Rahm Emanuel

Mr. EMANUEL

Mr. EMANUEL. In fact, I think it was mentioned, and I want to say one thing to our colleague from Washington, that not only did the President not read it, or it has been reported he did not read it, but I think it has also been reported, though I want to have enough doubt, a question mark about what I am going to say, that, in fact, the National Security Adviser said she did not read the whole report. I think that is also in that same story. Mr. DELAHUNT. I find that unbelievable.

Mr. EMANUEL. Well, one would think on the doorstep of war one would read that. But I want to stress one thing about what our colleague from Washington mentioned. He said the President was certain about his opinion about the imminent danger of Iraq and Saddam Hussein, but the people around him in the agencies and departments had their questions. Yet the President was certain. Again, I want to underscore this is not to relitigate why we went to war, this is to litigate how we got to war. Not the Iraqi war. We are not going to relitigate that. We are in, and so we have to support our men and women. It is how that happened so this mistake does not happen again.

Mr. EMANUEL. Which would require that we invest the United States equal to the goals we are setting in Iraq, whether it is in the area of health care, education, in the area of road reconstruction. In America, our highway fund will be cut by over $6 billion, yet in Iraq we are building over 3,000 miles of road which would connect New York to California.

Mr. EMANUEL. Madam Speaker, I would like to add one thing. In all this, we forgot that it only, I think, was like 8 weeks ago Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz announced that the reason they made an argument about weapons of mass destruction was that way they could get consensus within the bureaucracy. They told us that it was somewhat imminent or the new intelligence is or the look of new intelligence. This was a string to thread the beads together, but it was not exactly something new. It was not something exactly imminent. In fact, it was quite clear, based now if you can kind of peel back some of the pieces and disparate information you get from the newspapers, other magazines, journalists, that there were a lot of questions about the relevance of some of the information they were using to justify the war or the need for the immediacy and the urgency which gets to the question. In an era of terrorism, there is a logic to preemption, which really is a dressed up code for self-defense; but if that urgency is not there, if the facts he used to establish that urgency are not there, then the justification for preemption, known in normal parlance as self-defense, is then stripped away. Then we have a threat, and the question is do we have war or do we have containment? Isolated military strikes? That is then a legitimate question to postulate, but the information necessary to have that was withheld from the public debate and from this hall.

