Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, we are going to continue the conversation here and switch gears here just a little bit with the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) and continue the Iraq Watch and talk a little bit about the foreign policy issues that have been facing this Congress and facing the country for a few years now and trying to figure out a way in which we can try to correct this problem that we have gotten ourselves in.

Let me just first say that the whole Congress, Republican and Democrat Parties, Independents, House and Senate, President, we are all very much in support of the troops who are out on the front lines, their families who are making tremendous sacrifices that many of us will never ever know.

I have had the opportunity to be up to Walter Reed and visit some of these injured soldiers, and there is nothing more heartbreaking than to see a 19-, a 20-year-old kid who has lost his or her legs, an arm, and just think about all their hopes and dreams that have, in many ways, been washed away.

So we are taking this opportunity here as Democrats to talk a little bit about how we got into this position, and I want to start on an issue that I feel extremely passionate about.

When this all started after 9/11, the United States of America and an international coalition moved forward in Afghanistan, and we moved forward in Afghanistan because they were housing the Taliban and they were housing or harboring Osama bin Laden, who was the main perpetrator of 9/11 on the United States of America. So many of us are confused, myself included, why we went into Iraq in the first place.

The reason is that we have only so many resources in the United States of America, and we attacked and invaded with an international coalition into Afghanistan. We ousted the Taliban government that was harboring al Qaeda and harboring Osama bin Laden, and we sent Osama running into the Tora Bora region on the Afghan-Pakistan border. We had this international coalition, and we were going into Afghanistan and we were going to rebuild this country, and we were going to make it a thriving democracy. We were going to have a democracy in that region.

There is a great article in the Atlantic magazine this week, for those of you who are at home who want to read it and get the complete analysis and the timeline of how this happened. Then at one point, all of a sudden, all of the generals and all of the military planners in the United States of America began to shift their attention from Afghanistan to Iraq, and they took in troops. We now have 130,000 troops in Iraq. In Afghanistan, we only have 17- or 18,000.

The Special Forces were moved as well, and then even as it states in this article, the satellites that were focused on Afghanistan, that were trying to provide intelligence, were also moved, and they were shifted to Iraq. So how symbolic that we shifted our focus to Iraq and took away from what was going on in Afghanistan.

Slowly but surely, Afghanistan began to unravel. We ended up with a full-blown war in Iraq, and here we are, many, many months away from that, stuck in a quagmire in Iraq that many of us have no idea how we are going to get out of. I am glad to see that Senator Kerry has issued a plan on how we are going to get out of there.

We have to bring in an international coalition. That is the only way to do this. If we do not get troops in and support and money from the international community, the only thing left is to have a draft in the United States of America. If you ask the American people, would you rather have a draft or try to unite the international community, I think most Americans would say let us get the international community united to put troops into Iraq, but this current President cannot do that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), who has been a real leader on this issue and more articulate than anyone else in this Congress on the problems and challenges in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, we had the same situation here when we had the President of Afghanistan here, told us how great everything was going in Afghanistan, how there was not a drug problem in Afghanistan, we were going to have elections, on and on and on.

I would be happy to yield back, but just the American people need to know that this is almost going to be a repeat performance of what we heard a few months ago.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to extend special recognition to the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, a Division I-A minor league baseball team located in Niles, Ohio, which won the 2004 New York-Penn League Championship for the first time in its 6-year history.

On Monday September 13, the Scrappers claimed the title after defeating the Tri-City Valley Cats 4-2 in a two-game sweep. The Scrappers finished the year with a 42-34 record, with new manager Mike Sarbaugh at the helm.

The Scrappers, an affiliate of the Cleveland Indians major league baseball franchise, averaged more than 4,100 spectators per game this year, placing the team near the top third in its league for attendance.

I commend the team for its extraordinary achievements and join with my community to thank the players and the organization for bringing America's favorite pastime home to the Mahoning Valley.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. And I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the gentleman from California (Chairman Pombo) for the opportunity to do this study.

This is a tremendous opportunity for our community. We have had a ton of

issues in Northern Ohio and in Northeastern Ohio, and I would like to just thank the chairman for giving me an opportunity to help us try to redefine our community. I would also like to thank the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), ranking member, who has been a tremendous help and support in guidance and his counsel over the past couple of years since I have been in Congress on a variety of issues, but this one in particular. I would also like to thank Jim Zoia on his staff for helping us with the day-to-day operations. I would also like to thank Jennifer Moore on my staff and my chief of staff, Mary Anne Walsh, for their help in making this happen.

The Western Reserve, as has been stated already, was the original West. There were many people from the American Revolution who were forced out of their houses and their homes over into the West, just west of Pennsylvania into Northern Ohio, and it was 14 original counties that are still there today; and there have been significant changes. But since 1792, this area has always represented a place that was indicative, I think, of the American spirit, and the people who were there were very industrious, and they came there with that spirit; and we have had enormous success.

The Western Reserve has been the leader and has showed great progress since 1792. It has been the foundation of the steel industry. It has been the rubber capital of the world. It had the first African American newspaper. It has the oldest labor newspaper. In the last 25 or 30 years or so, this area has had some great challenges. With the decimation, really, of the steel industry in the United States of America, this area took a great fall, and there have been enormous challenges throughout the whole manufacturing sector in these 14 counties, which I think makes this legislation that much more significant because we need to preserve what I believe to be the real history of these communities, a history of progress, a history of economic progress, a history of participation in the social justice aspects of our society.

And I think it is important for us through this heritage corridor to communicate to our children and to our grandchildren that they come from an area that once led the world in the economic and social arenas.

This is the area for the first electric street car, the first Warner Brothers film. The first Packard car was produced in this area; the baseball score card; and one of my favorites, the hot dog, was invented in the old Connecticut Western Reserve; also, the American trucking industry.

And we want our children to know that they come from a place that had three Presidents, President Garfield, President McKinley, President Hayes; three United States Supreme Court justices; Thomas Edison; John Brown the great abolitionist. And the success of our future depends on our understanding of the past. As the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) said, this heritage corridor in many instances throughout this country provides the economic engine for rebirth of an area, and that is exactly what we need.

We are working on regionalization in Northeast Ohio, and we cannot just have economic regionalization. We need the cultural and historic preservations and have all the groups in our community working together, and this is the rallying point for our community.

So I want to thank, again, the chairman. I want to thank the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) for helping us improve the quality of life in our community. I would like to thank the gentleman from New Mexico, as well, because I think if these kids and our grandkids know that they come from this stock of Presidents and inventors and entrepreneurs and scientists and many others who have contributed to the economic progress of our country and the social justice of our country that they will be inspired to continue this proud tradition.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

A couple of points I would like to make as we are having this debate. One, we hear that there currently is a trade surplus with Morocco, but we have to look back just a few years and remember that we had a trade surplus with Mexico before we signed NAFTA. I think when we get ourselves into these trade agreements the argument is we have a trade surplus but things are going to change, and we need to look at that here.

What I cannot understand today, not only with this agreement but the legislation that passed out of this House earlier, is what are the priorities? We are trying to strip the Supreme Court of their power that was given to them by the Constitution. We are going off on another trade agreement here. In Ohio, we just lost 14,000 more jobs just in the month of June. The unemployment rate in Ohio went from 5.6 percent to 5.8 percent. What are the priorities of this Congress?

In every single trade agreement that has been passed by this Congress, there has been a promise that has been made along with it. We say we are going to open up markets, we are going to export, and we are going to trade. And as we get rid of those low-paying jobs, we are going to invest in education, we are going to make sure our country is competitive, and we are not living up to that part of the bargain.

We have 59,000 engineers which graduated from this country in 2001, and over 200,000 that graduated from China. If we do not fix the problem we have with our Pell Grants, our student loans, No Child Left Behind in the State of Ohio alone is underfunded for $1.5 billion for one school year, we cannot keep trading and not educating. That is the problem with these trade agreements. If we are going to compete in a global economy, we have to invest in our students or we are going to lose the middle class in the United States of America.

I thank the gentleman for the opportunity here tonight and for taking the leadership to put this together for us for the Ohio delegation.

We have suffered unlike any other State, I think in the country, as far as job loss goes. The one statistic that former Secretary Reich shared with us last week was that one in five of the jobs in the United States of America that were lost have been lost in the State of Ohio. One out of every five. And so if there is any constituency, if there is any State that has something at stake in the upcoming election, I think it is the great State of Ohio.

I would like to shift gears a little bit, not too much, but to talk a little bit within the same context of job loss and talk a little bit about China.

Ohio has had over the years an extremely strong manufacturing base in a variety of sectors, an opportunity to really grow our economy over the last 30 or 40 years and to provide a great opportunity for immigrants who have moved into the State of Ohio an opportunity to have a good wage and a pension and health care benefits and be able to send their kids on to school. We are now competing with, really, the great country as far as manufacturing goes that is China. We cannot deny it any longer. In many ways we have let this happen, but we have to deal with the facts as they present themselves today.

I was going through Wired Magazine last week, and I want to share with the American people and the citizens of the State of Ohio some statistics and some pie charts here. I do not know if they can read them at home so I will share them with them, but they can get this at Wired Magazine. I do not know if it is on their Web site or not, but their last publication had these, or maybe it was two publications ago, had these statistics in there. I want to share them with the American people because I think they are very indicative of the situation we are facing, the critical situation that we are facing in the United States of America.

Let me just say, first, that this is not an issue that we can deal with 10, 20, 30 years down the line. This is not an issue where we can say, ``We're just going to wait. We're the United States. We're the superpower, the only superpower. We're going to wait and we'll deal with that later. We've got to deal with Iraq, and we've got the budget deficits.''

And staggering, staggering in the sense, and the gentleman has been here a lot longer than I have, but he will remember, every trade agreement that we have signed, from NAFTA on, the great phrase, the permanent normal trade status that we have granted to China, at one point it

was most-favored-nation, and Singapore and Chile and then Australia and now Morocco later this week.

