Kendrick Meek

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, if you would yield. I mean, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, we were just talking just the other day about outing CIA agents; we were just talking about it. And in the last Congress folks were like, why are you all speculating? We are not speculating, I mean, someone is not telling the truth. Now a court of law said that people did know certain things. And you are right, Mr. Ryan, I mean, the most endangered job, especially if you are on the other side of the aisle, is to be chief of staff. Now people are looking at the chief of staff in a different way than they have done before in the past.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Make that point.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. We are not letting it get to our heads or our heart or the reason why we are here in the first place. And the reason why the 30-something Working Group continues to come to the floor, Madam Speaker, because some folks thought, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, this is just a minority project. Oh, they are in the minority, they want to go to the floor, they want to talk about what's wrong, they want to talk about what they will do if they ever get in the majority, and that will be it. Well, guess what? We are here in the majority celebrating the fact that we are doing the things that we said we would do. I mean, that is a paradigm shift in Washington politics: you run for office and you come here and you actually do what you said you were going to do. And now that is being carried out. We have always said some of our friends on the other side of the aisle wanted to be a part of good government, 6 in `06, implementing the 9/11 Commission. We were able to get 299 votes with 68 Republicans voting with us on that. Raising the minimum wage, we were able to get 315 votes with 82 Republicans voting with us. Funding on enhancement of stem cell research, H.R. 3, 253, with 37 Republicans, on and on and on. And the reason why that is happening is not because Republicans all of a sudden say, hey, I want to vote with Democrats and I am going to be bipartisan. They are voting because they always wanted the opportunity, Madam Speaker, to vote for good legislation. Back home, I am going to tell you right now, there are Republicans that are saying I wanted the 9/11 recommendations to be fully implemented to protect America. They don't care who is the leader of the Republicans in the House and who is the leader of the Democrats in the House. They want to be secure. And those Republicans that voted with Democrats to implement every last one of those 9/11 recommendations did so on behalf of their constituents. So we come to the floor to talk about bipartisanship. We come to the floor because we have always said bipartisanship can only be allowed, Madam Speaker and Members, if the majority allows it; and we are allowing it. Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

Mr. MEEK

Mr. MEEK. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to come before the House here, the 30-Something Working Group. I am glad that we are here tonight to have an opportunity to really talk about the accomplishments under the 110th Congress, and also issues that we are going to be working on in the very near future. But as you know, Mr. Speaker, day after day I have been coming to the floor sharing with the Members and the American people on the fact that we have really worked hard to make sure that we run a house in a way that all the Members can feel comfortable about voting on the public policy that comes to this floor, especially major public policy. The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act that passed this floor today is a piece of legislation that is going to assist not only the public knowing more about what happens here, but to make sure that we protect those that are trying to protect us. As we start to head down the road of fiscal responsibility, as we start to have oversight hearings and Federal employees and others that are involved in Federal action, and just average Americans will be able to come forward and to share with this Congress and other agencies of accountability and oversight about waste, they will be able to come and share concerns or speculation of corruption, they will be able to come forth with recommendations without receiving the repercussions that they would have received prior to the passing of this legislation today. One other thing that I think is important when we start looking at this legislation, the fact that there were 102 Members on the other side of the aisle that voted in the affirmative. The vote on this floor just moments ago was 331-94. And I think that will go right in line with other pieces of legislation that have passed this House floor in a bipartisan way on a major bill. I think we have a chart here that I think will be helpful for the Members to take a look at. Implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations, H.R. 1, passed 299- 128, with 68 Republicans voting with the Democrats. Raising the minimum wage passed 315-116, with 82 Republicans voting along with Democrats. The funding for enhanced stem cell research, H.R. 3, 253 Members of the House voted in the affirmative, only 147 voted against. But as you know, Republican votes, 37 joined Democrats on that vote. Making prescription drugs more affordable for seniors, H.R. 4, passed 255-170, with 24 Republicans voting with Democrats. Cutting student loan interest rates in half, H.R. 5, 356-71, with 124 Republicans voting for it with all Democrats. Creating long-term energy initiatives, I think it is an important initiative, H.R. 6, 264-163, with 36 Republicans voting with Democrats. Now, Mr. Speaker, why is this important? Why are we talking about bipartisanship so much when we come to the floor in the 30-Something Working Group? We are talking about it because this has not been the culture here in the House. Major pieces of legislation, from H.R. 1 to H.R. 6, and even today when we passed off of this floor the Whistleblower Act, H.R. 985, to see bipartisan votes on these major pieces of legislation goes to show you that we have been waiting; and when I say ``we,'' Members of the House have been waiting for a very long time to have the opportunity to vote on commonsense legislation that is going to assist the American people in their everyday lives, will assist this Congress in bringing about the kind of accountability that the American people voted for and hoped that we would, hopefully, enact one day. I think it is also important to look at three House bills to shed light on public records. I think it is very important that the American people understand that we are going to open the Federal Government up to allow them to be able to receive public records in a timely manner. Of course, we are going to protect national security issues. Of course, documents that are not ready for public consumption will not be given to the public or anyone that may endanger Americans abroad or here in the United States. But there are so many documents by the White House that have been deemed secret when it wasn't necessary for them to be deemed secret. This piece of legislation and the three bills would deal with that issue, to be able to have a little more openness to the process so that we can do our jobs here on Capitol Hill. I think it is important to continue to stick with the watchwords that we have been talking about here, the 30-Something Working Group, on accountability, oversight, new direction, and fiscal responsibility. I think it is important that we pay attention to what is happening right now, Mr. Speaker, when it comes down to Hurricane Katrina, Abu Ghraib, 9/11 Commission recommendations, which I must add that 10 Republicans and the Senate joined Democrats in passing the 9/11 Commission recommendations. All of these reports, as we look at good government, are taken from bipartisan commissions. We are talking about governance here. We are talking about accountability here. Some may say, well, 9/11 Commission recommendations, that is a Democratic work product. No. That is just a Democratic leadership bill, that we said that we would fully implement the 9/11 recommendations even though the President has threatened to veto them. Even though it was a bipartisan commission, Mr. Speaker, chaired by a Republican Governor, former Governor, still the President and Republicans are saying that there is not a need to implement those recommendations. I think, as we start to reflect, before I start talking about the supplemental appropriations bill that is being marked up in the Appropriations Committee this week, since Democrats have taken the majority, Mr. Speaker, Walter Reed, the misconduct was exposed by a newspaper here in the Washington area, The Washington Post. Democrats took action, making sure that we had hearings going immediately, not after, not 2 or 3 weeks later, saying we are waiting on the administration to see what they are going to do. In kind, the administration started working very vigorously to take some action, and I commend the President on appointing two very outstanding Americans, Ms. Shalala and also Mr. Dole, to lead a commission to look at that. The firing of U.S. District Attorneys became exposed recently, within the last 48 hours. Information that we received here in Congress was inaccurate. And now Democrats, in control of the House and Senate, are immediately going into hearings dealing with the Justice Department, asking the tough questions because no longer are we going to allow politics to run public policy in this country. And I think it is important for the Members to understand that we are here as board members of the largest corporation on the face of the Earth, if one wants to call it that. I am just using that as an example. We are the board of directors here in the U.S. House of Representatives. One of the Members of our caucus during a caucus meeting made this analogy, with the President's being the chairman of the board or President/CEO. When you start looking at the President/CEO of any corporation and you start looking at the mismanagement and you start looking at the political overtones, it is important that the board respond to whom? The stockholders, in this case, the American people, because it is their tax dollar that we are appropriating. It is their tax dollar that we have oversight on. And they have sent us, made us members of the board of directors to watch out for their interests. And that is using, once again, the word of accountability, the oversight. We talk about a new direction. We also talk about fiscal responsibility. But those are not just catchwords. They mean something, and I think it is important that we pay very close attention to that. I pointed out in this whole issue at Walter Reed last week, Mr. Speaker, and I felt very proud as a Member of Congress and someone that voted for the continuing resolution because the Republicans did not do their work in passing all of the appropriations bills. We had to clean it up when we came into the 110th Congress by passing a continuing resolution. All district projects that Members fought for in the appropriations bill were taken out, and we had to then take those dollars and we put $3.6 billion into the veterans' health care system. And I am so glad we did that because when the Walter Reed story came out and the media started to focus on the lack of resources to take care of our veterans and take care of those that are still enlisted on the health care side, and this was actually the front cover here with the specialists of Newsweek, it gave the American people an opportunity to see leadership in action and also see a policy response to what has been unearthed by the media. And I think that is important because there has been a lot of foot-dragging around here and there has been a lack of the majority in the past of having the will and desire to do the right thing. And I am glad we did it in that case. I am so glad to be joined by my very good friend, Mr. Ryan, from Niles, Ohio. They have a saying in Niles, Ohio, Mr. Ryan--well, in Ohio; I don't if it is necessarily in Niles. But it goes something like this: Remember that the field mouse is fast but the owl sees at night. I yield to Mr. Ryan.

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Reclaiming my time, when I came over, it wasn't like can we pause for a minute and let me catch my breath. I mean, I was actually anchoring this special order and sharing with the Members the great work that has been done. I talked about the bipartisan vote that we took today on the whistleblower legislation. And, Mr. Ryan, I did go to the gym today to make sure that I am in the right shape to be a Member of this House and serve as an example of making sure that you take care of yourself, that you do the right thing, and you live a long time. So, Mr. Ryan, thank you for being concerned about my health care needs and making sure that you came down and allowed me to catch my breath. But I am so happy to see you, sir, because as a member of the Appropriations Committee, I am honored just to be in the same Chamber with you, sir.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, I am glad, because you are a member of the Appropriations Committee. Let me just say this, Mr. Ryan. Putting everything to the side here that we have been talking about, again, I am glad, because you are here as a member of the Appropriations Committee. We actually have some Members, Mr. Ryan, that are concerned about the kind of leadership that this Congress is putting forth on behalf of the men and women in uniform and the men and women that wore the uniform and their families.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Going on 5, Mr. Ryan.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Before the gentleman goes to the memo, you said this thing is not just about Iraq. Let me just say very quickly, again, you know here in the 30- something Working Group, we love, we don't like, we love third party validators. We love it, Mr. Speaker. We can't get enough of it. It fires us up. We just love it. Here is the deal. Requiring the President to honor the standards of the Department of Defense set for troop readiness, training, equipment before sending troops into battle, 70 percent favor requiring U.S. troops returning from Iraq to have at least 1 year in the U.S. before being redeployed to Iraq. That is a Gallup Poll, USA Today, 3-6-07. It is not a poll we did. This is just a poll that these news organizations have held. Holding Iraqi government to the same standards for progress that the President outlined in announcing the escalation of troops. Seventy- seven percent favored requiring U.S. troops to come home from Iraq if Iraqi leaders failed to meet the promises to reduce the violence there. That is the Gallup Poll-USA Today. This is very, very, very important. Providing urgency needed to support addressing the military medical care crisis at Walter Reed and other hospitals, 76 percent of Americans do not think the Bush administration has done enough to be responsible to take care of the needs of our men and women that are in uniform. Mr. Ryan, the bottom line is that this is not a political speech that we are on the floor giving. This is reality. This is governance. This is oversight and this is accountability. And for Members, Mr. Speaker, who feel that we shouldn't be venturing off into the area of leadership, maybe they didn't pay attention to what took place last November. I would say to some of my friends on the Republican side, because if this was political, I would keep it a secret. But you know, Mr. Ryan, we always talk about issues that may be detrimental to the Democratic forward progress of gaining more seats in the House. If Republican Members want to vote on being with their, quote- unquote, leadership that has them in the minority right now, because they use catch words like well, you know, we don't need to make decisions because the President is making decisions and it is not our place to do it. Oh, we don't have to have accountability measures within the appropriations bill, within the emergency supplemental, because we need to leave the flexibility for Secretary Rumsfeld and unnamed individuals in the White House and unnamed folks over in the Pentagon to make these decisions. I am going to tell you right now, that is the road leading to the minority, because it is a lack of oversight and a lack of leadership and a lack of accountability. And I am so happy, Mr. Ryan, I am very happy, it fires me up, Mr. Speaker, that we have a majority that is willing to do what we must do to give the American people, because we are responsible, they are our stockholders. They gave their tax dollars for us to have the opportunity to appropriate those dollars and have oversight over those dollars in an appropriate way. And by reading these poll numbers and what you just shared, Mr. Ryan, is more than vindication, more than third-party validators; it is leadership, accountability, and being fiscally responsible on behalf of the taxpayer dollars. I can tell you that I don't know a Republican that would say, ``I am against accountability.'' I don't know of a Democrat who would say, ``I don't like being fiscally responsible; I like to be fiscally irresponsible.'' I don't know an Independent who says, and Independents came out in record numbers this last election. They voted for a new direction, and I am so glad we are giving it to them.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. That is right. In full effect. You have here U.S. Troops Readiness, Veterans Healthcare, and Iraq Accountability Act. Expanding funding for veterans healthcare and hospitals. What is wrong with that? Nothing. The Bush administration must meet military standards for troop readiness. Mr. Ryan, this is the DoD policy as it relates to troop readiness. The Congress had nothing to do with the policy. The Department of Defense came up with the policy. So basically what we are saying, Mr. Speaker, through this act, follow your policy, because it is in the best interests of the American people and the troops that are in harm's way. What is in that policy? Making sure troops have what they need when they are deployed. What else? Making sure we have a military that is ready to respond at a moment's notice when we need them. We will go deeper into that.