Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I want to rise today to defend the thousands of people in the State of Washington who have no job and no unemployment benefits. Thousands more in our State face the same dire circumstances over the next 3 months. The Washington State unemployment rate is the fourth worst in the United States. The United States Department of Agriculture Household Food Security Report ranks Washington as the fifth most hungry State in America. The National Law and Employment project says that at least half the people unemployed are putting off needed medical and dental treatment because they cannot pay for it. Half the personal bankruptcies in this country are the result of medical bills people cannot afford to pay. Time and time again the Democrats have asked the Republicans to show a little compassion and extend a lifeline out to these people who are calling out for help. Republicans and the administration have a deaf ear. Again today we call on the Republicans and we urge the administration to stop pretending that economic recovery is at hand. In the month of February, there were 21,000 jobs created in the United States. That is 400 for each State and not a single one in the private sector. All of them were government jobs. If you call that a recovery just around the corner, you have a different definition than I do. If that is recovery on the horizon, so the sun is setting on the hopes of average Americans. No American should face alone at a time like this the problems of the unemployed. And we can change it. We can change it. The money is there. We do not have to raise taxes or do anything. We can change it. No American should feel they have no place to turn and no one to turn to. We can change that, and no American should find the country's leaders listening but not hearing. We can change that today. Today, we can take a real step toward economic recovery by extending unemployment benefits. America is only as strong as its will to defend its people at home against economic adversity. We need to speak out loud and clear in a voice of unshakable compassion, commitment and concern. Let us extend the unemployment benefits. We have been talking about this since December. Thousands of people have lost their jobs. They have quit looking. The numbers seem to be going down only because they have quit looking because there are three people looking for every job that is out there. This bill is sort of directed at maybe we should keep them out there, keep them hungry, keep them desperate, and maybe they will go in the military. That is what this is about, perhaps. The fact that we cannot deal with this issue suggests that the President, who talked about compassionate conservatism, has no idea what it is like to be without a job. If your dad can buy you a company or your father's friends can give you a baseball team, I suppose you really would not understand what it is like to be without a job. I remember when my father was. He was an insurance man, lost his job, went out and was driving a cab. I used to go down and open the cab company at 5:30 in the morning with him. I know what it is like to see what that does to somebody and how desperately they look. But today they cannot find it. And the Republicans just sit there look at the ceiling and twiddle their thumbs. Well, the workers in this country and the unemployed in this country are not going to twiddle their thumbs on November 2. They are going to compassionately give Mr. Bush a one-way ticket to Crawford, Texas. Vote against this bill.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I'm from Seattle and I have a good neighbor named Microsoft. A while back, they got out of line. The European Union said so. Microsoft said so. Both sides have been negotiating to reach a just and fair settlement. It looked like good faith negotiations would lead to a common good solution. But, the decision issued by the EU falls short in my judgment. At best, the EU leaves the matter unresolved with more legal action a certainty. At worst, consumers across Europe face confusion, and perhaps even fewer choices than anyone intended in a settlement. We can do better. The EU should find a way to re-visit its decision. On the horizon are extraordinary new ideas and they will have their own challenges. We have to confront and settle the past. Fairly, yes. Fully, yes. Finally, yes. This is an opportunity to do just that. I hope the EU takes it. Thank you.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, it is really wonderful. This is the time of year when we have the big tent put up out in front of the Capitol and we invite the county fair in from Iowa. We always have the county fair come. I am sure as you look around this hall tonight, there are three of us left, so that means 421 people have gone home. They figure, ``It is all baloney, so I am not staying around to hear this.'' But I know that the people in the Speaker's district and my district are just sitting down to dinner out there on the West Coast, and I think maybe they might be interested in what some of our colleagues do not want to really deal with on this budget. Now, if I was going to do this the right way, I would put on a top hat and I would tell you about the shell game that we find at the county fair. It is a wonderful game. You know, the guy has a box out there, and he puts one walnut on it, and then he puts another walnut on it, and then he puts a third walnut on it, and then he puts a pea under one of them and then moves them around. The job of the American people is to figure out, well, where is the pea? I mean, that is what the game is out at the county fair. That is the same job you have here. You hear numbers, you see charts. I brought a couple just for fun. But you see them moving these around and moving them around, and they say, well, we do not have enough money for Social Security; well, we are taking care of Social Security and Medicare. You lift up the walnut. Oh, no pea there. Wonder where the money is? Oh, dear. Well, the money must be somewhere here. Education. That is right. Oh, there is no money for education. They are going to have to call this ``Some Children Left Behind'' by the time we get to the election. The President has been telling us, ``We are not going to leave any child behind.'' But he does not put any money under the pea for education for kids. He underfunds what he says is the amount he has to put there. How about veterans? Oh, the veterans. You know, they are over bravely serving us in Iraq: Dying; being wounded; coming back here with amputations; coming back, as recently we read in the newspaper, coming back and finding that the job they had when they were in the Reserves is not there. So the veterans who are out defending us and doing all of this for us, they say, well, but Uncle Sam promised us. So we will look under here. Oh, they are cutting the veterans benefits too? They are going to ask us to pay more at the veterans hospital? Oh, well, there must be something wrong. I mean, health care. Health care in this country is a problem. We have 44 million people without health care. Is there anything in this budget for health care? Nothing. But the President said, ``We are going to guarantee universal health care for the people in Iraq.'' In Iraq. Not in Tennessee, not in North Dakota, not in New York State, not in Washington State, not in California. Iraq. That is what the President said. Then, his secretary went on to say, ``Well, in this country everybody gets taken care of some way, do they not? So that is universal care.'' But you do not get preventive care. We will take care of you when the catastrophe strikes, but there is no money in here for prevention, there is no money making it so we take care of all the kids, that we take care of all of the problems up front, because, well, I do not know. I just cannot seem to find the money. Now, let us see. Oh, yes, the tax cuts. Ha, that is where the money went. You do not have to be a rocket scientist or have a Ph.D. in economics or have gone to MIT. A Senator from my State used to say that he wished that we had a one- armed economist. Every time he listened to an economist, he said, ``On the one hand this, and, on the other hand, that.'' You have heard a lot of that, ``On the one hand this, on the other hand that'' tonight. But the fact is that if you have money in the tax accounts and you give it back to the people, now, that means you do not have money to put under the shells. That is why there is no money for Social Security, that is why there is no money for veterans. Oh, we have wonderful things to spend it on. Homeland security. I look out here under every seat in the House of Representatives, and I meant to grab one, and I will grab it for you. Every Member of the House of Representatives is sitting on a gas mask. Now, all that protection they are putting out there for us, all