In each instance, when we were talking about this, we were told that the high-wage jobs were going to stay here and that we were going to give the lower-paying jobs, the jobs that Americans did not want, we would let them go to China. We were told that all this new high technology, all these new high-tech jobs that we were going to be creating here in the United States of America would stay here, so our people would benefit with the jobs and health care and everything else.

I want to just share with the American people these pie charts. This is the top five exporters of electronics in the billions of dollars in 2002. Top five exporters of electronics, one of the industries that we thought when everyone was talking about these trade agreements, we could keep here.

Who is actually exporting these electronics? The United States of America in 2002, $2.5 billion; China exporting electronics, $8.8 billion worth. The United States, $2.5 billion; China, $8.8 billion. That was in 2002, top five exporters. Then it goes on, it has Italy is at $5.9 and Germany and the Republic of Korea.

Then we get to the top five exporters of telecom equipment in the billions of dollars in 2002. United States of America, $21.6 billion; China, $36.4 billion. In electronics, in telecommunications equipment, we are getting our clock cleaned. Wake up and smell the Starbucks.

Next pie chart. I will start over here. The top five exporters of assembled computers. When we were hearing NAFTA and GATT and permanent normal trade, these were the jobs. We are going to start making computers in the United States of America. You are going to go from making steel to computers. It is going to be great. You are going to make good wages. You are going to be able to move your community forward and increase your tax base.

Top five exporters of assembled computers, United States, $2.4 billion; China, $3.8 billion. They are cleaning our clock in the computer industry as well. Ireland, $4.6, Mexico, Malaysia.

So the point is well taken. Electronics, telecommunications equipment, assembled computers, we are getting our clock cleaned by China.

And so the point I want to make is, it is easy to sit up here and say, what do we do? We are getting beat up. We look like Rocky Balboa at the end of Rocky I. We have the bloody eye and we cannot see. We have the Band-Aid and our nose is broke. That is how the United States looks as we are competing with China.

And so what do we do? It is easy to make that analysis. The only thing that we can do is invest in education in the United States of America, and we have not done it.

This is a staggering statistic that I want to share with the American people that will explain and illustrate why we are having the problems that we are having today with China and why, if we do not fix this problem, we are going to continue to have these kinds of troubles.

Top five sources of engineering graduates: United States of America, 59,000 in 2001; China, 219,563 engineering graduates.

If we want to create the new economy, if we want to compete in electronics and computers and telecommunications equipment, if we want to start exporting, we need to have engineers graduating from universities in the United States of America who are going to go out into our economy, who are going to create jobs, start businesses, work for American companies. There are not many Americans that want to move to China. There just are not that many. That is not a jingoistic statement. That is not slamming the Chinese. The Chinese have a proud culture, as they should, as every country does in some capacity.

But quite frankly, I was not elected in China. I was elected in the United States of America. And when you see a problem like this, a problem that can be fixed, 219,000 engineers in China graduating every year compared to 59,000 in the United States of America, that is something that the United States of America can fix. We can make it a national priority. We can fund Pell grants. We can lower tuition costs around the country. We can provide incentives for people to graduate in math and science and engineering and the different kind of technological industries that we need them to graduate in.

We need to fund No Child Left Behind. We need to start at the beginning and we are not doing the job here in the United States of America.

There are a lot of problems here that we cannot fix. There are some problems that you hope, you say your prayers at night that the problems get fixed. This is not one of them. This is a problem we can fix. The unfortunate thing is, as I go through these educational statistics here, title I, underfunded by $7.2 billion. The No Child Left Behind Act that was passed by this administration and the Congress, the last Congress, just in Ohio, the No Child Left Behind Act with all the Federal mandates in Ohio, Ohio local school districts are underfunded by $1.5 billion this year, $1.5 billion.

Pell grants, in the 1970s when they started, they accounted for 80 percent of a person's college tuition. Now they account for 40 percent. Student loans being run by the banks. The banks are in on the deal now. We have to worry about making sure the banks make their cut instead of making sure students have the opportunity to go to school. There are 250,000 people that are college eligible that do not go to college because they cannot afford it, 250,000.

I thought the economy was doing great. Did I miss something?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I welcome our good friend from Lorain, who is here.

A couple of points. We are, talking about how the wealthy are doing very well, and I think most Americans would say George Bush is an all right guy, and this is not a personal debate that we are having here. These are statistics that we have. These are facts that we are presenting to the American people and let them make the decision that they need to make in the fall.

But I really think that this administration, very similar to the first President Bush's administration, has really gotten out of touch with average American families.

The gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) was just saying $600 for a hotel room. For people in my district, that is 2 months' rent. They are spending it for one night in a hotel room. I mean, that is out there. But I think this President has really become out of touch, and a couple of examples, one in particular, that I want to use.

Last year, last Labor Day, the President came to Ohio, and all the problems that we have talked about tonight, all of the issues that we have talked about with all the different cities in our communities and Youngstown, this President on Labor Day, the most job loss since Herbert Hoover, goes to Richfield, Ohio, which is one of the wealthiest suburbs in the State. He does not go to Toledo or Youngstown or Lorain or Akron or Cleveland or Steubenville. He goes to Richfield. I mean, if one really wants to empathize with the people who are suffering in our country, one does not go to the suburb. Go to where the people are hurting.

And two times ago when he came to Ohio, he was in a very small little county that had the best unemployment rate in Ohio. In the city of Youngstown, the unemployment rate is almost 17 percent. In the city of Warren, it is 14 percent. He goes to an area that is doing okay and says the economy is really turning around.

So I think that this administration is clearly out of touch. They are not understanding that we have lost 14,000 jobs in the State of Ohio just in June. This was not over the last year. Just in June we lost 14,000 jobs. Tuition has gone up by 10 percent. We are getting our clock cleaned by China. So I think all of these issues tell me, as a new Member of Congress, that this administration is not really getting the point.

Mr. Speaker, when the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) was talking about Timken and all the issues with China and how it really has tilted the playing field to benefit really the top 1 or 2 percent of the people who can benefit from the increase in stock prices and the increase in their own personal wages because they have to pay someone 50 cents an hour, as opposed to $50 an hour with health care benefits and all that, I think what we are trying to say here, beginning to wrap up, is all we are trying to do here is to create a system where everybody gets to play along.

It is like there are only certain kids that can get into the sandbox, and if you are not born to the right gene pool or you are not born in the right hospital or in the right neighborhood or belong to the right church, somehow you do not get to play.

All we are saying is, there are ways that the government throughout the history of this country has played a role in moving these people along.

We mentioned earlier with the Title I funding, which deals with at- risk youths who need help, Title I funding, the 2005 President's budget underfunded it by $7.2 billion. $7.2 billion.

So we could talk about China, and we are getting our clock cleaned, and the top 1 percent is really benefiting. The question the American people are asking and the people in my district are asking is, how do we help those people who are not able to play along? And the answer that we always have come up with in this country is to make sure everybody is educated, that everybody has health care, that everybody has a shot. You may not finish the same, but you should start the same at the beginning.

All I am saying is, we are trying to argue that if the system does not help everybody, the system is not working; and this system is not working. The threat when people do not move along with everyone else is, the whole system collapses.

Mr. Speaker, did the gentleman explain that I was not the man with the green hair in the picture? Was that clarified?

That hurts me.

The Hurricane is in the green hair, along with the Maven. I have not watched professional wrestling since Jimmy Superfly Snuka and the Wild Samoans. And so to now meet the next generation, and I am sure the gentleman touched on this, how great it is that they are taking part in trying to reach young people to get out the vote. They have registered over a million kids already.

Did you get into the voter suppression?

That was really the issue yesterday when we were here. There is a huge voter suppression issue where young college kids, and I talked about it last week, how young students who live in college towns are going to register to vote at the local board of elections or supervisor's office, and they are being told they cannot vote there because they are not a permanent resident. Or if they do register to vote in that town, they will lose their financial aid, they may be prosecuted for fraud, lose their health care coverage. There are issues which have dissuaded young college students from actually registering to vote.

Once we started hearing about this, we went back and did some research. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) did most of the research. He found a Supreme Court decision back in 1979 that said that even if you live in a dorm, you can register to vote in that community.

We have just been getting flooded with e-mails from people all over the country, young students who have tried to register to vote in certain areas and have been denied. They have been told that the local prosecutor would prosecute them for fraud or that they would lose their financial aid. So if you tell a young student that they are going to lose their financial aid if they register to vote, they are not going to vote.

Then we turn around and say why do young people not participate in the process? So to have the Hurricane and the Maven here was special. It was special.

Big time.

What is interesting is that after having discussions, both of those gentlemen, they were in Cleveland a few months ago, maybe last year some time, and they came to Kent State University to have this discussion. We had a chance to talk a little bit. One, and I will not say which

one, is a Republican. The other is a Democrat. And so it is a very bipartisan issue of just getting kids registered and getting them out and engaged in the process.

Last week, since you brought it up about the soldiers, and then I want to quickly move back to the voter suppression because I have someone who wrote in, e-mailed in from Ohio State University after hearing me last week talk about voter suppression.

I practice reading these e-mails. I do not just come to the floor and expect myself to have the rhythm. I practice.

Let me read this since we have come back to it. Here is a young kid, a young student, a graduate of Ohio State University, still residing in the 12th District in Ohio. She was told a few years ago by the local Franklin County board of elections when she registered herself to vote, told by someone in the office that if she registered in Franklin County she could lose access to college funding because her parents were of another voting district. On and On. Currently I'm an assistant manager for a bookstore across the street from the Ohio State campus. In March I went to the Franklin County board of elections office on Broad Street in Columbus to pick up 500 voting registration forms to set on display for the many students that walk through our doors each day.

So here is someone who wants to go out and try to recruit people to make sure they get registered to vote. Put them on display. The lady at the office that provided me with the registration form asked that we warn students that their financial aid could be affected if they should choose to register in Franklin County. Being that this information was consistent to what I had heard when I was a student, I assumed this was accurate information and placed a warning sign near the applications. After watching Representative Ryan on C-SPAN last night, I have realized that what I was told may be erroneous, illegal information and this really upsets me because I have noticed that some students have been hesitant to pick up the application. I would like to know if this is indeed a case of voter suppression. If not, I would be glad to help fix the problem.

