Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, the budget the President unveiled today fails to restore fiscal responsibility and meet the budget priorities of a majority of Americans. Critical to my district is county and rural school funding. We have a half-hearted proposal, the same one rejected out of hand by the Senate last year. Not only half-hearted, but half- funded. It would be only half the money needed to meet the obligations of the Federal Government over the next 5 years. In addition, it is speculatively funded with controversial land sales, while he diverts a stable force of funding from oil and gas revenues to pet projects and tax cuts for rich people. Despite all that, he fails to deliver on his promise of a balanced budget, and he borrows $1.5 trillion from Social Security and Medicare, jeopardizing those programs. His budget is full of holes like Swiss cheese, but it smells like Limburger.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, today Congress passed a continuing resolution making up for some of the problems created by the Republican majority not getting their work done, but they did not got another crucial piece of work done, the reauthorization of the Safe and Secure County and Rural Schools Act. If that is not reauthorized, if that is not funded in short order, over 4,400 rural schools in 40 States will lose funding, 780 rural counties will lose funding for roads, county officials will be forced to lay off critical public safety, rescue, law enforcement and other employees. In my State alone, there will be up to 1,000 people losing their jobs beginning quite soon. Congress must act and soon. We will soon request that the leadership put in the emergency supplemental, money to fund for 1 year the Safe and Secure County Rural Schools Act to give the authorizing committees time to put in place a full 7-year reauthorization suitably offset with other funds.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. The insurance industry is exempt from antitrust law. They can and do legally fix prices. They can and do legally discriminate. They can and do legally deny coverage because of a preexisting condition, or for no reason whatsoever. But despite the fact that 60 percent of Americans get their health care through their employers, the President wants Americans to give up that protection of group coverage and throw themselves into the unregulated and cruel world of private insurance under the guise that he cares about the 46.1 million Americans that don't have health insurance, up 6 million on his watch. And there's one more little cruel joke hidden in here. He doesn't tell them about that tax deduction which would also allow them to take a deduction against their Social Security. For a family or a person earning $30,000 a year, it would cut their Social Security benefits in half. The President will do anything to help his friends in the insurance industry; he doesn't care much about those who are uninsured or who need help with health care.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I too rise on the issue of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. As my colleague from Oregon just stated, this is a crisis. This is an economic, social and public safety crisis if these funds are not reauthorized. They are now preparing layoff notices for teachers in rural school districts, for deputy sheriffs in search and rescue, for people who maintain our critical road and highway infrastructure in the western and other States across the country. This Congress must act, and soon, to keep faith with the counties and the school districts where the Federal Government owns a preponderance of the land and has changed forest policies and has dropped their revenues dramatically.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, this evening the President, in bowing to the electoral reality of last November and, with finally some recognition of real problems confronting our Nation and our citizens, is about to begin, in his State of the Union, to address the issue of the need for an expansion of health insurance. Forty-six million Americans lack health insurance, 1 million more per year every year this President has been in office. He will also address the issues of energy efficiency, energy independence, and global warming; and we welcome some remarks from the President in those areas. And he is going to address the debt and the deficit. We welcome this new focus on these extraordinarily important and difficult issues that have been pretty much ignored during his Presidency. Unfortunately, his rhetorical U-turn is not going to be matched by the reality of his proposals. In order to provide health insurance to 46.1 million people who don't have it, he says we should tax people who do have health insurance. Now, that is interesting because the President, of course, gets his health insurance for free. And his proposal would also extend tax benefits to the wealthiest among us because many people who don't have health insurance can't benefit from tax breaks. They don't pay Federal income taxes. That is not a real solution. A real solution would be to take on the antitrust immunity of the insurance industry, estimated to raise $45 billion, saving consumers that money. That is the cost of uninsured health care in America. Energy efficiency and independence, well, we will wait and hear what the President has to say. But remember a year ago, he talked about our addiction to oil, and all his policies have been designed to further that addiction thus far. On the debt and the deficit, he still wants to cut taxes for the wealthiest among us. He wants to extend, to make permanent, all of his tax cuts; exempt all estates from taxes; and says he is going to balance the budget. Well, if he was really going to do that by the year 2012, he would have to eliminate the Federal Government except for the Department of Defense, a little bit of the Department of Homeland Security, because the projected deficit is as large as about the rest of the discretionary budget if his tax cuts are maintained. You have to begin to raise revenues from the wealthiest among us to address this gaping maw hole, the deficit. And