those policemen and all of what is going on in all the buildings and everything else, and they give us a gas mask. How many people in America have got a gas mask? How many of you think that the American Congress is going to be gassed in the House of Representatives? If you do, then you have got to ask yourself, what is the President doing about that? I mean, Osama Bin Laden. You remember that guy? How much money did he waste on that whole business? Why is there no money out here for health, education, Medicare, a real pharmaceutical benefit? Well, because we have to spend $150 billion in Iraq, a war that we did not have to go to, that we went to under fraudulent circumstances. The President did not tell us the truth. He scared us into, ``Oh, we got to go get Osama Bin Laden.'' Well, they are over there looking for the weapons of mass destruction under the same shells. They say we are going to find it over here; no, we are going to find it over there. Just give me some more money, he says. Folks, you are sitting there eating dinner. Mr. Chairman, from my point of view, the American public must be just scratching their head and saying, what are these people talking about? A budget is the priorities you set. Now, in a family you take care of the necessities, food, health care, housing. Our housing situation in this country is awful. In Seattle you cannot find a starter house for under $250,000. Somebody who takes a job at six or seven or eight dollars an hour cannot buy a house in Seattle, and I know that that is not the only place. Oh, you can do it, if you want to go out 40 miles into the countryside, and then there is no rapid transit to bring you in to get to work. I mean, you are caught coming and going. That is where the average American is in this country. Now, we have two realities that we have to deal with in this budget, and the President of the United States has failed on both of them. One of them is to provide jobs, and the other is fairness in taxation. Nobody likes to pay taxes. I do not like to pay them. I am right now in the middle figuring out my income tax, like everybody else in this country. I do not want to pay taxes, but I know that I have to pay some so we can have a civil society, and it ought to be done as fairly as possible. Let us take the jobs issue. I put this up here just so you understand. Since it is Iowa night at the state fair, you all remember a guy named Herbert Hoover? He was from Iowa. He was a great guy from Iowa. He is the last guy that did to our economy what George Bush is doing. He sat up there and said, ``Well, you know, the rich people, the stock market should just go up and up and up.'' And it was going up and up and up in 1928 and 1929. When it crashed, everybody said, ``Oh, my God. I do not have anything.'' We had no Social Security, we had no unemployment insurance, we had no construction projects, we had nothing. Franklin Delano Roosevelt came in, and you know the first thing he said when he became the President of the United States? Was it, ``The problem with this country is our taxes are too high. We have to reduce taxes in this country. We have to give back all the money we have, and in some magical way it will get better.'' Do you think that is what happened? Do you think that is where the WPA came from, and unemployment and Social Security and all these other things, by the President of the United States saying, ``My answer is cut the taxes. Give the money back to the people. It is their money. Let them spend it any old way they want.'' Of course not. The whole country knows. Everybody in this country over the age of 50 knows that the proposals made by the President of the United States are absolute and total nonsense. He said, ``Well, you know, I got that terrible problem from that Bill Clinton. Golly, he was just such an awful guy, created those 22 million jobs, and then he left me a mess, left me a mess when I came in here.'' So he said, ``Cut taxes.'' He came out here and said to the Members, stood right here in this well and said, ``If you cut taxes, why, everything will be better.'' Well, folks, this is zero jobs created. If it was up here it would mean there was something going good. But in fact it has been going down. We have lost 2.8 million manufacturing jobs since George Bush has been here. Now, you can blame maybe how much you want to blame on Bill Clinton. Do you want to blame two-thirds? Or three-quarters? Would you not think after 3\1/2\ years he would have figured out some way to get it turned around? Franklin Delano Roosevelt did. He put us to building bridges and highways and buildings and all kinds of things, and, lo and behold, if you spend the money you have, not giving it back to the rich, but spend it on things investing in the country, you create jobs. That is what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did. The private non-farm payroll in this country has gone down by 3 million people, and in the non-farm payroll employment, that is only by 2.2 million. Now, that is in addition to these two. Do you know what I heard from my colleague just a few minutes ago? ``Things are really getting better.'' Do you know how many jobs were created in February? 21,000. Now, let us see, 50 into that, that would be 400 jobs per state. That is really pretty good. I mean, I bet they will have a lottery for those jobs. And they were all government jobs. There was not a single private sector job created. That is why we ought to vote no on this budget.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, 15 years ago today the Exxon Valdez ran aground and gushed 11 million barrels of oil into Alaska's pristine Prince William Sound. It is pristine no more. Fifteen years later, Exxon still has not paid the $7 billion in damages a jury awarded to thousands of Alaskans whose livelihoods were devastated. The Exxon Valdez ruined 1,300 miles of Alaskan coastline, decimated wildlife, and devastated fisheries. What have we learned? Fifteen years later, single-hull tankers continue to be the common method of oil transportation. Fifteen years later, America continues to consume fossil fuels with a blatant disregard for global climate change. Fifteen years later, we are still just as vulnerable. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if Vice President Cheney invited Exxon into his oil policy meetings that he says should be kept secret from the American people. Perhaps if we knew who had been sitting at the table, we would be able to figure out why 15 years later we are looking at this. Tomorrow it is the budget wreck.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to say that one person can make a difference. One person in Seattle who made a big difference is-- Mr. Harry Thomas--an unsung hero who has bettered the lives of thousands of people by advocating for safe and affordable housing. Mr. Thomas is about to retire from the Seattle Housing Authority, and his career of distinguished public service is worthy of special note by the Congress. Mr. Thomas served as executive director of the Seattle Housing Authority for 14 of the last 17 years. Under Thomas' leadership, the Authority won $136 million in federal grants which leveraged a total investment of $750 million to transform three World-War II era public housing developments--New Holly, Rainier Vista, and High Point--into vibrant new mixed-income communities. Prior to his work with the Seattle Housing Authority, Harry served as Deputy County Executive for King County, and as the Executive Director of Neighborhood House, a non-profit in Seattle. He also served as the Washington governor's staff director and special assistant for housing. In the Seattle area, Mr. Thomas served as a member of the Board for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle, which he also chaired from 1995- 1998. He also serves as a member of the Seattle-King County Workforce Development Board. Harry's commitment to public service does not stop with his service to the Seattle area. In 2002, he served on the Commission on Affordable Housing and Health Care Facility Needs of Senior Citizens in the 21st Century, a Congressional Commission charged with evaluating the need for senior housing in the twenty-first century. He also serves as Secretary of the Executive Board for the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities and as President of the Housing Research Foundation Board, both organizations based in Washington, D.C. that focus on federal funding and policy for low-income housing. In recognition of his dedication and service, Mr. Thomas received the 1999 National Council on the Aging Sidney Spector Award and the 1995 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Washington School of Social Work and Alumni Association. Harry, thank you for your life-time of public service to the greater Seattle community, and your tireless work to provide decent, safe housing for the area's low-income households.