Mr. EMANUEL

Mr. EMANUEL. Madam Speaker, as the conference for a Medicare prescription drug benefit gets under way, we are reminded how difficult this compromise will be and that the bills in both the House and the other Chamber will leave many seniors with many high prescription drug costs. We have a bipartisan bill with the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson) and myself, other Republicans and Democrats from both sides of the aisle, people who do not usually see issues alike and come together, but find a common set of values in this legislation that opens up the market on prescription drugs to Canada and other, European countries. Through competition, we would lower prices, and the truth is for all too long the elderly and the American families in our country, in our districts, have been subsidizing the poor, starving French and German and Swiss and English and Canadians who have artificially low prices. And we have been charged overwhelmingly; we pay in this country top, premium prices for prescription drugs. What I want to do and what this legislation would call for in a bipartisan fashion would open up the market. We have a closed market now. We do not have that type of closed market when it comes to cars, when it comes to steel, when it comes to food products, when it comes to software, when it comes to all types of products; but in the area of pharmaceuticals, we have a closed market, and Americans are paying top, premium prices. Two weeks ago Families USA released a study. Prices for the top 50 drugs most commonly prescribed to seniors increased at 3\1/2\ times the rate of inflation. Total spending for senior citizens on prescription drugs rose an estimated 44 percent between 2000 and 2003. The only means available to reduce prices of prescription drugs which our families and our seniors pay at the local pharmacy is to have real competition. In Canada, in England, France, Germany, many of the folks there pay 30, 40, 50 percent less for the same name-brand drugs. Why? Because the pharmaceutical industry can, here in America, charge a premium. We pay the highest prices, and the only way we pay the highest prices is so they can afford to pay the lowest prices. In my view, it is time that we have legislation that ensures open access, open markets in the area of pharmaceutical medication, and through that free market, we will reduce prices. Second, if you are about to embark on the largest expansion of entitlement in over 40 years, $400 billion, would you not want to ensure that the taxpayers got the best bang for their buck? $400 billion we are about to ask the taxpayers to spend, and yet we do nothing to protect the taxpayers or the elderly to get the best price for that. Now, this question is whether we will go over 10 years. My view is, if we are about to ask them to pay $400 billion to subsidize prescription drugs for our elderly, we should ensure that if we can save 25 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent, which is what you can do through market access, we should afford the taxpayers and the elderly reduced, affordable prices. One, guarantee the taxpayers of this country the best prices their money can buy. Two, ensure that our elderly, who are on fixed incomes, get the types of prices that are now being paid for the same medications in France, Germany, England or Canada. We will then need not ask our seniors to pay the premium price. Now, one myth that the pharmaceutical industry keeps spreading is that somehow this is about safety, that the FDA cannot do this. The truth is, if somebody tells you it is not about money, it is about money, and that is what is at stake here. The pharmaceutical industry understands that for a very long time they have had a protective market here in the United States. If we were to open up the market, they would have real competition and the prices would drop. Second, I think it is very, very important. I understand the political process, as everybody does. We should all know that the pharmaceutical industry has about 600-some-odd lobbyists here in town. It is about a lobbyist and a half for each Member of the United States Congress. They give out and support through donations and other entertainment close to $200 million and support the candidates and Members of Congress through entertainment and donations. But the $200 million we get, and there is nothing wrong with that, that is what they do, that is what they advocate for their position. But the $200 million they give out in donations, contributions and entertainment pales in comparison to the $200 billion our seniors have been overcharged. When this vote occurs this week, each Member will ask to speak and vote on behalf of the people of their district, and the question will be, will we continue a practice in which our elderly are overcharged by $200 billion, our taxpayers will be overcharged and pay the top, premium price rather than the most affordable price; or will we continue to accept these types of donations and entertainment and put our interests above the people that we represent? I have full faith in my colleagues here that we will stand up for the people we represent, because we came here not just to be another vote but to be a voice for their values. Their values say, it is time to ensure that our taxpayers and our elderly stop subsidizing those in Europe and in Canada with more affordable prices while we in America pay premium prices.

Mr. EMANUEL

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained on Friday, July 18, 2003, and missed rollcall No. 397. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. EMANUEL

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, I recently introduced bipartisan legislation with 19 colleagues called the Identity Theft Protection and Health Information Blackout Act of 2003. The legislation would protect Americans from identity theft and safeguard their private health information in the Fair Credit Reporting Act. My bill would black out and protect sensitive, private health-related information by returning control to consumers and giving them the final say over what is off-limits to financial institutions. There is simply no reason why health information should be used in granting credit or in deciding whether to offer someone a product or a financial service. It is long past time to make this information confidential. Rather than opt in or opt out, we should black out your private health information. Similarly, we are all aware of the identity theft epidemic in this country. The average identity theft victim spends nearly $1,400 and 175 hours cleaning up his or her credit card record. In fact, ID theft has doubled in just the last year. It puts both businesses and the consumer at risk. This is not a business or consumer issue. It is one that we can come together on. Mr. Speaker, my bill would put identity thieves out of business and ensure that Americans' private health information is given the strongest protections under the law. I encourage my colleagues to cosponsor the Identity Theft Protection and Health Information Blackout Act to that end.