then there is one very important problem where he isn't even pretending to change direction, one where a majority of the American people and a majority of the United States disagree with the President's nostrum, and that is his desire to escalate the war in Iraq as a way out. Defying his own Joint Chiefs of Staff and the senior officers and advisers in the military; defying the Prime Minister of Iraq, who said we shouldn't put more Americans into Baghdad; defying the American people; and defying this Congress, the President is going to offer us more stay the course in Iraq and try to spin it into a new policy that will lead to success. We want to succeed, but to succeed, the Iraqi Government has to be willing to take on some of its own problems. The Shiias and the Sunnis have got to stop slaughtering each other trying to settle a 1,400-year- old grudge and putting us in the middle of their civil war. They have got to begin to meaningfully share power, and they have got to begin to resolve their own issues. And the U.S. sending more troops is not going to lead them down that path. So I fear that what the President is proposing there will lead to more conflict. It may look good in the short term, but long term it is not going to resolve this very difficult issue. I hope that the President offers us some real changes in direction tonight and not just a rhetorical U-turn to bow to the reality of the elections.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, the President has discovered that we have a problem with health insurance in the United States of America, and that is good news. Approximately 1 million more Americans have become uninsured for health care every year that the President has been in office, a record 46.1 million have no health insurance, 8.3 million of them are children, 609,000 people of them in my State of Oregon, alone. The President goes on to say, having discovered this problem, that we must address the rising costs so that more Americans can afford basic health insurance. I think there is a lot of room for agreement there. Unfortunately, the solutions the President is offering are straight out of the neoconservative and right-wing think tanks. The same people who told us we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq are now giving the President the solutions for the uninsured in America. They are saying the problem is those who are insured have too much insurance. We should tax middle-class Americans, particularly union members, who have good health plans, those that actually provide for some dental and vision coverage, in order to provide health insurance to those who don't. Now, what the President is ignoring here are a few problems with the wildly profitable insurance industry. First off, it is exempt from the antitrust law. There are only two industries exempt from the antitrust law, baseball and insurance. Now, I don't care that much about the baseball exemption, but insurance should not be exempt from antitrust. They should not be allowed to meet together and collude to jack up prices, collude to determine who they will cover and who they won't cover. Now those are big problems. If we dealt with those problems, that would dramatically drop the cost of health care. The President is a free market forces guy; well, let's have free market forces in health care. We don't today; it is a cartel. They collude to set the prices; they collude to decide who won't get coverage. Those are big problems. They want to cherry-pick. They only want to insure people who aren't going to file claims. We all know about that with our homeowners insurance now; you file a claim? Whoops, sorry; we don't want to insure you anymore even though you have been paying us a premium for 20 years. This is an industry that must be reined in. But no, that is not what the President is going to do. He is going to tax middle-class people. He is going to tax union members, people who have decent health care so that some money could then be provided as tax deductions for those who don't have health care. Well, there is another problem with that; of the 46.1 million people, remember, 8.3 million are children, no earnings there. And many of them come from families that earn less than $50,000 a year. What is a Federal tax deduction worth to those families? Zero, nada, zip. Of course, the President doesn't understand that. Actually, this will provide tremendous benefits to young, healthy people like, say, people who are millionaires at Google who have chosen not to buy health insurance, they will get a nice $15,000 a year tax break. But for the family that earns $50,000 a year, they will not get a tax break because they are not paying Federal income taxes. So the President's plan is worthless for those who most need it. It penalizes those who are getting by. And who is the President to talk about gold-plated health care plans? He has socialized medicine. He doesn't pay a penny. He gets a $20,000 physical exam for free every year, in addition to any other health care he might need. And he is talking about Americans, families with gold- plated plans who can actually take their kids to the dentist and get partial payment? Seniors who can actually get some new eyeglasses so they can see again? That is gold-plated in the President's world. Those people should pay taxes so that we can give a phony benefit to the uninsured. This is not the way to solve the problem. If the President had any guts he would take on the insurance industry. He would join me in proposing to take away the antitrust exemption from the insurance industry, stop them from redlining people and cherry-picking, and that would make health insurance cheaper for all Americans, not the preposterous proposal he is putting forward.