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, America will pause tomorrow to remember the 15th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez environmental disaster. On March 24, 1989, the captain in charge of this massive tanker was unfit to command even a row boat, yet the intoxicated captain was at the helm, and he ran the Valdez aground in Alaska's fragile and pristine Prince William Sound. Eleven million gallons of oil emptied into the sea and devastated everything in its path. It will take generations, if ever, for there to be a complete recovery. Fifteen years later, at least 100 tons of toxic waste, concentrated by years of weathering, continues to kill and maim Alaska's environment. Fifteen years later, thousands of Alaskans continue to wait for the $5 billion a jury ordered Exxon to pay. The money remains in Exxon's pocket. Exxon would rather buy time and influence than pay what amounted to 1 year of profits for an environmental catastrophe. Sound familiar? It should. The President's proposed budget hemorrhages red ink about as fast as the Exxon Valdez gushed oil into the Prince William Sound, and the consequences are just as devastating. This President has run the U.S. economy aground with the same disregard for protecting ordinary Americans as a drunken captain had one night for protecting Alaska's environment. It will take generations, if ever, for there to be a complete recovery. Here is the damage report from the scene. The President rewards our soldiers returning from Iraq by increasing fees for medical service in his budget. Welcome home, soldiers. Get out your checkbooks. The administration orders universal health care for everyone in Iraq, but not America. Administration officials claim everyone in America already has health coverage. That will come as a surprise to 44 million Americans. The person who knew the prescription drug bill would cost $139 billion more than the administration said it would, he was told he would be fired if he released that data. If only Supreme Court Justice Scalia were a Member of the House, he might lead the Republicans in a great ``Quack, Quack'' when the drug bill passed on quack data. Perhaps we should have heard a similar refrain when the administration decided that flipping hamburgers was a manufacturing job. Perhaps the President should have declared, ``Quack, Quack'' when the administration rewarded corporate buddies by throwing out the rule book for overtime pay for ordinary Americans. The average American is a sitting duck for this administration. Millions of Americans are drowning in a sea of unemployment, but the administration refuses to throw a lifeline by extending unemployment benefits. Average Americans received an average cut of $676. Millionaire Americans received an average cut of $112,925. This must be an example of the compassion the President says motivates him every day. Big oil gets invited to secret meetings conducted by the Vice President to map out a future energy policy for America. Somehow, I do not think they talked at all about the Exxon Valdez or the money Exxon owes the people of Alaska for their drunken sailor. I could be wrong, but we may never know because the administration refuses to tell America what went on behind closed doors. Speaking of doors, they are slamming shut on average Americans at an alarming rate. Interest rates are at a record low. Mortgage foreclosures, personal bankruptcy and credit card delinquencies are either rising or are at record highs. I wonder if we will hear a ``Quack, Quack'' from the White House on that one? Probably not. Duck hunting, after all, is best done on private lands owned by oil companies with the Vice President leading a Supreme Court Justice who has elevated duck calls to a Supreme Court decision. How much things change. How much they stay the same. The Exxon Valdez ran aground when there was a President Bush in the White House. The U.S. economy ran aground when there was a President Bush in the White House. The Exxon Valdez caused the greatest environmental catastrophe in history when it ran aground. Our President Bush, Bush II, may trump that with the largest economic catastrophe in history when he ran America aground.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey. I believe it is very important we bring this issue to the American people. Because in this election, the issue on which the people have to decide is if there is anything that comes out of the White House that they believe. Is there anything that comes out of the administration, anything, they can believe. On weapons of mass destruction and connections to al Qaeda and all the reasons why we went to war in Iraq, it is clear they made it all up. Now we come to the domestic side of things; and I sit on the Committee on Ways and Means, and Secretary Thompson comes before us and admits that when they did a study on the inequities of health in this country, that they rewrote it because they did not like the way it came out. The Secretary said, well, we are going to change that. The next thing we know, the same person is calling for an investigation of his own Department on the issue of the actuary hiding the figures from the Congress. This is the gang that cannot shoot straight. They cannot tell the truth about anything. Because if they told the truth about anything, they would have to change the way they act. They could not give all this money away in tax breaks. They would have to pay for the programs that they tell the people they are giving them. Now, I had a very interesting experience over the weekend, and I suspect some Members will have the same experience this weekend. I went back to Seattle and had a community meeting in a retirement home with about 100 or 125 people there, and I showed them a video which has been made by the Families USA about the whole issue of the drug issue. Mr. Walter Cronkite is the narrator. Now, everybody knows Walter Cronkite. He is so believable and has so much integrity, he could tell you the sun was going to come up in the West and you would almost think it was going to because he is so believable. Well, these 125 people, and this is an old people's home, where probably most everybody is 70 or older. So we are talking about people who are real senior citizens. They sat there and they listened to this, and they could not believe the things that are in this thing that have never come out. So, then, we talked about these advertising statements they had been seeing on television. They said those television ads are not right, they are not telling us the truth, if Walter Cronkite says that, that we are not going to get any help until 2006, and that this drug card they are coming out with is a hoax of the first order. These are people who some were school teachers or business people or whatever who are retired. They are now in their 70s or 80s. One of them said, you know, that drug card, I think we ought to boycott that drug card. I do not think we should even bother taking it. Why would I go and choose a card and they give me a list, and they say, now, these are the drugs that this card covers, and I pay $30 for it; and then after I got the card in my pocket, I am locked in for a year and they can take the drugs off the list. The seniors were incredulous that this administration was trying to run some kind of game on them. I said to them, the reason you are going to get this card on the first of April is so you will have it in your hands when you go to vote in November. They want you to believe you have got something from them. But do not believe there is anything in that card. There is nothing guaranteed except that you have been sold a piece of paper for $30. And these people said, what can we do to fix this, or what can we do to stop this? Do you think there will be some change in this Congress? I said, look, we are having an election year. Nothing in here is going to be good public policy. It is all going to be about convincing the American people that the Republicans have done everything good for them. And this drug card and this pharmaceutical bill is simply the worst of the examples, but there are all kinds of others. The video by Mr. Cronkite shows the donut hole. You could hear the audience gasp when they realized that they were going to go for a long period of time, have to pay a premium and have no benefits. They could not believe that. And the donut hole does not stay the same. It grows. Every year it gets larger. Finally, the crowning blow of it is what they discovered. They said, you mean when we pay this once, up to $5,100, or whatever, that we have to do it again the next year? You mean this happens every year to us? We fall into the donut hole every year? I said, yes. I said if that is what you want for public policy as senior citizens, then you ought to vote Mr. Bush back in, but I think it is a terrible hoax. And if Members of Congress have the smarts to go out and show this video, they will have turned the whole thing around. Because these seniors watch TV, and they are being a little bit affected by those phony ads. As I was coming over here, I was listening to my car radio. The Department admitted that they had put those out as fake news reports. They taped them in such a way that they knew if they were picked up just as they were taped, they would look like a news report. They planned to fake the old folks out.

