sudden the real price was $500 billion and an actuary was threatened not to give the real numbers to Congress.

After the election a few months ago, we find out this is going to be closer to a trillion dollars in cost. I am saying the track record here is not good for when the administration comes forward and says trust me because we have, we have been burnt; and we are certainly not going to let this happen with the Social Security system.

Mr. Speaker, the only answer I can come up with is the pharmaceutical companies did not want it. It is amazing because we have obviously signed numerous free trade agreements with every country. In my area we have been devastated by a lot of the agreements. All of a sudden we say if we are going to free trade everything else, let us free trade pharmaceuticals. As long as they have good safety standards, let us let them come in from Canada and drop the price down. But the kibosh was put on that.

When we look at the pharmaceutical industry had three or four lobbyists for every Member of Congress and donated $100 million to Congress over the course of that period when we were negotiating that drug bill, the money comes in here. The pharmaceutical industry did not want that. So they got what they wanted. They got that language removed or not put in. So now the Secretary of Health and Human Services is not allowed to negotiate. Not only are we not allowed to bring drugs in from Canada, but the Secretary of HHS is not allowed to sit down with Pfizer and say Pfizer, Merck, if you want the Medicare drug contract for X drug, and of course they do, so you say we are going to talk price, just like any other business would do.

The gentlewoman makes a great point about just kind of how the whole system is working right now. Basically by not having the Secretary of HHS be able to negotiate down the drug prices and by not free-trading pharmaceuticals, it is basically corporate welfare. It is basically public taxpayer, hard-earned money coming down here, and we are giving it to the pharmaceutical companies and inflated drug costs through the Medicare program. So we have corporate welfare going to the most profitable industry in the world right now. Then you give tax cuts to those people who make more than $350,000 a year so they do not have to pay. You reduce the corporate tax rate so those shareholders, and those people who benefit most from moving jobs overseas get the tax benefits there, too. And then you are cutting services here with Medicaid and food stamps and education, the Pell grant and everything that we have talked about. And now you want to go try to mess with Social Security.

So if you see what is happening down here, if you take a step back and you see the whole process, there is all this corporate welfare going to all the big major corporations, they get all the tax cuts, the people who run those companies get tax cuts, and the rich get richer, and the poor are getting poorer. They say, well, that's class warfare. Mark Shields had a great line. He said, The war's over. The rich won. There is not much there anymore. But that is the way things are going, and that is why it is so important that at the bare minimum we keep that basic Social Security system in place.

I think having discussions like we are having tonight and town hall meetings, I think it has been very successful. The response I am getting, and I know the response the gentlewoman is getting down in Florida, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), who could not be with us tonight, is getting, and all our colleagues on both sides of the aisle are getting it.

I yield to the gentlewoman for any final comments that she may like to make.

Absolutely. I hope from the responses we have been getting, it sounds like some people are listening.

[email protected]. Send us an e-mail, or you can go to the Web site, democraticleader.house.gov/thirtysomething, and join in our discussion. We will be happy to read some of the e-mails. We have been off for the last few weeks, so maybe next week we will read some.

I would also like to say before we close up, the President of the Ukraine, Victor Yushchenko, is going to be here tomorrow. If you had followed everything that was going on with the West and the Russians and the poisoning, it was like a soap opera going on. I think it is an important point for us to make, he is going to be talking to a joint session of Congress, his election and his uprising and his move to power in the Ukraine was led by young people.

We need to continue to try to encourage, not everyone has to run for office, not everyone has to be involved to the extent they make a career out of it, but it is so important when you see what is going on down here day in and day out and the lack of, I think, long-term vision. It is important because the young people are the ones who are going to be involved in the system longer than all of us are because they are younger. It is important for their voice to be heard.

I thank the gentlewoman from Florida. We missed the gentleman from Florida, but I know he will be back with us next week.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 52 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, April 6, 2005, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to pay tribute to the veterans of the Persian Gulf who are from the Mahoning Valley in Ohio. Our valley has long been blessed to have local sons and daughters willing to volunteer to serve in our country's military, and our most recent veterans of the Persian Gulf are cut from the same cloth. When they were called on to serve overseas in the Middle East, leaving their families and friends for extended periods of time to fight in a foreign land, they answered the call. They answered the call, even though they faced great physical risk, even death; and I thank them for their service, for their patriotism, and for their sacrifice.