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. You know, Mr. Ryan, they say when you point your finger, you have like three or four fingers pointing back at you.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, losing kids? We are losing 47-year-old Reservists. We are losing granddads in some instances that are still serving our country, Mr. Speaker, in the Guard, in the Reserve, active duty. When you look at this, again, the Iraq government must meet the Bush benchmarks for reform. Mr. Speaker, once again, this is not what the Democratic Congress put benchmarks on the Iraqi government for. The President of the United States of America, the Commander in Chief, marched down this aisle, walked that way and went up there to that rostrum right under where you are standing, Mr. Speaker, and said if they don't meet the standards and do X, Y and Z, then we are not going to be there forever. What is wrong with following the leadership, especially when you talk about accountability? What is different this time, Mr. Speaker, is when the President has made those statements in the past, he had a rubber stamp Congress willing to do anything that he wanted them to do. But now you have a Congress that put forth legislation that will allow Members of the minority party, the Republican Party, Mr. Ryan, to vote with Democrats, for accountability, there is that word again; oversight, there is another word we use all the time; and to head in a new direction as it relates to Iraq. We have said that 100 times. I think that is important, making sure that strategic redeployment of U.S. troops in combat by 2008, and reforming military efforts on Afghanistan and the fight on terrorism. What is wrong with all of that? If I can, Mr. Ryan, I want to just talk about how the American people are way ahead of the Bush administration on this issue and the reason why we had this big transition in leadership here in the Congress back in September. Nearly six out of 10 Americans want U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by 2008 or sooner. That is a CNN poll of 3-13-07. Fifty-two percent think the United States should set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. That is a CBS-New York Times poll on 3-12-07. Sixty-seven percent of those polled by NBC-Wall Street Journal disapprove of the way the President is handling the situation in Iraq. That is an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, 3-9-07. I can go on and on and on, Mr. Ryan, of how the American people are with us as it relates to making sure that we do the right thing. When we are in Congress and we are here, we are not generals, we are not in a forward area, Mr. Speaker. We have Members that have never worn a uniform, not even in school when they were coming up. We are not in the Armed Forces. Some of us are. Some of us are Reservists. Some of us are Guardsmen, Guardspeople, women, what have you. But we have been elected to be Members of Congress to carry out the things that we talked about, oversight, accountability, being fiscally responsible, moving the country in a new direction, coming and voting on behalf of our constituents and the American people. So, brave speeches on the floor about how Members support the troops. No, I support the troops more than you. No, I have a tattoo on my arm saying I support the troops. No, I have raised money back home. That is fine. That is all good and dandy. Come to the floor and say what you want to say. But when it comes down to it, where are the benchmarks as it relates to over $500 billion that has been spent on the war and $100 billion- plus that is going to be authorized sometime in the very near future? Where are the accountability measures? They are there to make sure you meet the benchmarks. I know you can go further into that. But the 97 hearings to date, it is unprecedented in the past Congress and the Congress before that, Mr. Ryan. We have been here for the last two Congresses, and I can guarantee you that 97 hearings at this point in the Congress did not happen.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio. I am so glad that she comes to the floor often to share with Members and the American people on issues that need light. It is good when we are able to give good information out. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important as we go through this week of accountability in Washington, D.C. I think that is what people have been waiting on and counting on. The leadership is being provided to make that happen. Earlier you heard me talk about the whistleblower legislation that was passed here today. When we start talking about ending waste in Federal contracting, we start looking at strengthening protections for Federal whistleblowers and moving to increase disclosure requirements for Presidential records, and also requiring disclosure of big donors to Presidential libraries. Providing long-term, overdue, constitutionally mandated oversight over veterans' health care crises and other Federal issues is very, very important. This is serious work, and there are some serious pieces of legislation that will cross this floor. Tomorrow we will be dealing with the whole issue of accountability in contracting. That is so very, very important, not only with the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, but many of the contracts that are being executed in Homeland Security and the Defense Department. As we start to look at future disasters, looking at future contracting in our Federal agencies, it is important. Limited duration of no-bid contracts awarded in emergencies to 8 months; within the emergency, Mr. Speaker, if it is an emergency, it is an emergency, not an emergency over the next 4 years for no-bid contracts. And many of the bigger companies have taken advantage of the no-bid contracts and have been the headline of several news articles about the fact that we have not provided the kind of oversight needed. Also, requiring large Federal agencies to develop and implement a plan to minimize the use of noncompetitive contracts in having no-bid contracts, and many of these Federal agencies have not only doubled, but tripled in some instances. So overall within the Bush administration that has doubled under this administration. Also, requiring large Federal agencies to implement a plan in minimizing the use of cost-plus contracting. Cost-plus contracting are the type of contracts that give contractors little or no incentive to control costs. This is so very, very important. This kind of contracting has grown by 75 percent under this present administration. This legislation that we are passing or will pass tomorrow hopefully as we debate it on the floor is not for the Bush administration. It is for the future. It is from this point on of how we are going to deal with contracting, how we are going to cut out some of this waste that is taking place here in Washington, D.C., and throughout the Federal Government. This is really tackling many of the issues that we have right here under our nose, Mr. Speaker. We do not have to go off into foreign lands and try to figure out how we can correct. We need to correct some things right here in Washington, D.C., on how we do business. Also, requiring agencies to prepare a public letter explaining why they awarded a no-bid contract. Again, shedding light where we do not have light now. This is leadership and work. It takes work to uncover the fact that we must shed light on the issue of no-bid contracting. Also, requiring that contractors that overcharge more than $1 million, that it is disclosed to Congress. We want to bring about accountability. Disclose it. Right now, contractors that go over and overcharge, go over the billions of dollars. When I was on Homeland Security Committee last year, the oversight committee, seeing all of the contractors that overcharged and was paid by the Federal agencies and Homeland Security, you charge us, you sent us a bill, we will pay it, no accountability, no oversight. Those days are over. It is going to start here tomorrow here on this floor. I urge all Members to vote for the legislation in the affirmative, and Mr. Speaker, maybe tomorrow when we come to the floor, the 30- something Working Group, maybe we will have a bipartisan vote on this legislation. It is kind of hard for anyone to go home and say I voted for the Accountability in Contracting Act. Just the word ``accountability'' I have been using that for the last 3, 4 weeks. We will see. I hope we have it. Also, making sure that we close the revolving door and requiring that former Federal procurement officers wait 1 year before seeking employment at lobbying and contracting firms; require that the Federal procurement officer wait 1 year before involving themselves in contracts given by the former employer. I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, once again, we had just here on this floor, we have had Members that have anchored bills, led it through Congress and announced retirement, in past Congresses they have done this, announced retirement and go into the private sector and make millions, but that happens under the lights of this Chamber. But in some of these Federal agencies, you have some folks that will start a project and then have an end date of when they are going to end their Federal employment to do what? To go out and manage the project. Again, I do not know an Independent, Republican or Democrat that would endorse that kind of activity. Why will the Accountability in Contracting Act be on the floor to tomorrow? Because the Democratic leadership has the will and the desire to clean up the waste in Washington, D.C., not just talking about it, not just having boards behind us saying we believe in accountability, we hate waste, but actually doing something about it. This should be good for the private sector, too, of making sure that their employees and individuals that work with them and subcontractors that work with them on Federal contracts are accountable and that they make sure that they pay very close attention to what they are doing with the taxpayer dollars. So, Mr. Speaker, with that, I look forward to coming to the floor tomorrow, talking about the victories of this week. I believe tomorrow will be our last day voting here this week, and I would like to just recap and also talk about what is coming up next week. The reason why we are going through this process is because not only has the leadership asked for inclusion of ideas, but to make sure that no one feels excluded of being a part of this process and having the opportunity to vote on legislation. The bipartisan votes that I have mentioned earlier will continue to add on to that list, and soon I am pretty sure it will be in the high 30s and 40s because legislation that makes sense to the people back home are coming to the floor of the House of Representatives in a record number like it has never done before. So I am happy that we are having these bipartisan votes. I am happy that we are working as though we were in the minority, hungry to provide leadership. I am glad that accountability is shining on to this floor and throughout the halls of Congress, and with that, Mr. Speaker, once again, it was an honor addressing the House.

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to come before the House once again. And as you know, the 30-Something Working Group, we come to the floor two, three, sometimes four times in a given week, in a legislative week, to share with the Members some of the issues that we are working on and some of the issues that we must tackle here in the 110th Congress. As you know, the work of the 30-Something Working Group has been going on now for, going on close to 4 years of hard work and making sure that not only the will of the American people prevails in this House, the people's House, this U.S. House, but to make sure that we act, we legislate in an accountable way; also bring about the kind of oversight, and put us on the new direction that we need to be in several of the areas that we face now, such as Iraq, such as making sure that we have affordable health care, making sure that we have a clean environment, making sure that we take care of our veterans. And fiscal responsibility is the backdrop of the overall accountable flag that we stand under. Mr. Speaker, a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, and a lot has happened since the 110th Congress took control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Democratic control, and working in a bipartisan way. I spent a lot of time on the floor in the past talking about the bipartisan votes that have taken place here on this floor because I think that it is something that we should all be proud of. I am not talking about proud Democrats. I am talking about Republicans, Independents that are paying attention to this process, Democrats, first time voters. Individuals that are thinking about voting should be encouraged about the spirit that we have here in the U.S. House of Representatives and making sure that we bring work products that a majority of the Members can vote for, and that means Democrats and Republicans. These are a few of the votes that I just want to highlight here once again: implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations, H.R. 1, which was the first bill, Mr. Speaker, we spoke of that we had the opportunity to lead. When I say ``we,'' I am saying the Democratic majority, to be able to bring to the floor, which was a bipartisan 9/11 Commission. And it was a book that many read, and one of the New York Times bestseller books. Passed 299-128, with 68 Republicans voting for it. Raising the minimum wage, H.R. 2, which was the second bill in this 110th Congress, this Democratic Congress that came up. Again, we must be reminded that the vote was 315-116, with 82 Republicans voting with the Democrats on that particular measure. Funding for enhancement of stem cell research, H.R. 3, again, bipartisan vote, 253-174. Making prescription drugs more affordable for seniors, H.R. 4, 255- 170, which is a majority vote in a bipartisan manner. Something that really means a lot to the 30-Something Working Group, reversing the increase of interest rates to students and also American families that are trying to educate themselves to take advantage of the high-tech jobs that we are trying to provide, and also the skilled labor jobs that we are trying to generate here in our economy, cutting student loans, interest rates in half, which was H.R. 5, which passed by 356 votes to 71. Mr. Speaker, I just want to really make a case in point as it relates to that particular vote because young people are our future, and even working, some folks think that many of our students graduate from high school and they go right into college. We have many working Americans that have to work and go to school at the same time, or have to work and then go to school later. And they have to take out these student loans. And cutting that interest rate in half is going to mean so much to the forward progress of our young people and our middle-age population that is trying to educate themselves to compete, not only with the person that is standing next to them, but compete against other countries. And so our education, the education of the people of the United States of America is paramount. And I am so happy to see, and this was one of the major objectives of the 30-Something Working Group, not to just represent those that are graduating from high school, but to also represent those parents that are trying to pay for higher education for their children. The greatest goal, I think, for a grandparent or a parent is to make sure that their children and grandchildren have better opportunities than what they have had. And I am excited about that opportunity that so many are going to have. Now, we have moved here in the House to cut those interest rates in half. Also, creating long-term energy initiatives, which was H.R. 6, which passed 264-168, bipartisan vote, something that was needed as it relates to using subsidies for alternative fuels. Making sure that we invest in the Midwest versus the Middle East is something that we have all embraced and something that we all feel very strongly about. I am going to keep sharing that, Mr. Speaker, because I think it is important. In the 109th Congress, I spent a lot of time here working with the 30-Something Working Group talking about the uncontrollable debt that the Republican Congress kept accruing on behalf of future generations. And I talked about that, and it was a chart, and I had a rubber stamp. But I am going to talk a little bit more about it as we start to look at this question of accountability, the question of oversight, the whole slogan of moving in a new direction, fiscal responsibility. And I just want to make sure that I paint this picture, because what we are talking about now in the 30-Something Working Group, we used to talk about what we, if we had the opportunity to lead, what we will do. Now we are talking about what we are doing. But to be able to really paint a good picture, Mr. Speaker, for not only the Members to understand, but also the American people to understand, this is where we are right now, and we didn't just get there last week. As it relates to foreign debt held by foreign nations, this is as of December 2006. We updated this chart because we had numbers in place. As you know, we had the little Velcro numbers, which I understand that we are going to get that soon so that we can pull it off to really show what is happening here. We have Japan, that owns a part of the American apple pie at $644.3 billion. And I think that it is important to understand that they buy our debt. That means they have a piece of the American pie because of a lack of fiscal responsibility, because the President has passed budgets down that has asked for tax cuts for the super-wealthy, that we spent out of control with a lack of accountability and oversight, with two wars that are going on, just continuing to borrow the money with very little oversight. I am setting the stage for a little later on in our talk here today. We have China. As of 11/05 it was $249.8 billion. And now, as of December 2006, China has moved up to $349.6 billion. Mr. Speaker, I think it is also important, and I want to ask staff if we can get that Bush chart with the Republican Congress if we have that