Rahm Emanuel

Mr. EMANUEL

Mr. EMANUEL. Let me add, as I said, that we have 150,000 police being paid by the United States taxpayers for 150,000 police officers and security personnel in Iraq. I would like that to be noted that in my hometown of Chicago, we do not have an additional bio-terrorist center that we were seeking for fire department. In veterans, in Iraq, we pay the salaries and benefits for 170,000 Iraqi military and security personnel. In America, 260,000 children of active duty military personnel have been dropped from the earned income tax credits. It is a very interesting strategy. Again, two budgets, one for Iraq. One for the United States. Here, helping the police and fire departments combat terrorism. In Iraq, a $500 million fund to counterterrorism policing program in Iraq; $50 million for emergency global peacekeeping operations; $80 million for disaster assistance. In the United States, a $648 million cut in the Department of Homeland Security for funding of police, firefighter and emergency personnel. In Iraq, you have made an investment close to $630 million. In the United States, a cut of $640 million for the same activities, the same type of strategy. We have also had a $246 million cut in the firefighter assistance grants. Protecting ports, we have made $150 million investment for border protection in Iraq. The port of Umkasar has been completely rebuilt. It is a deepwater port in Iraq. Yet, here a $79 million cut to port security upgrades, representing a 64 percent cut in the budget for port security here in the United States. Supporting law enforcement, police departments, $76 million investment in Iraq's defense corps, training and development, $25 million for counter-drug assistance in Iraqi police, $200 million for Iraqi security for judges, prosecutors and courthouses, a $500 million investment for facility protection and demining in Iraq, $35 million for nonproliferation anti-terrorism demining in Iraq. Yet, a $659 million cut to the Department of Justice programs to assist local communities in hiring, training and equipping police officers for America's streets. Again, a juxtaposition where one is getting invested in because you need the resources to deliver the types of services of police protection. Here in the United States we are making corresponding cuts in the same areas.

Mr. EMANUEL. I want to again remind us of one of the headlines here. Training of health care professionals, 2,200 Iraqi doctors and nurses will get free training, $278 million cut in the United States' budget in this area. We will go on to the next chart of the area of security and justice and investment in what we call safety of our streets versus what we are doing in Iraq. In that area we basically have, I think, an interesting, very interesting set of priorities. And again, it is a tale of two budgets, two values, two priorities. In Iraq, we have placed 150,00 police and security personnel on the street. I do not know if you know this and it may come as a surprise to everybody. But in New York City, there are 3,000 less police on the street since 9-11, because the President's budget we have cut a billion dollars in the police program to keep police doing community policing in the United States. Three thousand less police on the streets of New York since 9-11. That is a fascinating way to execute a high school strategy. Yet, in Iraq, 150,000 police and security personnel.