So here is a student that not only wanted to vote for themselves, they were willing to go and get 500 applications, set them down at the bookstore, and say, let's register to vote, let me get these young kids involved in the process. She actually was so confused that she put up a sign saying they may lose their financial aid.

The gentleman from Florida and I are here tonight to tell the Speaker and everyone else who is listening that that is not true. The Supreme Court ruled in 1979 that students can register to vote on campus even if they live in a dorm or off campus. They can register wherever they want in most States. Do not be deterred. Do not let anyone tell you that you cannot sign up to vote. I am 31 years old. The gentleman from Florida is 37 years old. I know this is probably going to be the biggest election of my life. And there are people who are 60 or 70 years old that are telling me that this is going to be the biggest election of their life. Do not let someone tell you that you cannot register to vote. We have the 1979 Supreme Court decision. We have the WWE wrestlers. If you have a problem at the local board of elections, we will call up the Hurricane, we will call up the Maven and we will do what we have got to do.

We cannot leave out the Harvard grad.

I have had conversations over the past couple of weeks with some people in the entertainment industry whom I think also are going to be willing to take this and promote it to their fans as well. This is something that is really catching on that I think we really need to make sure that everyone knows, ride the wave out and let them know. If you have a particular story like the gentleman who heard us on Friday from Columbus, Ohio, send us an e-mail to [email protected]. Or you can also e-mail our friends at smackdownyourvote.com. You can e-mail them or studentsuffrage.com, also, a new organization.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman does not have to apologize. Let us go, after that passionate display, over to our e- mail, [email protected]. If there is some kind of voter suppression going on where people are telling them they cannot register at their local board of elections because it is on a college campus or because they are a student or because they live in a dorm, I ask them to give us a call. We will help them negotiate the waters with Smack Down Your Vote, with Hurricane and the Maven and our guys from WWE who are helping us out; we will be happy to help them.

I know I just sent around a letter last week contacting all the local members of Congress in the State of Ohio. We are going to send a letter off to the Secretary of State in the State of Ohio. I know the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is going to do that in Florida. So we start contacting the Secretaries of State in these different States. The National Secretaries of State Association is going to help us also communicate to their local board of elections to let them know that this is something that can really happen with young people. So [email protected], send us an e-mail.

One of the issues that the gentleman from Florida was talking about, about how this is their future, the future of the country is at stake, and how we need young people to participate in the process, and I will tell my colleagues why. Not because young people are just inherently great, but young people have certain qualities that this democracy needs, and they have a way of replenishing the system here with some new ideas, and so in a way they are great. We need new ideas in this institution. And we are in the process of creating a new economy, and we need them.

And the disagreement they have with many on the other side is that they consistently have chosen to give tax cuts to people who make millions of dollars a year and are not invested in the Pell grants, not invested into low, low, low-interest student loans, not invested into the States to allow them to reduce the costs of college and reduce the tuition costs that a lot of these kids will face as they go back to school in the fall. And the gentleman said, You know how I know they are going to have higher tuition? Well, you know how I know? Because they have already said in Ohio State it is going up 13 percent. In Akron it is going to go up 10 percent.

So I want to share this, and we did this earlier. We had an Ohio working group that was out here earlier, and I shared some of these graphs, but I want to share these with the people watching here. One of the greatest threats to the United States of America, Mr. Speaker, is China. China. And give me a minute here because I am going to have to segue into making my point.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. He is a generous man. I am getting choked up here with the gentleman's hospitality.

Exports from China. And I went over this about an hour ago here, but I want to do it again just in case we have some new people watching. This is out of Wired Magazine, and Ryan Keating on my staff ran across this, and I want to thank him for his insight into these particular issues. Top five exporters of

electronics, countries: China in 2002, $8.8 billion in exports of electronics; United States of America, $2.5 billion. Let me repeat. China, $2.5 billion; United States, $2.5 billion exporting electronics. So China is cleaning our clock. Top five exporters of telecom equipment: China, $36.4 billion, United States $21.6 billion. Getting our clock cleaned in the telecom equipment industry.

We will go over here to the green. Top five exporters of assembled computers, when we signed all these trade agreements and we said we are going to compete with all these countries, we are going to have to have the high-tech jobs. That is what everyone always told us. Top exporters of assembled computers: China, 3.8 billion; USA, 2.4 billion. Getting our clock cleaned by China for assembled computers.

Here is the point I want to make with this pie chart and two other graphs here. Top five sources of engineering graduates, if we want to get the new economy going, if we want to make sure that our economy can compete in this very competitive global economy, one of the things we need to do is we need to have engineers who are creating, finding better ways of doing things, finding more efficient ways of doing things. Engineer grads in 2001: United States, 59,000; China, 219,000 engineers in 2001, graduated from China. 59,000 in the United States of America.

And I ask the gentleman from Florida, the Speaker, and everyone else who is listening here tonight, how are we going to compete in the global economy when we have 59,000 engineers graduating, China has 219,000, European Union has 179,000, Japan has 104,000, Russia has 82,000, and the United States of America has 59,000? How are we going to compete in the global economy when we do not have enough engineers out there creating the new economy?

And we have talked here before, Mr. Speaker, about the space program and how the goal for the United States was to go to the Moon; but that was the sexy, glamorous part. We are going to land on the Moon and everyone can see it and it is great. But the idea was to make sure that we are educating mathematicians, scientists, engineers, chemists, people who are going to be able to participate. There was a goal there to go to the Moon, but all that was to make sure that we were educating people in the process of getting there. Yes, it is great to get to the Moon. Yes, we can do experiments up there. But imagine all those people who got educated in those specific sciences and never ended up working for NASA. They ended up in the private sector driving our economy.

Let me share two more charts here; and I do not like to get too statistical because, one, it makes me nervous, but we have got to wake up and smell the Starbucks. Other countries emphasize science and engineering education. This is the percentage of first degrees awarded in the natural sciences and engineering.

Natural sciences, engineering. And I am not saying I was the sharpest knife in the drawer when I went through college, but what I am saying is I know enough and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) knows enough, and I think the American people know enough of what we need to do to compete. So look at this chart. Percentage of first degrees awarded in natural sciences and engineering: China, 73 percent; Japan, 66 percent; Germany, 59 percent; South Korea, 45 percent; United States, 32 percent. So China is at 73 percent. We are at 32 percent. And how do we expect to compete with all these people if we do not have enough people participating in the sciences and in engineering?

One final chart. These are people entering graduate school and engineering, physical sciences, math and computer sciences in U.S. institutions. The green line is U.S. students and permanent residents, 59,000, roughly, as I stated earlier. The red line is foreign students at U.S. institutions, almost 83,000.

I do not want to get bogged down in the numbers; but my point is that because we are not investing in education, because this administration, this House, this Senate, this Congress, has chosen time and time again to give tax breaks to the top 1 percent while we have 250,000 students across the United States of America who are college eligible but will not go because they cannot afford it, we have a problem.

And we have a problem that we can fix, and this is why I am here at almost 11 o'clock at night. This is why the gentleman ran for Congress. This is why we spend long hours going to parades and shaking hands and working here late at night during the week, because we believe that there is an answer to this problem that is going to make the United States stronger. And what we have been arguing here on the Democratic side, and many Republicans have been arguing this as well, but the leadership, the President, the leadership in the Senate, has not been responsive, the Pell grant now only accounts for 40 percent of one's college tuition. In 1973 or 1974 when the Pell grant was started, the Pell grant would take care of almost 80 percent of a student's college tuition. We had a commitment to education. We had a commitment to make sure that we could keep driving this economy by having engineers and scientists out in the private sector pushing it along, starting a business, working for a business, making it grow, helping it grow time and time again.

We did not have the banks involved in the student loan business. Why do the banks have to be cut in on the whole deal? I have nothing against banks. They own my house right now; so I do not have anything against them. But they do not have any business being involved in a student loan. We cannot help them make profits. We are trying to get kids educated, and that is what this country needs to do. We need to make it a priority, and I think this is something that has got to come from the President of the United States. I love John Kerry's plan. He wants to double the Pell grant. He wants to give $25 billion to the States that has to be spent to lower tuition costs. He wants to help kids get low-interest loans. He wants scholarships for math and science students. These are things we need to do.

And I went off and I apologize, but the frustrating part is that this is solvable. These are solvable problems, and that is the beauty of this system. And we can fix this. I think we have to fix it because really the future of the country is at stake. When we look at trying to compete with China and they are cleaning our clock in electronics, telecommunications equipment, assembled computers, and the United States workers are losing their jobs and scrambling over to see if they can get to Wal-Mart, we have got a real problem. And I think if we made this a national commitment, and I hope President Kerry would make it a national commitment, but if we do that, I think we still have some time left. And the scary thing is the clock is ticking.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is a former football player.

What position did the gentleman play?

That saves lives.

Absolutely.

If the gentleman will yield, we are trying to engage young people here in the voting, participating in the process, and they hear this garbage that ``we are not going to tell you until after the election. Then, you know, then we will give you the truth.''

They have not made a mistake.

The first administration in the history of the United States of America that has not made one mistake.

We want to protect the troops.

Article I, Section 1. The people govern.

This is unbelievable. This is unprecedented.

And I am not Vanna White. I want you to know from right now, I am not Vanna White.

Are we ready? I do not know what to do here. I just pull this off?

I am nervous.

Oh, yes.

Here we go.

If you think your college tuition is high now, wait until we privatize your dorms and turn them over to Halliburton. Then you are in trouble.

I am ready.

I am nervous.

I like this number 7. I had a chance to peek.

That is because when he was in the Senate with Senator Leahy, he keeps swearing.

I know help me out.

The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) has got to give me a chance to drop the thing.

We have 2 minutes.

[email protected]. 30 as in the number, [email protected].

