Major Owens

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne). (Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), the distinguish candidate for President.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank the members of the minority on the committee for their work on this bill. I want to thank the majority for giving us an opportunity to talk about the very real problems that are faced by workers in the workplace. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record an item titled Summary of the AFL-CIO Death on the Job Report, and the second item for the record, Profile of Workplace Safety and Health in the United States. Summary of the AFL-CIO Death on the Job Report The report is a national and state-by-state profile of worker safety and health in the United States. A combination of too few OSHA inspectors and low penalties makes the threat of an OSHA inspection hollow for too many employers. Millions of workers are still left with no OSHA coverage. Here are some of the ``highlights'' of the report: 15 workers were fatally injured and more than 12,800 workers were injured or made ill each day during 2002. These statistics do not include deaths from occupational diseases, which claim the lives of an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 workers each year. A 62 percent increase in the number of trench fatalities, from 33 in 2002 to 53 in 2003. Fatal injuries among Hispanic or Latino workers decreased about 6 percent, although the 840 fatalities recorded for Hispanic workers is the second-highest annual total for the population. States that saw an increase in the number of Hispanic worker fatalities in 2002 include Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming. The number of fatal work injuries among foreign-born Hispanic workers increased to 577 in 2002 from 527 in 2001. Musculoskeletal Disorders continue to account for more than one-third of all injuries and illnesses involving days away from work and remain the biggest category of injury and illness. The occupations that reported the highest number of MSDs involving days away from work in 2002 were nursing aides and orderlies (44,421); truck drivers (36,814); and laborers, nonconstruction (24,862). As documented in a December 2003 New York Times series, prosecutions of recklessly negligent employers are extremely rare. Of the 170,000 workplace deaths since 1982, only 16 convictions involving jail time have resulted--although 1,242 cases involving work deaths were determined by OSHA to involve ``willful'' violations by employers (violations in which the employer knew that workers' lives were at risk). Penalties for significant violations of the law remain low. In fiscal year 2003, serious violations of the OSH Act carried an average penalty of only $871 ($856 for federal OSHA, $885 for state OSHA plans). 2,240 federal and state OSHA inspectors responsible for enforcing the law at 8.1 million workplaces. At its current staffing and inspection levels, it would take federal OSHA 106 years to inspect each workplace under its jurisdiction just once. Between FY 1999 and FY 2003 the number of employees who work in workplaces inspected by federal OSHA inspections decreased by nearly 12%. The average number of hours spent per inspection also decreased between FY 1999 and FY 2003, from 22 to 18.8 hours per safety inspection and from 40 to 34.7 hours per health inspection. The number of citations for willful violations decreased from 607 in FY 1999 to 391 in FY 2003. The average penalty per violation and per willful violation increased in FY 2003 from the FY 2002 level, while the average penalty per serious violation decreased to its lowest level since 1999. After three and a half years under the Bush administration, rulemaking at OSHA and MSHA has virtually ground to a halt. In December 2003, the administration published its latest semiannual regulatory agenda, which sets forth its regulatory priorities and plans for the coming year. Having already withdrawn 22 pending OSHA regulatory actions from its regulatory agenda, in its May 2003 regulatory agenda the Bush administration withdrew the glycol ethers standard and the tuberculosis standard, leaving few major initiatives on the regulatory schedule. OSHA still has taken no action on the Employer Payment for Personal Protective Equipment standard, which has been through the rulemaking process and is ready for final action. The only major regulations still on the regulatory agenda are for silica, beryllium and hearing conservation for construction workers. But there is no commitment for OSHA to propose these rules. This will be the only administration in history not to issue a major safety and health regulation during its four years in office. 