Mr. EMANUEL

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, may I ask my colleague, what you have as an ad in your area paper, where people can buy the same medications that they could get at their local pharmacies, if they went to Canada, the reductions, if you could read a few of those comparatives.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman knows, the pharmaceutical companies set up a front group, because if it was paid for by the pharmaceutical companies, it would totally be discredited; but they set up a front group to advertise and start to attack or pressure individual Members on this legislation. And they ran radio ads saying, call your Member, say you do not want unsafe drugs in the district, using scare tactics to frighten senior citizens and to frighten American consumers. Well, in the Chicago area it has totally backfired so I want to thank them for spending their money to help us. But I decided to go on with my own radio ad to counter what the pharmaceutical industry was doing and to tell them the truth and the public the truth about what was going on, what we were trying to do, which is bring competition, bring the prices down, make medications more affordable, save the taxpayers money. The gentleman and I have talked about it, others have talked about it; I believe that what the drug pharmaceutical companies were doing here was a sign of desperation. Now, when I mentioned to the gentleman I was running radio ads, a colleague of ours from Indiana mentioned the direct mail he was getting in his district. A colleague of ours from Massachusetts was mentioning the phone calls where pharmaceutical companies were calling up telling the same message they were delivering on the radio, saying, talk to your Congressman, and then patching that through. Once the staff of the Member's office explained it, the seniors not only felt good, they were happy that he was on the legislation. But they are using the scare tactics in a sign of desperation. Their position is untenable. We have competition for a car. You want to buy a Toyota, you can buy a Toyota. You want to buy General Motors, you can buy General Motors. You want to buy a Renault, you can buy a Renault, a Saab. You want to buy strawberries all year round, you can do that. You want to buy software from an American company, you can do that. You want to buy them from a German company, SAP, you can do that. The only area where you cannot buy other products from other markets in the same product line is in the pharmaceutical area. We can do it in cars, stereos, TV, electronics. And in all of those places, consumer prices have dropped dramatically. Competition has worked. The pharmaceutical industry has gamed the political system. They have gamed the legal system, and they have kept competition out. We pay the highest prices in the world for pharmaceutical drugs. The gentleman's chart shows the 10 most-used drugs for seniors. There is a $700 spread where American seniors are paying $700 more than their counterparts in Germany, 20 percent more in Canada. Why? Because the political system has been gamed by the pharmaceutical industry to keep competition out of the market. Now, I have seen the marketplace work. It does it in every product. It brings efficiency to the marketplace. The reason we have this tremendous inefficiency in the pharmaceutical area is because we have a closed market. You open up the marketplace to competition, prices will drop. One of the things I learned a long time ago, maybe this is because I am a middle child. I used to say about middle children, we wrote a book, ``War or Peace.'' We could do either one. If someone was going to go out and say something like that to scare and intimidate people, they needed to be pushed back and given some of their own medicine. What they did in Chicago, what they are doing around the country, the gentleman can correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is about $20 million big pharmaceutical companies are spending to scare people. It is a sign of desperation. They are using desperate tactics. And I hope it is backfiring on our colleagues and realizing that type of pressure politics will not work, scaring people. The public is on to what they were doing. That is what I decided to do. We have run it in the Chicago area. We have got a tremendous amount of attention and support by the public for speaking out and speaking up against the pharmaceutical industry scare tactics. If they wanted to have an honest debate, this is worth having a debate. I look forward to it. But what they are doing is exactly what the gentleman said, they are lying. They are scaring people when they need not scare them.