because I want to just show how historical these numbers are, because one may say, well, you know, there are a couple of wars going on. We have had 9/11. We have had a number of issues. I have a chart that is really going to show that that is contrary, that logic is contrary to the obvious of what has happened. It is because the administration has decided to borrow from future generations and the present generation where the economic outlook for our children and grandchildren would not be what it should be because of our lack of responsibility. Thank God that we have a Congress in place right now that is going to put accountability first. Fiscal responsibility we have already adopted in our rules and continue to live under that flag of oversight and a new direction: $349.6 billion; the U.K., $239.1 billion; the Caribbean, $68 billion; Taiwan $63.1 billion. OPEC nations, again, these are oil-producing nations in the Middle East, Mr. Speaker. Many of these nations the United States have bilateral talks and agreements with, but many of them are in question as it relates to the present situation in the Middle East. But guess what? They own a piece of the American apple pie. I don't even want to start to talk about gas prices and what is happening as it relates to OPEC nations. You have $67.8 billion as of 11/2005. And now, Mr. Speaker, December of 2006, OPEC nations, they have gone up in owning more of the American apple pie due to a lack of fiscal responsibility on behalf of the Bush administration and the past Republican Congress. Of the budgets that they have passed, they now own $100.9 billion of the American apple pie. Korea, $70 billion; Hong Kong, $53.9 billion; Germany, $52.5 billion. I think it is important that we pay very close attention to those numbers, and that is something that we should be very concerned about and continue to keep our eye on the prize so that we spend in a fiscally responsible way and that we make sure that we are accountable to the American people. And I feel good about the fact that we have a majority that is willing to fight on behalf of the greater good to make sure that we work on behalf of all of the American people. Now, this chart is a little old, Mr. Speaker, because these actually have the 2005 numbers, and we are updating it. This is something I feel very fond of because I always said that this chart is going to end up being a part of the national archives one day because it really shows a story, and it is factual. President Bush in 4 years, in 4 years, has managed to borrow more from foreign nations than 42 Presidents in 224 years of history. Now, these are 2005 numbers. I mean, I just want to make sure that we understand that these are 2005 numbers. So the numbers are higher now. Forty-two Presidents, look at them. All the way from George Washington, they were only able to borrow $1.01 trillion. President Bush and the Republican Congress, the 108th Congress and 109th Congress, borrowed $1.05 trillion in just 4 years. Now, one would say, how can that happen, Mr. Speaker? How do these countries, China of all countries, Red China, own so much of the American apple pie? Well, I can tell you how it happens. It has happened because the past Republican Congress rubber stamped everything that the Bush administration sent to this floor at the objection of so many Members of the House. But now the proper leadership has stepped forward and said that we are going to pay as we go. So that means that this budget process will be more controlled than it has ever been in recent history of saying that, if you are going to spend, you are going to show how you are going to pay for it. Not where you are going to get it from because we know where they got it from. They borrowed it. It is like taking out a high-interest credit card and saying, I am knowingly and willingly using this high-interest credit card to carry out spending that I know I can't afford to spend. I know this. I mean, it is not that it is an emergency. In the budget that the President has sent to this U.S. House of Representatives, the Bush administration budget, it is saying, let us make the tax cuts permanent for the super wealthy. Meanwhile, these countries that I outlined are paying for that tax cut. And I think it is important that we look at that. That is the fiscal responsibility end of the talk here today. I think it is also important for us to realize the discussion that we are having now on Iraq, Mr. Speaker. We talked about oversight. We talked about accountability. But to date, as of last week, last Friday, there have been 81 hearings on the issue of oversight and accountability on Iraq, across the committees in the House. And I think it is important that the Members pay very close attention to this because, as these hearings continue to happen, we have learned more about what is happening in Iraq, what is happening in Afghanistan, what is happening with our troops here and our veterans here on the ground; hearings were not happening at this rate in the past. Again, one of the obligations of the 30-Something Working Group is to make sure that everyone and every Member of the House understands that we are here to work, that we are here to make sure that accountability blows through the air conditioning ducts here in the hospital House. Why are we spending so much time talking about Iraq? Next week there will be a supplemental that will be in committee, and it will be marked up. What we call a markup, that means that there will be a discussion about what goes into that supplemental bill. There will be appropriations, some $100 billion-plus, that will be in this bill, from what I understand. Why are we spending so much time having so many conversations about what should be in that bill? This is why, Mr. Speaker: On March 8, as of 10 a.m., 3,178 U.S. troops died; dead, period. As of March 9, which is today, Mr. Speaker, 10 a.m., we have 3,186 troops that are dead. Now, I said, 3,178, as of yesterday, 10 a.m. Today, as of 10 a.m., 3,186. That is the reason why, Mr. Speaker, so many Members are spending time focusing on this issue of Iraq accountability and benchmarks on behalf of the American people and those that are in harm's way. That is not a Democratic issue. That is not a Republican issue. That is not an Independent issue. That is an issue that should be dealt with at the U.S. Congress, and it is going to take courage and leadership and commitment and some tenacity to bring about the kind of change that needs to happen to make sure that those individuals that have died in the line of duty, that their memory is not in vain, and that we accomplish and we have benchmarks and we take the training wheels off the Iraqi government, period, dot. I can't sugarcoat it. It is what it is, and it has to be laid out that way for folks to understand, for the Members to understand, I must add, that it is very important. This conversation and this debate and the discourse that is taking place in committee, it is very serious, and it should be above politics. The American people sent a very strong message in November. Democrats and Republicans, I am just going to say, the American people, period, sent a very strong message in November that they wanted to move in a new direction. They want more accountability. They want more oversight out of this U.S. House of Representatives. And they understand what is going on in the White House. There are places where Republicans won elections by landslides in the past. And guess what? In the November election, you couldn't elect a Republican as far as the eye can see or within eight or nine area codes because of the lack of oversight and accountability that was not carried out here in this House in the last couple of sessions of Congress versus this session. Why is this issue important? As of 10 o'clock today, 23,924 wounded and 10,627 of those cannot return to battle or to duty. What is in this so-called Defense supplemental bill? Some may talk about benchmarks. I want to talk a little bit about what is in the bill or what is going to be in the bill as the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee starts to what we call mark up and create this bill. The Speaker has said that U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health and Iraq Accountability Act will provide our troops with equipment they need and require Iraqis to take control of their own country, help fight the war on terror and establish a date of withdrawal from Iraq. Well, what is wrong with that? What is wrong with making sure our troops have what they need when they go to war? Mr. Speaker, I came to the floor 2 weeks ago because I happened to pick up the paper, and I saw some Members were complaining about the fact that the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee was looking to put language in the bill that said, if you are going to deploy a troop into harm's way that that soldier or that troop, that Marine or that sailor or that airman or that Coast Guard person, National Guard, Reserves, you name it, that they have to have the equipment they need to carry out the mission. What is wrong with that? That is almost like sending a football player out in the field without a helmet and shoulder pads and saying, go play. This is serious business. And I named the number of those that are wounded and have died, and I can guarantee you, if we had had some of the language that we are talking about in place, maybe, just maybe, a number of those individuals would be living today. It is important. We are not four-star generals. We are Members of Congress. And we have been sent here to make sure that we are accountable to those that have signed up in a volunteer Army and a volunteer Marine Corps and a volunteer Navy and a volunteer Air Force to go defend this country and that have allowed us to salute one flag. It is our responsibility and our duty. And while we carry out that responsibility and duty, one may be misunderstood every now and then. And if it is about being misunderstood, then that means that you are not leading. My mother served in this Congress, Mr. Speaker, prior to my arrival here, and she said, ``Son, if you are not misunderstood from time to time, you are not leading.'' I am glad to pick up periodicals, and I am glad to see the kind of discourse that is taking place on television, folks talking about what the Congress is doing, because you know something? At least we are doing something about the status quo. No longer will this House stand by, Mr. Speaker, and watch those that are unelected carry out the duties that the Congress should be carrying out. I have been on the Armed Services Committee now three Congresses, Mr. Speaker, and I can tell you many times I sit there and I watch individuals that are on the panel before us, and I kind of want to ask the question, but I don't want to be sarcastic by saying, I hope you are not filling me with confidence that the troops have everything they need. When I came to Congress, we went into Iraq. I wasn't here for the vote to go or to give the President authority or what have you, but I was here, and I remember asking the question, are we ready for this guerrilla warfare once we reach Baghdad? That answer was, ``yes.'' Do we have the equipment in place? That answer was, ``yes.'' Do we have up-armored vehicles in place? That answer was, ``yes.'' News report after news report, document after document this big, Mr. Speaker, says the contrary. Two trips to Iraq represents something different from what I heard here in a committee room in the Rayburn Building that the troops have what they need. Well, guess what? We no longer want to go off of what someone tells us in Washington, D.C., that is happening or not. We want the President to have to be able to confirm that there is a need for additional troops or to send additional troops to Iraq. We want to make sure that the troops know that there is a Congress here that is going to put that language in place to make sure they have what they need. I can't tell you how many marines and how many soldiers told me, sir, with all due respect, sir, I will be here as long as you want me here, but I went on a patrol the other night, and I didn't have the proper equipment. I didn't have the up-armored vehicles. And it takes a Member of Congress to go to someone and say, I heard a patrol went out last night and didn't have what they needed. We are not trying to make command decisions on the ground. We are just trying to make sure the men and women have what they need. Also within this supplemental that we are looking at is legislation that prohibits the deployment of troops that are not fully mission capable as defined by the Department of Defense. In other words, troops who are not fully trained, equipped and protected by the standards of the Department of Defense will not go. Now, this is what the Department of Defense has asked for. Why can't the Congress then back up the Department of Defense and say we agree with you, even though we know you have not been practicing some of the things that you have adopted as policy? The President can only deploy unprepared troops if he certifies in writing to Congress that the deployment of those troops are in the national interest. That means it is imperative that we send troops that are untrained and unprepared into harm's way. The President has to confirm that it is within the national interest that that should happen. That is not taking his powers away as Commander in Chief, it is just putting in another level of accountability, making sure that the President knows that there is a Congress here that is willing to carry out the accountability and the oversight that is needed. It also provides that the Veterans Administration has to meet the obligations of the new generation of veterans that will be coming out of two of these wars. There are two wars going on, Mr. Speaker. A lot of folks forget. Iraq? Okay. Afghanistan. But guess what? There are two different wars going on. Because of the lack of planning in the Iraq war, troops were sent to Iraq from Afghanistan, and guess what? The Taliban is back and strong in Afghanistan. Now we need more troops, more coalition troops, because of the decisions that were made in a Congress that did not provide the oversight that it should have provided to make sure that we brought about ultimate accountability. I think it is important that we endorse the philosophy that we are going to prepare for what is to come. It is time for the Iraqis to take control of Iraq. We say it all the time. In this bill, the bill will require that the Iraqi government has to meet key security, political and economic benchmarks that were established, Mr. Speaker, by the President of these United States on January 10 when he addressed this Congress. What is wrong with that? The President said if it doesn't happen, then they will see a withdrawal and we will not be there forever. I am paraphrasing. This is what the President said. Now, being a Member of Congress, now going on my third term, I think it is very important for us to understand, there are some things that the President has said during the State of the Union that ended up being reality, or becoming reality, and there are a lot of things that he said that did not. I trust the fact that the Commander in Chief and Members of Congress will not send someone into war unprepared. I will trust that. I would want to believe that. But we know that it has happened, where we failed our troops as it relates to getting them what they need. But I think it is important for us to understand, Mr. Speaker and Members, it is very, very important that we put in the language of this supplemental, which I must add, let me break this down more, when I say defense supplemental bill, that means this is an appropriations bill that is going to be $100 billion that will go towards operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other parts of the world as it relates to this issue of fighting terrorism. But it should not be a blank check. It should not be a one line bill. Some would like to leave it up to the Pentagon. Leave it up to folks who we don't have any idea, the public, who they are. Unelected individuals. Leave it up to them. They know what is best. They are the professionals. Well, I believe in professionalism too. But when I go down to the Seventeenth Congressional District of Florida and my constituents ask me, Congressman, what did you do to make sure that my tax dollar is being spent appropriately? ``Well, they just said send the money. I thought it was important. We just voted and let them deal with it.'' It is not an us and them. It is a we. And when money is spent in an inappropriate way, when you have companies like Halliburton and other contractors that are under investigation, I must add, that are still receiving contracts, U.S. Federal contracts, the taxpayer dollar, then we have to have accountability. Now, I don't know anyone that really has a problem with that. I can go to a rally of conservative to the right of the right of the right Republicans and ask them, do you want accountability measures in a $100 billion-plus supplemental bill, or do you just want us to pass it and say leave it up to whoever is making the decisions in whatever department they are in with no-bid contracts and allow some of the things that happened in Iraq, when companies get a flat tire and then they torch the truck and we buy a brand new tractor-trailer because it was better for the company if they just replace the truck. Which one do you want? Do you want accountability measures in it? Do you want benchmarks in it? Do you want to have hearings? Do you see the number? Oh, goodness, I am glad the staff changed this for me, Mr. Speaker. It is that quick. I started talking about last week's numbers. I get new numbers. Ninety-seven hearings held on Iraq oversight. Do you want this? Or do you want seven hearings? Which one do you want? Do you want 96 hearings, or do you want seven? We have Members around here complaining saying, oh, well, you know, I don't necessarily like all this, you know, what is going on. Well, it is our job. When we have two wars going on and we have the kind of lack of fiscal responsibility that has not been taking place here in this House prior to the arrival of the Democratic controlled Congress, you have to sleep in shifts. You have to make sure you do what your obligation is, to have oversight. I think it is