Mr. McDERMOTT. They did it, and Fox News and all of the rest of these phony news stations picked it up and put it out there as though it was real. There is nothing real about this administration. They have misrepresented from the Iraq war all of the way through, the economy, the deficit, all these things are all predicated on misrepresentations. I try not to use the word ``lie,'' but they have certainly misrepresented and tried to delude the people. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the old people all of the time, and they are going to pay in this election for having tried to run this game on old people. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman taking the time to be out here at 11 at night putting this program on together, because it requires real dedication to come out here night after night and do this, and I thank the gentleman for what he has done.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, today was the second shoe. The first shoe was Mr. Foster saying, I had the figures and they told me they would fire me if I gave the figures. Then we find out with the phony figures out here, they still could not get enough votes until they twisted some guy's arm into a pretzel. I think it is very important that the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is looking at this issue.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the House today debated America's first preemptive war. If this were about the courage and valor of our soldiers, I would ask that we act by unanimous consent to praise our troops, but this resolution is really about the Bush policy of global domination. A year ago America launched a preemptive war. Today we are considering the consequences of that war. Words of great Presidents and great Americans offer guidance. In 1848, Abraham Lincoln expressed the fear of President Polk's power when he wrote to oppose U.S. annexation of Mexican territory. ``If today, President Polk should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could we stop him? You may say to him, `I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, `Be silent; I see it, if you do not.' '' Does that sound like George Bush to Members, with all of the misrepresentations we had? One of America's greatest soldiers was President Dwight David Eisenhower. In what many regard as his finest speech, President Eisenhower said this about war: ``Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who are hungry and not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.'' Eleanor Roosevelt, ``We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to live together, and if we are going to live together we must talk.'' Finally, Martin Luther King, ``Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil, hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars, must be broken or we shall plunge into the dark abyss of annihilation.'' Today, we are considering whether to endorse the Bush doctrine of domination. The world the President claims to be making safer finds our actions offensive. The nonpartisan Pew Research Center, as reported in today's Washington Post, conducted a survey in nine countries. The results are frightening. It found people in several Middle Eastern countries increasingly support suicide bombings and other violence against Americans. Majorities in Jordan and Morocco said attacks against Americans were justified. These same people now favor Osama bin Laden. These opinions are coming from ordinary people, not armed terrorists. In Europe, nations are so concerned over American foreign policy they want the European Union to take on a new issue: America. That is the world a year after the Bush doctrine of domination. Our best friends shudder at what we are doing. Those who hate us were convinced that terrorism is a legitimate defense. The world is not safer, America is not safe. This resolution will not help. It will only serve to deepen the mistrust of America and widen the great global divide created when President Bush invaded Iraq. We should all have voted ``no'' on this.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time allocated to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez).

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk about the Iraq resolution that I will vote ``no'' on today. Republicans would like us to say America is safer. I wish that were true, but it is not. We have only to look at what happened in Spain to be reminded. Terrorism threatens America today just as much as terrorism threatened America before we invaded Iraq. Make no mistake, I wholeheartedly support the U.S. soldiers. My support does not stop at the Iraq border, nor is my support bounded by political party. I regularly visit troops at Walter Reed Hospital, and I urge every Member to do so. They are the best soldiers and they make America proud. I would like to pass a resolution praising our soldiers, but this Republican resolution is meant to legitimize a position the administration cannot defend at home or abroad. Look at the Spanish election. We have lost soldiers. We continue to lose them. We have lost credibility. And we have found nothing. This is not worthy of a victory lap. I will not sing the praises of the Bush doctrine.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Maryland has talked about the budget that was supposed to come out this week, but is now apparently languishing someplace in the back room on the Republican side. The problem apparently is that some want to spend money and some do not, and they cannot agree among themselves and there is going to have to be some twisting and turning before it all happens. So while we are in that period of waiting for them, I thought that since many in this House have begun to show an interest in Biblical principles on which this country should be run, and certainly on which the government of the United States should operate, I thought it would be good to talk about the Biblical principles behind the budget. There are a lot of people who want to talk about the Christian teaching and so forth, as though it were an issue of right and wrong and those kinds of things, but if we look carefully at what went on in the New Testament, certainly there is an awful lot of talk about social justice. There was a day when Christ brought all the people to the mountain and said, I am going to give you a little talk here; it is called the Sermon on the Mount. It is in Matthew 25, for those of my colleagues who have a Bible and read it on a regular basis. They might go and read it. Sort of the latter part of that chapter they will find the instructions that Jesus gave to the people. A budget is how a society makes a statement about what it really cares about. If we spend our money on military, well that is clearly what we care about. If we spend our money on education, that is another kind of priority. So as the House gets ready to write a budget, we are going to set the priorities of this body for this country for the next year. Christ started out by talking about feeding people. He said, when somebody's hungry, feed them because when you do that, you feed them in my name. He made it a Biblical priority to do this. Nobody should be hungry. All we have to do is look in this country and look at the problems we have in obesity and all the other things, and we see that this country has problems with nutrition, and certainly the rest of the world does. There is no problem with food in the world. We make enough. We grow enough. It is a matter of distribution. Maybe the priorities should be for a little bit more to USAID so that they can spread food across the world in places where people are hungry, rather than selling them arms. I mean, USAID is supposed to be an aid organization, and one would think that they would aid people in what they really need. Do they need to sell them arms, or do they need to get food to them? Another thing is housing. Christ talked about the fact that some people were homeless. I mean, that word's right there in the Bible, and in this country we have many homeless people. I live in a city where there are so many homeless families that we have one school that is designated as the school where the homeless kids are all brought. From all the shelters all over the city, they are picked up by buses and brought to one school. The city of Seattle has institutionalized an acceptance of homelessness. What has happened in housing since 1980 to today is stupendous. We have spent practically nothing in housing over the 15 years that I have been in the Congress. It was once $40 billion in the budget. Now it is down somewhere under $10 billion, and we have homeless all over this country. We have got plenty of money to put up a nuclear missile shield. I do not remember that being in the Sermon on the Mount. I cannot remember if He said you were supposed to put a nuclear missile shield or build bigger arms or what it was. No, of course, He did not. He talked about the homeless. If we want a Biblical perspective on this State and this country and this body, we ought to think about what Christ actually said. He also talked about clothing people. There should not be any problem with anybody not having warm clothes, and we should not have people freezing to death and all these kinds of things that happen in the world; but, no, we have to build arms. Then healing, the President talks about universal health care for Iraq, but not for the United States. Put the budget together on the basis of the principles of the Bible, and I will vote for it.