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good colleague and friend, the gentleman from Minnesota, for his leadership on this issue, as he has shown time and again. The test of leadership is the ability of an individual, in the face of a great deal of opposition, to consistently stay whole and true to his principles; and the gentleman has done that, even in the face of not only political opposition but leadership opposition within his own party on this issue. Others of both parties, a cross-section that cuts a big swathe within our Congress, members of what one would call the extreme right and members on the extreme left, have come together on this. I think it is because, one, I think this legislation speaks to our common set of values; and, two, it is because all of us cannot be hard to the fact that because we have heard stories repeatedly of busloads and carloads of individuals who have gone over the border to Canada to buy medications that are life-saving and necessary and have done that as the only means in which they can afford their medication and what has been prescribed. All of us have heard those stories and that is why all of us have come here. Now, some may have talked about price controls. Others may have talked about just letting the system as is continue. This legislation, which we put together under the gentleman's leadership, uses market forces to bring prices down. It says that if you can get the medication at a 12 or 15 percent reduction in Canada, and that is a better way for you to go, you would go there. If you can find it cheaper in England or in Ireland or in Germany or Italy, you could go there. That would force at the local pharmacy the prices to begin to reduce here at home for the American consumer and American seniors. That competition will bring competitiveness to the type of medication you can buy and real reductions in the prices, so that no longer would the American consumer, through inflated prices here at home for prescription drugs, be supporting the price reductions and the affordable prices that Canadians, Brits, the French, Germans, Italians, and Dutch are paying there. So it uses market forces to reduce prices and brings that competition to bear. I think once that happens, our local pharmacy and drugstore, because they will not want to lose market share, will reduce prices at their local pharmacy. It is the force of the market that will bring prices down. The gentleman has shown many times I think the prices of drugs on this chart, and I know the gentleman will get to it soon, but that competition for me is not only important for our seniors, it is important to our private businesses. General Motors I think has a $1.2 billion health care package for prescription drugs for their retirees. This type of savings, on average, 20 percent, would save close to $240 million for GM. But we will see that ripple throughout the entire economy. That would save, for families who are paying $60, $70 for a one-time medication, who can then buy it for $30 or $40, and that is a tremendous reduction. Second, we are about to embark on the largest expansion of an entitlement in over 40 years. Medicare, we are thinking about adding $400 billion for a prescription drug benefit. Some think it may in the end go up to 5 or $600 billion. I think all of us owe the taxpayers a little bit of respect. And when I say respect, respect is understanding the value of their tax dollars should go the longest way possible. Therefore, if we can get the prices for a prescription drug or a specific drug, whether it is arthritic, heart, diabetic medication at 40 percent reduction or 30 percent reduction, we owe the taxpayers through Medicare the right to get them the best price. Corporations and the pharmaceutical company will get their profits, but this legislation is not about their best profits. It is about the best price for the seniors and our taxpayers. And two myths I want to strike down, one myth that those on the other side say, and they constantly say, is that if you do this you are going to destroy our ability to develop new medications. I think that taxpayers have been tremendously generous to the pharmaceutical industry. Through the research and development tax credit, taxpayers have supported research at these corporations, and they have paid for that research through the tax credits' R&D. Second, the taxpayers are being very generous because if you look at cancer drugs, you look at drugs for AIDS, every one of them was developed through the National Institutes of Health, which is a taxpayer-funded research institute. So in my view, R&D will never get hurt as long as the taxpayers maintain their generosity to the tax credit, the R&D, and through NIH. So that myth does not work. Second, that we are somehow endangering the health and safety of the medications that we have at our local pharmacy and drug stores. The truth is every one of the medications we have talk about are FDA, Federal Drug Administration, approved. They are the drugs that were manufactured at the Food and Drug Administration FDA facility, and these facilities produce the drugs for the markets here in America, Canada, England and France, the same companies. They are name-brands drugs at 20, 30, 40, 50 percent reduction. So safety is not a concern. Development of new products is not a concern. We would do great work for our taxpayers and our elderly and our American consumers. I know the gentleman has some examples to show to the people who are listening and watching the debate of this important issue.