important to be able to make sure if the Iraqis fail to meet the benchmarks, that it will mean the beginning of a U.S. withdrawal and that it will also restrict economic aid to the Iraqis. The bottom line is, you cannot reward bad behavior or lack of good behavior. You can't reward that. You can't say, well, no, that is okay, that is fine. Take your time, whatever the case may be. Don't worry about it. I'll tell you, there are some Iraqi forces that are fighting. There are some Iraqi forces that are doing some good things. But there are some folks within the Iraqi government that do not understand the urgency we have here. The longer we are in Iraq, the more I have to tell my U.S. mayors, my Governors, my school board members, my constituents, no, I cannot help you with your project. No, I cannot help you, Governor, as it relates to the transportation dollars to help Florida become even a stronger State in the United States of America. Mr. Mayor, I know it is important that we have security in our community. Mr. Sheriff, I know it is important that you want that COPS Program back. But guess what? We have two wars going on. We got a tax cut for the super-wealthy that the President of the United States wants, and we are too busy fighting them on that. And meanwhile, we got folks foot dragging over in Iraq about accountability. They don't have any urgency. Some folks don't even have the urgency we have here in the United States. This is snatching bread and butter out of the mouths of U.S. taxpayers and their children. Do you know why the interest rates went up on the student loans? To be able to pay for tax cuts for the super- wealthy, and to also continue the business of saying let's just rubber stamp supplementals and send it to the President of the United States and the Bush administration and the Department of Defense. And it took an election to bring about the kind of paradigm shift and the thinking that we should have done on our own as responsible adults and elected to U.S. Congress. It took an election to do that. Thank God for democracy. Thank God for level-minded Americans saying I am going to put my party aside for a moment. I have to stand up on behalf of my children, because this is now becoming personal. You have veterans that have served and that have fought and that have allowed us to salute one flag who are just turned, totally, politically about who they sent to Congress, and they made a change. And we are not going to sit there and allow their vote and their prayer and their hope that there will be change here in Washington, D.C., and just sit by and say we want to go along to get along. Someone says something about maybe I am doing the wrong thing, and who am I to try to govern a war from Washington, D.C.? It is not governing a war. It is bringing about the kind of accountability that the American people have cried and have asked for. The Bush administration and the Republican majority in the past are far, far behind where the American people are. And if we have to drag, pull, through this House and push legislation through to bring us up- to-date to where the American people are, that is what we were sent here to do. And Members who don't want to be a part of that experience, they have to go home and they have to face their constituents. Believe what I am telling you right now. It is not just individuals that are walking around with flowers and saying ``I don't believe in war'' that are saying that we have to bring some accountability to what we are doing. There are individuals that work hard, individuals that have retired, individuals that are looking for a better future for their family. You have local government officials that don't even know how they are going to survive from this point on because we are sitting around here cutting taxes for individuals who are not even asking for tax cuts. Mr. Speaker, let me say this: Super-wealthy billionaires that are not even marching the halls of Congress and saying please give me a tax cut, they are not asking for it. The Republican Congress just gave it to them. So this paradigm shift, I want to prepare the Members, Mr. Speaker, that it is going to take some courage, and it is going to take some leadership, and we are going to be misunderstood. But you know something? Time after time again, history has reflected on leadership in a good way. I can tell you right now, a perfect example, Mr. Speaker, and then I am going to move to the next point, when the Walter Reed story broke about what was going on at Walter Reed, and the Newsweek cover of this specialist here, this amputee that served and the kind of treatment that our soldiers were receiving at Walter Reed, the vindication for the Democratic majority was the fact that before this article came out, before we even knew of a Washington Post story, or probably even before the reporter started working on the story, we had an appropriation continuing resolution that we had to pass because the Republican Congress did not do their job and pass their appropriations bill, and we put $3.6 billion towards veteran healthcare because it was the right thing to do. And the good thing about it is that I could stand here on this floor without any Member being able to march down here and say otherwise, that we did what we had to do because we had the opportunity to do it. And that is what is so good about good leadership. I am glad Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House, and if there are some Members that have a problem with that, then they have a problem with leadership, because this could have happened last year, it could have happened the year before last. The Bush administration has passed time after time again budgets that have cut veterans healthcare. Again, Bush Republicans, see this, Mr. Speaker, I am going to tell you right now, I can't think of anything else I could be doing outside of making this point right now. This is very, very important. And I want my Republican colleagues to be with us on this change that we are working on. I want our new Members in Congress to understand their responsibility as it relates to the American people and what they sent us here for. We have to have resolve, just like the men and women on the front line have resolve. We have to have resolve, just like the veterans who went out there and laid their lives down and watched their friends pay the ultimate sacrifice. We have to have that same resolve. We have to have that political courage, like they have to have the courage to go outside the gates of Camp Victory in Iraq. We have to have that same resolve here in this House. We cannot allow someone just because they say something about you or they think something about you when you are right, that you are going to turn around, just because someone on the minority side, on the Republican side, is saying well, look what they are trying to do. Well, you know something? I say to my Republican colleagues, in all due respect, and many of them are my friends, especially the leadership, the bottom line is when you are pointing your finger and saying look at what they are doing, you need to be looking in the mirror and saying you had the opportunity to do it and you didn't do it, and we are not getting back in the same boat that you just got out of. We are going to do it. We are going to grab a paddle and we are going to go down the stream. Summer of 2005, at the Democrats' pressure, the Bush administration finally acknowledged that FY 2006 shortfall in veteran healthcare was totaling $2.7 billion and Democrats fought all summer to get it. March 2006, President Bush budget cut veteran funding by $6 billion over 5 years. Passed by the Republican-controlled Congress. January 31, 2007, Democrats increase VA health care budget by $3.6 billion in a joint resolution funding. Now, Mr. Speaker, I tell my colleagues who are against that kind of action to go home and tell your constituents that you are against that. I welcome you to do it because you won't be a Member of Congress anymore. I am so glad I was on the prevailing side of $3.6 billion going into veterans' health care. I say all of that because we use key words like accountability, oversight. We talk about a new direction and fiscal responsibility. I can tell you, there are many times here on this House floor that Members are going to have to go see the wizard and get some courage. That courage is very easy because the American people are egging on this kind of spirit that is in Washington, D.C., right now. I think it is important that, even after all of the articles and even after all of the talk about what went on at Walter Reed dealing with our veterans, that the Democratic-controlled Congress sprung into action, not weeks, not months down the road, not years down the road, sprung into action. Articles came out in the Washington Post. I have it right here. We don't come to the floor to play around or waste Members' time or staff time. I think it is important to talk about the fact that articles came out on the 24th. There was a review panel. We looked at the Army Times article that came out in September 2006, but when articles started rolling out on the 19th and after that on the 26th, and then on March 2nd because we were on President's break, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subpoenaed one of the major generals who was fired, who was head of Walter Reed after Army officials refused to allow him to testify before the committee. Mr. Speaker, that is what oversight is about. It was not firing a general. It is about getting down to the truth. And, of course, the administration took the position to ask him to step down. March 5 of this year, this is all recent, oversight in Committee on Government Reform began holding investigation hearings into the Walter Reed scandal. March 6 and 7, House Veterans' Affairs Committee holds hearings on Walter Reed scandal. The same day, March 7, House Armed Services Committee holds Walter Reed scandal hearing. I was there. Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to all members in the Army and those who came, and Secretary Chao and all of the folks over at the Pentagon, they did apologize. They did say they were sorry. I can give them credit for that. But I am thinking about the men and women, as we continue to peel back what has been happening at Walter Reed, and as we continue to learn about other DOD medical facilities and the service that they are not providing, as we learn these things, we have to go about correcting them. I would much rather appropriate dollars to make sure that someone's uncle, someone's mother, someone's daughter, someone's nephew who laid it down on behalf of this country gets what we said we would give them. That is quality health care, accountability and oversight. If any Member has a problem with that, they need to evaluate themselves or their purpose here in Congress. I am glad to hear many Members saying to the Army: Tell us what you need. Now there will be strings attached, and there will be language to bring about oversight. And there will be individuals who will be paying attention to what you are doing. The old days of giving you the money and you just doing what you want to do are over. Accountability measures will be in place. As we start to look at next week and as we start to move into next week, I think it is important that folks understand that this is going to be an open House, and we are going to promote government and crack down on waste. That is what next week is going to be all about. Next week is going to be about trying to crack down on waste and for us to start turning this around and balancing the budget. And of course, only Democrats can say we have actually balanced the budget because we have. Republicans had 12 years of control and did not balance the budget. They talked about it but did not do it. We did it. To be able to say that, again, we need to crack down and highlight and investigate waste. We are here representing the American people. We are not just here representing ourselves. No, I am not here to represent Kendrick Meek. I am here to represent those who have sent me here and those that are counting on us to do the things that we have to do. The Democrats have pledged to end the culture of corruption in Washington, making the Congress accountable to the people by sheer good government. What is wrong with that? Next week the House will consider measures to ensure that the Federal Government is open and accountable to the American people. The legislation that is going to be brought up next week is going to be the whistleblower reforms, strengthening protections for Federal whistleblowers to prevent abuse, a lack of accountability. We want to empower those who want to step forward and say, there is corruption and waste over there. We want to insulate those individuals. They are our heroes and the heroes within the Federal Government and contracting world pointing out waste. When we have countries like OPEC and China owning so much of the American pie, in the billions, that is a national security issue. So we need to treat these individuals accordingly. Also next week, Presidential record disclosure, which nullifies the 2001 Presidential executive order and restores public access to Presidential records. That is important. Of course, there will be language as relates to super national security issues. They won't be able to touch those. Presidential library donations, require the disclosure of donors to Presidential libraries. We have a lot of that going on. Additional material will be shared next week as it relates to the bills that will be coming to the floor, but I think it is important that we have the kind of flow to the House floor that we need to have to be able to prepare ourselves to govern for the rest of the 110th Congress. Now, Mr. Speaker, as we continue in the 30-Something Working Group to look at issues that we travel the country to hear Americans and those that have come to Washington, D.C., looking for accountability; as we carry their prayer and their hope, and again I am not talking about proud Democrats, I am talking about all Americans, it is our obligation and responsibility to make sure that they get the best representation possible. And it should not be in the back halls of Congress, a deep secret in the corner or some sort of special meeting in the corner over here. It should be under the lights of this Chamber and to make sure that every Member understands. One of the other principles of the 30-Something Working Group, on this side of the aisle and the Democratic Caucus, we want to make sure that every Member knows exactly what he or she is doing and has the information that they need, so they know what is coming up, they know what we have done, they know the responsibility that we have to carry out as Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, because we don't want the American people to be cheated in anyway by saying, you know, when I voted on that, I didn't quite know what was going on. I'm sorry I voted against that, veteran. If you voted against the continuing resolution, then you voted against $3.6 billion on behalf of veterans' health care. Now for you to be a Member of Congress and not to know that, something is wrong, because that is the number one group that is counting on you to do the right thing on their behalf. They have families, too. They are elderly, too. They allow us to be able to salute one flag. I say that time and time again. I get chills, bumps every time I say it, because it is important. My children have a better value for the service that our men and women carry out because they hear me talk about it constantly. We travel and we talk and read about foreign countries and what is happening there. America is the best and the most free country on the face of the earth, and we want to keep it that way. Whatever we have to do to keep it that way, we are willing to do it. But we are going to do it in a coordinated fashion. We are not just going to do it entrusting others somewhere in some building in Virginia, Maryland, or Washington, D.C., that are not empowered and validated by the people of the United States of America and sent here to watch out for their best interest. There are parents right now, when I go grocery shopping in my district, Mr. Speaker, I have parents walk up to me and say, Congressman, my son is 16, how long is this Iraq thing going to be going on? I have to be brutally honest with them. I say, listen, as we talk about redeployment of troops, we have to understand, we are still in Korea and we are still in Germany. But the real issue is, we have to bring about the kind of coordination that is needed on the accountability end. We don't want to be putting brigades and platoons and saying, you run over here. That is the generals' job. That is not what we are doing. We are making sure that the troops have what they need so when a general says, go over here or send three brigades over there, they have all of the equipment and logistical support that they need, and they have their mission and they have the things that they need to carry out that mission. That is what we are calling for. We are also calling for the Iraqi government to stop playing with the United States Government. It will not be allowed. So give us more time, give us another chance, don't worry about it, as long as the U.S. troops are there, and other countries have already announced redeployment of their troops. We are sending more troops. You heard the number, and I will close with this, a number that I shared with you at the beginning, March 8, 10 a.m., 3,178 troops gone. The next day, the next day, 10 a.m., March 9, 3,186 troops gone. That is the next day. So this is beyond serious. These are families. And there are individuals that are counting on us to lead, and as long as you have a Democratic majority in this House, they will get that leadership because the will and the desire is there. The political courage is there to do it, and the American people are 110 percent behind accountability, fiscal responsibility, moving in a new direction. They are in that circle with the leadership of this House right now. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Speaker and the Democratic leadership for allowing the 30-Something Working Group to have an hour two nights ago and tonight to share the message with the Members of the House. It was an honor addressing the House.