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask everybody in the House to get a pencil and paper and take down this number. We are getting close to tax time. Ready. Here it is. One, one, two, nine, two, five. That number again one, one, two, nine, two, five. Now, here is another number, six, seven, six. These are not phone numbers, but six, seven, six ought to be a call for help. The first number, $112,925, that is the average tax cut that millionaires will see in their 2003 return. The second number is $676. That is the average tax cut for the average American. This is the administration's new math, obscene tax cuts for the wealthy, crumbs for the average American. This administration did not create a single job in the last month in the private sector. That is not recovery. Where are the unemployment benefits, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, when it comes to jobs and the economy, this administration has outsourced its responsibility. The Department of Labor has just given us proof. February unemployment figures are grim and include a stunning revelation: the private sector actually lost jobs last month. The meager 21,000 jobs, new jobs, all came from local and State government. This is not economic recovery; it is an economic crisis. Long-term unemployment is at its highest level in 20 years. The unemployment rate among teens is a staggering 37 percent. The Community Service Society says in some cities the unemployment rate among black men is 50 percent. The administration has turned its back on average Americans. We must pass extended unemployment benefits. An administration that does not care about the average American is an administration that has outsourced its leadership. It has gone somewhere. We need to get it back.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I want to reassure my colleague from Massachusetts that there is hope after all. The Bush administration has endorsed and even funded universal health insurance. The thing is, the President's universal health insurance program is for the people of Iraq, not anything for the 44 million Americans. Madam Speaker, we already pay enough for universal health care in this country, but we are not getting it. The administration misleads the American people by having the Secretary of Health and Human Services say, and I quote, ``You are still taken care of in America. That certainly could be defined as universal coverage.'' The truth is that every other industrialized nation in the world has a universal health system except the United States. Half the bankruptcies in this country are due to health care costs. The United States spent $1.6 trillion on health care in 2003. That is an average of $4,900 per person for the entire country. The average of the next 29 industrialized countries is less than half that amount, about $2,100 per person. Switzerland, at number two, spends $3,106. That is $1,800 less per year per person than the United States. Every one of these countries has universal health insurance except us. We have 44 million uninsured and 40 million underinsured, and premiums are going up. At the same time, employers are shifting more of their health care costs on to their employees. Every strike has as the number one issue of contention their health care benefits. They just settled a grocery strike in California that has been going on for 6 months and it was all about that. Seventy-two percent of the uninsured are in families where there is a full-time worker. Sixteen percent have two full-time workers. Only 62 percent of all employers even offer health insurance, and only 60 percent of employees can take advantage of it. How bad does it have to get before we begin to do what is necessary? Not many years ago opponents and an army of lobbyists turned back the last great hope for real reform. We were told managed care in the marketplace would save the health care system. It never happened. All through the 1990s when the economy was hot, the number of Americans without health insurance went up. When the economy tanked under President Bush, the number of Americans without health care kept going down. How bad does it have to get? A long time ago we made some decisions in this country: Police, fire protection, national defense, education, and highways would be issues of the common good. We would do them together. It is time for health care to be done as a common good. We have the power and ability to take care of everyone, from patient to physician to provider. National health care does not mean government medicine. It means a guaranteed revenue stream to give a stable set of benefits for everyone that cannot be taken away. At the present time, government at all levels already finances 60 percent of all the health care spending in this country. That is over $2,600 per person. Remember, the international average is $2,100 per person so we are already spending enough. If we were tight-fisted, we could have that kind of a system. The fact is that we simply do not have the political will to establish the common good. If our costs were in line with other industrialized nations who have a national health care system, government spending in this country alone would cover our costs. I can hear the chorus already. Do not let anyone tell you that health care in England or Germany or Sweden or Norway or France or Japan is not as good as ours. Ours is good if you are lucky with the right piece of plastic in your pocket when you get sick. But if you do not have insurance, it is a real crapshoot. It is a real roll of the dice. Americans deserve universal health care, just like everybody else from the industrialized nations, all of the way to Iraq. Yes, most people would actually save money, according to the Congressional Budget Office, because if we tightened up the system and got rid of the millions of forms, the hundred billion dollars' worth of paper that we put in every year, we would have a cheaper system than we presently do with guaranteed benefits and guaranteed revenue. The President has said, ``These problems will not be solved with a nationalized health care system that dictates coverage and rations care.'' He said it right here in the well. Every health insurer in the United States dictates coverage. That is how they do business, and America is rationing care. The time has come to change that. We will talk more about that later. We need a solution. I have introduced H.R. 1200, the American Health Security Act. I also support other plans to reform our health care system. Reform will not change how health care is delivered, only how it's paid for. Health care providers will continue to do business as they already do, competing with one another, striving to be the best. Under my plan people can choose their doctor and hospital, an incentive for innovation and a reward for excellence. For health care providers, national health insurance means a guaranteed revenue stream. For Americans, national health insurance means coverage for everyone. America was founded on the premise of working together for the common good. Our society recognizes this responsibility every time a fire truck responds to a fire or a police car responds to a call for help. Today, there is an urgent call for help from voices across America. We have it in our power to respond. Come on Mr. President. We are already paying for universal health care. Let us make sure Americans get it.