I agree. We are wrapping things up this week. This will be our last 30-something probably until September. We will be here for a few weeks, and then off to the elections. So, hopefully you can send us an e-mail. Let us know what you think.

But part of what we are trying to do here is share with the American people what we are learning while we are down here and just present the facts. It has not been partisan, but we have, I think, illustrated tonight and over the past few weeks kind of what we want and the direction we think the country needs to go in. So I appreciate the opportunity to be with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) here. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) does a fine job, and I am happy to be his wing man.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the opportunity. There has been a broad discussion here tonight on a variety of issues that we have been dealing with the on the Committee on Armed Services. I would like to thank the ranking member for the opportunity to share some of these views because we do not always get the opportunity in committee. We only usually have 5 minutes or so to question some witnesses that we may have before us or to talk about a particular issue.

Among some of the issues that were raised here tonight, I would like to shift the debate just a little bit over to Afghanistan. There were some of us when the war in Iraq began, where we were wondering, why are we going over there when we have obligations already in Afghanistan? And we had major obligations in Afghanistan. We had an international coalition that we had put together to go into Afghanistan on October 7, almost 3 years ago, to make this happen.

Reason we went into Afghanistan is that the Taliban, the ruling government in Afghanistan, was harboring terrorists from al Qaeda. Al Qaeda hit us on 9-11. We had every right to go into Afghanistan and try to rectify the situation and try to get the terrorists and try to destroy the al Qaeda network.

One of the problems in Afghanistan has been drug production, opium, heroine, poppy, is the main culprit there. And those of us who thought it was a bad idea to go into Iraq were saying, well, all the arguments that we do not believe they had weapons of mass destruction and we do not believe Saddam Hussein had any tie to 9-11 and all these other arguments that some of us were making aside, if we are going to be in Afghanistan let us be in Afghanistan.

If we want to try to set a democracy up in the Middle East, let us set one up in Afghanistan. We were already there. We invaded the state. We had taken control to a certain extent what was going on there.

We now, today, have 130,000 troops in Iraq. We have 17,000 troops in Afghanistan.

I want to share with the people at home here a picture of Afghanistan opium poppy cultivation in 2001. The areas that are producing or growing poppy in 2001 are in red. You can see a majority of the country is in white. Now I would like to share Afghanistan opium poppy cultivation in 2003. Nearly the entire country is producing poppies which is now, today, half of the gross domestic product in Afghanistan is poppy, $2.3 billion.

We have a narco-state on our hands in Afghanistan. And what happens is that in these outer regions outside of Kabul, which is the capital, the drug lords are running the show and they are making $2.3 billion worth of money that will eventually make its way back into the hands of al Qaeda, which their sole purpose in life is to destroy the United States of America, destroy the infidels.

So the question is, why do we have 130,000 troops in Iraq and only 17,000 in Afghanistan? We have $2.3 billion worth of poppies being grown and sold outside of Afghanistan. When General Myers was before our committee several months ago, maybe a month and a half ago, I asked General Myers, What are we doing about the poppy? What are we doing about the money that is making its way back to al Qaeda?

General Myers said, Well, we have a little problem this year. The harvest came in early. The harvest came in early.

So we have another year's supply of heroine on the market being sold that will eventually make its way back to al Qaeda to fund terrorists acts against the United States and the reason is the harvest came in early. We only have 17,000 troops there, and the question that I would like to ask the people at home across the United States of America, what would Afghanistan look like today if we had 130,000 troops there, if we spent $200 billion there, and we had the international community supporting the effort?

We would be much closer to having a democracy in the Middle East. I believe that we would not have $2.3 billion of drug money going back to al Qaeda to help fund acts against the United States. We would probably have elections very soon. And we would have the entire national community supporting the effort. And we would not be bogged down in the situation we are in now in Iraq.

So, when we look at the production and we look and see this next chart, how it has grown from 2001 when the Taliban ruled, they were obviously anti-narcotic, and the growth in 2000 and 2003 of opium production in Afghanistan. And when we look and see all the reasons that we have had for going to Iraq, and now the latest is create a democracy in the Middle East, we have spent $200 billion there. I think we had an opportunity, we had the commitment, we had the international community, we had the resolve to go into Afghanistan and set up this Arab democracy that would hopefully lead to the domino effect of leading the democracy throughout the Middle East.

So I want the people at home to know that this is a lack of leadership in my mind as to why we are in the position we are in. While we are over in Iraq struggling right now, we cannot forget that we also broke Afghanistan as we broke Iraq. And if we break Iraq, we have got to buy it, and it has cost us $200 billion. We cannot forget we broke Afghanistan. And I believe the major threat to this country is the money that is being taken out of this country through the drug sales and back to al Qaeda to lead the terrorist acts in this country.

So my point is that I think we have dropped the ball in Afghanistan. And I appreciate the letter the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) sent to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) last week saying that we need to have a full hearing on what is going on in Afghanistan and that the American people will not stand for the excuse that the harvest came in early as to why we have another $2.3 billion in the hands of al Qaeda.

I thank the gentleman for the opportunity and all his support with all the hearings that we have trying to get done in the Committee on Armed Services. I thank the other members of the committee, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) who was phenomenal in a classified hearing last week. I would like to thank him as well.

Mr. Speaker, I will not quite take our whole half hour. It has been a very long week; and we know everyone wants to get home here, especially the staff, so we will be brief.

There are a couple of issues that I want to touch upon this evening as we have wrapped up legislative business for the week. This is our normal 30-Something hour where the gentleman from Florida and I and Members of the 30-Something Caucus on the Democratic side will talk about issues. Unfortunately, I am flying solo tonight, and I am missing my wing man from Florida who is not here with me. But I am going to persevere.

There are a couple of issues that I would just like to touch upon here in the next couple of minutes. One of the issues that we have been talking about over the past few weeks and almost a few months now is the issue of voter suppression for college students. This is a major issue throughout the country, regardless of what State you live in, regarding voter suppression for these college students. And in a lot of counties, the boards of elections and the people who work at the boards of elections will tell college students that they cannot vote where they live if they are away at school. They are saying that is not a permanent residence.

The Supreme Court established in 1979 under Federal law that students who reside in dorms are allowed to vote where they live. And there have been thousands of students throughout the country who have been denied their franchise because the local boards of election said that they cannot vote there by saying that they are not permanent residents. But both Federal and State courts have clearly established that students have the right to vote where they go to school, even if they live in a dorm.

So a lot of workers would say, well, you live in a dorm. Well, you cannot vote here; or you live out of State, you cannot vote here and you are not allowed. A lot of this has to do with the local politics. But the bottom line is that if you are away at school, whether it is in your State or outside of your State, you can register to vote where you go to school. And that is very important.

The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) and I are working on this with Rock the Vote, with the different Secretary of States organizations, and this

is something that should be a bipartisan issue. This is not a Democratic issue. It is not a Republican issue.

We hear a lot of complaints about why young people will not engage in the political process; but if we as legislators are not taking issue with the fact that a lot of these young students are denied their right to vote, we cannot expect them to vote. We cannot expect them to want to participate in this system.

I want to share just a couple of stories here tonight: one from Texas, one from Arkansas, and I think the last one is from Maine regarding this issue. Also in Florida. Let me share one from Texas.

Prairie View A&M, a predominantly black university in a white county. The local district attorney threatened to prosecute students for fraud if they voted. So the local DA is telling these students that they cannot vote and threatening them with charges of fraud.

The students organized a march on Martin Luther King Day, sued the district attorney for voter intimidation. The Secretary of State issued a statement upholding the students' right to vote, and now the students are fighting to get a polling place on campus and to have early voting. The battle continues. That was in the Houston Chronicle on January 23 of this year.

Same kind of situation in Arkansas. Students with the support of the ACLU filed an injunction that would protect their right to register their college residency, and they won the appeal. Same situation at Florida A&M, and also the same situation in Maine.

So what we want to do tonight is just let these students know across the country, contact your Secretary of State's office. Demand that they issue you a copy of this Supreme Court decision. Tell them to contact the local board of elections. Contact the board of elections where your school is now so that they have time to get the information. We cannot wait until the last few days when you cannot even register to vote and the local board of election is still denying you your right to vote.

So this is major issue. I want to share with the people at home, give us an e-mail, [email protected]. Send us an e-mail.

Unfortunately, we are getting stories left and right about the voter suppression, and it is something we really need to talk about and keep touching upon, but also, contact your State Secretary of State who is handling the elections because this is an issue that I think we need to engage, not only as young people but as people who are citizens of the United States of America because it is such an important issue.

I think it is an important issue for a variety of reasons. One is obviously the constitutional issue and the protection of each citizen's franchise, but another issue I think is this.

We are in a time of dramatic change in our country, and we are creating a new system. We are creating a new economic system. In many ways, we are creating a new political system and the way it should be run. Young people are vital to this process of creating a new economy, and we have talked here for many, many weeks about the importance of education, the importance of funding education, the importance of funding the Pell grants, the importance of making sure that students have access to student loans, the $25 billion that the Democratic proposal says we want to give to the States to reduce tuition costs across the country. That is vital and those programs are vital because we need to educate these kids and let them go out and create the new economy.

So, again, it is the [email protected]. Send us an e- mail if you have any issues regarding voter suppression at your campus. Write your local Secretary of State.

Again, this is a bipartisan issue. This is not an issue that we want to be partisan, Democrat or Republican. This is an issue about protecting, because quite frankly there are universities out there that are Republican universities, and those students should have the right there as well.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman. He is absolutely right; you are allowed by law to vote. The problem is you get, in this case, a local district attorney, or in many, many instances that we have, you have people who work at the board of elections who just say, no, you are not allowed because they just do not understand the ruling.

So we are trying to get, and I hope the gentleman will help me, we are trying to get people to contact the Secretary of State offices all around the country and let them send a copy of this 1979 Supreme Court decision to the local boards and allow them to just have the knowledge, just have the information because the Supreme Court has already ruled. I agree, if you are not willing to live and make it a residency, maybe that is another issue, but these are kids who have established permanent residency at the college campus and have been denied their franchise.