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, I appreciate you coming down, sir. You are one of the most dedicated members of the 30-something Working Group. And I know now that you are an appropriator that you have many more responsibilities. And I want you to continue to do those great things that you do on the Appropriations Committee, and I want to thank you for your service on the Armed Services Committee in the last two Congresses. But this is a very, very serious issue, Members; and I am glad that you did find time enough to come down here. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we look at some of the issues that we are facing here, not only on this article, or articles, out of The Washington Post, not only what Americans are going to be reading in Newsweek and other publications that are going to uncover or shed light on the obvious that so many veterans have been talking about for so many years. One thing for myself, being in the political minority in the last two Congresses and the frustration of not having the opportunity to schedule a hearing, Mr. Ryan said something and I want to just be able to shed light on it, because we have a lot of new Members and I want to make sure they understand. Of course, when you are in the minority you can't call the hearing. It is what it is, like so many people say on the street. You are in the minority, that is it. You can try to do what you can do, but you are not going to call a hearing. And the fact that we have hearings that have been called and hearings that have already taken place and staff that has been deployed to tackle this issue already allows the American people to witness change, to witness a new direction. If I said it three times in my talk here this evening, I will say it again. In politics and what gives people the will and the desire to go vote in the first place is to witness change when they feel that it needs to happen. We talked about a new direction, Democrats did, in the last election. And to actually talk about it and then do it is extraordinary, especially here in Washington, D.C. to be able to go back to your district and say we are going to do something about this lack of service, outpatient service, lack of priority, cut in funding. I spoke earlier, and I am going to highlight what has happened and then I am going to say what we have done in the first action of being able to direct appropriations in the area that it should go in versus special interest giveaways, versus you have to be plugged in or connected to get certain things out of this Congress just on behalf of those that have served. I just want to run down this line here, and I have a chart here. As you know, we have a lot of charts in the 30-something Working Group because we want to make sure that Members know exactly what they need to know, when they need to know it, so that their constituents and my constituents, I can't go home and say, I didn't know that, no one said anything about it. These bills are moving around, some of them are 500 pages. I didn't know what was there. So as we look at what is happening or what has happened, we have to reflect on the past to have a better future. And that is the good thing about what we are doing here. Bush and Republican budget funding for veterans: January 2003, the Bush administration cuts off veterans health care for 164,000 veterans, 68 Federal Reg 2670, 2671, January 17 of 2003. The reason why I read that probably means nothing to the lay person, but for those of you that know where to find this information, it is gold. As a matter of fact, it is platinum. Third-party validators is what we do here on the 30-something Working Group. And on the Democratic side, we believe in third-party validators. The Washington Post is a third-party validator of what we have been talking about in the minority. Now we are glad we are in the majority to do something about it. Third-party validator is a Newsweek cover: ``Special Investigation on Failing Our Wounded,'' that we have been talking about and 12 years in being in the minority. Now we are in the majority, we are doing something about it, what I talked about and what am going to highlight again. March 2003, Republican budget cuts off $14 billion from veterans health care. It passed the Congress with 199 Democrats voting against it. 199 Democrats. That is House Concurrent Resolution 95, vote number 82, and that took place on March 21 of 2003. I think it is important also, on March 2004, Republican budget that short-changed veterans health care cut by $1.5 billion. I think you are getting the message here, Members, of what we are talking about here. And I can go on and on and on about what has not happened and what we have fought for; but I want you to look right down here at the bottom, because this is proof in the pudding and this is the new direction, Mr. Speaker and Members, that we speak so much about here on this floor, and it gives me great pride. I mean, I feel almost fulfilled spiritually, leave alone professionally as a Member of Congress, to be a member of a majority that is about action and about a new direction. When you look at this, January 31, 2007, that was just a month ago, we had to pass a concurrent resolution or a continuing resolution because the work was not done from the 109th Congress that should have been done prior to this time. We had to come in and clean it up. But guess what, in the cleanup we found some waste and special interest, giveaways, and we came up with $3.6 billion in health care funding to replace some of the cuts that the Republican majority made in the last Congress. I almost feel like an attorney in a closing argument. I can rest my case on that. Now, Members can come down here and spend hours upon hours upon hours talking about I love the veterans, oh, I love the troops, oh, my goodness, I get teary-eyed every time I see a veteran or pass a post. But $3.6 billion is action, and I want to make sure the Members who voted against that continuing resolution know that you missed out on an opportunity to do something great, $3.6 billion for veterans health care. Now, guess what, Member, if we didn't put that $3.6 billion and had an opportunity to do something about what did not happen in the past on behalf of veterans, could I speak here on the floor of the House of Representatives representing to the Members of this House of Representatives that we did the right thing back on January 31 of this year? Sometimes we know of the glory but we have to tell the story, and the story is having the will and having courage, willing to do something on behalf of those who have sent us here, in this case, since we are talking about the veterans tonight, those that have allowed us to be in the Capitol, saluting one flag and secure, those that allow my children to live in a free society, those that have had friends that have paid the ultimate sacrifice, those that it takes longer than 2 hours in the morning for them to get out the door because of the price they paid. Members, this has to be bipartisan, and so when we look at what has happened under a partisan venue, we have to be excited about $3.6 billion and counting in the future. We have to be excited about the oversight hearings that I have talked about that Mr. Murtha is going to have as chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee on Appropriations. We talked about the Armed Services Committee, oversight committee, going and having hearings. We talked about the Budget Committee that has already had a hearing. We are talking about the Senate doing the same thing on that side. We are talking about deployment of staff into veterans hospitals finding out the damage, what has happened because of the lack of funding that has been cut off over the years. That is substantial; that is substantial. I would urge the Members on both sides of the aisle to go home and tell your constituents that we are on the job, that we are going to make it happen on behalf of their uncle, on behalf of their aunt, on behalf of their mother that may be deployed right now. But when she gets back, we are going to have her back. That is what is important, not lip service, but action. Now, as a Member of Congress it gives me no pride to talk about the failures of the Bush administration or the past Congress, or even this Congress. We are not even 3 months into a new Congress. We have had 52 hearings dealing with Iraq plus, and I have to make sure that staff gives me the new numbers when we get back here next week, and counting, to give the American people the accountability that they deserve, those that are in harm's way, that they deserve. You let some tell you here in the House of Representatives, oh, Democrats are weak on defense. We are for the veterans, don't you know? Well, you know something, the thing about the story is the fact that it has bumps in it. The thing about the Congressional Record is the fact that it tells the truth, and the truth will set you free like we have heard so many times in places of worship. But it will set you free when it comes down to the track record. We have the Republican side that says the tax-and-spend Democrats. Okay, what does the record reflect? The record reflects great accountability. Guess what, the only party in the history of this country that has ever balanced the budget was the Democratic Congress without one Republican vote, the only party. They talk about budget reduction and all that, but the bottom line is you can't hold, you can't have one arm on special interest and another arm on responsibility and make sure it all gets out because you know what, in past Congresses, special interest has always won. So as we start to look at this issue, we learn more about what is going on in our outpatient services, and we learn more about the lack of service that our veterans are receiving, not just the new ones, but the ones that have been there and suffered for years, and have suffered even more of the cuts of the Republican leadership in the White House and here in Congress. The story, goodness, a Republican chairman of a committee of the Veterans' Affairs Committee did the right thing at one point and said, I am going to do this on behalf of veterans here in the United States of America; and those that are abroad at foreign bases and their families, we are going to do the right thing for him, and he was stripped of his chairmanship. I challenge any Member to come down here and challenge me on that fact. They won't, because it actually happened. I guarantee you, the present chairman of our Veterans' Affairs right now will not be stripped for working on behalf of veterans. That will not happen. I say that with great confidence. So I am excited. I mean, we just broke for the week. I am just glad to be here tonight to just witness, like we say in the Baptist Church, a change in a new direction. I am so glad that the Record will reflect, not just American people but Democrats, that when the American people voted for a new direction, it actually happened. We are moving in a new direction. Every time I see the votes on the board right above our heads here, we have bipartisan votes, it makes me feel even better about what we are doing, because that means that you are doing the right thing. This is a partisan arena here in Washington D.C. By the rules it is partisan. By the fact that you cannot even call a committee hearing, it is partisan. It has been that way for a very, very long time. When you start to see Members breaking ranks with partisanship to say, I need to vote for this very good thing for my constituents, that is powerful, because it hasn't happened before; and I am not talking about procedural votes to the Members. We know Members are going to vote on the issues. As we start to do good things on behalf of our veterans, we look forward to that bipartisan spirit. We look forward to it, and we know that there will be votes that we have to be bipartisan on. But I can tell you one thing: when it comes down to our veterans, we have to be together on this. National security, we have to be together on this. We have to be together on a number of issues, health care, what have you, because the country is looking for us to be leaders. I am so glad that we have a Speaker that is a leader. I am so glad that we have Members that are serving in leadership positions on oversight committees that are leaders and really don't mind being talked about and misunderstood from time to time, because the outcome measures will reflect, out of the appropriations committees, Ways and Means, you name it, the Budget Committee, the priority of American people. They are not just Democratic ideas. These are ideas that are American and that are right. We can't point at another country and say, look, wow, they don't even have good uniforms, when we are not following, we are not doing, we are not leading by example, just put it that way. So I wanted to point this out, and I am glad that I had this information handy here to be able to share with the Members and allow them to have a chance to reflect on some of the issues of the week and also issues that will be coming up next week. The last point, and I think this is very, very important, at Walter Reed today a major general stepped down. But you know something, it goes higher than that; it goes higher than that. A two-star general stepped down today from Walter Reed, stepped down, resigned. It goes higher than that. This reminds me of other issues that because of a lack of oversight have taken place in our Federal Government, and the first person to go is the person almost to the bottom of the totem pole. This goes higher than that. I am excited that the Secretary of Defense did go out there, but I am going to tell you something. As we start to peel back the issues on this issue of failing our wounded, because of a lack of funding, more and more individuals, more and more e-mails that will be uncovered of who knew what when, who did not act, and it may lead very well back to the White House, may very well lead back to the past Congress, it may very well lead back to a high-level bureaucrat that looked the other way, because it was okay to look the other way. This is not a witch hunt; this is about making sure that our veterans understand that we are moving in a new direction. If the administration is not willing to be a part of that new direction and wants to hold on to their original thoughts, then we are just going to have to show them that direction; and that is going to take courage, it is going to take leadership, and I know that the majority Members of this House have that courage and leadership. Again, before I close, I want to commend the workers at Walter Reed. I want to commend those that came forward. I want to commend those individuals that have been working for 15, 20 years, taking care of our wounded, taking care of our men and women in said communities, and we look forward to continuing to support them in that effort, and help is on its way. As a matter of fact, help is already there. You can e-mail us, Members, at 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov, and our Web site is www.speaker.gov/30something. I want to thank Mr. Ryan for being a part of this hour. I want to thank the Speaker and the Democratic leadership for allowing the 30- something Working Group to come to the floor one more time. It was an honor to address the House of Representatives.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to address the House once again. As you know, the 30-Something Working Group, we come to the floor with great pride and information to not only share with the Members, but also the American people, and make sure that we, the 110th Congress, the people's House, carry out the wills and the desires of Americans as it relates to making sure that they are represented in a fair and equal way, and also in a bipartisan way. And that is something I take great pride in because I believe that, as the Congressional Record will reflect or has reflected in the major votes that have taken place on this floor, had a lot to do with the American people and the way they live, and the way students were paying high interest rates. And we know it is still going through the legislative process, but it has now passed off the floor of the House of Representatives. And also as it relates to the minimum wage and small business tax cuts. It has all moved through in the 110th Congress under the Democratic leadership, and in a bipartisan way, with a number of Republicans voting for those measures. We know the will and the desire was there to do so in the past, but the leadership was not there. So what we want to do, when I say ``we,'' Democratic majority, we want to make sure that we keep that even keel that we are on now, to encourage more bipartisanship, and to also encourage and push more leadership out of this House of Representatives. And I want to commend the Speaker and our Democratic leadership for allowing that to happen in the way that it has. Saying that, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to continue to talk about what we were touching on just the other day. The 30-something Working Group has been on the floor all of this week. This will make the final evening that we will be addressing the Members, on not only Iraq, but also how our veterans are being handled by, need it be the Department of Veterans Affairs, need it be the Congress or the administration. And I read off last time, which I will do before this hour is over, about the lack of funding and the cuts that have been made from the Bush administration in the past. And I think it is important for us to reflect on that. I think it is also important for us to talk about, in the supplemental that passed this floor, how we put in billions of dollars to make sure that we are able to take up the slack. Case in point, Mr. Speaker, this is the most recent Newsweek that has been published, Newsweek magazine. It is dated March 5, 2007. I have a copy of it. It actually came to my office. I took the opportunity to read this article. You have Specialist Strock, who is on the front, Marissa. She is age 21. As you can see, she lost both of her legs from the knee down in Iraq. And it is entitled, ``Failing Our Wounded.'' As you know it is a special investigation report, and I think it is important that Members pay very close attention to what Mr. Ryan and other Members who will be joining me shortly have to share with you on this issue on making sure that our veterans are taken care of. Now I know, as a Member of Congress, Mr. Speaker, and I also know just as someone who has been paying attention to the lack of dollars, especially as it relates to outpatient care of veterans, I think for Members like myself who have been in field hospitals in Iraq, that have gone to Germany and have visited the troops on more than two occasions, seeing the kind of care they get there. I have been to Walter Reed, I have been to Bethesda Hospital, but once you start getting out away from the general hospital treatment that our veterans are getting when they first are returning back to the United States, when you start getting into outpatient, even at Walter Reed, which a lot of this is being addressed, a lot of the bad stories are being addressed here in this Newsweek article, when you start getting out in the Midwest, when you start getting even down in my area in south Florida and you start getting a little up from Washington, D.C. into New York and out west, away from the eye of the four-star brass and all the folks that have an opportunity to go to Walter Reed and other places, you start really getting down to the nitty-gritty of what has been wrong with the planning, not only of the war, but the care of the men and women. Now, you have heard me time after time again, Mr. Speaker, and Members, talk about how Members of Congress come to the floor and chest-beat about how they support the troops. Sometimes the debate really goes beyond the reason for a Member to come to the floor. I mean, I have been in my office and watched Members talk and they say, well, I support troops 110 percent. And then you have another