Mr. EMANUEL. Why would you freeze then the maternal and child health care block grant, which basically does the immunization programs here in the United States? What would make you freeze it here in the United States, but somehow think that 4.3 million Iraqi children deserve that type of aid? I think it is a good idea. My father is a pediatrician. I am the son also of a radiologist nurse. I happen to think these investments are good. Guess what, the administration is right about one thing, the Iraq of tomorrow will be better than the Iraq under Saddam Hussein, because it is being funded by the taxpayers of the United States.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, I know this sounds horribly rude and sarcastic, but could David Kay be appointed to coordinate these two budgets together? I mean, he is available after all. If one looks at this, $44 million in community development projects including child care centers and youth centers in Iraq. $44 million for child care and youth centers. The President's budget for the United States, a funding freeze for all child care programs for helping parents who want to go to work and put their kids at places that are safe and secure. And it is projected to climb to $53 million in 2006. That is a fascinating way to leave no child behind in Iraq. I wonder what the strategy is behind that.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, if we are going to spend $3 trillion, I would think we would get more than 21,000 jobs out of it. And of the 21,000 jobs that were created last month, not the 200,000, unknown, but it is right there in the statistics, of the 21,000 jobs, 20,000 of those jobs were government jobs. So in the private sector of the United States only created 1,000 jobs last month. Jay Leno had a funny joke and I must repeat it. He says, ``You know why President Bush is in such trouble? He is overseeing more gay marriages than he has jobs created in the United States.'' And it captures pretty much what is going on. We have a jobless economy and an endless occupation in Iraq. It has resulted in the fact that the American people are calling for a new direction and change in our priorities. And these budgets reflect the problem we have here at home because of what people are seeing is that our future is being promised to Iraq, and the people of Iraq, and that the same commitment is not being held here at home. The American people have been very generous. They will continue to be generous, but not at the expense of their future and their children's future. I would like to turn to health care, since we have done job training and education. In the area of health care, as I mentioned just the other day, Secretary Thompson visited Iraq opening hospitals. In Iraq, 52 hospitals have been renovated. Three million children under the age of 5 have been vaccinated in Iraq. And the President's budget, health care centers for the second year in a row have been cut $638 million this year, next year, $785 million. I want to read a couple numbers. Iraq, free training provided to 2,200 Iraqi doctors and nurses and 8,000 volunteers. In the United States, $278 million cut to the health professionals training program for doctors and nurses and other specialists. Free training in Iraq for 2,200, $278 million cut here in the United States. In case anybody has missed it, 43 million Americans without health insurance. Inflationary costs rising at 10 to 20 to 20 percent a year. $793 million for health facility construction and medical equipment throughout Iraq. A $94 million cut to community access programs to coordinate health care services to the underinsured here in the United States. In case you are missing this, kind of one strategy for Iraq, one strategy for the United States. $28 million for operation and staffing of 150 health clinics for 3 million Iraqis, a $78 million cut in all health activities to provide health care access in rural America. Let me ask a question. Is there one group that works on the budget for the United States in this administration and another group that does the budget for Iraq? I mean, does the right hand not know what the left hand is doing? We have a health care crisis.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, this is a tale of two budgets. Let me point to one thing: $353 for an American Iraqi enterprise fund and job training. $353 million. Yet, the President's budget cut $316 million in the vocational education program. That represents a 24 percent cut there. Let me go on. There is a $20 million grant for higher education and development projects creating U.S. Iraqi university partnerships to expand access to higher education for all Iraqis. $100 million cut for the Perkins loan, which represents a 60 percent cut in that program here in the United States for college education, a $327 million cut in Pell Grants for low and moderate income children, closing the door to higher education for those children. We got a grant for Iraqi children going to college. In Illinois, my home, the average graduate from the University of Illinois gets a diploma and $20,000 in debt because of the cost of higher education in the United States. Yet, in Iraq job training and higher access to universities. Expanding literacy. We have $40 million dedicated to Iraq for rebuilding 275 schools and training 10,000 teachers for Iraqi schools. Yet, we have cut $8 million from reading programs in the Department of Education for American children. Another statistic. USAID accelerated learning program provides intensive personal education to low income and at-risk Iraqi children. At-risk Iraqi children and low income Iraqi children. The President's budget, $177 million cut in funding for Head Start, even though Head Start could only serve a 13.5 percent of the eligible children because of funding restrictions. Children who are eligible for Head Start. We do not have the resources for Head Start, yet we have funding for at- risk Iraqi children. This is just an example of the types of education cuts we are making here at home and the types of investments we are making overseas in Iraq. These are not the priorities of the American people. These are not the values of the American people. These are not the economic investments the American people called on. And our result, all these cuts in education and here at home, all these cuts at at-risk children here at home, all these job training cuts here at home, as Ronald Reagan once said, facts are a stubborn thing. 2.7 million Americans have lost their jobs since President Bush has been President. Two million more American children have entered the levels of poverty who have left the middle class.

Mr. EMANUEL. The gentleman took the words right out of my mouth. Yes, that is correct, former soldiers.

Mr. EMANUEL. That is exactly what it is.

