Kendrick Meek

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, can the gentleman say that again because I just want to make sure that the American people and not only the American people, but the Members who represent them on both sides of the aisle understand what is going on. This is unprecedented. This is not something that happened 4 or 5 years ago. This is not something that happened 20 years ago. This is not something that happened 40 years ago. This is not something that happened 200 years ago. This is something that is happening now to this country, the first time in the history of the Republic. So when folks say, well, we have to do this, that we have a war going on and we gave unprecedented tax cuts to millionaires and we had 9/11, you know something? Forty-two Presidents had World War I, World War II, had Vietnam, Korea, the Great Depression. I mean, they had a number of issues thrown in the face of this country that we had to deal with. And now under this Republican majority, under the President we have in office now, we are breaking records. We are not breaking records as it relates to our economy and growth. We are breaking records as it relates to putting this country further in debt and borrowing from foreign countries.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, here in the 30- Something Group, we believe in third-party validators. We believe in making sure we share with the American people and also with the Members of this House, Mr. Speaker, because sometimes there are a lot of things that are said. Some folks come to the floor and try to make sure that they provide information that somebody might have told them or they may say ``they said,'' but we are actually giving good information, third- party validators. Some are U.S. Government agencies. Some are groups with great credibility. I can tell Members right now and every American knows because they just pick up a newspaper or turn on the news, Mr. Ryan mentioned just a few companies, but GM, Delphi, Merck, Verizon, and now Ford just to name a few, Mr. Speaker. So when we start talking about the tax cuts, we can go down memory lane to just a month ago. There is so much happening to the American people versus for the American people that we do not have enough time to share it all. We just do not have enough time to share it all. I mean, we would have to take 10 hours on this floor daily just to report to the Members of the House what is going on in this House. We could not look at another Congress and say, well, that happened in the 101st Congress or that happened in the 93rd Congress or that happened in the 3rd Congress. No. We are setting a new chapter in the record book as it relates to not governing in the way that we should. And I do not want to say ``we,'' Mr. Speaker, because it is the Republican majority, and I just want to make sure Members understand. Folks talk about what the Democrats are doing? What we are doing? Somebody said something about what the Democrats are going to raise. We cannot even bring our proposal to the floor. Do my colleagues know why? They say Democrats are lazy, that they do not want to put anything together. Guess what. We have a number of plans to put this country back in order and make sure that we clean out this deficit spending that the majority is doing, and they will not allow us in the Rules Committee to come to the floor and put our proposals on this floor and let us do it on an up-or-down vote. What they are doing is they are borrowing from this generation and future generations. Just a few weeks ago, what was it, 14-something billion dollars they took from students, they took from parents that are trying to educate their children? We are getting our clock cleaned by China that, I must add, we are borrowing money from to give billionaires and millionaires tax cuts. We are borrowing money from them. They have more engineers. As a Member of Congress that represents a father or mother that wants to see their daughter become an engineer, forget about it. Unless they are a millionaire or a billionaire, that is the only way she is going to get to college so that she can be able to make this country strong. We are weakening this country and giving subsidies to companies that go overseas, Mr. Speaker, to have a better deal than they are going to have here on U.S. soil, to have better opportunities for our young people. No Child Left Behind, Mr. Speaker, was a piece of legislation that we all thought at the beginning that could be a bipartisan work product that we can fund to help our future generations and present generation so we can compete against other countries. No. What we are doing now is we are making it easier for U.S. companies to go overseas, send our jobs overseas, and have GM, Delphi, Merck, Verizon, and now Ford lay off workers here. This is not the Kendrick Meek report, Mr. Speaker. This is reality. This is not Walt Disney World. This is the U.S. House of Representatives. It starts here. We are the People's House. The Republican majority has allowed this to happen. Now, if someone is a Republican or an Independent, or, you know, Libertarian, Green Party, and says I am not a Democrat, I do not subscribe to that, you must subscribe to it, because it is dealing with your household. This is not just Democratic households that the Republican majority cut $4 billion plus out of student loans and student aid. That is going to increase, increase the cost to send your child to college. So I would say, gentlemen, for the Members that are in their offices right now, for the Members that are paying attention to us on the floor right now, they have to put in their newsletter to their constituents that you need to look at that college fund that you are setting aside for your child, because, guess what? You need to increase it. Because we just made life harder for you. Why do we make life harder for you? We made life harder because we had to make sure that the oil companies had their subsidies while they are making record breaking profits. We had to make sure that the millionaires and billionaires get their tax cut. It is not just our report. Just pick up the paper. Just take a look at what is going on in this Congress right now. It is not that. It is not the fact that, oh, well, we had to cut the student loan and student opportunities, we had to cut Medicaid and we had to instruct the Veterans Affairs Committee to cut out of their budget millions for veterans to make their lives longer, to make those health care clinics for veterans, have them have fewer hours. Gentlemen, in some areas of this great country of ours, there are clinics that are only open for 1 day a week for the veterans. One day. So now we have instructed, or the Republican majority has instructed, because we all voted against it, to then cut over $600 million. So that means that maybe they will be open for half a day, Mr. Speaker. And the President today wants to talk about the economy in Iraq. Wants to talking about what we have done with Iraqi contractors. Please. Why do not we talk about what we have done in U.S. cities?