Member say, well, I support the troops more than you do. As a matter of fact, I have a tattoo on my arm saying that I support the troops. I am saying that just to say that we have to go beyond our words and we have to act as though we support the troops, the full troops. We have troops that have served, soldiers that have served, sailors that have served, airmen and -women that have served, Coast Guard members that have served, and on and on and on in World War II, I, you name it, Korea. You have Afghanistan; you have even some folks from there. You have folks from the first gulf war. You have Vietnam. All of these men and women that have allowed us to salute one flag, they are getting the real deal. They have been on a waiting list. And now we have put a mountain of new issues on the Department of Veteran Services, or some may call it the Veterans Administration. And I think that it is important for us to realize what is happening and what is happening in the real world. Members of Congress and others, people of influence can go to a local hospital and Congressman, oh, you are here? Don't wait in that waiting room, we will take care of you. Oh, you have a family member that is sick? Don't worry about it, the hospital administrator will meet you at the front door. But to the person that volunteered to defend this country, they don't have that prerogative. They don't have a Member of Congress to show up with them and they can get to the VA. A former friend of mine, still a friend, but he has moved on to a greater place now, Orange Hayes called me one day on my cell phone in Miami, he was at the Miami VA Hospital and he said, Kendrick, I'm not getting the kind of service that one deserves here in the VA. I am not highlighting my hospital, but one thing that I can say that he knew me, he knew my cell number, he knew he could call me. And what did I do? Of course I was there in a matter of two hours. And who was there? Well, let's put it this way: the head of the department dealing with his illness was there, the assistant administrator of the hospital was there, and the director of the nurses, RNs there at that hospital. He got what he needed. And he said, you know, in the best way he could, sat up in his bed and said, I'm so glad that you are my friend because now I have been able to get the kind of service that I need. Well, that should have happened anyway. And I think we have good people in the VA. I know we have good workers there; they are committed. We have good docs there; they are committed. But as it relates to the resources and the priorities in this Congress, the question is, are we committed? Now, this Congress is committed because we already talked about what we did in the supplemental budget. That is a budget that Members didn't even have an opportunity to work through the legislative process. That was left over from the 109th Congress Republican Congress that we decided to do the right thing and cut some projects that were nonpriorities and put over $3 billion in there to be able to assist in providing the kind of care for veterans. And we haven't even gotten started yet. Now, let's just talk about getting started. And we want to thank The Washington Post for what they have done in highlighting the issues at Walter Reed outpatient. I have been there before. I didn't see some of the things that they saw; but luckily we had some men and women that stood up and said, you know, things are not what they should be there. And I understand, Mr. Speaker, you know, a two-star general stepped down today who was over the hospital. But you know something? I know within the coming days, Mr. Speaker, we are going to get down to the bottom of what it is all about for the veterans when they come back and when they go home. When they come through Washington, D.C. and they land at Andrews Air Force base from Germany? When they land there, they are getting the care and all of the attention. But what happens when they go back to Sioux City, Iowa? What happens when they go back to Jacksonville, Florida? What happens when they show up at an airport in Wisconsin, are they still prioritized? Do they feel that we have their back because they had ours? And that is the resounding question. Now, I am excited because, unlike the 109th Congress, the 30- Somethings would give our presentation and meet and talk about what should be happening. And if we had had an opportunity to lead, Mr. Speaker, and Members, and I know that Members who served in the 109th Congress and 108th Congress knew the 30-Something Working Group, if we were given the opportunity, if we asked the American people to have an opportunity to lead, things would be different. I am going to tell you the reason why it is different right now. I am happy that the Budget Committee had hearings on this in the House, not several weeks from now, but have already had hearings. Chairman John Murtha of the Defense Appropriation Committee has scheduled a hearing on Friday, which is tomorrow, Mr. Speaker. I want our veterans to know that this Democratic House of Representatives has been on the side of making sure that our veterans get what they need, even when they leave the battlefield, even when they go back home; and that we do have Members on the other side of the aisle that feel the same way. But we are willing to provide the leadership of making sure that your issues are heard and that they are resolved, not just heard. Having a town hall meeting talking about what can we do to make things better and not come into Washington and do something about it is not even worth anyone showing up at the town hall meeting or reading a letter and responding to it, though we are trying to do the best we can. This is actually taking place. This is the action that is taking place. We also have oversight committee on government reform subcommittee chairmen will conduct a field hearing at Walter Reed on Monday, this Monday, not next Monday, not some Monday in the future maybe we will get around to it. The Senate Armed Services Committee has planned a hearing for Tuesday. This is right now. This is right here right now in the moment, and again, I am so happy that these hearings are taking place. The House Armed Services Committee on planning and oversight is also planning a hearing, and I am pretty sure that is days, not weeks. So as we start to respond to what is already a major issue in our country, and we have outlined it as a major issue, we know that within the budget that there has been a number of veterans affairs programs that have been cut, health care programs. We have had fist fights mentally, I do not want to say literally, mentally and through dialogue with colleagues on the other side of the aisle about making sure that we do what we are supposed to do for veterans. It is easy for someone to sit here in an air conditioned Chamber and pull out their voting card and say let us go to war, no problem; I am tough, I voted for it; you did not vote for it. Well, I am tougher than you. That is fine and that is good for Hollywood, but here in Washington D.C., it is important that we plan and that we make sure that the troops and the soldiers and the airmen and the sailors, we make sure they get what they need all the way around 360. You just cannot go a 180 and stop say, well, the veterans, the care is the hard part. You cannot stop there because that is not the responsible thing to do. I think it is important to point out for every one soldier that dies in Iraq, 16 are injured. We talk about the fallen, rightfully so, and we should. We should highlight that, but we have to look at the injured. Sixteen, so think about it when you are watching television and when you pick up the newspaper and you see 3,158 of our men and women that have paid the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq, think about the 16 on top of every one that has been injured, and it is very, very important. The veterans deserve a lifetime guarantee from the American people, a promise of proper medical care and treatment forever. That is what we have to back up here in this Congress, and I know that the will and the desire is here on this side of the aisle to make sure that that happens. I think it is also important that we send legislation to the White House after we have these hearings to make sure that veterans know in the field that we have their back, that the men and women know that we have those individuals and also those individuals that are veterans who--already standing in line--that they get what they need. Many of our veterans hospitals, Mr. Speaker, and outpatient centers, in some parts of rural America you have these clinics that are only open twice a month, and because of cuts, you have some clinics that are open even half a day on that twice a month. We have buildings that are crumbling, and we have VA hospitals that are still in the World War II era. I mean, they have not received the kind of renovation that they need. There is a superinflux of veterans that are coming back from two wars that are ongoing now. Some people may not know it, but there are two different wars that are going on as I speak here on the House floor. We have to make sure that we are prepared to deal with those issues when they return back. Now, I know the Secretary of Defense has already been to Walter Reed, but I can only imagine what we are going to find out in the coming days. I know that a number of other committees will continue to start to look at the issue of how the men and women are served. Mr. Speaker, we spoke time after time again here on this floor, members of the 30-something Working Group, on the responsibility of oversight. I would be worried if we were on President's break last week, this week staff visited Walter Reed Hospital, and our staff from the House of Representatives continued to be deployed throughout the country of getting down to the nitty gritty on what is actually happening in our VA hospitals, what has been the result of cuts year after year. Meanwhile, we have in the President's budget here to make tax cuts permanent, Mr. Speaker, not sunsetting in 2010, but permanent for the super wealthy in this country. Meanwhile, we have veterans that are waiting to see the ophthalmologist or a cardiologist for weeks, some cases months, depends on where they are in the country. So I think it is important, especially as we start to go through the hearings for the 2008 Appropriations Act, I think it is important as we lead into the emergency supplemental, the 99-plus billion dollar supplemental for the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas, that we think about what I am talking about right now. We have some men and women that are on their third, some fourth, deployment. We have hearings now in the House Armed Services Committee about increasing the size of the Army and the Marines. Right now, there is a request for three new Marine brigades. This is 9,000 more troops and to grow it into 20,000. The Army will take some of those soldiers, but as we continue to make our military bigger, to be ready to carry on future conflicts, because of the lack of planning in Iraq, we are in this situation. As we see other countries pull back their troops and start talking about deployment, the administration is saying that we need an escalation in troops. I think it is important for us to realize, especially when you have future generations reading the Congressional Record, wondering what went wrong and who were the leaders, to make sure we got back on track. Now, in November, the American people voted for a new direction. I am 110 percent in the front seat of that new direction, Mr. Speaker. They did not want what they had in the last Congress, a rubber-stamp Congress, and you have not seen the rubber stamp here that we used to have sitting right here, Mr. Speaker. I mean, it was almost like a passenger in the left side of the car, steering wheel here, but it sat right here, to talk about the rubber stamp Republican Congress. I think the American people, and I am not talking about proud Democrats. I am talking about Independents, I am talking about Republicans, I am talking about folks who never voted before in their lives voted this time because they wanted a new direction. In this new direction comes a great deal of responsibility, and in that responsibility, you have to have courage and you have to be willing to lead. I say to my Republican colleagues on the other side, many of whom are my good friends, my very good friends, that when it comes down to leadership, you have to be alone sometimes. You have to be one of the five, you have to be one of the 17, you have to be one of the 25 that are saying I am voting on behalf of my constituents, in this case that I am talking about here, my veterans, and making sure that our men and women have what they need. There are a number of other issues that we can get into, but I think that it is important that we highlight the leadership when it is happening, not, oh, you know something, when you go home. Member, I want to make sure you go home and you tell your constituents there are hearings that are taking place. And you know who can take pride in that, Mr. Speaker? Not just on the majority side, Democrats say we are having hearings. Republicans can go back to their district and say we are having hearings. You know why we are having hearings? Because the leadership demands it here in this House. The Democratic leadership demands hearings on this issue to make sure that veterans know that we are not leaving them behind. I think what is also important here, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that in the last Congress, we had the chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee who said, you know something, I am going to do what the veterans want me to do; I am not going to do what the Republican leadership wants me to do; I am going to do what is right. And guess what, he was stripped of his chairmanship. Not only stripped of his chairmanship, thrown off the committee. This is a man who went through whole process, whole seniority, serving on the committee and was thrown off the committee because he did the right thing on behalf of the men and women that wore the uniform. Not in this Congress. In this House of Representatives, in this Democratic House of Representatives, we look forward to leadership opportunities. This is an opportunity. In the supplemental budget, over $3 billion were given to veterans health care because we took the leadership opportunity to carry it out. We said we had the will and the desire. We have it. So I think it is important to speak in a bipartisan way, to be able to allow Members to go back to their districts, need it be Democrats and Republicans, and say we are having hearings. Matter of fact, the hearings that took place this week, there will be hearings tomorrow, there will be hearings on Monday, there will be hearings, I guarantee you, on a couple of days next week, and out of those hearings, action will take place. Not just hearings, say okay, let us just show, but action will take place. And as we figure out what is going on in other parts of the country, it is important. What I want to make sure I do is I have the Web site because I want Members and I want to make sure veterans know and report where these issues fall short. I want to make sure the Members have it so this is the 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov, 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov. We also ask you to visit, which we will give you more information about what is happening here as it relates to hearings, and go to www.speaker.gov/30something/index.html. That is a lot there but on the top here, 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov. We want to hear it, Mr. Speaker. We want to do something about it, and I think it is important that we have the opportunity to do that. One thing I want to also point out here, Mr. Speaker, and I would encourage the Members once again, is if you have it, it should be in all the Members' offices, the latest Newsweek article or Newsweek magazine which is March 5, 2007. It came to my office. I know it went to a number of other offices. This is compliments of Newsweek. I get one at home, too. ``Failing Our Wounded,'' a special investigation. In this publication here you will hear a lot and see a lot. Also, you can go on washingtonpost.com, and in case you missed it, there is an area there where you can read about some of the failures of not only Walter Reed, but veterans services that are in so bad a condition right now because of the lack of funding and because of the lack of leadership from Washington, D.C., in prioritizing the needs of our veterans. In the article, you have a number of hospital officials that knew of the neglect and also complained about it and voiced their opinion for years but have not been heard, and we know that we have a number of veteran organizations that have come to Washington, D.C., looking for justice. But guess what, I think they are coming this time knowing that they will have an opportunity to sit before a committee. I think they will come knowing that they will have a chance to see something happen this year and in the future budgets as long as you have Democratic control here in this House, and I think it is important and also with some of my friends on the other side joining us. We talked about oversight. We talked about accountability, but I also want to say, as of a week ago, 52 hearings as it relates to oversight of the Iraq War have taken place. Unlike the 109th Congress, the 108th Congress, and Congresses before that one, there have been a number of hearings that have taken place under the Capitol dome. Why are these hearings important? Members are being educated on the issues. Why is education important? We can govern better. We can govern better on behalf of who? The American people. That did not happen at the beginning of this war. That did not happen when we had bills sweep through this House of Representatives, and Members were challenged: if you didn't vote for it, you with not for the troops. Well, the bottom line is that I think we are all, I haven't run into a Member of Congress who says I am against the troops, or an American who has said that I am against the troops, we are all for the troops. The real issue is, do we have enough leadership, or have we had leadership in the past to be able to make sure that we have our troops' backs like they have ours, in the care that they deserve for the rest of their lives? And when we talk about that, we have to talk about individuals going back to their families, Mr. Ryan, who have real issues. Some of those issues can be between the years of being in warfare for 3 years, 4 years, and being asked to go back. We are talking about families, we are talking about communities, we are talking about something that needs special care and needs counseling and treatment. And so when we talk about those things, we have to do something about them. So that is why I am very, very pleased that these hearings are taking place, Mr. Speaker, because the leadership is there to make those hearings happen. There will be Democrats and Republicans a part of it. I am glad that staff was deployed from the Democratic Congress to Walter Reed Hospital and other hospitals here in the Washington area, outpatient centers, to make sure that we can get to the bottom of the problem and make sure that we start working towards a solution. And I want to say, Mr. Ryan, before I yield to you, that I commend the individuals that work in our veterans hospitals for blowing the whistle and talking to the press and talking to the staff about some of the issues that veterans had to face. I want to commend those veterans or those active duty and those individuals that are no longer on active duty, also our National Guardsmen and our Reservists that have been activated for sharing information. And we encourage you to continue to share information so that we can do better, because the willingness and the desire here is in this Democratic Congress to make sure that you get what you need and what you have coming to you.