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear the Republicans belittling the 100 hours, say, well, we really didn't do much. It is low hanging fruit. Well, if that is so, why in the last 12 years did the Republicans not raise the Federal minimum wage? In fact, they didn't even allow a vote on raising the Federal minimum wage in the last decade, and they would belittle that because they don't care about working people in this country. They said a year ago, their leaders in face of the Abramoff scandal which enveloped the Republican Party, that they would have ethics reform on the floor and passed before the end of February. Well, February came and went. We got it done in January, a year later, after we took control. They couldn't even clean up their own mess. And they belittle what we are doing. A year ago, they jammed through legislation to raise the cost of student financial aid to pay for tax cuts for wealthy investors, to extend those tax breaks from 2008 to 2010. Yesterday, we passed legislation to cut the costs of interest and student financial aid in half. We took on big banks, and we will take on the wealthy investors. There is a big difference in this Congress, and the Republicans are whining.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, as I speak here on the floor of the House today, layoff notices are being prepared for teachers, for county sheriff deputies, and other workers in counties in the Pacific Northwest and indeed, across America. This is a result of the lapse of something called the Safe and Secure County Rural Schools Act, legislation that was enacted in a bipartisan way when Bill Clinton was President of the United States and the Republicans controlled the House and the Senate. And this legislation was adopted in recognition that many counties across America are substantially owned by the Federal Government. And the Federal Government is obviously exempt from taxes. And because of major changes in Federal environmental laws, timber harvest in those counties has dropped dramatically, in some cases to near zero. Therefore, the shared revenues, under a compact with the Federal Government, of these counties and schools have shared in the revenues with the Federal Government. And now, for many counties, these revenues would be near zero without the guarantees that were enacted in the last year of the Clinton presidency. I argued at the time that they should be made permanent. Unfortunately, lobbying by the timber industry and some county commissioners who hadn't thought this through, who thought they could drive a crisis and maybe get a change in forest policy, they were made temporary. They have expired as of the 1st of October and that is why the layoff notices are being prepared now. Congress must act to renew this legislation. Congress needs to hold up its end of the bargain with these counties and these schools across America. The formula is based on historic timber harvest, and historic timber harvest has dropped dramatically, as I said earlier. Some criticize Oregon saying, well, you get a lot of the money. Well, we have the highest Federal ownership of forest lands and the highest timber harvest on Federal lands, and we also have something that is very unique called the ONC lands, which are a vestige of a failed railroad and revestiture of Federal lands and the agreement between the counties and the Federal Government. Quite complicated. But the bottom line is, we are just asking the Federal Government to make good on its commitment, its partnership. Otherwise, we are going to see, essentially, counties in southwest Oregon who have very little other opportunity to raise revenues, and none regarding the Federal lands. They don't get PILT payments or anything else. We are going to see them laying off vital service providers. There are large parts of southwest Oregon that could become virtually lawless with our State cutbacks in State police and the question of whether or not we will be able to have county sheriff patrols in large areas. In my home county, the size of the State of Connecticut, you know, once when this happened previously, because of a depression in the timber industry, we had no deputies in an area the size of the State of Connecticut, outside of the cities. With the meth epidemic in rural areas in the West and other things, this would be very bad, not only for Oregon and those counties, but for the entire western United States. It is in the public interest. We are hopeful, we have asked the President to put it in his budget. Last year he sort of haphazardly put it in his budget after ignoring the issue for a number of years. Unfortunately, the financing mechanism that the President chose was immediately criticized by Republican Senators, and declared to be a nonstarter. There are indications it may be in the President's budget this year. We are hoping that the President has found a more suitable offset, something that we can bring to the Congress and begin to move this legislation through. We need to look at the emergency supplemental for the possibility of a 1-year extension, and then I am committed to moving a permanent extension through a committee on which I serve, the Resources Committee. Greg Walden and I did that 2 years ago very quickly. But the bill stalled out in Agriculture. Hopefully, this time after we get it out of the Resources Committee, that it will move more expeditiously through the Agriculture Committee for the deliberation of the entire Congress. It is not just the Pacific Northwest at risk. It is hundreds of counties and school districts, from Florida to Maine, all across America, who are at risk. And this Congress and this President need to act to fulfill this commitment and this promise.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I don't serve on that subcommittee any longer. I met some people on the way to the committee who told me they were meeting.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I am a member of the full Transportation Committee; and Water Resources, a subcommittee of Transportation, did meet today. Perhaps there were other committees meeting.