Mr. EMANUEL. Let me, if I could, to take back a little time here, I have put up another chart dealing on education in Iraq and education in America and job training. In Iraq, we have renovated a little over 2300 schools in all of Iraq. 1.5 million secondary school student kits have been sent out. 800,000 primary school kits have been sent out. In America, the President's Leave No Child Behind has been underfunded by $8 billion. Teacher quality impact aid and after school programs have been frozen in his budget. Reading programs are cut by $8 million. And 38 other educational programs in the President's budget have been eliminated. In Iraq, 2,300 schools nationwide have been either rebuilt and opened since the end of the war. Not that Iraqi children do not need an education, not that they do not need their books and textbooks, but I would hearken, and I would hope others remember in the United States, we have teachers who are paying for school supplies out of their own salaries, because the school budgets, educational system has been cut so bad we do not have resources for our kids. Teachers are paying for it. Not the government taxpayers, which is funded. Iraqi children are going to have a great future. We should have the same type of future, same commitment to American children. I want to point, if I could, to a few things we did here on the chart. Job training in Iraq. $60 million for demobilizing and job training for 130,000 enemy combatants. $353 million for American Iraqi enterprise fund and job training.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, $793 million for health care facility construction and medical equipment replacement throughout Iraq. Yet there has been a $94 million cut to community access programs here in the United States, a 90 percent cut in that budget. Mr. Speaker, $28 million in Iraq for operation and staffing of 150 clinics for 3 million Iraqis. Yet there has been a 78 percent cut, that is $789 million in all health activities to provide health care access in rural America. Mr. Speaker, I did not get to it, but let me continue. The agricultural Secretary, Ann Veneman, was in Iraq on November 13, 2003, praising our investment, she calls it how our government can help. Need I remind her, it is our taxpayers, not our government. But yet, in the President's budget, $198 million has been cut from USDA farm loans, crop insurance, disaster relief, and field offices, representing about a 4 to 5 percent cut in the agriculture budget. There have been a total of 6 cabinet Secretaries who have visited Iraq. Do my colleagues get a feeling that the cabinet Secretaries have been outsourced to Iraq in the many ways that our jobs have been outsourced to India? They are focused. We have the Commerce Secretary there, the Labor Secretary there, the Agriculture Secretary there, the Secretary of Defense is there, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is there, the Secretary of State is there, not counting the deputies. Yet in every area corresponding, and we are going to go through that in a little more detail, we have seen cuts here at home in the President's budget.

Mr. EMANUEL. It is very good, a very good record. I am impressed. I am very, very impressed. They have done a great job. There has been in Iraq free training provided to 22 Iraqi health professionals and 8,000 volunteers. Yet a $278 million cut, 68 percent, to the health professionals training program here in the United States. Now, what is it that Iraq needs about the health care training of doctors and nurses and technicians that is not necessary here in the United States? Any thoughts?

Mr. EMANUEL. My last count says in Iraq there have been 52 hospitals and health care clinics that have opened up since the end of the war.

Mr. EMANUEL. So my colleagues understand, as we have opened 52 hospitals and clinics in Iraq, just a month earlier than the President's budget, he froze the National Institutes of Health's budget; rural health care was cut by $638 million, and $785 million the next year; a 64 percent cut from health professionals training programs. We have 33 million Americans who work full-time without health care, and we have underfunded the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Mr. EMANUEL. It would be a government-controlled program.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman probably knows, right after the war, we were paying hundreds and thousands of Iraqis for no- show jobs, literally paying them; but they did not have to work, just to put money into the economy of Iraq. Now, I am from Chicago. I think we know something about no-show jobs. We think we have written the book on no-show jobs. There are so many no-show jobs in Iraq where people do not have to show up for work, but get paid, you can make an alderman in Chicago pretty jealous; but that is what is going on with U.S. taxpayer dollars. Let me tell my colleagues another thing. Just recently, less than a month ago, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, visits Iraq, and I quote: ``The U.S. aid to provide universal health care to Iraq should not be compared to the efforts in the United States to guarantee the same thing. Even if you don't have health insurance in America, you get taken care of. That can be defined as universal health care.'' What a fascinating, insightful take on universal health care. We have 43 million Americans without health insurance; yet we have universal health care provided in Iraq, but not here in the United States.