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. I thank you so very much for yielding. I think it is important for us to also realize that the next action that we will probably, no probably, we will have on Iraq, Mr. Speaker and Members, will be the $99.6 billion emergency supplemental to the war. And I think it is important that we pay very close attention to this vote that is coming up and what leads up to that vote. I spoke earlier about making sure that troop readiness, that troops have what they need when they go. I spoke of going to get a procedure done. You have a medical procedure that needs to be done, the first thing you want to check and make sure is the doctor has what he or she needs to be able to complete the procedure, because you do want to get up from that table one day. This is very, very important. And I think that as we continue to talk about this issue of Iraq, it is our responsibility; we cannot critique the present administration or the past majority in this House if we do the same thing they did and expect different results. That is just not going to happen. We know that those that have come before us, whatever authority they might have been from the executive branch, and said they have what they need, we have the up-armored Humvees, we have all the things that they need when they get there. We were told that. And, better yet, we still have men and women at Walter Reed and other veterans hospitals, military hospitals throughout this country and even in Germany, and I visited twice, that are without legs because they didn't have the up-armored Humvees that they needed. So saying all of that, the debate is going to be: Are we going to do the same thing that the Republican majority did, saying that we talk a good game about standing up on behalf of the troops and we disagree with the President on certain issues as it relates to Iraq? But if we do what they did, which was very little, then what happened in November will not reach its full potential in making sure that we head in a new direction. So I think it is important that we take this in a very strong way, and I am glad that we had 17 Republicans join us on a nonbinding resolution before we left here, the last big action that we took before we left on Presidents' break. And I encourage more of my Republican colleagues to be a part of this movement in the new direction. I think it is very, very important. I think there have been a lot of things that have been highlighted. I know that the whole coalition of the willing will soon be the coalition of one, because we are going to be the only country that is left. There is a lot of rhetoric going on, we have to be there because we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here. I don't hear Great Britain saying that. I don't hear some of the other countries that have announced their departure and those that have left Iraq. I am one to believe, just as a single Member, that there will be a U.S. presence for some time in the region. But at the levels that we are now, over 143,000 troops and counting, it is going to be very difficult for us to continue to sell to the American people that there is a great need to keep those kinds of levels there. And as you spoke earlier about the readiness issue, this is very, very important. This is very, very important. I mean, we wouldn't want to get the word out to the undesirables here in the United States of America to say that law enforcement here is not ready to deal with major crimes here in the United States of America. We definitely don't want to get the word out to the rest of the world that we are not prepared to defend ourselves in a way that we should and need to be prepared to be able to defend ourselves or help our allies in the future. So I think that is important. It is something not to take lightly. A lot of work has to be done here. A lot of tough votes have to be taken. And we have to communicate with the Members and the American people to not let them fall behind as we go through reforming this House and reforming the legislative presence in this whole debate on Iraq.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Thank you so very much, Mr. Murphy. And I want to thank Mr. Altmire for joining us and also Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I want to thank the Democratic leadership for allowing us to have one more 30-something Working Group hour. With that, Mr. Speaker, it was an honor addressing the House of Representatives.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to address the House. And to my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle, it sounds like our past colleague Mr. Snyder and his family served our country well, and we appreciate his contributions to our country in serving in public service. Mr. Speaker, as you know, this is the first night of business, returning back from the Presidents Day break. Before we left we had a week-long debate on the question of Iraq, a nonbinding resolution opposing the troop escalation that the President has put forth at this time. And the discussion continues, Mr. Speaker, as we start, Democrats and Republicans, molding out the direction that we have to head in in this country. The American people, Mr. Speaker, voted for change and a new direction. And to bring about that kind of change and new direction, there are going to have to be some votes here on this floor that are going to speak volumes back home of how we are going to proceed from this point on and how we are going to assist our men and women in harm's way and how we are going to deal with this issue in Iraq and in Afghanistan and other domestic issues that we have here. I am very pleased to not only share with the Members, Mr. Speaker, but also with the American people the fact that 246 Members of the House voted in the affirmative to disagree with the President as it relates to the recent troop escalation of some 20,000 combat troops and anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000 support personnel being sent to Iraq, which was announced by the President on January 10 of this year. I think it is very, very important to note that that was a nonbinding resolution. Even though it was nonbinding, it really set the course for the Congress to play a role. I think the reason why we are in the majority, and when I say ``we,'' the Democrats are in the majority right now, Mr. Speaker, is not the fact that our message was better than the Republican message in the last election. I think the American people were counting on change and heading in a new direction. So it is important, and I am encouraging the Members in a bipartisan way, that we work very hard to give the American people what they want and to give the men and women in uniform what they need. I think that is a Congress having oversight hearings; a Congress debating the issues as it relates to troop readiness; a Congress that is willing to take the tough votes when they need to be taken; to be able to provide the kind of leadership from the congressional oversight end. The President is the commander-in-chief. That is outlined in the Constitution. No one is really trying to bother that or hinder that. We just want to make sure that the troops have what they need when they go into harm's way, need it be Iraq or Afghanistan. I mentioned a little earlier in my talk about readiness. I think it is important that we identify this, because it is used a lot here on the floor. Being a member of the Armed Services Committee and having had an opportunity to travel to Iraq twice, and looking forward to going back soon and going to Afghanistan and other areas where we have a military presence, readiness is very, very important. Readiness is almost like if you have an illness and you are going in for a major operation, you want to make sure that that doctor has what he or she needs to be able to carry out your procedure. I think it is important as we look at our National Guard and we look at our Reservists and we look at our active duty that they have what they need to carry out the mission if they are sent to Iraq. You can't go unless you have up-armored Humvees that are going to match the mission. You should not go and we should not send them if they don't have the Kevlar vests that they need. They should not go and we should not send them if they don't have the kind of backing that they need from a support standpoint that is trained and ready for the mission in Baghdad, need it be door-to-door searches, need it be guerilla warfare, need it be the general equipment one may need to carry out that mission. There is nothing wrong with the word ``readiness.'' I put it in the category, Mr. Speaker, of responsibility. I think it is important. I think it is irresponsible for us to send men and women into harm's way without the necessary tools that they need. Now, there are some Members that are saying, well, why do you have Members concerned? A colonel told us or the President told us or I read somewhere in a news release or I saw on the news that they have everything they need, and why would we send them over there in the first place? We all have their best interests at heart. I am going to share with Members, Mr. Speaker, that being a member of the Armed Services Committee in the last two Congresses and this Congress too, I have seen the Secretary of Defense say they have what they need. ``Anything the troops need, we will give it to them.'' And later I will pick up a news account that they don't have what they need, or go to Walter Reed and talk to a soldier that ended up being blown up in a Humvee because of an improvised explosive device, because that Humvee did not have the up-armor that it needed. It is the total opposite of what I hear here on Capitol Hill and what I have seen at Walter Reed. Let's take Walter Reed out. I have gone to Germany, Mr. Speaker. I have seen service men and women without legs. They didn't have what they needed. We were told they had what they needed, but they didn't have it. Just 2 weeks ago, last week during the debate, I think it was on Tuesday or Wednesday, I was at the White House for a meeting and we had an opportunity to ask the President questions and I had an opportunity to ask the President a question. And I shared with the President, we talked the nonbinding resolution. The President agreed he thought that it would pass here on the floor because the votes were there. He has people that are counting these votes. I said, ``Mr. President, I think it is important as we look at this as being a nonbinding resolution, there will be a binding resolution or a binding supplemental, emergency supplemental for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there will be language in there, and you shouldn't have a problem with it, to say that we should not send the troops unless they are ready. I am not talking about mentally, I am talking about having the equipment they need to carry out the mission and not find themselves in harm's way without having the kind of backing that they need to be able to carry out the mission once again.'' Of course, the President came back in a very roaring voice saying, ``Kendrick, do you believe that I would send men and women into harm's way? I hear about the funerals. I write the letters and I call the families. You believe that I would do that?'' I don't believe that the President would do that. But let me just share this with you: It has happened, and I think it is important that we realize that it is happening. Yes, if I am talking to a friend of mine and they are saying, well, you know, I know there have been reports of the new car that I bought, that it has some sort of problem with the engine that has come out in the auto report or what have you, but I am going to be okay regardless. Maybe it is not the best analogy that I can come up with at this point, but we have been told that the troops have what they need, we have been told they are ready for the mission that they are being sent to, and we found out otherwise later. Now, Mr. Speaker, it gives me no pleasure, and Members, it gives me no pleasure, we are at 3,154 men and women in uniform that are dead now. We appreciate their contributions to our country and we appreciate the way that they have applied themselves on behalf of what we sent them over to do. But I will tell you standing here as a Member of Congress, that some of these deaths could have been prevented if they had what they needed. Now, Members can go back and forth on how you feel about leadering up, manning up and womaning up to be able to do what you need to do as a Member of Congress to fight on behalf of these individuals. I am not questioning anyone's patriotism. I am not questioning anyone's integrity. I am not even questioning any Member of Congress' will or desire to make sure that we give the troops what they need. I believe we all are well-intended. But we have to make sure that when that man or woman leaves their family on a tarmac, need it be at an active duty military camp or at a commercial airport where you have Reserve and National Guard individuals that are leaving to go into harm's way, it is our duty and our responsibility as Members of Congress that have oversight of the taxpayer dollars to make sure, even though someone has said it is going to be okay, but to make sure that they have what they need. It is that simple. So, I was not shocked, Mr. Speaker, by seeing the bipartisan vote before we left on President's break. I am definitely not a prophet and I am not a psychic, but I knew, based on the message from the American people, Democrats and Republicans, I am not just talking about proud Democrats kind of got together and said hey, let's do this. We don't have 246 Members here in this House on the majority right now, so it took 17 Republicans to come along with Democrats or to be with Democrats or to be with individuals that understood that message last November from the American people. As far as I am concerned, in the 30-something Working Group, we don't focus on issues, ``let's go to the floor and make sure we gain a greater majority.'' Not when it comes to national security. Not when it comes to the very heartbeats and the way of life of those individuals that put their lives on the line and those that have put their lives on the line in the past, and I am going to talk about them a little later, Mr. Speaker. You don't play politics with that. That is national security. That is someone's daddy, that is someone's mother, that is someone's son, that is someone's daughter that may not come home because someone told someone else in Washington, D.C. that it was going to be okay. Now, there are a lot of folks around here editorializing on what Mr. Murtha is talking about from Pennsylvania, who is an outstanding Member of the Congress and also happens to be the chairman of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee. I think it is important that we look at someone who is a decorated Marine, that has fought for us to salute one flag, who served in Congress double digit years, that still is willing to serve this country. We have someone that is willing to say I voted for the war, as Mr. Murtha did, and to say that I have been to Iraq, I have had oversight hearings, and I must add that he has had more oversight hearings since this Congress has been active in the last 2 months than they had in the entire 109th Congress with 2 years combined and then some. And that the committee is hard at work to make sure that when those family members look at those men and women that are going into harm's way, that they know, not maybe, not, well, you know, I am trying to get there. I heard what the President said. I heard what the Secretary of Defense said. I even heard a member of the brass say it. When they go out on patrol, and I am not a military person and I am not going to represent myself as someone who has served in uniform. I have just been a State trooper and I have been an elected official for 13 years, and I have served here in this Congress for the last 4 years and a couple of months. And I have been federalized by the people that elected me from the Seventeenth Congressional District. I will tell you this: I know what my job is, and I know what Mr. Murtha's job is, and I know what the job of all of the Members of Congress, including the Members of the Senate and the President of the United States and the people that he appoints, that we need to make sure, we need to make sure beyond 100 percent, we need to make sure 160 percent, if we can, 200 percent, that those men and women that go into war, that their chance to come back to this country the way they left is our paramount duty. So, I am not really tied up in a debate, Mr. Speaker, and I don't think here on this side of the aisle and even some of the Members on the other side of the aisle are tied up in the debate about the details of the obvious. The obvious is, Mr. Speaker, the fact that the troops should have what they need when they go into harm's way. Why are we even talking about that? Why are some Members objecting to that being in the emergency supplemental, to say that they should have what they need to go into war? If it wasn't so serious, it would be funny. So I think the Members, we need to kind of put that to the side and say that there are other issues that we have to deal with. Profiteering of the war, reams and reams of paper, Inspector General reports of how U.S. contractors have been fleecing of the U.S. taxpayer dollar. Our paramount, one of our fiscal paramount responsibilities is to make sure that the Federal tax dollar is not only appropriated, but disseminated in the right way to make sure that ultimate accountability is paramount once again. So I am excited about what is happening here, Mr. Speaker, I am excited about the debate that is taking place, and I am excited about the forward progress that we are making in that area. I just want to address one more thing before I turn it over to my colleague, Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Speaker, I was very disturbed last week and have been disturbed, and here in the 30-Something Working Group, we have been talking quite a bit about our veterans. Now, I mentioned that a little earlier because the veterans, we say we are the 30-something Working Group. A lot of those veterans are 30-something now. Many of them are even 20- something, because of their service. Some of them are 40 and 50- something. And they are coming back. In the last Congress, in the 109th and 108th, those were the only two Congresses I can account for, because beyond that it was my mother serving here, and I am pretty sure that I can get a good account from her about what happened or I can research in the Congressional Record, we have Members coming to the floor chest-beating, ``Oh, I support the men and women in uniform and our veterans, and I am going to be in the veterans parade and I am going to wave and carry on and I am going to let them know that I love them.'' Well, let me just say this: In the 108th and the 109th Congresses, veteran benefits were cut, period. They were cut. And as we continue to talk about it, as we continue to dissect the President's budget, this document here, as we continue to dissect this budget here, find out what is in it and what is not in it, what is going to be given to the American people and what is going to be taken away, we are going to find out where this administration falls and the old majority in this House falls on the issue of veterans. Now, I can speak, and I know we can speak, in a very bold voice when we talk about our commitment to veterans. I have a veterans hospital in my district. I have actually two. When I go and visit, I look at those men and women. They could have served back in Korea, World War II. I even met a gentleman who served in Grenada, Haiti, 82nd Airborne. You have these individuals that are there. Vietnam, that are there. Some folks may not know that they served, but we know they served. Our responsibility in Congress is not to just carry on and talk about how we support the men and women in uniform and those who have served, and we honor them and we appreciate them; but I think it is important that we speak with our dollars and our commitment here as Members of Congress. In January of 2003, the Bush administration cuts off veterans health care for 164,000 veterans. That is on our Web site. March 2003, the Republican budget cuts $14 billion from veterans health care. That was passed by Congress with 199 Democrats voting against that measure of cutting the $14 billion. In March 2004, the Republican budget shortchanged veterans health care again by $1.5 billion. That was passed by the Congress, 201 Democrats voting against that measure. March 2005, President Bush's budget shortchanges veterans health care again by more than $2 billion. Again, 201 Democrats voted against that. This was House Resolution 95. The vote number was 98. In the 30-Something Working Group, we actually pull information from the Congressional Record. I think it is important that Members and the American people realize that. Again, November 2005, the Bush administration as it relates to the shortfall, Democrats fought that summer to be able to get back the $2.7 billion that was taken out. And we have a member of the Appropriations Committee here, but in the last continuing resolution because the Republicans did not do their job, Mr. Speaker, in making sure that the work was done when the Democratic Congress took over, they couldn't get all of the bills passed. They just kept punting down the street. In our continuing resolution, we retooled Members' projects and other nonissues that weren't a priority because of the thirst that veterans have and the Department of Veterans has to provide the services for our men and women that serve. The Democrats increased the VA health care budget by $3.6 billion in a joint funding resolution. I say all of that to indicate it is important that we do this. One last point. While we were on break, The Washington Post: ``Soldiers face neglect and frustration at Army top medical facility'' here in Washington, D.C., Walter Reed Hospital. This is a Washington Post article, Sunday, February 18, 2007. It was dropped here on my doorstep in Washington, D.C. I read this, and it was a follow-up article. I think it is important that the American people and Members of Congress pay close attention to what is happening. You have patients and outpatients that are saying that Walter Reed, they are encountering a messy bureaucratic battlefield that reminds them of the real one that they faced overseas. It also talks in this article about rats and mice and dead insects in this hospital. Smells and carpet stains. Again, Mr. Speaker, our job, yes, we say we support the troops. Yes, we say we support veterans. We are supposed to say that. But when we come here and we take our voting card out and we go to these committees, we have to make sure that we follow through on what we say. So I am excited by the fact that by reading everything that I have read about what has happened in the last two Congresses and beyond, that we have already put $3.6 billion, and we haven't had a full cycle to be able to even dissect the budget and to appropriate. So saying that, I want to pass it over to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), a good friend of mine. I am glad she is here to shed light on our message here tonight.