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, who would have ever thought that the Republicans would be defending welfare queens on the floor of the House of Representatives, but they are. Lee Raymond, just-retired CEO, ExxonMobil, $400 million, part of it in tax subsidies, part of it in royalty forgiveness, and part of it gouging consumers at the pump. But they are standing up here today to defend poor little ole Lee Raymond with his $400 million pension and ExxonMobil, his company, that only made $29.2 billion last year, the largest corporate profit in the history of the world. They need those subsidies or they will not go out and explore for oil, the Republicans will tell us. Here they are defending welfare queens, subsidies to the most profitable industry in the world. It is sad to see the Republicans come to this. Now, they laughably say this will lead to higher prices. Oh, higher prices, unlike the price gouging after Katrina where gasoline went over three bucks a gallon in Oregon and we do not even get any supply from the eastern United States? Or the price gouging that goes on day in, day out? The price fixing that goes on day in, day out in this industry? The collusion between the American companies, the foreign companies operating in America, and the OPEC cartel to drive down the supply, to drive up the price, which gives them an excuse to go even higher at the pump? What about a trade complaint to the WTO? No, the Republican administration does not support that, but George Bush does support two provisions of this bill, saying those are tax breaks that are not necessary to the oil industry. The oil man in the White House says the oil industry does not need this, and the Republicans are down here fighting hard to preserve it, to drain money from the taxpayer, to not take royalties. Unlike any other owner of public resources, the United States would be the only one not to take royalty. Now, they talked about communism. That would be communism if we did not get a fair return for our taxpayers, if we did not get a fair return for depleting our resources. Pass this bill and begin to turn back the inordinate influence of Big Oil on this government.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from North Carolina who preceded me in the well was saying, ``Those Democrats, they just want to raise taxes and spend.'' I would look at the legislation we passed today with 124 Republican votes as an example of where Democrats really stand on the issues. Just about 1 year ago today, almost exactly a year ago today, the Republican Party passed legislation called reconciliation that actually raised the cost of student financial aid, dramatically raised the cost of student financial aid. It also did one other thing to ``save money'' or ``create revenue,'' which is it cut medical care for needy Americans. Now, we have got to be fiscally responsible, but what they did with this money was cut taxes for wealthy investors, extend tax cuts for wealthy investors that were going to expire in the year 2008, not exactly an immediate problem, to 2010. They paid for that by raising the cost of student financial aid; i.e., taxing students and cutting medical care for poor Americans; i.e., taxing poor people or taking away needed health care. That is his model. He says we are the ``tax and spend'' folks. Well, look at what we did today in legislation that passed with 124 Republican votes. We said it was wrong for the Republicans to jack up the cost of student financial aid. The cost of a higher education is beyond reach of too many Americans and we think people should have a chance at the ladder of success. Key to that is education, and we want to make education more affordable and more accessible. Today was the first step, and only the first step in our plan to help make higher education more affordable. So I guess he would say we are taxing the banks; i.e., we are asking the banks to pay part of the cost here to lower the interest rate on student financial aid. Now, these bank private loans are losers for the taxpayers. We have in fact a government study that says if we converted the whole loan program in this country to national direct student loans administered by the universities and overseen by the government, we would make money, even with the defaults. But in order to continue the subsidized bank program which he was up here defending, we are getting back 84 cents on the dollar. The American taxpayers are subsidizing banks to offer loans on which they make a pile of money, and now he is aggrieved that we have asked the banks to lower the interest rate over 5 years. I would like to lower them tomorrow, and they shouldn't have been raised. The Republicans shouldn't have raised the cost of student financial aid to fund tax cuts for wealthy people. Now, if they want to have more tax cuts for wealthy people, then they ought to find a way to responsibly finance that. Personally, I don't think wealthy people need more tax cuts. In fact, I think they have gotten way too many. And he did not talk about the fact that we are borrowing money to finance tax cuts for the wealthy, that we are dinging people who need medical assistance to finance tax cuts for the wealthy, that we are heaping the costs onto students to finance tax cuts for the wealthy. If that is what he calls tax and spend, then that is what I am.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, here we have some born-again student advocates on the Republican side of the aisle. They are criticizing our legislation to cut student financial aid interest rates in half. Now, I might understand that because they just doubled student financial aid interest rates 1 year ago to pay for tax cuts for wealthy investors, so I guess they already took a position on that and they don't want to have to be forced to vote to provide help to students. Then they say, well, no, we want to do Pell Grants. Well, you were in charge for 12 years; why didn't you increase Pell Grants during the 12 years you were in charge? We are going to cut student financial interest rates in half and take on the big banks, and we are going to increase funding for Pell Grants, something the majority failed to do in 12 years.