Mr. EMANUEL. That is a 50 percent reduction, little more.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, if my colleague would yield, as a friend of ours once said, if they say it ain't about money, it is about money, and that is what this is about. It is not about abortion. It is not about safety. It is not about anything else but about money. I respect the need for them to make a profit. They will make a profit, but it is clear what is going on here is that the American consumers, the American elderly and American taxpayers are subsidizing the rest of the world, and it is high time we stand up for those folks who are trying to make ends meet, whether they be taxpayers, sick patients, whether they be the elderly, get the prescriptions. It is clear because all those drugs are name brand drugs, same name brand drugs made in the same facility, they are just sold at a 50 or more percent reduction in Canada. In that type of competition your local pharmacist can compete if they had that same type of price, and that is what we are talking about.

Mr. EMANUEL. I think that our other colleague from Michigan laid it out. What would happen is you would see a dramatic reduction in prices here in the United States. There would be some levelling off. Prices in other places would rise. We can call it reimportation. I like to refer to it as market access. We would go from a closed market to an open market. You have real competition. Once that occurred, what would happen at that point, prices would be reduced here at home. More importantly, I will use the General Motors example. There are businesses all across the country, look at the steel industry, what was really depressing the steel industry was not the competition in prices. It was that our steel industry had all these legacy costs for retirees, health care costs. You get the reductions like this, and the costs for our steel industry would be dramatically reduced, but that is across big businesses and small businesses. Small businesses, only one-third of them provide health care. Two- thirds do not. Why? Because it is too costly. One of the greatest causes of health care inflation is, which is now running at 20-25 percent a year, two factors, the uninsured and prescription medicines. Those are the factors behind health care inflation. We have got to bring this under control. The way to do it is not mandate it. Let us use market forces to do it. Again, I want to go back to what our opponents have done. I again believe that their desperation and desperate tactics, whether that is through the direct mail as you have shown, the radio commercials that are running in my district, the telephone campaign that is running in other folks' districts, what is interesting is, as I have said before and I will say again, they could have said anything. They can talk about their life-saving medications. They could have talked about their innovation, how many people they employ. They did not talk about something positive. They tried to scare people about what we are trying to do. To me, their first argument, their first salvo, the first arrow they shot is indicative of the emptiness of their position. They did not say something positive about what they are trying to do. They are trying to run us down, helping seniors and consumers. Again, I want to thank both of you. I do have to go. I thank both of you for your leadership. One of the things I am most impressed with is the huge bipartisanship that has been shown on this, the cross-sections of both caucuses, the Democrats and Republicans, who have come together, both in the House and in the Senate where 82 Members voted for similar legislation, although it is only specific to Canada. We are talking about the European Union here, which I think would be real competitive because we have a common set of principles. We have heard too many stories of people missing medication, people, as my colleague has always said, and if I could steal this from him for a second, we have turned our elderly into drug runners, coyotes running over the border trying to get medication. Both of you have districts obviously closer to Canada than mine, but in Illinois there are actually three or four storefronts opening up to do distributions from Canada. You see it on a real day-to-day basis what is going on, and you see the competitive market forces that if we brought them here people would not drive 120 miles, which they do today. They would drive 12 minutes, and they would get the medication at their local pharmacy. We need that type of competition here, and it is the right thing to do, and I think we are on the right course. The desperate tactics shown by our opponents reflect the success of our message, and I think we are scheduled to have a vote next week, which I think America needs to focus on and bring their attention to. Again, I want to thank you for doing this again today, and I think we are going to have some other time this week to talk about this again.

Mr. EMANUEL. Our price being the one in Canada.