We as a country owe them a tremendous debt and are forever grateful. We need to ensure that they are provided the equipment and support they need in the field to complete their jobs effectively, that their families are taken care of when they are away, that they have jobs to come home to when they return, and that they receive the benefits that they have earned as veterans.

We have no higher legislative priority, I know myself and speaking for the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), than fully funding the veterans benefits that they have been promised.

Yesterday, I voted for the supplemental funding bill for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I believe that we need to finish the job we started in the Middle East and bring stability to that region and then to immediately bring our troops home.

God bless the men and women who have served during the war on terror, and God bless the men and women who are still serving on the other side of the world. These veterans have protected this country for years, since its inception; and the highest honor that we could bestow upon them is to make sure that we take care of them.

Mr. Speaker, we have the freedoms we enjoy today because of the sacrifices that our soldiers have made throughout history, and I am proud today to honor the men and women of the Mahoning Valley who have served this country in the Persian Gulf and have served so nobly.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman.

We also want to recognize all our friends in Youngstown at this time, where at the Italian-American War Veterans Post 3 the veterans and community leaders on April 14 will hold a tribute honoring the Mahoning Valley area sons and daughters at war.

We would like to thank Herman Adams, Ray Ornelas, and Dom Medina for all their help in putting this together and organizing it, helping us to honor those troops.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start off by thanking the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), our leader on the House Committee on Armed Services, for his very thoughtful remarks.

I too rise this morning, Mr. Speaker, to talk about how House Democrats feel about our national security. My colleague, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), talked about how Democrats are unanimous in supporting our men and women in uniform. I wholeheartedly agree with that. The gentleman from Missouri also made the point that we are perilously close to breaking the force, and I agree with that observation too, and that is what I would like to focus on here this morning.

Extended global deployment is straining our forces. Fifteen hundred American troops have been killed in Iraq so far, despite the President's claim a year ago that our mission was accomplished. The implications of these decisions and these remarks is that our recruiting is suffering. The Marine Corps missed its recruiting goal for January. The Army missed its goal for January and February. Items not funded in the Marine Corps request include $13.9 million for recruiting.

It also goes without saying that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is using up our equipment at an accelerated rate. Current projections are that it would take the Army at least 2 years to recapitalize its current equipment. Unfunded requirements include: In the Army, $443 million for small arms; $544 million for the Stryker armored vehicle. The Marine Corps list includes $145 million for ammunition; $104 million for light armored vehicles.

Mr. Speaker, these are the very things that our troops need most in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet they have been relegated to the Services' unfunded priority list.

The Air Force, Mr. Speaker, is projecting a $3 billion deficit in its operations and maintenance budget for fiscal year 2006. Navy leaders directed their regional commands to absorb a $300 million reduction in base operating funds as a result of the war costs. The Army's shortfall in base operating support is projected to be $1.2 billion.

Mr. Speaker, forcing the military services to absorb costs of this magnitude is important for several reasons. The budget request for our military services is not adequate for war and general operation. We are about to pass a 2005 supplemental and we will need a 2006 supplemental.

Democrats believe the administration should be honest with the American people about the real cost of the war. Is the administration doing everything it can to address equipment shortages, personal protective gear and the armored vehicles for the troops? Figures in this budget suggest that the Department of Defense may be robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Does the administration have a plan for success in Iraq and to pay the costs of this war? Repeated supplementals is no way to go about doing this country's business. We would not have to make such difficult decisions with regard to our troops' safety if Republicans had not insisted on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Administration witnesses have not been able to tell us what the benchmarks for success are in Iraq. They do not know when Iraqis can protect themselves. They cannot describe how they intend to integrate the Sunni, Shia, and Kurd factions into those security forces. They cannot describe the new government's plan to ensure inclusion of these groups into the body politic. They cannot tell us when essential services will be fully restored. They cannot tell us how much Iraqi oil revenue is helping to pay the cost of providing security in Iraq, which was promised to us before we went into this war. It has been 2 years since we invaded Iraq, and we should, by now, have a strategy for success.