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the President persists, despite the contrary advice of his most experienced and senior military officers in the field, that escalation is the answer to the chaos, the sectarian strife, in Iraq. He is not only perpetuating his failed status quo stay-the-course strategy; he actually is going to undermine the U.S. forces and our allies in the most critical conflict. Remember his phrase, ``Fight them there or fight them here''? Well, that is true, but not in Iraq. That is true in Afghanistan. Remember ``Osama bin Ladin: dead or alive''? The Taliban, al Qaeda? Well, they are resurgent and they are going to threaten Kandahar we are told by our commanders in the field in the spring, and they have asked for reinforcements. And what is the President doing to perpetuate his failed policy in Iraq, an unnecessary war in an area that doesn't threaten the United States of America? He is withdrawing U.S. troops from southern Afghanistan and sending them on a failed mission in Iraq. He could be the only President to lose two wars at the same time.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, after 9/11, the House of Representatives voted in unprecedented near unanimity with one dissenting vote to invade Afghanistan and go after the perpetrators of 9/11, Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and also their host, the Taliban. The U.S. Forces with real allies quickly accomplished that mission, displacing the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda. Unfortunately, because of the administration's diverting its attention already toward Iraq and failing to send adequate troops into Afghanistan and overly relying upon untrustworthy Afghan warlords, Osama bin Laden escaped, as did the one-eyed Omar of the Taliban, al- Zawahiri, his deputy. They are still at large. They are still planning attacks in the United States. In fact, they are resurgent. For the first year since our invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban didn't shrink back into Pakistan for the winter. They have set up sophisticated forward bases in Southern Afghanistan. We are hearing a plea for reinforcements from the NATO forces, from U.S. troops on the ground. And what is the President's reaction? Remember the President, ``Osama bin Laden, dead or alive; dead or alive, we are going to hunt him to the ends of the Earth''? He does not talk about that anymore, does he? The Taliban, Afghanistan. He is totally focused on his failed policies in Iraq, where there was no al Qaeda, where there were no weapons of mass destruction, where there was no Osama bin Laden. And now the President, as part of an attempt to paper over his failed strategy yet once again and pretend there is possibly a military solution, he is going to take U.S. troops out of southern Afghanistan and send them to Baghdad, despite the warnings that the one-eyed Omar and the Taliban intend to try and retake Kandahar against the pathetic NATO troops that are defending that region, hobbled by extraordinarily restrictive rules of engagement. There is a possibility that there will be a new sanctuary and there will be a resurgence in place for the terrorists to go, but it is not Iraq. The President, in his blind obsession with Iraq, is failing to see the real threats against the United States of America. The President should not, and this Congress should not, support an escalation of the war in Iraq, sending 21,500 troops in Iraq, some of whom are vitally needed in Afghanistan who will be displaced as part of that number because we have taxed our military so heavily. This is wrong policy for Iraq, wrong policy for America, and wrong policy for the much-touted war in Iraq. We must refocus our efforts on Afghanistan, and we must work more broadly for a solution in Iraq, following many of the recommendations of the Hamilton-Baker report rejected by the President in favor of doing the same thing again and again and again. This is not a change in policy. It is the same failed policies of the past.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, in a few hours the President will address the Nation and talk about his plan to escalate the war in Iraq, to try and salvage the abysmal failures of his administration and the unnecessary war which they sold to the Congress and the American people. Now, in leading up to this, just last month the President said, ``It is important to trust the judgment of the military when they are making military plans. I am a strict adherer to the command structure.'' President Bush. Well, I guess he is, because he is the commander-in-chief, and he is ignoring the advice of the uniformed services. The President's chief military advisers oppose this escalation in the war. General John Abizaid, who was then head of all U.S. forces in the Middle East, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee November 15, ``I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the corps commander, General Dempsey. We all talked together. And I said, in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no.'' But the decider wasn't listening. The reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more. It is easy for the Iraqis to rely on us to do this work. I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future. The President didn't like what he had heard, the decider being an adherer to the military chain of command, so General Abizaid is being shown the door. As a Lebanese American who is fluent in Arabic, I think his understanding of the region far exceeds that of any of the advisers that the President may be depending upon to make this misguided proposal to escalate the war. General Casey has also been removed as commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. It started with General Shinseki, who told the President he would need 500,000 troops to occupy the country and avoid the abyss into which we have fallen, a civil war, insurrection, insurgency. He also was fired because the decider didn't believe his advice. It is time to change course in Iraq. And the President is not only continuing a failed policy and sending more U.S. troops to a mission that is very unlikely to succeed, according to the advice of his uniformed commanders, who he is ignoring, he is also going to undermine the effort in Afghanistan. Things are going bad in Afghanistan. Remember, that is where Osama bin Laden planned 9/11. That is where the Taliban supported and harbored al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. We, with NATO and the world behind us, decided to take them out. Remember that? Osama bin Laden, dead or alive; dead or alive. You don't hear that from the White House much anymore. But Osama bin Laden is still planning attacks on the United States, and the one-eyed Omar is coming back to Kandahar. They are planning a spring offensive. They didn't withdraw this winter. The NATO forces are ineffectual. And what is the President's response? He is going to withdraw U.S. troops from that region. So we have the heart of darkness, Afghanistan, and the President is ignoring that problem to continue his failed policies in Iraq. No escalation of the war in Iraq by the adherer-decider, President Bush.