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, ``Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.'' This week marks the 43rd anniversary of the Peace Corps. An organization that is forging ahead, creating a trail of peace and understanding around the globe with the hope that one day all peoples of the world will follow. Since its inception in 1961, over 170,000 Volunteers have served 137 countries. Peace Corps Volunteers serve as teachers, business advisors, information technology consultants, health and HIV/AIDS educators, and youth and agriculture workers. The Peace Corps is expanding and last year entered or re-entered Albania, Azerbaijan, Chad, and Fiji and in 2003 the number of people applying to serve as Volunteers increased by 10 percent. Today there are 7,500 individuals serving in 71 countries. This is the highest number of Volunteers in the field in over 28 years. Of those 7,500 dedicated individuals there are 32 people I would especially like to recognize: Carrie A. Abendroth, Katherine P. Barnett, Micael D. Bogar, Nathan A. Borgford-Parnel, April R. Brown, John S. Brown, Robert P. Burns, Rosemary S. Burns, Rachel S. Chernin, Alison M. Coady, Kevin D. Cummins, Ross C. Doll, Joy M. Hamilton, Jennie A. Hurt, Tracey A. Lake, Amber L. Lancaster, Mahri S. Leonard-Fleckma, Nathan S. Lubetkin, Susannah M. Malarkey, Luke A. Mattheis, Marin McCutcheon, Alec E. Metz, Joan M. Michaels, Carrie J. Mitchell, Janet D. O'Neil, Teresa L. Peterson, Jean R. Salls, Barbara P. Schlieper, Blaine M. Somerville, Rebecca S. Talbott, Joseph S. Trahan, Karen M. Yantis To those individuals I have just mentioned, you have made me and the people of the 7th district very proud. We salute your selfless dedication to the empowerment of people in developing countries and throughout the world. As your journey of good-will abroad comes to an end may you return home safe and continue to share your experiences with others so that they will endeavor to blaze their own trail using the Peace Corps as their guide.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago today the Columbia Space Shuttle, in what turned out to be its last full mission, serviced the Hubble Space Telescope. Those astronauts knew and children across America know that Hubble is a national treasure. Hubble offers a dramatic view into the cosmos, and it has yielded profound scientific discoveries. Yet for all of Hubble's national acclaim and the inspiration it has given us, NASA has given Hubble a death sentence. It is up to us to commute that sentence. That is why I have joined with a bipartisan group calling for NASA to convene the best and the brightest minds to reevaluate their decision and look at every reasonable alternative. In the meantime, keep the Hubble going. In my view, Hubble is one of the best scientific investments we have ever made. Hubble is certainly the best recruiter we have today to inspire our children to excel in science and reach for the stars.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, listening to the last speaker here on the floor, I almost had the feeling he was a Member of the minority, as though enforcing the rules was something that on his side there was not the possibility to do. But I digress. I really came here to question the war. I have questioned the war in the past, and I really am here to stand and question what the Pentagon is saying and not saying about medical care and about medical issues affecting our soldiers. The Pentagon has claimed no ill effects from the use of depleted uranium. I have piles and piles of information that comes out of the Defense Department or the War Department, whatever one wants to call it, that says that there are no problems with depleted uranium. Over the weekend British newspapers reported that the British Army, the British Army, our allies, are telling their soldiers in Iraq that DU, depleted uranium, can cause ill effects. They give them a card that tells them that they can go and have their urine checked, and they have a right, they should ask about it if they are having any problems whatsoever. Now, one has to wonder about our War Department sending our troops out there into war and continually denying that there are problems with depleted uranium in the face of the effects that we have seen among Iraqi women and Iraqi babies in southern Iraq as a result of the 1991 Gulf War. A 600 percent increase in leukemia among children, a 600 percent increase among women delivering children having deformed babies, 600 percent, and our government continues to decide that they can say there is no problem. Now, the Brits, for whatever reason, are more honest with their troops. They are not saying there is not danger out there. They are saying there is danger and here is how they can check to see if it is bothering them. I know as a doctor that the evidence is not conclusive. The issue needs to be studied. It needs to be directly gone after to find the answer. Today I picked up the newspaper. One can learn a lot, as Yogi Berra said, if one reads the newspaper. If people read the newspaper today, there is a story about a G.I. from Tennessee, a nice young kid from Tennessee who went to war and got his shots like everybody else and nearly died from an anthrax vaccination. We have had arguments with sailors and Marines and soldiers for the last couple of years that there were some problems with the vaccinations. But, in fact, no, no, no, we are told they are going to war, they have got to have one of these. And the fact is that we now have the evidence that some of the fears of our troops were legitimate. Just because somebody is a corporal or a private or a lance corporal does not mean that he does not understand or that he cannot be right. One does not have to have a colonel's eagle on their shoulder or stars for a general to be correct. And we have treated our troops as though it was in their minds or, I do not know, some explanation. This young man has not recovered yet, but his medical claim is still pending. They do not want to blame it on the vaccination even though it happened right after. And there are other stories. I could go on with stories. But they remind me of my experience since 1968 in the Vietnam War when we sprayed defoliant all over the trees and it fell down on the troops and everybody said Agent Orange is no problem, Agent Orange is no problem, and we really did not deal with post traumatic stress disorder. On Thursday night when I got home I finished up what I was doing, and I turned on the TV at 10 o'clock, and I caught a program called Without a Trace. It is a story of a young man who comes back from Iraq. His business has gone to pieces because his brother has not been a very good businessman. His girlfriend is having a relationship with her boss. And he is pretty depressed, and he goes out and gets involved in a couple of armed robberies and tries to straighten his life out. That, my friends, is post traumatic stress disorder, and it is coming as the 100,000 people come home. We must be prepared to deal with that and acknowledge it when we see it. It is our duty to the people that have served for us.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak in place of the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the President's presidential prayer team is urging us to ``pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be according to Biblical principles.'' With that in mind, I thought I would remind the body of the biblical principles they are talking about. Marriage shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. That is from Genesis 29:17-28. Secondly, marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. That is II Samuel 5:13 and II Chronicles 11:21. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. That is Deuteronomy 22:13. Marriage of a believer and a nonbeliever shall be forbidden. That is Genesis 24:3. Finally, it says that since there is no law that can change things, divorce is not possible, and finally, if a married man dies, his brother has to marry his sister-in-law.