Reclaiming my time, Columbus is the capital of the State of Ohio, and the point I want to make, and the gentleman reiterated the point, absolutely, if you are not a permanent resident, that is one thing. But we have kids, students around the country who want to be registered as permanent residents, they want to vote at the college campus, and the local DA is saying we are going to charge you with fraud or you are not a permanent resident.

So we are saying, given those facts, you should be able to register at that college campus and vote at that college campus, and all we want to do is not complicate the process. We want the Secretary of States to issue the 1979 Supreme Court ruling to the local boards so that they know firsthand that if a college kid comes in and establishes permanent residency that they would be able to vote.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for sharing her personal experience with us. It was obviously just something that had to be done.

Let me share so there is no confusion here. The case we were just talking about, the local district attorney threatened to prosecute students for fraud if they voted. I already mentioned this school in Arkansas.

At Florida A&M, during the 2000 general election, 5,000 students were turned away from polling locations at the Historically Black University. Students have also reported receiving two voter registration cards with different polling locations. Others were turned away and told to vote at off-campus polling sites, while more students were informed that they had never been registered.

In Maine, the same kind of situation. The town registrar of Brunswick, Maine, turned students away from the polls by using misleading questions regarding residency. Students were informed if they registered in the county of their college or university, now listen to this, that they would risk losing financial aid, health care, driver's license and/or car registration. The students began campaigning and eventually protested. They gained national media coverage, defeated the legislation with a unanimous vote because they tried to manipulate the legislative process there.

So this is really happening. It is happening in Maine, Arkansas, Texas; and it is probably happening all over the country. Send us an e- mail, let us know, contact your local Secretary of State or whoever in your State is in charge of the voting. This is a very important issue.

We are not saying we want anybody to be able, as the gentlewoman from Texas said, to be able to vote in a couple of different places; but these are students. They have the right to vote. They qualify and they should be able to participate in the political process.

So that wraps it up for the 30-Something 20 minutes this week, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Mr. Tony Napolet. Coach Napolet was recently recognized as Man of the Year by The Mahoning Valley Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame. Born on July 4, 1938 in Warren, Ohio, Mr. Napolet has long been an active leader in our community.

His service and leadership in the community began with his football career at St. Mary's High School in Warren, where in his senior year he led his team as captain. Mr. Napolet went on to play football while attending Marquette University where he received his undergraduate degree in Education, beginning a career dedicated to teaching both in and out of the classroom. He started his football coaching career at Marquette while studying at Marquette Law School. Returning to Ohio in 1961, Coach Nap taught at Harry B. Turner Junior High School while coaching the football, basketball and track teams. His amazing coaching skills and extraordinary dedication to the sport led to his first head football coaching assignment at JFK High School in 1970. Coach Napolet went on to coach at a number of different schools over the years, including a position at St. Mary's Middle School, which he describes as one of the most rewarding experiences he has had in athletics.

In 1990, Coach Napolet returned as head football coach at JFK High School. Thanks to his impressive leadership, his first year back resulted in the Kennedy Eagles winning the State Championship. During the sixteen years as the Eagles' head coach, Mr. Napolet has had seven playoff appearances and has won 124 out of 180 games.

It is also with great honor that I recognize the members of Coach Napolet's family: his three children: Harold, Mario, and Natalie; and his grandchildren: Aarika Marie, Anthony Mauro, Mario Anthony and Olivia Rose. I am pleased to know Coach Napolet and to consider him a friend. He is well known for his community work at St. Mary's Church and his constant involvement in many church affiliated projects.

His longstanding support of local baseball, basketball, and football teams has allowed the community's youth to participate actively in sports. Mr. Napolet is a proud descendant of Italian-Americans, and on behalf of the people of the 17th Congressional District, I want to thank Mr. Napolet for his outstanding commitment to our youth, education, and community. Mr. Napolet stands as an inspiration for all of us.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time for this opportunity on this phenomenal amendment.

I come from the great State of Ohio that has been getting blistered as far as losing manufacturing jobs, and I think this amendment should not be 10 percent. This amendment should be 100 percent. This bill should be doubled and tripled. These are investments that we need to make in this country. We need to invest in the manufacturing sector of this country. And I think we have done a real disservice over the past few years in this Chamber with the political rhetoric that makes it

sound like the government does not do anything well, that government investment does not work, and that the government needs to get out and let the free market work.

But when we look at the history of this country, when we look at Eli Whitney, when we look at Samuel Morris, when we look at RCA, and when we look at the Wright Brothers, all of these began with the Federal Government stepping in and making an investment. We are good at this. We are good at this. And we need to keep going.

And we are not playing in a free market. When we have to compete with China with no labor laws, no environmental laws, no human rights, how can we compete? China is doing programs like this. Taiwan is doing programs like this. Japan, Europe. The United States is trying to establish a rules-based system, and every other country is playing to win, and it is time the United States Government plays to win.

And I am sick and tired of hearing how we do not have any money in this Congress. We do not have money because we are giving billions away in tax cuts and we are losing the manufacturing war, and we need to start making these investments.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today in commendation of Tech. Sgt. Thomas Nevin, recipient of this year's USO Warrior of the Year award for the Cleveland area.

Sgt. Nevin is a member of the 910th Civil Engineer Squadron out of Youngstown Air Reserve Station in my district, and I am proud of his service to America in the war on terrorism. Sergeant Nevin was selected for volunteering to serve in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom for over a year and a half. While deployed, he received high praise from his superiors as he demonstrated his technical skills in replacing generators, redirecting a power outage, and installing diesel generators. In Iraq, he led a task force that doubled the available power to an airport in an area that was considered potentially dangerous. As our service men and women work hard daily to rebuild and improve Iraq's power grid, I am confident Sergeant Nevin was vital to that effort while deployed.

Mr. Speaker, at a time that calls for men and women to stand up and volunteer, I am privileged to have a constituent that appeals to our best qualities as citizens. It is good to know the people of Ohio's 17th congressional district are represented in uniform by a man with character, courage, and commitment to national service.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to commend a resident of my district who has raised the bar for personal sacrifice on behalf of others. His name is Captain Brent Davis, and he serves as the chief of public affairs for the 910th Airlift Wing at Youngstown Air Reserve Station.

What impresses me most about Capt. Davis is his desire to serve above and beyond the call of duty. Already serving his country in uniform, Capt. Davis was approached to shore up support for the C.W. Bill Young Dept. of Defense Bone Marrow Program, and he accepted the task with enthusiasm. He registered himself in the program, named for my distinguished colleague who formally served on the Armed Services Committee, and when he received word that he was a perfect match to donate marrow, he was equal to the task. With the support of his wife, Sonya, Capt. Davis went through the rigorous screening process to ensure his compatibility with the recipient, and on December 8th of last year, he successfully donated bone marrow at Georgetown University Hospital.

The recipient was a 17-year-old young man who was suffering with non- Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer that afflicts the body's lymphatic system. A parent himself, Capt. Davis was determined to help this family. He was concerned first and foremost with the welfare of the recipient and was committed to helping him survive.

Mr. Speaker, our struggle with cancer in all its forms is one we must win. While we search for cures and effective treatments, I take comfort in the fact that there are men and women like Capt. Davis out there, volunteering and even risking their own health so that others may have hope of recovery. I commend Capt. Davis for his courage and sacrifice; he is a model citizen and exemplary officer.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, pull it out.

I missed my colleague.

My wife made me get it.

August 22 it will be 1 year for me.

God bless.

Mr. Speaker, I think all of us were very excited about the announcement of Senator Edwards to join Senator Kerry on the ticket, and I think it illustrates the kind of excitement that is going to be around in the fall. I mean, I think it is going to be an exciting election, and we have to celebrate not only what party we stand for but I think process in general, the fact that there is going to be a great election; and Americans are going to get to decide whether or not the President who has been in charge for the last 4 years is going to get rehired, or if he is going to get ``Donald Trumped,'' and we are going to ask somebody else to come in and take over and set us in another direction.

I think what we have been trying to do here is try to articulate for a lot of the people, not only those people who are 30 or 20 or in college or in high school or affected by the No Child Left Behind, but also to say to other Americans who are concerned about the future of this country that we are going to have real debate.

And I think, from the e-mails we have received, and from the comments that we have heard and the calls we get at our office, people have appreciated the fact that my colleague and I are not personalizing this. This is not personal, this is business. This is my colleague and I discussing issues that we believe in and the direction we think the country should go in, as opposed to the direction that I think the Republican Congress, the House and the Senate and the Republican White House right now, wishes the country to go in. I think there will never be a clearer choice in any election as to where we want to go and where the Republicans want to go.

This is our e-mail here: [email protected]. That is the number 30, the word something, the word dems, D-E-M-S, at mail dot House dot gov. We have been getting some great e-mails, from both of the parties.

I listened to my colleague's opening statement and the one issue I think we need to touch on, there was an article today in The New York Times. Paul Krugman did an opinion editorial and he talked a little about the Bush boom and how the tax cuts that President Bush initiated and passed and pushed through this chamber and also through the Senate has peaked. And I thought it was very interesting.

We had moments in November, December, January, February, some early parts of this year where we actually thought we had some job growth. Things were starting to come along and we thought the economy was starting to turn around. Now we have recognized that the job growth has slowed. It is still growing, but it has slowed from previous months. And not only has it slowed down, but the unemployment rate is still at 5.6 percent. So it has not changed. There are still thousands of people who are no longer actively seeking to find work because they know the job market is so slow.

So here is the point I want to make. We had two choices in this country after 9/11 with all the tax cuts. We had two choices: Are we going to try to get some short-term political gain with this trickle- down theory of economics that was proven that did not work in the 1980s, or were we going to continue with the Clinton-era balanced budget, invest in education, invest in health care, invest in the American people and allow them to go out and grow the economy? We chose the former, which meant tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, and primarily to the top 1 and 2 percent of the people in the country.