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, tomorrow the President will announce he has yet another new strategy for victory in Iraq. This strategy will come just over a year after he released his last strategy for victory in Iraq, which was completed in November 2005. According to the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index, since the President released his last plan, more than 900 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, more than 2,200 Iraqi police and military forces have also been killed. The number of Iraqi civilians killed has risen from 1,778 in January 2006 to nearly 3,300 in December 2006. The number of multiple fatality bombings has increased from 41 in November 2005 to 69 in December 2006. In other words, by virtually every measure, the violence in Iraq is worse this year than last year, the political situation is more volatile and deteriorating by the day and the civil war is expanding. After nearly four years, after more than 3,000 U.S troops have been killed, after more than 22,500 U.S. troops have been injured--nearly half of whom have been injured severely enough that they cannot return to duty--and after more than $300 billion of U.S. taxpayers' money has been spent with no benefit to U.S. national security and with little progress toward stabilizing Iraq, what is the President's response? All indications are that he will propose to compound the failure by escalating the war, putting tens of thousands of more American lives at risk, and borrowing tens or hundreds of billions of dollars more in order to prosecute a war that cannot be won militarily. It is past time to end the open-ended commitment the President has made in Iraq. Reportedly the President will propose benchmarks the Iraqi government must achieve, but since there will be no consequences if the Iraqis fail, these benchmarks are meaningless. The Iraqi government has failed to follow through on previous commitments, yet the President's response has only been to express continuing support for the Iraqi Prime Minister. His proposal this week will likely be more of the same. As long as the U.S. military remains stuck with the President's pledge of unlimited support, Iraqi politicians and security forces will use the U.S. presence as a crutch and will fail to take the necessary steps to solve their differences, establish an effective and inclusive government, end sectarian violence, and create a secure and prosperous society. Democracy and stability cannot be imposed on unwilling parties. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said recently on Meet the Press, a stable, pluralistic democracy in Iraq is everyone's second choice except ours. The Shias want power for themselves. The Sunnis want power. And the Kurds want power and independence. What they don't want to do is share that power, and we can't make them. Being confronted with the reality of a U.S. withdrawal should force the Iraqi factions to reach the political compromises necessary to move their country forward. If not, there is no reason to prolong the U.S. involvement in Iraq if we want a stable country more than the Iraqi people and their elected leaders do. The U.S. cannot impose freedom, security, and unity in Iraq by force. Those worthy goals can only be achieved by the Iraqi people themselves, which will only happen when the Iraqi people and their leaders decide to put aside their sectarian differences. The U.S. cannot force Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds to make peace or to act for the common good. They have been in conflict for l,400 years. Nor should the U.S. military be forced to remain in Iraq essentially as an army for one side of a civil war. The U.S. military cannot solve the sectarian violence and the lack of political reconciliation in Iraq. Only the Iraqis can. In a minute, I will address where I believe we need to go from here. But, before that, I want to briefly review how we got into Iraq and how the Bush administration's many mistakes have brought us to the disaster we face today. The list of the Bush administration's failures with respect to Iraq is long and well-known. But it bears repeating, particularly since the administration may be making similar ones with respect to Iran. The administration manipulated, misrepresented and in some cases outright lied about the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs and non-existent ties to al-Qaeda in order to build support in Congress and among the public for the war. The administration went in with too few troops to successfully carry out the mission. The administration went in with few real allies. The administration went in with no exit strategy. The administration failed to stop the rampant looting in the wake of Saddam Hussein's ousting, which set back recovery and reconstruction. The administration failed to understand the ethnic tensions that were unleashed in Iraq. The administration failed to understand the ethnic power bases in Iraq. The administration relied on Iraqi exiles with no support among the Iraqi people. The administration did not turn over authority to Iraqis early on. Instead, they stood up the Coalition Provision Authority to run Iraq, which cemented in the minds of the Iraqis that U.S. forces were an occupying power. The administration largely used inexperienced political hacks to run the CPA rather than experienced foreign service-types or individuals with subject matter expertise. The administration disbanded the Iraqi army, which added to the security problems by creating a large pool of unemployed, armed, and alienated Iraqis. The administration purged the Iraqi government of all Baath party members, even low-level