Mr. EMANUEL

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend and colleague, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), for yielding me this time and for taking the leadership on this issue. A number of folks on the other side of the aisle mentioned people who did not pay taxes. I agree with them. It is very important that people pay taxes. That is why I am struck by the lack of compassion for the fact that Enron, for 4 out of 5 years with record profits, never paid a single corporate income tax, yet was the recipient of $250 million worth of export-import loans, or corporate welfare. I do not see anybody shedding any moral indignation about Enron not paying corporate taxes for 4 out of 5 years. WorldCom, which recently declared bankruptcy and defrauded many of its shareholders, recorded $12.5 billion in profits, and yet 2 out of 3 years never paid any corporate taxes. Yet on this side not a voice is raised out of concern for the fact that corporations who have not paid taxes get many tax credits and benefits. They pay no incomes taxes, and yet they continue to receive taxpayer-funded government contracts, whether that be MCI or Enron. Exxon Mobile recently reported, if I am not mistaken, $12.3 billion in their quarterly income, yet received a $25 billion tax credit. To do what? Drill for oil. I thought that was what their business was. I thought that was what they were supposed to do. I did not know taxpayers are supposed to subsidize what they are supposed to do for business. That is in their business plan and in their own quarterly reports of what they do, yet they reported quarterly profits. But this Congress provides them a tax cut. So is there politics? My colleague is right. There are politics. Do people not pay taxes and yet get corporate benefits and get government benefits? Yes, they do, and the taxpayers pay for them all the time. In The New York Times about 3 weeks ago I noticed that the taxpayers of the United States were paying Iraqi citizens $20 a day to not show up for work. Now, I come from Chicago, and my good friend from Illinois comes from the suburbs of Chicago, but we both know something about no- show jobs. In Chicago, we think we wrote the book on no-show jobs. But $20 a day for a no-show for an Iraqi citizen, well, the taxpayers of the United States are paying those people $20 who do not show up for work. That can make a ward committeeman in Chicago a little jealous. That is over $1,000 in the last 3 months since the war ended. That Iraqi gets $1,000, yet American citizens, 12 million children, do not get a child tax credit. Their parents cannot buy their school supplies as they get ready to go back to school. So I think there is a great deal of irony, and, if I may say, a great deal of policy that my colleagues would provide Iraqis $20 a day for not showing up for work, yet the men and women who are over there in uniform, making us proud, their children will not get the full tax credit. I do not know if that is policy or politics. I do not know what to call that, except that it is shameful. So as we begin to think about what we are going to do here, the motion to instruct here would provide us the opportunity to move on this. And I would like to remind people of one other point today. In front of the Committee on Financial Services, Chairman Greenspan spoke, and he talked about one of the reasons he thought the economy was taking off the second half of this year. One of two reasons he provided was that we had a child tax credit that would put money in the pockets of middle-class families, and he lauded the child credit. He saw it as a good thing. We asked him if he thought it would be helpful to the economy if working middle-class families got it. He said he did. Now, I know that periodically we selectively use Chairman Greenspan's words around here, but he lauded the child tax credit, and he lauded its ability to stimulate the economy. We would hope that since President Bush has asked us to get this done and Chairman Greenspan has talked about the value of this to working families and since our colleagues have decided to provide $20 a day to Iraqis, I would hope that we would give that same consideration to American taxpayers who do show up to work. Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct a factual point that my good friend from Illinois made, and that is the original voice behind the $500 per child tax credit was the Gore-Downey legislation. And the President of the United States who signed the $500 per child tax credit into law was President Clinton in 1997 in the Balanced Budget Agreement. Now, there was a piece of that in the Contract With America, but the first child tax credit idea was the Gore-Downey $500 tax credit. It became law in 1997 and was part of President Clinton's budget. I would not want that to get in the way, and it might have been in the Contract With America, and I am glad he ran on it, and there should be bipartisan agreement on that rather than disagreement on that. I would hope that we could do that. We are willing to give our colleagues the right to get it done right now, to adopt the Senate provision. We would like to be the voice for those 12 million children who do not get the tax credit as other children would. I hope my colleagues will see the economic benefits of that and see that it gets accomplished.

Mr. EMANUEL

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) for organizing this. It is interesting that you noted we were militarily successful, and I think everybody takes pride in what our men and women in uniform did in pursuing the mission that they were on. What I think is unfortunate is that they went into that mission without a plan for the occupation and without a sense of how to seek and secure that peace once the war was over. And that is something that the civilian leaders, that is the type of leadership that the civilian leaders needed to provide and did not. Let me give you an example of that point. After the war and hostilities ceased in both Bosnia and Kosovo, not a single American soldier was killed in action after the hostility ceased. Why? Because in both cases we had a plan for the occupation, and we had allies, two things missing in this endeavor. As recently as May, when the Defense Department said we could have won the war and secured peace with 50,000 troops, we now have 150,000 troops. Today there was an announcement that there would be postponement of any troops going home. So no family member knows an exact date as far as the eye can see on the horizon, and there may even be a further call-up for further troops.