17 MSHA standards to improve safety and health for miners have been withdrawn, including the Air Quality, Chemical Substances and Respiratory standard. Adjusting for inflation, the FY 2005 proposed OSHA budget represents a $6.5 million cut over FY 2004 appropriations. The FY 2005 OSHA budget proposes increasing programs for voluntary compliance with employer assistance while cutting training and outreach programs for workers and freezing standard-setting and enforcement programs. At OSHA, the president proposes to cut worker safety training programs by 65 percent and to shift these funds to employer assistance programs. Since we have had a running commentary here about staying on the point, I would like to comment directly on H.R. 2731 by quoting from the Brotherhood of Teamsters objections: ``Finally, we oppose H.R. 2731, the Occupational Safety and Health Small Employer Access to Justice Act, which would require that OSHA, the taxpayer, pay the legal costs when it loses a case against a small business that prevails in administrative or judicial proceedings, regardless of whether the government's position was substantially justified. We view this as another effort to impede OSHA's and the Department's efforts to enforce the law and provide an avenue for workers to seek redress. ``We see no justification for such an arbitrary departure from the current practice of each party paying for its own litigation costs for only one class of public prosecutions. We know of no other agency, charged by statute to enforce the law, which is impeded from fulfilling its responsibility with respect to a meritorious complaint because it cannot guarantee the outcome.'' If OSHA is forced to guarantee the outcome, it ties OSHA's hands and will rob workers of protections by discouraging OSHA from executing its required responsibilities. Like all of the other items in this marathon package, which I call the More Injuries and More Death Marathon, it stacks the deck against the workers and in favor of the employers. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, working families continue to suffer under the oppressive policies of the Republican-controlled White House and Congress. With a new low in cynicism, Republicans have made a mockery of the suffering of the jobless. The Republican unit of dirty tricks, deceitful slogans, and tricky titles has launched a new HOW initiative; Hire Our Workers, they call it. But Republicans refuse to support any of the actions that will relieve the suffering of working families. Instead of bombarding the Nation with new rope-a-dope slogans, Republicans should just do the right thing and support five basic actions: extend Federal unemployment benefits; end the current tax incentives for shipping jobs overseas; raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to at least $7 an hour; enact a robust highway bill to create 1.8 million good-paying jobs; and invest more resources in key education and job training programs. Stop swindling the poor with words. Pass these five initiatives without further delay.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the House should hold hearings on the abuses in the Iraqi prisons. The most powerful military machine that the world has ever seen quickly won the hot war in Iraq. It is the occupation of Iraq that is unwinnable. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) is on target with his analysis. The incompetent, improvised occupation of Iraq, guided by the Department of Defense, is unwinnable. Our troops in Iraq have been betrayed by the blundering of this administration and their top command. An unqualified Secretary Rumsfeld improvising this occupation has thrown untrained soldiers into the role of prison guards. We owe it to our soldiers in the ranks to have a full investigation, to openly let the American people see exactly what happened. Yes, this is an un- American approach, un-American activity, and it probably involves only a few, but that few operate under top command. Mr. Speaker, let us have a full investigation. The top command must accept responsibility. Hearings will reveal this truth. Let us have hearings as soon as possible.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, today I am joining with 75 of my colleagues to introduce the ``Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2004''--legislation that will give hard-working Americans a much needed raise. These minimum wage employees--many of whom work full-time, year-round--earn no more than $5.15 an hour. The vast majority do not even receive enough pay in their pockets to lift them above the poverty line. According to a very stark alarming report, 48 percent of all African American men in New York City are unemployed. Without a job, they do not earn any wages. This bill is not the vehicle to help give the unemployed jobs, but it underscores the importance of increasing the minimum wage. How can we allow full-time minimum wage workers to live in poverty? Last time I looked, we were not a third world nation. Those with jobs at the bottom of the pay scale deserve fair compensation for their labor. More than a quarter of the constituents I represent in Brooklyn are minimum wage workers. They include the very same child care and nursing home workers, dish washers and laundry workers, taxi drivers, hotel clerks and mail room workers everyone relies upon. Far too many of them are single mothers or fathers, with children to support. According to a recent