Baathists, which continues to hamper the delivery of even basic government services to Iraqis since the bureaucracy has basically been created from scratch. The administration failed to conduct proper oversight of reconstruction resulting in waste, fraud, and abuse, poor contractor performance and Iraqi expectations for progress not being met. This is not an exhaustive list, but it highlights some major failures that have contributed to the chaos in Iraq. The administration claims that what has happened in Iraq was unforeseeable. In reality, many critics predicted the problems in Iraq. The administration just chose to ignore those who raised concerns. The problems in Iraq are actually worse than predicted because of the administration's blunders. The administration ignored the doctrine created by its own Secretary of State Colin Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The ``Powell doctrine'' says that the U.S. should go to war only as a last resort and then only with overwhelming force. In his article ``U.S. Forces: Challenges Ahead'' in Foreign Affairs in 1992-93 Powell posed a number of questions to be asked by U.S. policymakers before launching a war. Is a vital national security interest threatened? Do we have a clear, attainable objective? Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed? Have all other non-violent policy means been exhausted? Is there a plausible exit strategy? Have the consequences been fully considered? Is the action supported by the American people? Does the U.S. have broad international support? The answer to these questions in the case of the Iraq war is no. But the administration went ahead anyway and Powell put aside any misgivings he may have had and publicly supported it. The administration ignored General Eric Shinseki, then the head of the Army, who testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 25, 2003, that the administration's plans failed to include an adequate number of troops. He said, ``I would say that what's been mobilized to this point--something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems.'' Secretary Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, called Shinseki's estimate ``far off the mark'' and ``wildly off the mark''. Wolfowitz said it would be ``hard to believe'' more troops would be required for post-war Iraq than to remove Saddam Hussein from power. It may have been hard for an ideologue like Mr. Wolfowitz to believe, but it wasn't hard for a military professional like General Shinseki to envision. Many Members of Congress also raised concerns. I personally wrote to the President on September 5, 2002. I challenged the supposed threat posed by Iraq's assumed WMD programs. I raised questions about more pressing national security challenges like North Korea and Iran. I raised questions about the impact the war would have on U.S. relations with allies and our reputation in the world. I posed questions about what the impact of a long-term occupation of Iraq by U.S. forces. I asked about the impact of diverting military and intelligence resources to Iraq from the battle against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. And I raised concerns about the economic impact and the impact on U.S. taxpayers from the war. The administration dismissed the concerns and warnings of critics like me and launched this ill-advised war. I voted against it. We're forty-six months into the war, where do we go from here? The President apparently believes that the U.S. needs to escalate the conflict in Iraq by sending 30,000 or more additional troops to Iraq. I think that is a mistake. It will not bring stability to Iraq, and I oppose it and will vote against it if given the opportunity. Just as importantly, the President's chief military advisors oppose it. As General John Abizaid, then the head of all U.S. forces in the Middle East, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on November 15, 2006, ``I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the core commander, General Dempsey, we all talked together. And I said, in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American Troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no. And the reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more. It is easy for the Iraqis to rely upon to us do this work. I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future.'' The President didn't like what he heard, which may be why General Abizaid is expected to retire this March. As a Lebanese-American who is fluent in Arabic, his understanding of the region will be greatly missed. General Casey has also been removed as commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Shinseki, Abizaid, Casey. There is a pattern here of the Bush administration ignoring the advice of military leaders and firing them when they don't tell the President what he wants to hear. Let me be clear, I do not believe there is any level of U.S. troops that could stabilize Iraq at this point. But, I think it is particularly offensive that the President is reportedly planning to put 30,000 additional U.S. lives at risk when that escalation is virtually certain to have little or no impact on the violence in Iraq. There might be a small, temporary reduction in the chaos in Iraq, but the escalation will not solve the deep and underlying political conflicts that are preventing a long-term resolution to the violence in Iraq. The President desperately wants to look like he's trying something new in Iraq in response to the concerns of the American people, but really he's just repeating the same mistakes and compounding previous failures. The administration is trying to prolong the U.S. involvement in Iraq in order to perpetuate the fallacy that the President's original vision for a democratic, pro-U.S., capitalistic, pluralistic Iraq is still achievable. It is not. The American Enterprise Institute military escalation plan for Iraq, which is the basis for the President's proposals, has a timeline of 18-24 months, conveniently enough leaving the mess in Iraq for the next President, meaning President Bush would never have to admit his policies in Iraq have been a failure but at a very steep cost to our troops