Mr. EMANUEL. Where there is 16 percent unemployment rate.

Mr. EMANUEL. In Iraq.

Mr. EMANUEL. The President's budget also freezes job training. We have a cut, as I said, of $151 million in dislocated worker problems, dislocated from economic trade and globalization. Yet, at that time, with one week to go in the President's budget, the Secretary of Labor is not in her office, is not over in the White House negotiating on behalf of American workers. She is talking about the employment opportunities in Iraq.

Mr. EMANUEL. Baghdad is doing well.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, that is a fair question. I think that the budget that we are submitting, and one of the things I want to talk about and start off with is that it is not just a budget, and it is not just a set of values, and it is not just a set of priorities. But the President's own cabinet, six members out of 15 have been to Iraq to praise and laud the work of our reconstruction in Iraq. I am going to bring up a couple of things that they have said on their trips to Iraq, because I think it highlights not just the type of dollars we are investing, but what we are saying. My first is in October of 2003, Secretary Evans of Commerce, the Commerce Secretary said, and I quote from October 16, 2003: ``Americans need to come here and see the opportunity.'' This is about Iraq. ``This is great economic opportunity.'' Three months after that in Ohio, the President of the United States announces that he is going to have a manufacturing czar. Today, 5 months after that, that job goes unfilled; and since that time, 250,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the United States. Yet Secretary Evans is over in Iraq praising the economic opportunity in Iraq; and yet here in the United States, a job for a manufacturing czar to oversee what has happened to the 2 million- plus lost manufacturing jobs in the United States has yet to be appointed. In every budget the President of the United States has submitted to this Congress, the manufacturing extension program, which helps small manufacturers in the United States compete in the world market, has been cut. We had a prior speaker who noted the fact that the budget is supposed to have $130 million; the President submitted $36 million or $10 million, way off the mark. This helps 50 workers or less in manufacturing and in places of employment. We do not have a manufacturing czar. The budget of the United States eliminates manufacturing opportunities, yet the Secretary of Commerce of the United States is in Iraq praising the economic opportunity. In January of 2004 Labor Secretary Elaine Chao visits Iraq. Quote, on January 28: ``Democracy is an essential part of creating a new Iraq, and for democracy to move forward in a positive fashion, finding employment for the people is very important.'' It is interesting, because at that point it was one week before the President's budget was submitted to Congress, just a few days after the President's State of the Union; and yet the President's budget for the United States has dislocated adult training and dislocated worker programs, cut by $150 million in the United States, yet opening job training in Iraq.

Mr. EMANUEL. One source.

Mr. EMANUEL. Two values.

Mr. EMANUEL. Yes.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this evening, because this administration has two books, two sets of values, two priorities, and two budgets, one for Iraq and one for the United States. And the American people, with 43 million Americans without health care, 2.7 million additional Americans without jobs, 9 million Americans without jobs, close to 12 million Americans now living below the poverty line, are being told on a repeated basis that they do not have the money for schools, for police, for health care clinics. Do my colleagues know in the United States that every year the President's budget cuts, cuts health care clinics and community health care services to the United States to the tune of $600 million to $700 million a year? Yet in Iraq, and we will get to the statistic later, in Iraq since the end of the war, 52 new hospitals and clinics have been opened up, 5 million children have been given vaccines. In the United States, cuts in health care services to the tune of $600 million a year, in the President's own budget. He has a vision, a focus, and an agenda for Iraq not matched or paralleled or equal to the vision for the United States. The United States people are very generous.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, to my colleague from Massachusetts, we do not know when we are going to get that.