Mr. MEEK of Florida. This working group that we have plays a very important role in making sure that the Members know that we in the minority party here in this House know exactly what they are doing and what they are not doing. And I can tell you that it is just so powerful, and it serves, to our benefit politically if the country did not have to suffer. You know, as an American I must say, gentlemen, that politically we could just say, well, let us go home. Let us not come to the floor, Mr. Speaker, and share with the Members about what they are not doing and what we should do. Come to the floor and share our proposals from the Democratic side that will fall on deaf ears on the other side, because they do not want to hear our ideas, gentlemen, they just want to criticize what we are trying to do to save this country of ours. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) mentioned earlier that all they are doing is weakening the country. Now, the facts are, like it or not, Members, on the Republican majority side, like it or not, the bottom line is is that the 9/11 Commission put out a report card. And the Republican majority gets a big fat F because we have been, and as ranking member of oversight on the Homeland Security Committee, we have worked time after time again and put forward proposal after proposal to make sure that U.S. cities are prepared for a terrorist attack. Interoperability. Mr. Speaker, I want to break that down for the Members. That is making sure that first responders can talk to one another, which we learned from 9/11, that firefighters could not talk to police officers, police officers could not talk to firefighters, they could not talk to the port authority, they could not talk to others as it relates to helping Americans get out of those buildings. And guess what? Lives were lost. Lives were lost.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. He had the opportunity to resign and then the next day he was indicted. Go ahead.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. It is a culture.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. I must say that never before in the history of this country has there been leadership, all of these issues of cronyism and corruption, never before at these levels in the history of this country. It is not the Kendrick Meek report, the Debbie Wasserman Schultz report, or the Tim Ryan, the Bill Delahunt report.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, we just got back from Iraq. We are not even a week out of Iraq. We visited three Iraqi cities, and it was my second trip. I can tell you this, that when you hear uniformed personnel say, well, you know, some of the money, I mean it is like you know people take some of the money for themselves; it is something that happens here in Iraq. This is an accepted kind of thing. This is the U.S. taxpayers' money, and we are just saying, oh, well, you know, that is the way things happen over here. Let me tell you, when the auditor general really starts to report what is happening with the money we are giving, that is being taken away from U.S. cities and the U.S. taxpayer, meanwhile the majority says, oh, let us govern, we will make sure that we are fiscal and we are responsible, well, when we come back in the next hour I want to talk about being responsible. I think it is important we do that. We will be back in an hour. I just want you to give the Web site out before we close.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Mr. Delahunt, Mr. Ryan, Ms. Wasserman Schultz and to thank the Democratic leadership for allowing us to have the hour. We would also like to say it is pleasure and honor to address the House of Representatives.