The theory was that they would begin to take those tax cuts and put it back into the economy. But when we look at the statistics, corporate profits after tax are at the highest level compared to the GDP of the economy than they were since 1929, since they started keeping track of this stuff. So if you are a major player in a corporation, you are doing great, sending jobs to China, move the headquarters to Bermuda, where they do not pay any taxes there, they pay no wages in China, and they take the money and put it in their pocket.

And what do they pay in taxes?

So the company that gets the most money from the homeland security budget.

Yes, and it is the same exact situation. We have given these companies free rein. We do not object to people wanting to make money. If you can go out in the economy and do well for yourself, God bless you. That is what America is all about. However, you are not here to manipulate the system, and that is what is happening right now.

We have these corporations, as we said, they move the headquarters to Bermuda, they do not pay any taxes, they move the production manufacturing site to China, they do not pay anything in wages or in environmental. OSHA. There is no OSHA in China. There is no safety and occupational hazard prevention in China. That does not exist. So you take advantage of the workers there, you take advantage of the tax system here, and you reap the benefits of the profits. Then you take the profits and you put them into this place, into the Congress, and you keep getting the same kind of deals over and over and over. And who is losing? The average people who used to be able to make a middle class wage in the country. They used to be able to afford health care.

I want to mention to my colleague a study that the Toledo Blade paper in Ohio, in Toledo, Ohio, has been doing.

They noted for the average American family, with a median household income of $42,409, average median income $42,409, that they have seen increases in their premium payments, this is a family of four, go from $6,348 to $9,086, which is a $2,738 increase from the year 2000.

Now, I know a lot of companies back in my district that are now renegotiating their contracts and their proposals are zero percent increase in wages in the first year, zero percent wages increase in the second year, zero percent wage increase in the third year, and then maybe in the fourth and fifth year there will be some increase. But imagine if you are in a family of four that is making $42,000 a year, very little disposable income, and you may be trying to send your kids to college and over the last 3 or 4 years you have an extra $3,000 a year after taxes that you have to pay in health care increases.

This Congress has done nothing to address health care. And if there is an issue that needs to be talked about this fall for this election, it is health care. We have done nothing to control the prices of prescription drugs. Two things we tried to do during the Medicare bill, and I realize this will not affect everybody, but the Democrat proposal was we wanted to negotiate health care prices with these big major drug companies. We wanted the Secretary of Health and Human Services to go to Pfizer and all the big drug companies and say to them, if you want the Medicare contract and the $500 billion that we are going to spend, you better sit down and talk price with us. We want a discount for the taxpayer, for God sake. Right? We wanted that.

And then we wanted reimportation. Let us free trade pharmaceuticals. We free trade cars, textile, steel, everything in the world we want free trade, but when we tried to impose at 3 o'clock in the morning the free trade pharmaceuticals, no one wanted to talk about it. So we are not controlling prices, we are asking the taxpayers to spend an extra $500 billion, and we have done nothing in the market to somehow try to fix a $2,700 increase for a family of four making $42,000 a year. Nothing.

And we have to listen to some Members from the other

side of the aisle, they are talking about how the Democrats, they want to keep spending. The Democrats are tax and spenders, and we sit here and scratch our heads because if Members have been paying attention, Republicans took control of this Chamber in 1994 with Newt Gingrich. They have had the Senate and have had the White House for 3\1/2\ years. They are spending like drunken sailors, and all they can say is look at the Democrats spend; all they do is tax and spend. It is not us.

Mr. Speaker, we were the ones trying to pass the pay-go provisions which mean if we increase spending, we have to raise taxes on millionaires or we have to find another program you want to cut. Pay as you go. We were trying to get that in here. It was the Clinton budget in 1993 that balanced the budget, that invested in the proper programs.

President Clinton said ``save Social Security first'' from that very podium. Play it smart, do not spend money you do not have. I think that is one of the issues that we have talked about early on, and more so last year than this year, but all of these tax cuts that we have been given which are great, and I know a lot of people who have benefited from the tax cuts, and God bless them. But when we look at the government's financial position, we have borrowed that money. We did not have that money. There was not a surplus here that we said we have billions of dollars, let us give it back and let the American people have it. We went out and borrowed that money. So we borrowed it and gave it to primarily the top 1 or 2 percent. Then we have to pay interest on it. So really we borrowed it, we are paying interest on it and gave it to rich people who are not investing it back into the economy for the most part. Because we borrowed it, we have to pay the interest on it so there is not really a tax cut, there is a tax shift. So the next generation of Americans, they are going to have to pay this bill that we have left here.

We have almost a $600 billion annual deficit for the past year. That is getting rolled into our $7 trillion debt that we have. So almost 20 percent of our annual budget that we pay down here is interest on the debt that we have. So if you keep accruing this big debt, you have to keep taking tax money to pay it off. Who is lending us the money? Japan and China are lending us the money. So it is not bad enough that we are borrowing it to give it to the top 1 percent, it is not bad enough that we are borrowing it and paying interest on it, we are borrowing it from the Chinese and the Japanese who are taking the interest money, and they invest it in their factories because a lot of their factories are state owned.

So the state takes the money that we borrow from them, and they invest it back into their company and steal our manufacturing jobs. Their economy is booming, and they are doing it with our tax dollars. It makes no sense. Until we get it right down here, we are going to continue to erode the middle class of the United States of America, our cities, like Youngstown, Ohio; Warren, Ohio; Akron, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio; Toledo, Ohio, these areas which have seen their manufacturing base erode. They have to keep passing police and fire levies. They do not have the tax base. Mental health levies keep going down. We have people that need mental health treatment but they cannot get it because we cannot pass a tax.

All I am trying to say here is let us be responsible, let us take a step back, look at the big picture, not self-interest but what is in the best interest of our society. I believe if we would have taken the Bush tax cut, made sure, like Senator Kerry wants to do, take billions of that and give it to the States where they have to use it at the universities to lower tuition prices, double Pell grants, this is long- term economic planning for us. We do not have it right now. It is frustrating.

I have one here from 40-something.

And this is a clear difference of opinion, and I think the administration has clearly articulated where they want the country to go. And I want to share a statistic that I think I have shared here before.

When I was in the State Senate in Ohio, the University of Akron did a study; and the study was amazing what the impact of State support for higher education was. And the study came back, and it said for every dollar, because in Ohio we were going through the same kind of budget cuts as everyone else, and the legislature at that time and the Governor at that time, still do, are going after the big pot of money that is going to the universities.

So the study came back. The University of Akron did a study. It said for every dollar that the State of Ohio invested in the higher education, they would get almost $2 back in tax money, basically because a high school diploma, a worker with a high school diploma would make about $20,000 a year average. Someone with a college diploma, with a BA or a BS, would make on average 35 or $40,000 a year. So this person who had the college diploma would pay double in taxes and then go on probably to get a master's or something else, and then you would pay even more in taxes, income tax, sales tax, property tax, the whole nine yards.

So from the State's position, every dollar you invest, you get almost $2 back in tax money. That is a good deal. That is a good deal, because you are investing in the long-term growth of your economy. It is that person with the bachelor's degree. For the most part, there is always exceptions, and I am not saying you have to go to college to be successful, because you do not, or have a college degree to be successful, because you do not; but on average those people will be out in the economy creating jobs, being entrepreneurs, developing the new technology, the new economy that needs to grow, which we do not even know what it is yet.

And so the best thing that we can do now is just educate a lot of people and let them go out into the economy, support them with business incubators, worker retraining, small business loans; let them go out into the economy and create and manage new, alternative energies and on and on and on and on. That is a whole other story, but my point is that what do you want? If you are sitting at home right now in Ohio or somewhere across the country, what do you want? What would you rather have, a government that is saying we are going to invest in you and in your children, in their college education so that they will eventually become taxpayers? Or do you want a check for $300 from the Bush tax cut, while your property tax goes up, while they have to pass a police and fire levy in your city, while your tuition increases go up. I know in Ohio they have gone up 9, 10 percent, 3, $4,000 over the last couple of years.

And then when you look at the health care, up $3,000. There are certain things that we can do together as a country, as a people, as a Congress, that we cannot do on our own. You cannot build a hospital on your own. You cannot build a road on your own. You cannot build a school on your own. There are certain things that we need to do as a country, and one of the things that we need to do is to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to go to college, because it will benefit everybody, and in the long term we are all going to benefit.

What I want the American people to know from my perspective is that the difference is the short-term, $300, here is your check, government is, you know, giving you something back, which is great and I think a lot of middle-income people need that, and I think we should support the child tax credits and eliminate the marriage penalty, my own opinion; but to give millionaires a hundred thousand dollars back at the expense of veterans, investments in education and all these other things.

I mean, for example, and I am going to finish here, when we tried to come here about maybe a couple of weeks ago, maybe 3, 4 weeks ago, and we wanted to say the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking Democrat on the Committee on Appropriations, tried to pass an amendment, and he is the Democrat. We tried to pass an amendment that would rescind the tax cuts for millionaires. The millionaire worker would still get $23,000 back from the Bush tax cut. So we did not completely eliminate the tax cut for him, but we reduced it in order to fully fund veterans, fully fund No Child Left Behind, fully fund college education, reduce the cost of tuition, double the Pell grants, the whole nine yards, invest in health care, provide more coverage for children, and it went down.

And I think that, if there is one vote over the last 2 years for this Congress, that will be the vote. Were you going to stand here and vote for millionaires and make sure that these programs are not funded, or are you willing to say we need a certain percentage of that tax cut back, because the long-term interests of the country are at stake? And I think those are going to be clear votes that a lot of people will hear about, and I just think it was an opportunity for all of us to straighten up this budget, the problems that we have been having, and invest in our country. And we did not do it, unfortunately.

And this is not a partisan issue.

And let us be clear. Go to the board of elections, and they will tell you you cannot and you say, yes, I can. Do not take no for an answer when you go to the election board, because they just do not know. They are misinformed.

Rockthevote.com.