Russell Sage Foundation study, they are included among a staggering 29 percent of all working families in America who cannot earn enough to keep a basic living standard. That means that close to one out of every three working families in America are just not making ends meet. Some are barely hanging on. Why do the Republicans continue to nickel and dime these hard-working Americans in low-wage jobs? The last increase in the minimum wage was in 1997. This Democratic bill would give them a pay raise in 3 easy steps: from $5.85 an hour in the two months following enactment, to $6.45 an hour a year after that. On the following year's anniversary, the minimuum wage would finally reach $7.00 an hour. Why do Republicans reject this bill, giving workers at the bottom of the pay scale a much needed raise? Republicans tout tired old arguments, such as ``only teens work for the minimum wage;'' or, ``it will hurt small businesses and the economy.'' In truth, recent history proves exactly the reverse. Once the dust settled after the 1997 increase in the minimum wage, more than 10 million new jobs were created and over half of them (6 million) were in minimum wage service jobs. The dividing line between the political parties could not be greater on this issue. There's a saying--``No Shame in My Game''--that minimum- wage workers use sometimes. It is a kind of shorthand that signals a tough and resilient work ethic among the working poor, despite the low wages, lack of benefits and poor conditions. These workers are absolutely correct: there is no shame in their work ethic and daily efforts. The only shame is in the Congressional game, if the Republicans continue to block this bill and our efforts to give minimum wage workers a long-delayed, essential raise.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, in concert with the theme that has just preceded me in the 1-hour session, I wanted to talk about the credibility of our present administration with respect to the war in Iraq also. A lot of us have chosen in say that we are into a second Vietnam. And there are some people who are quite upset that we compared the war in Iraq to the war in Vietnam. It is true that the war in Vietnam cost us 58,000 lives, and so far we have only loss 700 officially in Iraq. But should that be the barometer? 58,000 have not died; 58,000 wives, mothers, sisters have not yet cried. But why wait until that happens? Why not see every human life as being sacred? Every life is sacred. The men and women who die on the battle field give us their total, and we ought to appreciate that by not jeopardizing it for goals that are questionable. This is a war that should never have been. This is a war that does not have much to do with fighting terrorism. Yes, Saddam Hussein is gone. He is out of office now, and that is a great benefit for the world, as well as the people of Iraq, but is the price worth it? Are we not paying too great a price just to get rid of Saddam Hussein? We were never told that was just the objective. We were told it was a question of weapons of mass destruction, and it was a question of Iraq operating in concert with the al Qaeda terrorists. We were told that there were stockpiles of chemical weapons. We were told other reasons other than just getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein is gone. The price is too high. We are paying financially more than $1 billion a week to keep the war in Iraq going. We are building schools in Iraq while we are denying construction funds to school districts here in America. We are doing a lot of other things in Iraq which drain money away from badly needed programs here, despite the fact that Iraq has oil deposits which should be able to pay the cost of any rebuilding of Iraq eventually. So what do we do at this point? Do not ask us to keep begging our troops to remain loyal and steadfast and sacrifice their lives unless you have an exit strategy, a reason for it. We do not want to see 58,000 die. Our Vietnam memorial wall is one of the greatest monuments of its kind. It does not celebrate one general or a handful who led the war. It celebrates and makes us remember every individual who died. All of our war memorials in the future should do that. Every individual gave their life for their country, for the cause. Regardless of what you think of the cause, they, as individuals, are heroes. We do not want another memorial wall of heroes unless it is absolutely necessary. Vietnam turned out not to be necessary. The domino theory was not correct. We lost Vietnam, and we still won the Cold War with the Soviet Union. We still won the Cold War with the Soviet Union. We did not go on from Vietnam to other areas. We have a great affinity and alliance with Communist China right now, which baffles me. Why are we so kind to accommodate China and have so many business dealings with them if we fought and died in Vietnam to keep communism from extending itself across the world? So my plea is that let us understand the lessons of Vietnam without having first to see 58,000 die. Fifty-eight thousand should not have to die for us to