Mr. MEEK of Florida

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, just stop.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, let me just say what Mr. Delahunt is saying makes so much sense, but I can tell him the reason why we have reams and reams of paper about how government is not working now is the fact that we are governing under a culture of corruption, cronyism, and incompetence. One cannot operate a business under a culture of corruption, cronyism, and incompetence. They can just not do it. They cannot do it. It is impossible to achieve. And it is wrong. So when we have historic levels of corruption, incompetence, and cronyism, it is just hard for us to govern in that way. People are wondering why am I picking up my newspaper not only seeing indictments but seeing plea agreements by the very people that are elected to come up here to govern on behalf of the American people. So why is it even shocking, Mr. Speaker, to some Members why we have so much corruption in the Federal system? And we come in here as though let me grab a cup of coffee or a latte like it is another day at the office. It is not another day at the office. It is not another day here in Congress. We are concerned, but maybe the majority could also get a little concerned about what is going on. Let me just mention something because Mr. Delahunt just hit a couple of points, and I just want to mention something because here in the 30- Something Working Group, as my colleagues know and others, and I am so glad that Mr. Ryan claimed this hour, the bottom line is this: we have a White House where members of the White House have been indicted or previous members who resigned the day before they were indicted and serious national security breaches in the White House. Mr. Speaker, this is not hearsay, this is fact. We have Federal investigators now, they are not talking about someone who took a trip somewhere on the Government's credit card. They are not talking about that, you know, someone went to lunch with someone and, you know, the bill was $3,000 and they had eight lobsters. They are not talking about that. They are talking about outing CIA agents. They are talking about information being leaked out that is jeopardizing national security. They are also talking about issues as it relates to, you know, the influence of the private sector and corruption and not possible cronyism, but cronyism and incompetence. That is what is going on here now. And even here in the Congress, unprecedented investigations, inquires not by the Congress, but by other agencies that are policing us. So when people start saying, well, why is all of this happening? It is happening because we are not, well, the Congress, the majority, is not governing the way that they should govern and policing themselves. I think it is important as we look at this culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence that we put it in the right perspective. We know that a lot of this is allegations. We will just say allegations. I want to make sure that we say that, but I want to also make sure that Members know exactly what is going on. This is not regular business in the Congress. The 109th Congress, historians will reflect, and in the present, will say, this has never happened before in the history of the Republic. So when folks start talking about, well, you know, I do not know what you are talking about, I am going to tell you another thing. They are coming to the floor, the majority tomorrow, to pass tax cuts on behalf of billionaires and millionaires. Meanwhile, just before we left here, they cut student loans. Cut Medicaid, cut child support enforcement. Somebody please tell me this is a misprint. But it is not. And going after deadbeat dads. So I wonder how the state attorneys and sheriffs are going to feel about that? They cut many programs that we need in this country. Meanwhile back at the ranch, we are going to turn our back on what is going on in Iraq and what is going on here in Washington, D.C. as though it is not a big deal. So I think the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) is in order when he talks about some of the decisions that are being made. And one of any colleagues on this side said just because the Republican leadership says it is true does not mean that it is true. We were here on this floor late one night in the 108th Congress, and even in this Congress, but in the 108th Congress on the prescription drug bill. And the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) does it so well, I want you to talk about what they said and what the reality was. Just because they say it does not mean that it is true. The President says complete victory. What is complete victory? What is complete victory? Is it until the last insurgent says I am no longer going to be one?