taxpayers. The administration already increased the number of U.S. troops in Baghdad this summer and has occasionally increased the number of troops throughout Iraq, yet the violence against our troops and Iraqi security forces and civilians continues to increase. Following the influx of troops this summer in Operation Forward Together, the violence in Iraq actually increased. Weekly attacks increased by 15 percent while the number of Iraqi civilian casualties increased by 51 percent. Based on historical analysis, counterinsurgency experts estimate it takes around 20 U.S. troops per 1,000 inhabitants to successfully fight a counterinsurgency. To achieve that ratio in Baghdad alone would require 120,000 troops. Even with the escalation proposed by the President, we'd only have around 40,000 troops in Baghdad. For all of Iraq, it would require 500,000 troops. We only have around 140,000 there today. General Shinseki and others based their original recommendation for several hundred thousand troops on this historical analysis. But, the time in which a large number of forces could stabilize Iraq has long since passed. The bottom line is that a proposal to increase U.S. troop levels in Baghdad or Iraq more generally by 30,000 troops in not a serious effort to restore stability to Iraq. Essentially, the President is proposing to put more lives at risk with little or no chance of success. The President and his allies justify the continuing U.S. presence in Iraq by claiming that if we don't fight there, we'll have to fight here at home. However, the Iraqi Sunni rejectionists, Saddamists, and nationalist Shias, who combined make up the vast bulk of the insurgents and militias committing violence in Iraq, have no interest in attacking the U.S. homeland. They just want U.S. military forces out of their own country. They have no designs on our country. So it is misleading, at best, to argue that if we don't fight there, we will fight them in the streets of the United States. It is also misleading to pretend that if the U.S. leaves that somehow Osama bin Laden will take control of Iraq. There is no chance that the Shias and Kurds, who represent around 80 percent of the population in Iraq, will allow foreign terrorist elements to take over the country. Even the majority of the Sunnis have grown tired of foreign terrorists operating in Iraq. A better strategy is to announce a timeline for bringing our troops home over the next 6 months to a year. The administration has always set timelines for political developments in Iraq--for elections, for the drafting of the constitution etc. The administration argued such timelines were necessary to focus the energy of Iraq's leaders and to force compromises. We need to do the same on the military side. In the interim, I have also proposed that U.S. troops be removed from front line combat positions in Iraqi cities and towns, turning over daily security patrols, interactions with citizens, and any offensive security actions to the Iraqis themselves. The training and equipping of Iraqi security forces should be accelerated and the sectarian balance must be improved. The U.S. must renounce any U.S. interest in constructing permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq. It is also important to accelerate reconstruction spending and grant the bulk of reconstruction contracts to local companies employing Iraqis rather than multinational corporations, whom have proven inefficient, inflexible, sometimes fraudulent and have even imported workers rather than employing Iraqis. The U.S. embassy in Baghdad should also be reduced to normal size and authority rather than establishing one of the largest embassies in the world. And, the U.S. must engage in robust diplomacy with all factions in Iraq, except the foreign terrorists and domestic al-Qaeda elements, and work with Iraq's neighbors in an effort to bring about political reconciliation among Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds. Our troops have done all that has been asked of them in Iraq. Saddam Hussein is dead. His allies are on the run or in prison. The threat from WMDs in Iraq is nonexistent. Arguably, the war that Congress authorized has been won. Our troops should come home. Congress did not authorize U.S. troops to referee a civil war in Iraq.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman. Reclaiming my time, there is also another provision in this bill which is long overdue. We have had extraordinary closures of the salmon season on the west coast this year, despite the fact that there are quite a number of plentiful runs of salmon, because one run, the Klamath River, is very, very unhealthy. Over the last 5 years, this administration has done nothing to begin to improve the health of the river. This legislation will begin some of the mitigation restoration activities to restore the health of that fishery which is critical so that we can begin to continue to harvest other salmon species which are more plentiful and not in trouble. For that and a number of other provisions in the bill, I am very supportive of the legislation.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I would yield to the gentleman.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I would first like to engage the ranking member in a colloquy. The bill requires the Pacific Council to develop a rationalization program within 24 months from date of enactment. The Pacific Council has been working on a comprehensive ground fisheries management program for more than 3 years and is on target to complete that process by 2008. As I understand the bill, the Pacific Council can continue the development of its groundfish management program without having to restart the process. Is that correct?

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the ranking member of the full committee, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barrow).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell). (Mr. PASCRELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DeFAZIO. Could I inquire as to time remaining, please?

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher). (Mr. BOUCHER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)