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, today I rise in sadness over the demise of the late Thirlee Smith, Jr. the first Black reporter at The Miami Herald. His role in the education of the children of Miami-Dade County is foremost in his achievements, having focused his attention on African-American history that it became an important part of the school system's curriculum. I join my fellow citizens in mourning the passing of this great leader, whose ``going home'' services will be celebrated this Thursday, February 15, 2007 at Miami's St. Agnes Episcopal Church. Mr. Smith was the quintessential community leader. Not only did he write about the struggles and challenges impacting Blacks in Southern Florida, but he also symbolized tremendous hope for the youth to whom he bequeathed his unique brand of adventure that shed light on the mastery of basic skills and scholastic achievement. He has had to make sense of the malicious intent of segregation in his writing at The Miami Herald, but the lessons he learned from his parents, Thirlee Smith, Sr. and Beulah, epitomized his unshakable faith in the majesty of a loving God. Having attended Liberty City Elementary School, he would soon represent the first graduating class of Miami Northwestern Senior High School in 1956. He went on to earn a bachelor's degree in history and Master's degree in Education at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He applied for a writer's job at The Miami Herald, but was unceremoniously told that the community was ``not ready'' for a Black reporter. Despite this rebuff, he was featured in 1960 in Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities. He paved his way for a teaching career in the District of Columbia's public school system in 1961. In 1967 he returned home to teach in the Miami-Dade County Schools, and was simultaneously chosen as the first Black writer for the Miami Herald. After a post-graduate 4-year stint at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., he was promoted in 1997 as District Coordinator for African American History. When I reminisce about the role that this great writer and educator played in fashioning the future of our community, it is clear that it parallels much of our state's history as it struggled through the agonies of racial equality and educational opportunity under the aegis of simple justice for all Americans. All throughout the segregation era, this young visionary gave us hope and courage through his writings, engaging our parents and their children to keep faith toward helping them achieve basic skills mastery and academic excellence. Blessed with a lucid common sense and quick grasp of the simmering issues at hand, Mr. Smith, Jr. was also imbued with the rare wisdom of recognizing both the strength and the promise of a good education. The acumen of his intelligence and the timeliness of his vision were felt at a time when our community needed someone to put in perspectives the agony of disenfranchised Blacks and other minorities yearning to belong. Indeed, he exemplified a clam but reasoned leadership whose courage and wisdom appealed to our noblest character as a nation. this is the magnificent legacy by which we will honor his memory.

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am excited about being here. I want to thank the gentlelady for yielding. But I am going to put my prepared notes to the side here, because I don't think that is needed at this point, because we are well into debate now, Mr. Speaker, on this very issue of Iraq. I would like to disclose to the House that I am not a member of the armed services. I have never served in a forward area. I wasn't even a member of the ROTC. But I am a Member of the U.S. Congress, and I have been federalized to come here to represent my constituents and the people of this great country. I know sometimes we say some things on the floor that we don't really mean, and then there are some things we do really mean. I had the opportunity to go to the White House today to speak to the President on this very issue, and I shared with him, delivered the message from the majority of the Members of this House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis, Republicans and Democrats that have come to this floor and said they are going to vote in the affirmative on this resolution because they don't believe in the escalation of troops. A supermajority of the Members of the House have not served in the military. Now, do we respect and honor those that allow us still to salute one flag? You are 110 percent right as it relates to my feelings towards that. And I respect those Members who have been in the ROTC and came up through college and what have you and joined the Reserves and active duty. I trust their judgment. They have the right to say what they want to say when they want to say it. But I shared with the President that this will pass. And he shook his head and said, ``I believe it will pass too, Kendrick.'' I said, ``Mr. President, here is something else that we have to be together on, and there has to be some level of compromise.'' Yes, this is a nonbinding resolution, but this is the first time that the President has ever had any, any, any pressure from the Congress on his original thoughts and what he says military commanders call for. Now, since folks have been talking about who they are here on this floor and what they have done and chest beating and all, I have been a member of the Armed Services Committee. I am a member of the Ways and Means Committee now and still on Armed Services on a waiver. I said I wanted to go back to Armed Services because we are at war and we have to make sense here in this House. We just can't say we are there and we got to stay there as long as we got to stay there, until the last insurgent says that they give up. Well, guess what? They are not going to give up. They are not going to give up, and they are not going to say, well, we are leaving. They are not going to say that. So if our mission is to stay there as long as the last insurgent is there, so someone would not be looking at troops leaving on the plane saying we won, if that is the issue, then we have to readjust our thinking here. Let me just share something with you. I said to the President, ``Yes, this is nonbinding, but it means a lot. It sends a message to the country that we heard them last November.'' You know the reason why this House is in the majority for the Democrats this time? You know why? Because the rubber stamp Republican Congress rubber stamped everything that the President sent to this House and to the Senate. And if this was about politics, I would just go home and sit and watch this debate on television and talk to my wife and tell my wife, guess what, sweetheart? The Democrats are about to gain a greater majority, because the American people are going to continue on a bipartisan way, not just Democrats, Republicans, independents, those that never voted before, will start voting because they think that we are not listening. Now, I am going to share this also with you, what is very, very important. I said, ``Mr. President, it is nonbinding, but you are going to have a supplemental that is going to come through, and there has to be language in there that speaks to the point of readiness, speaks to the point of the fact that if you say we are going to send 20,000 combat troops and 3,000 support personnel, that they have what they need to carry out the mission.'' The President heard what I had to say and came right back and said, ``Kendrick, do you believe for a minute that I would put troops in harm's way if the military commanders did not tell us what we had?'' Respectfully I told the President, ``It has happened before.'' I have sat next to Mr. Ryan in the Armed Services Committee and watched four star generals answer the question, ``Do you have what you need?'' ``Yes, we have it.'' Then we went to Iraq twice. Not once. Not when somebody told me that got off the plane that came back from Iraq and said, ``Kendrick, guess what.'' In Mosul, in Baghdad, folks getting ready to go out on patrol did not have up-armored vehicles. And I am a Member of Congress. You would think someone would bring up-armored vehicles out because they have Members of Congress there. And people are there saying, and the troops are there saying, soldiers, in the field, 18 months on the second deployment, saying, ``Congressman, I know what you think, but let me tell you something: We don't have what we need.'' They still do not have what they need. So I come to this floor, yes, with great passion. I was not a member of the military, but doggone it, I am a Member of Congress. I am not going to let any Member of Congress make me believe or any other Member believe that they are less of a Member because they do not have the credentials that the next person has. What I do know is that someone woke up early Tuesday morning at 7:00 a.m. to vote for representation in this U.S. House of Representatives, and doggone it, they are going to get, and those troops are going to get it. So tomorrow it is going to be judgment time. Either you are with going in the old direction or in the new direction. And the only reason that I have comfort, Mr. Speaker, tonight is the fact that I know that there is going to be a bipartisan vote on that board, just like it was on the minimum wage, just like it was as it relates to prescription drugs, just like it was in cutting back interest rates on student loans. All these bipartisan votes, and this is going to follow the number of those bipartisan votes. I know that we are going to start having the kind of oversight we have to have on this war. I do not believe that it would be a full pull out of troops, and I am not even looking for that, but I am looking for management of this war in Iraq, and I am glad that we are having this debate.

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today, pleased to introduce a piece of legislation along with my co-sponsor and esteemed Ways and Means colleague, Congressman Wally Herger, that will repeal a law that unfairly burdens local governments with annual procurement spending over $100 million, which includes Miami-Dade County. The legislation would repeal Section 511 of the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 which was slipped into the legislation without an up-or-down vote on the amendment. Section 511 requires local governments that spend over $100 million in procurements, primarily located in large urban centers, to deduct a 3 percent withholding tax from payments made to their vendors for federal income tax purposes. This legislation will become effective in 2011. We have the opportunity with this legislation to help repeal Section 511 which unfairly burdens our cities and urban centers where many people living below the poverty line reside. If Section 511 is not repealed, the poor will be further squeezed as the cost of future increased procurement contracts will be passed on to the neediest people, while services and day-to-day operations may be jeopardized too. According to Miami-Dade County officials, the withholding tax will raise the cost of purchases by 3 percent or more and Miami-Dade County would have to absorb an annual increase in the cost of goods and services in excess of $57 million, given the annual value of contracts for goods and services awarded by Miami-Dade County will exceed $1.9 billion. Small businesses and companies pursuing government contracts, many of whom operate on tight margins or irregular cash flows, would also be adversely affected in this bid process, while large companies with established reserves could better absorb this withholding tax. Devolution of taxation down from the federal government to state and local governments is a problem that we must fix. This is but one small, but very important step toward doing just that.

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor and pay tribute to all victims of the Holocaust and to congratulate South Florida's Holocaust Documentation and Education Center, its founders and museum curators for their fine work in educating and reminding the public about the Holocaust and remembering and honoring its victims. An important part of the Center's permanent exhibits is one of only eight authentic World War II railcars that transported Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Nazi death camps. An estimated 3 million Jews were packed into the cars like the one on display in Hollywood, FL, which has a faded swastika still painted on the side. The persecuted Jews were often kept inside for days without food or water before being murdered. This railcar was used during the world's darkest time when over 6 million Jews were murdered along with approximately 3 million more victims of Nazi aggression, including; Christian Poles, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexual men, and people with disabilities. This railcar will be placed on an unused track near the Holocaust Museum, which is located in my district at 2031 Harrison Street in Hollywood, FL, the center of the second-largest population of Holocaust survivors in the Nation. To the residents of South Florida, the students enrolled in area schools, and to the millions of visitors to the region, I encourage you to visit the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center to study, understand and contemplate the consequences of man's inhumanity to man which occurred in Europe prior to and during World War II. That the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center is one of four Holocaust museums in the country where these railcars are on display demonstrates that the Jewish community in South Florida is among the strongest in the Nation, forever committed to preserving the memory of the 6 million Jews who tragically were killed during the Shoah. This railcar will undoubtedly serve as a reminder for eternity that the poignant expression ``Never Again'' will never ring hollow again. I congratulate the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center for attaining and displaying this railcar, and for helping to teach the entire South Florida community lessons of tolerance and understanding.

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Carolyn Closs Walford on the occasion of her promotion to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel after 20 years of service in the U.S. Army. LTC Walford is known to many of my colleagues, because she has served in the Army's House Liaison Division for more than 3 years. Many of us have had the good fortune of working with her on a wide variety of legislative initiatives and programs. She has also coordinated 14 Congressional Delegations to Iraq, more than any other Legislative Liaison currently assigned to the Chief of the Legislative Liaison Office. LTC Walford coordinated official visits I made to Morocco, Israel, and Egypt, and I can therefore attest from first-hand experience to her professionalism and commitment to duty. LTC Walford was born and reared in Louisburg, NC. She is the daughter of the late William L. Closs and Fannie S. Closs, the littlest in a large and loving family of ten. Her oldest brother is 30 years her senior and her oldest sister is 18 years older. LTC Walford is not the first in her family to honorably serve in this Nation's armed forces, although she is the first generation of her family to serve in an integrated military. Her father, SSG William L. Closs, served in WWII during the Normandy Campaign with the 443rd QM Trucking Company. He was awarded the Purple Heart for his bravery and commitment to duty. LTC Walford was a daddy's girl who joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps, ROTC, while attending Winston-Salem State University. She was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Signal Corps upon graduation and accepted a reserve commission in the Army Reserve. She completed the Signal Officers Basic Course at Ft. Gordon, GA, relocated to Washington, DC, to pursue a fulltime career in the private sector while fulfilling her military commitment in the Army Reserve and completing her graduate studies. LTC Walford later made the decision to branch transfer to the Quartermaster Corps, a branch more fitting to support the Army Reserve mission of combat service support. LTC Walford held various positions while serving as the ``Citizen Soldiers,'' to include Company Command, Aide-de-Camp to the Commanding General of the 352d Civil Affairs Command, Host Nations Support and a variety of logistics assignments. LTC Walford deployed and served seven months in Southwest Asia during Operation Desert Storm. The Chief, Army Reserve requested her assistance in the start up of a new unit in 1999, the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, LOGCAP. LTC Walford's civilian expertise in contracting and her logistical background made her a prime candidate to help facilitate this new unit. Once again, she answered the call to serve and became a fulltime active soldier. She has served in the Army's Guard/Reserve, AGR, Program since 1999. LTC Walford has received numerous awards throughout her career, including the Meritorious Service Medal, the Joint Accommodation Medal, the Office of the Secretary of Defense Badge, and the Army Staff Badge. She is a graduate of the Army's Command and General Staff Officers Course, The Quartermaster and Civil Affairs Advanced course, and the U.S. Army Paratrooper School. This soldier's unique skill set and extraordinarily diverse level of experience both in the public and private sector has been a tremendous asset to our great country. She is a pillar of strength for our Army, her fellow comrades-in-arms, and for her family and friends. My best wishes go out to LTC Walford on her well-deserved promotion, and to her husband, Raymond L. Walford, and her entire extended family on this important occasion.

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Please mention Mr. Ryan's name. He gets a little jealous when folks started mentioning the fact I make a good argument on bipartisanship, so, please.