Well, I want to say, too, you were talking about college education, and we only have a few minutes left. One of the studies that was done here, they are calling it the ``Boomerang,'' and this article was on ``CNN Money.'' It says study hard, get into a good college. Graduate. Move back in with Mom and Dad; 61 percent of college seniors plan to return to their family home after graduation, according to a survey taken this spring by monster.com. Sixty-one percent. So I think that illustrates the trouble we are having with the job market, the failure to invest, the failure to invest in science, the box that this administration has put us in.

You said you wanted me to say it, but now you are cutting me off.

Yes. Have you seen that one Cellular One commercial, with the first kid in their class to get a job, and all the other ones are home not working yet. It is a funny commercial. Pay attention. You need to see that.

It is good. [email protected]. Send us an e-mail.

I am going to read you one real quick from a Daniel Spitsburgh in Pennsylvania. He says, ``I saw the e-mail address on C-SPAN on June 22. My name is Dan Spitsburgh and I am a registered Republican. I fall into the 1 percent sub-class of voters who are totally undecided and will probably decide who to vote for immediately before the election.'' He is a Penn State student, considers himself right down the middle, ``waiting for someone to go out and grab our vote.''

They are concerned about the present circumstances in the Middle East.

``Don't forget the college voter. They are often the most spirited, live most densely around others and are most able to attract support. We are concerned that we just want the best for our country. Thank you, Representative Meek and Ryan. If there is any way to get involved in the election process or any literature, please let me know.'' Signed Dan.

We also have one here, ``I am a 40-something conservative Republican, who watches you and I, which is interesting, is it not? A 40-something.

``Thank you both for speaking honestly and not being mean-spirited in the talk about our President and other Republicans. The growth of Federal spending also concerns me. I agree in general concept with your ideas you spoke about. We all want what is best.'' But a Republican concerned about Federal spending.

The one I want to end on here, ``Dear Members, this is a note to ask for help in getting a state of emergency declared for the unemployed.'' State of emergency. He is a union member. ``Talented trades and craft union people are proud, hard-working, well-trained people who seem to always have work. Things have really slowed all over the country or gone to low paying, no benefit, nonunion contractors. We serve 4 to 5 year apprenticeships to learn our jobs properly as well as yearly updates to stay current, and we don't need to retrain.'' He says, and this is interesting, ``I wish you would look into this matter, as time is crucial. We need your support right now. We union folk are in great numbers and a little help from you could mean a lot.''

These are people that are out struggling. And the CEO of Aetna, and I do not know if you saw this quote, the CEO of Aetna said, ``We are pretty sure that the jobs that are going to be created will not have health care benefits associated with them.''

So talk about two Americas. I mean, literally, you are going to have millions and millions more than we have now of people who are going to be without health care. There is not a bigger stress that you could have as a parent than thinking, I cannot take my kid to the clinic, I cannot take my kid to the doctor, to the hospital, because I cannot afford it, and then when you do go, you go to the emergency room. That is no way.

I think we do have universal health care in this country, but it is just administered through the emergency rooms, and that is the worst way to do it, it is the most inefficient way to do it, and it is the most costly way to do it. Instead of providing the prevention up front, which would save everybody money in the long run, we wait. Instead of going to the doctor with a cold, you go to the emergency room with pneumonia, and it costs the taxpayers a lot more money. It just is a bad way to administer. So, [email protected], wrapping up another edition.

I want to say hello to my cousins that are in town, actually aunt and uncle, Jimmy and Tammy Schick, who are here, who took me out to dinner tonight, it was very nice, my wife Julie's aunt and uncle.

So, that is it.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to be here with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud). Maybe we can get a two-on-two basketball game going here, the Ohio guys against the Maine guys. I just want to say what an honor it is and how terrific it is I think that the gentleman from Maine became the ranking member on a subcommittee in the Committee on Veterans' Affairs in his freshman year. I think that speaks volumes of how he has been approaching the issues and how important it is to him. But the one issue I wanted to just touch base on for a few minutes, and I know it is getting late and our time is limited, about the mandatory funding. We have an opportunity to make sure that our veterans are funded every single year through the mandatory funding provisions that we want to implement. Right now it is discretionary funding, it is up to the whims of Congress on whether or not our veterans should get their health care. The request from the Secretary of the VA is completely underfunding the needs.

Everyone keeps saying, ``Well, we're spending more on veterans now than we ever have. We are spending more. We have increased by X percent over the last few years.'' And the one point that continues to get ignored is that we have thousands of more veterans entering into the system. So although there is an increase, if you increase it by 5 percent and the numbers of veterans coming in increases by 10, 15 or 20 percent, then the money you have in the pot is not big enough to handle the needs for our veterans.

And what has happened under the current system, under the discretionary funding system, is that we have failed to keep pace with the medical inflation; we are rationing care to our veterans; we are denying services to some, as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) said; we are foregoing a lot of the modernization techniques and investments.

And the one point that I really wanted to bring up because I think it is so appropriate given the state of war that our country is in, reducing the funding for research and development for prosthetics. The VA was award winning in the country for the kind of developments and the research that they would put in and the kind of advances that they have had regarding amputees and trying to help amputees who come back. In this war we have seen more amputees than we ever expected because we do not have the armored Humvees, and just the way this guerrilla war is being fought, we have a lot of veterans who are losing their arms, losing their legs, and now back at home we are cutting the investment for trying to improve on prosthetics.

Not only that, but when we take a step back and we look at the big picture, this is about choices and we can say we do not have enough money to fund all these programs for our veterans. That is a shame in itself if one has to say that, but at the same time they will not reduce the tax cut for millionaires.

We are not asking to reduce the tax cuts for anyone that has made under $300,000, $200,000. In fact, Democrats want to increase the child tax credit and increase the breaks for middle-class people. But when one says that they are not willing to repeal any portion of the tax cut for people who make more than $1 million to pay for this veterans funding, we have a problem in this country.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, I want to share with the American people, because it is easy to say that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) or the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) or the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud) are the ones saying we need to do this.

Almost every major veterans organization has backed the mandatory funding proposal. The American Legion, the AMVETS, Blinded Veterans Association, Disabled American Veterans, Jewish War Veterans of the USA, Military Order of the Purple Heart, Paralyzed Veterans of American, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Vietnam Veterans of America, these are veterans organizations who are saying this is something that we need and we are willing to put our names on it. I think that is important.

It is the same with mental health, homelessness and all the other issues that we talk a lot about in committee.

So I just want to thank the gentleman again for the opportunity to be here. It has been great over the last few weeks and months to watch all of the history of the World War II veterans and everything that has been shown on TV and on the history channel and the dedication of the monument and everything else.

I think when we are talking about values and talking about priorities, and as the gentleman from Maine said, as a legislature, you have to make these choices, and they are not always easy choices. But when you compare what we are doing and how many trillions of dollars we are giving a way to the top 1 percent of the people in this country, at the expense, it is not free money, it is at the expense of veterans, and where would those people be if these veterans did not protect the system, the economic system, the democratic system that we have in place right now that enables them to create the kinds of wealth they have created. God bless them. We are not here to say they should not make their money, but we are saying society has an obligation to treat these people fairly, and right now they are not.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I think today, with the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez), there is a lot more class in this Chamber with her here as opposed to just the gentleman from Florida and me.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we talk about and put ourselves in the shoes of these veterans who are going to be coming back, and one of the issues that they are going to be dealing with is their veterans benefits, which the gentlewoman has talked about.

Secretary Principi is saying they need another $1.5 billion. The House budget, both Democrats and Republicans, for the most part, on the committee have agreed that we need another 2.5 or $3 billion more for the veterans to meet their needs. And I think it is important to understand that what we hear from the administration is that we have increased funding for veterans, the Veterans Administration by ex-fold or whatever the percentage points they want to cite, and that is great; but the problem is we have thousands and thousands more veterans accessing the system, so although we are putting more money into it, it is not addressing the demand of the people going into the system.

I know in northeast Ohio we have a large concentration of veterans. I think I have 73,000 veterans in my district out of a 700,000-person district; that is almost a sixth of who we represent, and the reason is, the steel mills close down, you lose your pension, you lose your health care, you do not have anywhere to turn, you never utilized the VA system, but because of the drastic downturn in the economy and the weeding out of manufacturing, you are having a lot of these people enter the system.

So the gentlewoman's point is very well taken, and I think it is something that needs to be addressed and it is an issue that, again, it is easy for us to say here, but these veterans save this capitalistic system. These veterans save the democratic system. And there would be no one generating wealth, there would not be CEOs making however many times, 300 times as much as the average worker if the system was not saved by these heroic veterans.

So I think it is important for us to know that this system that we have that is generating all this wealth would not exist if it were not for the veterans. So I think we have some obligation some responsibility to make sure that we provide them with the health care, the benefits, and everything else that they need.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

I think so.

Before we get into this, because we, being on the Committee on Armed Services, we talk about this all the time. This seems to be like every conversation you have on the floor and off the floor somehow gets back to the war, somehow gets back to this administration's march to war.

I just want to be clear with the American people, this is not personal. This is not us trying to demagog an issue for political gain. We have 800 soldiers who have been killed. We have thousands of soldiers who have been wounded. We have had hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent Iraqis killed because of this.

This is a distinction that my colleagues and I have to make because we are elected Members. My colleague represents 700,000, my other colleague represents 700,000 and I represent 700,000 citizens of this country who want to know why we are in the predicament we are in. This is not personal with the President. I am sure we would all say he is an affable man who we all would probably sit down and have a Diet Coke or a cup of coffee with and completely enjoy the time together.

But, we have an obligation, a constitutional obligation because this Chamber, Article 1, section 1 of the Constitution says the people govern, not the administration, not the executive branch. The legislative branch, everything starts here in the House.

This is why we are bringing this up. This is why my colleagues and I are going to have this discussion because we have a responsibility to question the leadership of this country, a constitutional obligation that when we stood here a year and a half ago, we put our hands up and said, ``I do,'' ``I will.''