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. I appreciate this opportunity to come talk, because I think that we saw on Sunday that the campaign we are about to enter into is one in which, one of the themes of this administration is going to be integrity. Integrity is a very interesting thing for them to run on. As one of the earlier speakers said, it is a good thing the White House is not made out of glass, because they would be sitting in shattered glass all over the place by the time this campaign is over. The issue you started on, you stopped. You did not tell the whole story. ``60 Minutes'' said, okay, so there is nothing going on in the Cayman Islands. Where is this being run from? Then they get a letter from Halliburton that says, well, the Cayman Islands subsidiaries actually run out of Dubai. So they get on a plane, they fly to Dubai, and they learn that this office shares office space and phone and fax lines with a division of the U.S. parent company which raises all kinds of questions about how independent is that. You put that there with the statement that the Vice President made, ``I have a firm policy that I wouldn't do anything in Iraq even in arrangements that were supposedly legal. We've not done any business in Iraq since the sanctions were imposed and I have a standing policy that I wouldn't do that.'' That is a quote from 8/27/2000. This is while he is in the middle of the campaign. This is the man who wants to run on his integrity. According to oil industry executives, this is from The Washington Post. That is a minor newspaper that has a little something to say about what is going on in this town. According to oil industry executives and confidential U.N. records, however, Halliburton held stakes in two firms that signed contracts to sell more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts in Iraq while Cheney was chairman and the chief executive of the Dallas-based company. Two former senior executives say that, as far as they know, there is no policy against doing business with Iraq. You tell me that a company that is running a billion dollar operation has people who are executives and do not know that there are sanctions on Iraq? How bald can you be in what you are willing to say, whether it has any connection to what the facts are or not? Those Halliburton subsidiaries joined dozens of American and foreign-owned supply companies that helped Iraq increase its crude oil exports from 4 billion in 1997 to 18 billion in 2000. The Vice President made a flat statement, I have a firm policy I would not do anything in Iraq. Meanwhile his company is helping Iraq quadruple its export of oil. This is the man whose integrity really runs deep, and he says I have nothing to hide or anything, but when it comes to meetings that they had in the White House on developing an energy policy, closed meetings, only invited the industry in, and they are developing the energy policy for the United States of America, a country that is addicted to oil, and when the Congress says we would like to see what those papers are that you did in there, he says, oh, no, that is executive privilege, I cannot show you what we are doing. They took us to war, at least in part, on the basis of oil and the United States wanting to control oil. All we have to do is look at the machinations of Unical bringing a pipeline down through Afghanistan and then putting Hamid Karzai as the President who was, imagine that, an old Unical guy. He made $600,000 off Unical. And then we go over to Iraq and we see all the machinations there, and here is Halliburton in there, in the oil business, before the war started. And then we have the audacity to be told sitting in this room that there is an axis of evil out there, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, and the very people sitting here have been doing business with Iraq and Iran. Tell me about integrity. How are the American people going to believe any of that stuff? Still drawing pay from them, sitting in this room, occupying a seat of honor and importance, and doing business with the axis of evil. This is the man who says, I want to run on integrity. And then just to complicate it further, the court case to try to get those reports away from him goes up to the Supreme Court. So he calls up his friend over at the court, Justice Scalia, and says, hey, how would you like to go duck hunting? Come on over and get over on Air Force II, and we will fly down to Louisiana. I have got a place down there, and I will put you up for the weekend, and we can shoot ducks. Now, how can anybody have any belief in integrity when people stand up there and say there is not an appearance of impropriety with the Vice President, with a case before the Supreme Court, taking one of the Justices down on a private hunting trip for the weekend? What do my colleagues think they talked about, ducks? Maybe. Maybe they talked about the New Orleans Saints, or Mardi Gras is coming. I am sure business never come up. They spent 3 or 4 days down there, and they never talked about any of the problems that the country faces. Can one imagine that, that the Vice President of the United States and one of the Justices on the Supreme Court would sit and talk about fluff for 4 days and never discuss how this man can have the gall to say I want to run on integrity when he makes these kinds of flat statements? The whole career, the whole business of the issue, if we could ever get an investigation in the House into what went on in giving us the information about weapons of mass destruction, we will find his fingers all over it from trips he made out to Langley to the CIA, and then everybody stands around and says we were misled. We were given all this bad information. Come on, give me a break. You are big boys, and you cannot have it both ways. You cannot talk out of both sides of your mouth. Ultimately the people will figure it out. Abraham Lincoln said, ``You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.'' The end is coming for this integrity of the oil destiny. I yield back and thank the gentleman for giving me a chance to talk about the Vice President.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has done something no Democrat and no Republican has been able to do. Justice Scalia has united the country from Maine to California, from Washington to Texas. Even Texas. Here is just a sample of what editorials across America have been saying about Justice Scalia's decision to hear a case involving the Vice President: Inappropriate. Unethical. Less arrogance, more impartiality. The appearance of impropriety is abusive and extreme. It taints the very essence of justice. Scalia's refusal to recuse himself let the sour tinge of politics ooze into the High Court's chambers. He's ducking the law. In America, Mr. Speaker, Lady Justice is blind for a reason. Equal justice for all is a fundamental right of this country. Justice Scalia will soon run afoul of this because he decided to hunt fowl with the Vice President. The facts, sketchy as they are, are these: In early January, the Justice joined the Vice President aboard Air Force Two. They flew to Louisiana to spend days together in private while duck hunting on a private reserve owned by a local oilman. Nothing new there. The area they hunted in was declared a no-fly zone by the Secret Service and the ducks apparently abided by the Secret Service order. The trip followed a Supreme Court decision to hear an important case involving the Vice President. The case involves the right of the public to pierce the veil of private meetings the Vice President held with Big Oil and Big Business in public buildings to chart a public energy policy which has led us into two invasions, two occupations. There are huge issues at stake and the Nation must know that the Supreme Court will hear the case impartially. If Justice Scalia does not remove himself from the case, the entire process will be forever tainted. Here is what the law says: ``Any justice, judge or magistrate of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.'' How could any rational person not question Justice Scalia's impartiality if he hears this case? His public response to date has been a mockery of the serious concerns expressed across the country. ``Quack-quack'' is how the Justice ended one answer in public at Amherst College. I kid you not. ``Quack-quack,'' from a Justice of the Supreme Court. Perhaps in the future the fierce competition by law graduates to clerk in the highest court will include an audition for bird and duck calls. The Supreme Court decides the fate of lives and the course of our Nation for generations to come. Justice Scalia cannot let thoughtful, respectful concerns expressed by smart, independent voices across the country roll off his back like water off a duck. This issue concerns not just Justice Scalia; but it goes to the honesty, integrity, ethics, and impartiality of the highest court. The stakes are too high and the right course of action too obvious for him to ignore. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes as he was laying the cornerstone of the Supreme Court Building said: ``The Republic endures and this is the symbol of its faith.'' Justice Scalia defends America best by defending equal justice under the law. Justice Scalia must remove himself from this case for the good of the Court and for the good of the country.