House Democrats support our troops. We work to ensure they have the equipment and training and to ensure that they succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We support taking care of their families here in the States while they are deployed. We cannot do that in a smart, cost effective way that protects the taxpayers without a plan for success in Iraq and honest budgeting for the military departments here at home.

We also need to mention the veterans. The pending budget resolution proposes $798 million in cuts to mandatory programs. It is unconscionable, I say to my colleague from Missouri, that we are going to have all these troops coming back to the United States and not have the veterans benefits that they need, deserve, and that they have earned.

Mr. Speaker, in 1792 citizens came to northern Ohio to find a place to call their own after the American Revolution forced many out of house and home. They called this place the Western Reserve. It was a place of new beginnings, and these fervent and industrious people made Ohio

strong and prosperous. These settlers, mostly from Connecticut, were descendants of the brave immigrants who came to the Americas in the 17th century.

It is with great honor that by passing this legislation we will preserve the integrity of the cultural landscape for future generations to call home.

The Western Reserve is significant to our Nation's history, and it will be through education and public investment that we will help redefine our communities with the designation they so deserve.

The Western Reserve holds the distinction of being home to three U.S. Presidents and three U.S. Supreme Court Justices. This was home to the foundation of the steel industry and the world's rubber capital. The Western Reserve had the first U.S. newspaper for African Americans and the oldest labor newspaper. We are an inventive people, with many firsts in the automotive and electrical worlds. This is the birthplace of Thomas Edison and John Brown, the famous abolitionist.

We have regional strengths that set us apart from other areas, from our respected universities to our diverse business community to a wide range of natural and recreational resources. The agricultural and industrial base that began in the Western Reserve still lives strong in these prosperous and historical counties. These counties include Trumbull, Mahoning, Summit, Portage, Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Medina, Ottawa, Ashland, Lake, Geauga, Lorain, Huron, and Erie.

The Western Reserve Heritage Area will unite northern Ohio and will help develop a plan focused on conserving the special qualities of the local culture and landscape that will once again define these communities as a good place to settle and make new beginnings.

We are already starting to see some of the benefits. The original Packard car was developed in this Western Reserve and the annual event that we have brings $5 million to Trumbull County in travel tourism money.

I would just like to share a quote because now, not only with the Western Reserve Heritage Area coming together, the counties in the old Western Reserve are coming together economically as well. The foundations are coming together to focus their efforts and their money and certain aspects that will help transform our economy. I would just like to share a quote from the fund of all of these, the Fund For Our Economic Future and the fund chairman, Robert Briggs, says that ``most of the pieces needed to make northeast Ohio a global economic powerhouse are in place. One of the missing pieces, however, is a shared vision and understanding that the residents in these counties in northeast Ohio are interconnected in a regional economy. By breaking down jurisdictional boundaries created by cities and counties and thinking regionally, we will think economic transformation to stimulate exponential growth.''

The Western Reserve Heritage Area can be the organizing principle of this area and lead to the transformation of our economy.

I thank my colleagues for the opportunity to share these views today.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pride to honor the words of John Jackson, a steelworker from Warren, Ohio. I am proud to claim him as my constituent.

I Am an American Steel Mill

I was born over 100 years ago.

I am a true American.

I survived the depression.

I have lived through wars.

I sweated.

I poured ton after ton out for you.

When called upon I answered.

At wartime I served my country.

I served it true.

I worked 24 hours a day 7 days a week for you.

Never stopping, never slowing down.

Never asking for anything in return.

I have supplied you with the materials to build

Planes, trains, ships, cars, and whatever you asked of me.

I have helped make you the super power that you are.

I have made you feel proud, safe, secure, and superior to

other nations.

I have given people their way of life.

I have taken away life from people.

Do You Know Who I Am?

I Am An American Steel Mill

I have helped you when called upon,

I have supported you through good times

And bad times.

Now I am asking you this great country of ours

Think what life would be like if I die

Think how safe, proud, secure you would feel if I die.

The cries for help are all across the country.

The same country I helped build.

The same country I helped become strong.

Please don't let me die.

Serve me as I have served you.