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Culture.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. The gentlewoman is 110 percent right. I would say, and I will even give credit to some of our colleagues on the Republican side, the few within the conference, that agree with making sure that we carry ourselves in a responsible way. In the hour before, we were going to talk a little bit about responsibility and you are talking about responsibility. You are talking about a social and leadership responsibility that we have in the People's House, or what is supposed to be the People's House. The gentleman from Massachusetts talked about decisions that have been made here in the past and now in the present. When you have a bad idea in many cases, when you start off by saying, like, for instance, a leader can say, I was wrong, or I wasn't quite on point and I'm willing to work with others to make sure that we reach the goals that we set out to do in the first place. What is happening now, Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority and the White House, it is like we don't even want to meet with you. We have conference committees where we have members on this side, ranking members that are saying, I didn't even know that the conference committee was meeting because they are not even notified. That is what is going on. This is not fiction. It is fact. I just want to point out just a few things real quick. Third-party validator on the action that is supposed to take place tomorrow. I just want to make sure that the Members get this. Economic Policy Institute, www.epi.org. They can get in their office and pull this up. It is the report that is noted, ``The Bottom That Wasn't.'' The economy has little to show for $860 billion in tax cuts, mainly to the billionaires and millionaires. It goes further back and I want people to pay very close attention to page 12. I just want to make sure that the Members pay attention to page 12 and I think they can read it for themselves. They can pull this up on the Web. You want to talk about responsibility? One of the most respected Members of this House, Mr. Jack Murtha, stood up and said that things are not as they say they are in Iraq. Our troops, and we just returned back from Iraq, are doing everything that they can do. We met with the 1st Cav. We went to Camp Victory. We went on to Mosul and a couple of other cities within Iraq. We heard time and time again, yes, we are here but we are here on our third and second deployment. Let me just put on my Armed Services hat here for one second. For us to look at a redeployment strategy, and Mr. Murtha is right. He has the President running around here giving four and five speeches every week on trying to justify why we should be there and how we should be there. One leader in the Senate, the Democratic leader, Mr. Speaker, in the Senate said, we need to take the training wheels off the Iraqi government and let them know that our military has delivered. Our military has allowed them to be able to have elections come the 15th of December. But no one is talking about the fact which we learned sitting down not only with our military leaders in Iraq but also sitting down with the Iraqi leaders to find out that this parliament that is going to be elected, this governing council that is going to be elected in Iraq, including a prime minister, will not be seated until March of 2006. So folks talk about, oh, December 15 is going to be a wonderful day. They are not going to even get seated, have their power, until March. I guess the Potomac two-step will kick in again. First it was when we get the security forces to the point, and we have to watch the math here when you start talking about this. How many people do we have trained? You hear one number. That number was combat troops, not police combat units. Okay, you have to talk about the interior ministry that has a whole other police force. Only one brigade or two brigades and we have handed this area over. The bottom line and what Mr. Murtha is saying, for us to be able to allow other countries to become a part of this effort that we set out on, we have to allow them to be a part of it. We are saying we have it. Tony Blair, the number-one ally, Mr. Speaker, in this war in Iraq, has already said to his country that we're out next year. Period. Done. Not any of this, it's dependent on the training of the troops or it's dependent on how well the parliament and the new government that is in place, it's all dependent on this, that and the other. He said, We're out next year. Period. Our troops are coming home. That is the message to the Iraqi government that they have to get their act together. It would be okay if it was an international effort in putting money into Iraq, but what the President is saying, he goes down to New Orleans and gives a speech a week after the storm that we will rebuild New Orleans. Meanwhile, Time, Newsweek, you name it, every major periodical, be it daily or weekly, special reports have said that it is not happening. We are telling Louisiana, hey, you have got to come up with $300 billion to make it happen. They don't have any money right now. The bottom line is that just because they say it does not mean it is true. Mr. Murtha, third-party validator, had a press conference today and eight letters that he gave to the press and to the American people. The thing that makes Mr. Murtha so credible in this argument, ladies and gentlemen, is the fact, Mr. Speaker, that he is the ranking member and was the member of defense appropriations and he knows where the bodies are. He knows the Potomac two-step when he sees it. It is not about the fact that everyone likes him in this Congress. We all love Mr. Murtha. But the bottom line is that he can deliver the message. The real issue instead of the administration and the majority running around here trying to discredit a decorated Marine, trying to discredit someone that has stood with the military foot and toe, someone that wrote letters, the first letter about Kevlar and making sure that our troops have what they needed when they didn't have it and discredit him, they should be trying to sit down with him and others and talk about a bipartisan plan that we can allow other countries to come in under a NATO force and that is what is going to happen after we say, okay, this is our strategy, we want to let the Iraqi people know our military is the number-one military on the face of the earth. You give them direction as it relates to what we want to do policywise, they will do it. They will train. They will make sure the people are in place. But as long as we sit there and say, We're not going to stop until complete victory and we don't know what complete victory is, you have to be precise. It is not even leadership when someone is vague and we are spending billions of dollars in Iraq. I think it is important when we start talking about folks carrying out the responsibility they have to carry out. Whichever way you look at it, there are Republicans that are saying, Yeah, we need to figure out a redeployment plan, but no one wants to talk about redeployment as it relates to getting our troops out of harm's way. Meanwhile back at the ranch here in this country, we have mothers and we have fathers and we have those that are seeing their loved ones, especially if they are soldiers in the Army, that are being deployed for 12 to 16 months. Think about that, in your third deployment. I left for 5 days and it was like I was gone for a year from my family. Think about the person that leaves and you don't see them for 12 months, 16 months, and every day. I cannot even explain to you of some of the phone calls. I cannot even start explaining to you some of the phone calls that I receive from mothers and from daughters and from husbands saying, I cringe every time the news report comes over the television, three more U.S. troops, 10 more U.S. Marines. And we are still here saying, We're here until we carry out complete victory. You have got to talk about responsibility.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, can I just break it down one more time?