Mr. EMANUEL. Periodically, on the northwest side, we have a couple of dogs that hunt.

Mr. EMANUEL. Single-handedly. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I have written a few or participated in a few of the processes of writing a State of the Union. In October, this line about gathering uranium from Niger was edited out of the President's speech. The way it works in the White House is that speech is sent around to the NSE team. So State looks at it, Defense looks at it, CIA looks at it, FBI I am sure gets a little clearance through Justice, probably not the FBI, and they check the assignment. There is an editing. The national security staff underneath Condoleeza Rice has to run that process. So the same people that were working on the October speech that dismissed this assessment of Niger was the same group working on the State of the Union. How one person is responsible, that what was a team effort in October but has become a single person failure in January, only 3 months later, when nothing changed, as we would say back in Chicago, that dog just will not hunt.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, as my colleague knows, as I think all my colleagues know, as they obviously tried to get answers to how we were going to secure the country, how many allies we are going to have, what was our exit strategy, and it was like pulling teeth to get that. We tried to get answers to the questions how much would it cost, how many troops. Anybody that spoke in the hundreds of thousands were forced out. Now we are trying to get answers for who put a statement in the President's State of the Union, and we are now ended up blaming the Italians it looks like. First, it was the British. The British blamed the Italians. The Italians say they do not know where the document came from. The director of the CIA, all the men and women in Virginia have done a wonderful job dedicating their lives to trying to assess information and give our civilian leaders the best intelligence and estimates they have, and every time we try to get information it is pulling teeth.

Mr. EMANUEL. That is right, a minimum of 4 years. That is $50 billion a year if my math works, and I still I think I am pretty good at it. That comes to $200 billion on the occupation side of Iraq. We spend $12 billion, $12 billion on just college assistance at the Federal level, $12 billion versus $200 billion. Two billion dollars would give health insurance to every uninsured American and guarantee a bare minimum for the other, not just the 42 million but those who are actually being cut from the rolls. There is much that we can do here at home for that same cost, not that we are not for the reconstruction of Iraq. Now that we have won the war, I think we all believe that it is pretty essential to invest in Iraq's future, but, remember, this is the very time that we are going to invest. This is $50 billion we are going to spend now on Iraq this year for the occupation. Our colleagues and a number of them have a rebuild America account for $50 billion to be roads, bridges, economic development, investment in infrastructure to move people and goods and services. We will not find the money for that. Yet we are going to do more deficit financing and burden our country with debt to build $50 billion worth of occupation resources for Iraq.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield for a second, according to the Associated Press today, I think as well both killed and died in a humvee accident, there has been 84 deaths in 79 days since the President landed on the Lincoln aircraft carrier. Eighty-four Americans have died, 30 plus through assassination, others through humvees turning over, other accidents, but 84 Americans are not coming home to their loved ones, to see their children. There is no doubt. I think that that, to me, one of the great travesties here is that there is not a plan for the occupation. There is not a plan for the exit strategy. And last week we learned now finally after, I do not know why we have to browbeat this answer, but we have spent and are planning on spending $1 billion a week.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, if I may ask then, the gentleman sought pre the war, when there was still the debate in this country going on, if we are there, we win, how are we coming home. That question was attempted to seek an answer?