understand that we need to work backwards and understand that eventually we are going to settle this war in Iraq like we settled the complex war in Vietnam. There was an argument about what the shape of the table would be. Let us look at the same table they used in Vietnam, and let us begin right now to negotiate backwards exactly what our terms are going to be and how we are going to get out and maintain law and order. And I am in favor of maintaining law and order until we do have a strategy and exit that can leave the people of Iraq in better shape than we found them. Let us do it now. Let us share that plan with Members of Congress. Let us share that plan with the public. Let us share power with all of the members of the United Nations Security Council and all the members of NATO. Let us challenge them to come forward and help us bring it into this. We need more troops. Let them come from Russia, let them come from China, let them come from France, let them come from Germany, but give them the power to help make decisions and exit from Iraq before we have 58,000 of our loyal soldiers die.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the execution of democracy in Haiti exposes the warped character of the White House on a scale that the public can find intellectually palatable. The ``shock and awe'' employed in Haiti is easy for ordinary Americans to understand. Haiti is a tiny and violent pre-emptive strike which has a significance far beyond its size. The administration's racist and open contempt for the democratic government of Haiti is the first and most visible atrocity. While the United States is spending billions to establish democracy in Iraq, it refused to deploy a few platoons of troops to protect the government headquarters in Haiti. On the contrary the terrorists who attacked the democratically elected president of Haiti were obviously equipped with modern combat weapons that could have come only from the United States. Further complicity of the administration can be documented through the identification of criminals in charge who have served in the past as CIA assets. The intimidation and pressure employed to eject President Aristide and the blanket denial of Haitian refugees any chance to plead their cases for political asylum are two additional outrages which further illuminate the savagery of the selective and racist foreign policy initiatives applied to Haiti. Members who find the size, scope, and complexity of the United States invasion of Iraq to be too overwhelming to comprehend should review the simple diplomatic and war crimes involved in the United States sponsored coup in Haiti. Since Haiti has no oil to seize and control the obvious difference in the case of this hemisphere tragedy versus the case in Iraq is that the occupation will be as short and cheap as possible. The 200-year chronology of Haiti is scarred with the pock marks of intervention: First, Napoleon was defeated by a slave revolt in Haiti. For almost a decade none of the world's nations would recognize the new Black Republic. Several plots were developed to overthrow the Haitian government by slave holding interests in America; however, none were implemented. In the 20th century the United States has occupied Haiti several times to protect an oligarchy of rich families with current close ties to the Republican Party. Despite continuous interference Haiti in the last 10 years has managed to enact a constitution and conduct democratic elections. The Clinton administration's support for Aristide returned Haiti to a path of democracy after the reign of a 3 year military regime. Former Senator Jesse Helms, a close friend of the ruling rich families of Haiti blocked any economic assistance to Haiti thus defeating efforts to restart the economy. An economically strangled Haiti became the victim of mass discontent exploited by the ruling families and their White House allies. With 2 years left to serve in his term Aristide was ousted by a U.S.-sponsored terrorist rebellion. Napoleon's revenge has again prevailed. The following Rap poem summarizes this chronicle of injustice. Napoleon's Revenge Blacks made him a military jerk And Napoleon went berserk; The dictator's disease rained down Sprouting in confederate ground; Harassment of Haiti Became the white rulers' duty: Black ambassadors speaking French Was out-of-place and snooty. The final revenge by Senator Jesse Has now turned criminally messy: Terrorist at Haiti's gate Financed by camouflaged hate, And the U.S. refuses to debate This murder of a tiny State. White House credibility blood Is now desperately low, Spin doctors fail to stem the flow. Napoleon lost the war When Haiti captured liberty; On the moral battlefield of eternity Colon and Condi Now confront Aristide, For 200 years Napoleon's heirs have made Haiti bleed. The White House refusal to debate The murder of this tiny state May seal our President's fate.