Mr. MEEK of Florida. It is a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence. It is just that simple. It is just that simple. Mr. Speaker, we can outline this thing as much as possible. I mean, we can go into tomorrow morning if the rules would allow it, but it is just a culture. You cannot operate a business, you cannot operate an educational institution, and you definitely cannot operate a government under a culture of corruption, cronyism and incompetence.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, he could not go to the Jordanian embassy when he was here in Washington because if he went to the Jordanian embassy they would have arrested him on the spot. The embassy is Jordanian ground, just like our embassy is in Jordan, because they have a warrant for his arrest. But better yet, we are doing business with, again, a culture of corruption, cronyism and incompetence, period. One thing I also wanted to say, we are talking about a redeployment, i.e., how we are going to have an exit strategy. There are people that are running in a December 15 election that will be seated in March, and guess what is some of the platform. We want our own independence. There was actually a call for the U.S. to give their exit strategy. They are ready to go. So we are saying that we are there on behalf of democracy. Now they have a form of democracy. They are going to have it in March, and we are still saying they are not ready. Now we are in judgment of them saying they are not ready, but we are saying we want them to have a democracy. Just imagine if someone was to come over here to help us and say, well, we are not going to leave until we think you are ready to govern your own country. It goes against the very logic and principles even in our own Constitution saying that we want to help democratize other areas, and then when it comes down to it, U.S. cities are suffering and the money that we are spending over there. When their government is seated and one of the actions of business there was we want to govern our own country, we can take care of our own problems, better yet, we are going to tell them, no, we cannot, and once again, Mr. Murtha is talking about redeploying our troops to Kuwait and some other area in case there is a threat as it relates to terrorism of the U.S., of the United States of America, the flag that we all salute, Mr. Speaker. Then our troops will go in and make sure. But if there is some sort of war or conflict between different factions within Iraq, that is an Iraqi issue. When did that become our responsibility? We are not the Congress of the world, and the President is not the commander-in-chief of the world. There was not a ballot box over in Iraq outside with absentee ballots of our troops sending their votes in. So I think it is important, as we look at how we are going to deal with the gulf States, how are we going to deal with health care, how are we going to make sure that small businesses are able to provide on behalf of their employees, how are we going make sure that U.S. companies are going to be able to stand for their pensions that folks signed up for, worked 15 years to find out when the golden 20 or 25 happens that it is not going to be there for them? How are we going to continue to break our promise to veterans when we told them what we would do when they retire or they become veterans of health care? We are breaking our promises. So to talk about the Iraqis and complete victory, I want to have complete victory as it relates to veterans; I want to have a complete victory as it relates to providing health care, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Now, wait, wait, wait, Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Can you please say that one more time? I am sorry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, you have local contractors. You have local contractors that are saying they are not getting work. They are saying they are not getting work.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. They are not getting the work.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. But, meanwhile, say it again before we close. Just read what you read about the contracts, just in case some Member went and picked up some coffee or something.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. That is the sad part.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Before you give the Web site out, Mr. Ryan, I want to say that for every time we have pointed out a culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence, they are still at work doing it.

Mr. MEEK of Florida. Just because he says it, does not mean it is true.