So I did not mean to interrupt my colleague, but I think it is important that we lay this out before we have this discussion to say this is not personal. This is about the policies of this administration that we questioned initially, our voices were not heard. The press tried to question early, they were shut out. And now we are in a situation where we have not been given all the facts.

So I am sorry to interrupt my colleague, but I wanted to lay that out before we got moving here.

Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield? That brings up the whole point that I have been trying to make for months now. And I am going to continue to make it until somebody hears me or maybe we could figure out why we did this the wrong way.

Today in our Committee on Armed Services, Secretary Wolfowitz said we went to Iraq because there was a connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. And he said we went because Iraq was harboring terrorists from al-Qaeda. And we went because Iraq was funding terrorists. Connection, harboring terrorists, and funding terrorists were the three reasons throughout the committee, we were there about three hours today, that the Secretary gave.

There was an article today in the Houston Chronicle, it said, verbatim, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia harbored al-Qaeda, funded al-Qaeda, and they were connected to al-Qaeda, more so than Iraq. So the dangerous thing that we need to talk about if this is the standard, if you have been connected, harbored, or funded terrorist organizations, the United States or some other country could now go to war with this country.

So we should be in Pakistan, we should be in Saudi Arabia, we should be in Iran, we should probably be in Sudan where bin Laden met supposedly with the Iraqi official. When does this end? When does this end?

We have pulled our troops out of Afghanistan, we have 130,000 in Iraq. We have 10,000 in Afghanistan. Why cannot we have elections in Afghanistan? We do not have the security. They are all in Iraq.

Why is poppy now half of the GDP in Afghanistan? Because we do not have enough troops on the ground in there. And they said we wanted to set up a democracy in the Middle East? Why did we not do it? We were already in Afghanistan if we wanted to set up a democracy in that area of the world.

And it is very frustrating, and I think the ultimate issue that we have talked about many, many times, I say to my colleague from Florida, is that when we asked this administration what the deal was with the poppy, 70 percent of the worlds's poppy which turns into heroin, is converted into heroin, is from Afghanistan.

And when we asked this administration what they were doing about the

drug problem in Afghanistan, the $2\1/2\ billion that is coming out of there, that is going right to al-Qaeda, that is going to continue their terrorist acts, direct funding, drugs on the market in the United States and elsewhere, mostly in Europe, to al-Qaeda to fund terrorists, we asked what are you doing about the drugs, the poppy this year? And the answer was, ``We missed it.'' ``The harvest came in early and we missed it.'' I want to repeat that. The harvest of poppy came in early in Afghanistan and we missed it. And so it has already been harvested and it is already on the market being converted into heroin on the market now.

So there will be 365 days worth of funding of al-Qaeda from the drugs that are grown in Afghanistan. And there is one reason why that happened: We do not have enough troops on the ground in Afghanistan. We have 10,000 or 11,000 there. We have 130,000 in Iraq.

Imagine if we would have spent just half of what we spent in Iraq and had half the troops that we have in Iraq in Afghanistan where bin Laden came from, what the situation would be. We would have a democracy in the Middle East, we would have taken care of our drug problem, and we would have elections that would not have to keep getting postponed.

I am sorry to talk so much but that is so frustrating to me. I cannot figure out why we did what we did when we did not have our problems fixed in Afghanistan.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, there is going to be a great opportunity this week for us in the House of Representatives, and I hope the people at home pay very close attention to this.

The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member on the Committee on Appropriations, great guy, will have an amendment this week that will repeal a portion of the tax cut for millionaires, people who make $1 million a year or more. They will still get a tax cut, but it will be repealed partially. That money will go to fund veterans and will go to fund homeland security, two major issues that we have talked about in this Congress over

the last year and a half that are underfunded. The homeland security is very important because we are only checking one or two of all ships that come into ports in this country. We do not have enough first responders in this country, and we do not have enough border patrol. We do not have enough Coast Guard. All underfunded.

So this is going to be a clear message to the American people. Is this Congress going to support people who make over $1 million a year and say they have to have their tax cut regardless of what any of the other challenges are in this country, or are we going to be responsible and we are going to fund local initiatives that are going to help protect people in this country and, in turn, invest in our veterans? I think that is a clear distinction to make, and people who make less than $1 million are not even going to be affected by this.

I would think that, again, the point is that without these veterans, there is no system where you can generate $1 million a year for yourself, and I think it is a clear distinction and it is going to be a great vote; and I think it is going to articulate for the American people the difference between the two parties. I am sure the other side will say, we are raising taxes, and the answer to the American people, yes, we are for people who make over $1 million a year. They will see an increase.

We thank you. You are marvelous.

And pay for it.

Remember how many years ago when we had the Contract with America, one of the main components of that contract was that we were going to have a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, which meant that the budget in the United States had to be balanced every year. Everything had to be paid for. You either cut spending or you raised taxes, but you pay your bills, and I think there is some confusion at home, the debt is the mounting of yearly deficits, and it just keeps compounding. So the national debt is about $7 trillion I think, close to it. The annual deficit now for next year is projected to be, I think, $500 billion, close to $500 billion.

So as you have a growing debt caused by annual deficits, you have to go out and borrow money. As the gentleman from Florida said, the country loaning us the most money, number one, is Japan. Number two is China. We are going to Japan and China to borrow money to pay for these deficits that we have so that we can keep giving these tax cuts to millionaires. It makes no sense. We are becoming more dependent on these other countries because we are borrowing money from them and paying interest. So they take the interest that they make on the money that they loan us, and they invest it in the manufacturing and everything else. So that is a whole other issue that they keep taking our money and investing it in that way, too.

If one wants to go to the home page here, it is www.House.gov/George Miller, who is our ranking member on the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

There is a page on his Web site, Issue No. 14. It is called the debt burden, and it gives a chart that will show how much American families are paying in what we are calling the debt tax. Because we are borrowing so much and having to pay interest, we have got to pay more on taxes to cover our spending habits, or are generating less revenue by giving millionaires tax cuts.

So there is a little chart on there, and in the year 2004 the interest per family of four is $4,392. By 2014, we are going to be paying almost $9,000, $8,934.

So who is raising the taxes now? The facts are the facts, and it makes sense that if one goes out and one borrows money for a car and has to pay interest on it because it was borrowed, that interest is something that one has to pay out of pocket.

What we are trying to say is repeal a portion of that tax cut for millionaires. Increase the child tax credit. Keep the child tax credit. Keep the marriage penalty. Remove it and leave it off for married couples. If one makes under

$200,000 or $300,000 a year, none of the benefits that are received under the tax cuts over the last few years would be touched at all. You are safe. You are going to keep it.

What we are saying is people who make a million dollars a year or more should pay their fair share, because it is going to benefit the whole society, and that is why we are here, is it not?

The guys with the suits.

I think if you ask why there is a lot of frustration here, I think there are a lot of reasons for it. If you look at what was said before the war and you compare that to what is being said now, you will find that nothing of record from what I can tell that was said before the war on our reasons for going has been true. We were told that Saddam Hussein was somehow tied to 9/11. That was not true. We were told that there was an imminent threat from Iraq to the United States and the possibility of a mushroom cloud in Cincinnati is a real threat. That was not true. They had weapons of mass destruction. That was not true. That we would be able to use the oil in Iraq to generate revenue and we would not have to pay for the war because we would just use the oil and sell it and then that would pay the United States back. That has not been true.

We are up to $200 billion that we have spent. Then comes the issue of Halliburton. Was the Vice President, who had strong, strong ties, an officer in the company, did he have anything to do with Halliburton getting an unbid contract? Right, wrong or indifferent. Some may even say, Hey, that is politics. He is the Vice President. He used to work there. Let his former company do it. There aren't a whole lot of companies that do it. The problem is that for months and months and months the Vice President denied, and his office denied, knowing anything or having anything to do with the contract.

We find out last week that Scooter Libby, who is the chief of staff of the Vice President, in essence okayed the contract, knew about the contract, was familiar with the contract, okayed the contract. Why would you lie about that for 6, 8 months when people were trying to figure it out? Then we were told that this Abu Ghraib was just an isolated incident. We find out later that the Secretary of Defense approved of hiding a prisoner from the Red Cross. That seems pretty systemic of a problem to me.

So when we are up here questioning what is going on here, it is not like we do not have any reason to do so. I think we have ample evidence. As I

said earlier, I think we have a constitutional obligation to do it. A member of my staff has been saying this, Ryan Keating, no one likes to be the bad parent. No one likes to be the one who comes in and says, You know what, you're grounded. You're not doing this right, to be the enforcer. It would be nice to always be nice but someone has got to question what is going on here because we are losing lives, we are losing people because of these misjudgments. And then this Chalabi who gave us all this information on how great the war was going to be, and that was another one, we were going to be greeted as liberators, not occupiers. We are 800 dead later, most of that happening after we have toppled Saddam and the statue was pulled down.

Now everyone is saying that this Chalabi, well, we never really worked with him. We knew him, we talked to him, but we get advice from everybody. He was sitting up in the Chamber when the President gave his State of the Union address, right behind Mrs. Bush.

I do not like to be the bad parent. I do not have kids. I am not a parent in any sense. But I think the point is well taken that somebody has to say, what is going wrong here, and I think there is a growing frustration among the American people. It is not just Democrats. It is not just Democrats. It is the frustration that I think you see when we see the President's hometown newspaper editorializing against him I think is a pretty good sign that people better start shooting straight. The problem is you cannot put the bullet back in the gun. The bullet is out of gun. We have got to make the best of a bad situation and work with our soldiers to make sure that we do not lose any more of them while they are over there.

This is mine. This is my role.

You are not going to take it away from me?

30 Something Working Group. Send us an e-mail. [email protected]. Send us an e-mail. We would love to hear from you. We would love to hear what you have to say. We have to continue to have these discussions. Again, as we started, this is not personal. We need, you and I hopefully in our own little way, to raise the level of debate here to say it is not venomous, it is not malicious, it is not personal. We do not mean to personally attack anybody, but there are some real policy concerns. In a time of war, I think we have even more of a responsibility to do it.