Mr. EMANUEL. I want to say one thing before I have to go, and our colleague from Massachusetts noted this. That is not a different question than the Republican Senator, Richard Lugar, had asked, the head of the Foreign Relations Committee. This again, I think it is important, we have people with different views on the war, but these are questions not from Democrats and Republicans, these are questions as God-loving and people who love their country who want to see America in front of the world stand tall are expecting. So the question you asked again is not a Democrat trying to get partisan political gain, it is a question that the Republican Senator, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, asked, questions that another Senator, Republican from Nebraska, equally asked. This is not inquiry for political gain. We all now, regardless of party, are vested in our success and bringing as many of our men and women home as we can safely as soon as possible. So your question I would also like to note so nobody who may tune in and turn on the television right now and think we are trying to get partisan or political advantage, note that these are similar questions that Republicans have asked, people of all stripes, from all backgrounds and all economic incomes and regardless of their political affiliations saying we need to get level here. Where is it we are going? How are we getting there? Whether it is an inquiry to what happened in the past but also an inquiry into the future. These are not Democratic questions. These are questions that people who love their country think need to be answered.

Mr. EMANUEL. My colleague asks who is benefiting. I do not have the answer to that, but I do have the answer for who is paying. That is the United States taxpayer. Again, I want to remind our colleagues, for 60 years the American people have showed their unbelievable generosity. Every time they have been called upon to serve or to contribute, they have done it. Yet this is the one time in history that while we deny American people the access to education, health care and improved investment in their environment and economic development, we are asking them to call forth in a tremendous effort not seen since World War II to make an investment in another country's economic future when we have told them to shorten the horizons for their own children, to shorten their own homes and dreams for what they can provide their family. Yet we are calling upon them to once again show their generosity to Iraq that talks about a health care plan, an economic development plan, an education plan for Iraq and yet those same agenda items that we talk about here at home, we do not have. As we know, a number of my colleagues have signed on, I have my own bill called the American Parity Act that says whatever we invest in Iraq, whatever goal we set in Iraq, we have to set here at home equally. Whether that comes from half the population getting health care, half the schools being reconstructed and modernized, teachers being paid, 4 million kids in early childhood education, reconstruction of a port for economic development purposes, we have got to do that agenda item here at home. Otherwise, the generosity of the American people showed over the last 60 years will come short and rightfully so.

Mr. EMANUEL. If the gentleman would yield, I would say there is a very legitimate need to look into and acquire through the rearview mirror how did we get to this point, what were the justifications; and I too want to add my voice, although there has been a lot of controversy over the weekend about how did the sentence get into the President's speech. It is very important that we not lose sight, now that we are there, how was it that we had no plan for this occupation. Time Magazine reports that NATO allies, important allies who have been with us in Afghanistan and other missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, will not join us in Iraq. They do not see a U.N. legitimacy for the effort or plan for the occupation. There are important countries who have traditionally been shoulder to shoulder with America, were in Gulf War I, were in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, every U.S. mission to free the world of a tyrant of some nature, have decided not to join this effort and will not postwar join this effort. So as we look back, I think it is important to look forward. Again, I would remind my colleagues that in our plan for the reconstruction of Iraq we cite 20,000 units of housing for Iraq, yet the President's budget has 5,000 units of housing for America. The President's reconstruction of Iraq calls for 13 million Iraqis, half the Iraqi population, to get universal health care. Yet 42 million Americans work full time with no health care and no plan for health care by this administration. There are 4 million Iraqi children who will be provided early childhood education. This week on the House floor we will debate the Head Start bill. 58,000 children in America will be cut from Head Start. 1.2 million will never be given the opportunity who are eligible for Head Start to go to Head Start. 12,500 schools in Iraq are planned for reconstruction and rebuilding with all books and supplies. Yet here in the United States, teachers must take out of their own salary the wages to pay for books and supplies. We have to give them a tax credit to reimburse them what should be provided by the school authority. The Umm Qasr port in Iraq is built from start to finish, from top to bottom; yet the Corps of Engineers is being cut by 10 percent here in the United States. So as we rebuild Iraq, we reconstruct Iraq, America is in the process of its own deconstruction. If we do not have an economic plan for America that is beyond what has been provided and we do not have a plan for Iraq's reconstruction that includes our allies, I would remind my colleagues that in both Bosnia and Kosovo, we had a plan for the occupation and we had allies. The two things that are missing today, a plan and allies.