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) has just talked about the credibility of this administration, and there was an incident which happened yesterday which I think was really quite stunning. Tommy Thompson, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, came before the Committee on Ways and Means. I have know him a long time. He is a dedicated, hard-working public servant. He is a straight shooter. When he appeared before us, I reluctantly had to ask my old friend tough questions. His answers were stunning. They were stunning because, without equivocation, Tommy Thompson told the truth. Tommy Thompson acknowledged that someone significantly altered a report on health disparities in America, and he was having none of it. This is the guy who ought to be in charge, and we need help. He told the truth and took the fall for the political spin doctors inside his own agency, inside the White House, or both. We commissioned a report by the Institute of Medicine, and when it came back, it was changed. The American people need to know who did this. Significantly altering a report about health disparities in America is a betrayal of public trust. People of color, everyone in America ought to be outraged and demand accountability. Political spin doctors turned science, and serious data about national health disparities affecting Native Americans, people of color and others, into a whitewash that taints anyone near it. Let me give my colleagues an example. The first sentence of the original health disparities report circulated last June said, and I quote, ``Inequalities in health care that affect some racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and geographic subpopulations in the United States ultimately affect every American.'' The alteration was, ``The overall health of Americans has improved dramatically over the last century.'' One would hardly think they were talking about the same subject. It is a whitewash. It is a blatant disregard for the American people and an insult to every person of color. This was a study we commissioned to find out about the health disparities between groups in this country. Congress asked for science, and the administration's spin doctors buried it. They hid it from view and substituted their own version of the country. In the June original document, the Department's scientists found ``significant inequality'' in health care. The last one, the doctored one, became ``national problems.'' The scientists emphasized that these disparities are ``pervasive in our health care system.'' The whitewash omitted those conclusions. Text describing data tables inside the paper was altered. In the key findings section, the whitewash omitted 28 of the 30 references to disparity. Everything was done to hide the real facts from people of color, from every citizen in America. What does the administration say tonight to people of color? What does this administration say tonight to every American? Somebody ordered this whitewash. The American people need to know who did it. I would think there ought to be an investigation to find out who was responsible and take appropriate action. We cannot allow someone to hide the truth from Americans, no matter who they are. We cannot permit someone to deceive Members of Congress and every American. We cannot tolerate someone who alters a report that directly affects people of color and their health status in this country. Someone is trying to trick us into thinking that the administration has all the answers and that everything is hunky-dory. This is one more evidence for the fact that this administration will not tell the truth, whether it is about weapons of mass destruction or about al Qaeda connections or even down to a health report. They will not even tell us what happens in communities of color with respect to diabetes, with respect to high blood pressure. They said about Native Americans, Native Americans have a lower cancer rate. That sounds good. But not one single mention of the fact that they have the lowest life expectancy and the highest infant mortality rate among all Americans. How can they put a report out like that and let people believe that everything is equal in this country? It is not. We have not paid attention. When we put more money into national health institutes, and I agree with that, we ought to use science as the basis on which we allocate the money for the problems that affect the most people. Mr. Speaker, we ought to ask the President to find out who did this in his administration. It is a travesty.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, the chairman of the committee comes out here and says he is confused. I will tell you what to do. Pick up the phone, call the President and tell him if he does not deal with this, he is going to meet it at Election Day. There are millions of people who are losing their benefits, and what they are getting from this administration is, hey, everything is going well. The stock market is going up. What is the matter with you people? But the Labor Department says, 3 people looking for every job available in this day. Now, we hear all kinds of dust thrown in the air. There is $5 billion sitting out there somewhere. The fact is that Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New York, and Texas are borrowing money in their regular unemployment program. Never mind the extension of benefits. They are borrowing. That is where that $8 billion went before. It is gone. And now you say, well, you know, geez, if things are getting better, now that people are off work, some of them are picking up bottles and they are taking them in and they are getting maybe a tenth of a cent for a can. Yes, there are a lot of people out there, but the CBO says that when people do not get unemployment benefits, 50 percent of them go into poverty. Fifty percent. That is what our President wants. Now, wait for those ads that come out in the fall. The compassionate conservative President of the United States said to the unemployed, Why do you not get a pointy stick and pick up garbage in the park or something? Mr. President, we are looking for you to do something. Vote ``yes'' on the Miller amendment. Mr. Chairman, what has this President, what has this Administration, what has this Congress come to? Ordinary Americans are being forced to beg for help. Across this great country, ordinary Americans are drowning in the President's economic policies. They need a lifeline. That's all the extended unemployment benefits program provides. Today, America faces a soaring budget deficit and a terrifying employment deficit. Average Americans can't find work and can't find compassion from this Administration. The President wants to extend tax benefits to the rich, but won't extend unemployment benefits for average Americans. Under this Administration, we've moved from an economy that includes all Americans to an agenda that precludes average Americans. 375,000 workers exhausted unemployment benefits last month, the highest single month number in history. What do we say to these people? Good luck. In my home state of Washington, 82,000 people will lose all benefits by June. That's on top of the thousands of people who have already exhausted their benefits. What do we say to these people? Well, the stock market is up--what's your problem? Under President George Bush a dozen years ago, this Congress and that President enacted a temporary federal unemployment program to help workers through the 1990-91 recession. The program lasted almost a full year after the job deficit created in the recession was erased. Under President George W. Bush, America has a 2.5 million-job deficit, but the extended benefits program ended at Christmas by a President who believes in arrogance, not compassion. The President and Republican leaders say the economy is growing and nothing needs to be done. Nothing could be further from the truth. The economic growth that has occurred has been with few jobs and fewer prospects. One thousand jobs nationwide grown in December by the Bush economic debacle. America needs to grow 175,000 jobs per month, every month, for the next year, just to get back to where we started. Just to shrink America's employment deficit to zero. Without unemployment benefits while they find a job, the Congressional Budget Office found that almost half of the long-term unemployed would be in poverty. We are forcing Americans into poverty. What has the President, what has this Administration, what has this Congress come to? I stand here and ask: What would a leader do? A leader would have the courage to act. Would have the strength to act. Would set aside partisan politics to embrace the common good. And act on behalf of our fellow man. Americans forced into poverty, crushed by a recession they did not create and struggling to survive--that is America today for too many people from Maine, to Washington, to California. America needs leaders. This Congress has at least one. My distinguished colleague from California, Mr. George Miller, has offered an amendment to extend unemployment benefits. I ask that we stand together as Americans and unanimously pass this amendment and that the President sign it immediately. Let America have something to believe in. And someone to believe in--the people they elected. I wonder if the gentleman who just spoke from the state of California knows that an estimated 314,000 residents in his state are likely to exhaust their state unemployment insurance compensation, leaving them and their families without a paycheck or benefits. Announcement By The Chairman Pro Tempore