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Chairman, once again the CBC budget makes education the highest priority. We are requesting an increase of $18.5 billion for education funding. The CBC understands that at the heart of our efforts to improve homeland security, at the heart of our efforts for leadership in the world, at the heart of our efforts to improve the economy is education. Everybody always seems to forget that. The CBC is the only alternative budget, for example, with funds for school construction. This Congress blindly continues to ignore the need for school construction, school modernization, and school repairs. This administration proposes to spend billions of dollars to build schools in Iraq, while it has placed zero in the budget to build public schools here in America. Nearly every Member of Congress has one outrageous situation in their district, at least, where there is a great obvious need for school repair, school modernization, or school construction; every Member beyond the Congressional Black Caucus members. There is a lot of hypocrisy in the Republican position on school construction. There is an argument that the Federal Government should not be involved in school construction. On the other hand, there is some money in this budget for the construction of charter schools. Charter schools are an exception because, ideologically, this administration agrees with that. So I urge my colleagues to vote for the Congressional Black Caucus budget because it is the only budget which understands that for homeland security and for all we want to do in America, education must come first.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Chairman, I rise against this budget because while this administration is proposing to spend billions of dollars to build schools in Iraq, there is zero in this budget for school construction for the public schools in America.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to strongly condemn and denounce this cynical resolution which seeks members of Congress to once more endorse the needless war against Iraq. The world is certainly not safer now than it was before the attack on Iraq. Indeed, just the opposite is true. We are bogged down in a war at the wrong place which drains dollars, manpower and creative decision-making energy from our government. This administration has placed our nation in a deadly vise that blocks us from a more effective pursuit of terrorism. Let me just cite one critical example: Pakistan! We are losing our long-term ally, Pakistan, as a result of blatant neglect. The one Islamic nation which clearly has ``weapons of mass destruction'' has received low priority and second class treatment from our government. Even after the President of Pakistan chose to take great risks to assist in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the U.S. offered this nation an economic assistance package of less than one billion dollars. At the same time this administration was offering Turkey several billion dollars merely to allow our troops to pass through on their way to Iraq. Pakistan also has a population of more than 150 million people while Iraq only has 25 million people. Nevertheless we are proposing 27 billion dollars to rebuild Iraq while offering the loyal ally, Pakistan, less than one billion dollars. Mr. Speaker, we are losing our most valuable ally in the war against terrorism because we are obsessed with Iraq. Because I have a large Pakistani-American community in my District I was invited to visit Pakistan 2 years ago. Everywhere there was obviously admiration for America; however, everywhere there was also disappointment and bitterness with respect to the treatment of Pakistan by successive U.S. governments. In the end there is a feeling that their nuclear weapons program is the only way they can command the appropriate attention from the U.S. Be assured that no high school sophomore is expected to believe that the sale of Pakistan's nuclear secrets to other nations was a crime committed by one super scientist acting without the assistance of the government. These deadly sales to North Korea and other rogue nations represent defiance and revenge expressed by a nation that deems itself to have been grossly mistreated. Emergency diplomatic and economic assistance are needed to save Pakistan from becoming a Taliban victim or an overt enemy. Loyalties in the nation are now almost evenly divided and the present government is walking on a very thin line. Diverting just a quarter of the economic assistance approved for Iraq to Pakistan would send a meaningful message to our long-term ally. Who is losing Pakistan? The Iraq obsessed White House is losing Pakistan. Problems in Iraq are impacting on all types and levels of decision- making in Washington. We have been forced into a hardship budget for domestic programs. While there is no Federal aid for public school construction here at home, we are spending billions to build schools in Iraq. While fifty percent of the Black males in New York City are unemployed, billions of dollars are being spent to provide jobs to Iraqi men. There is a possibility that the bitterness and desperation which is the fertilizer for terrorism will create a unique incubator in America. Is the world better off since we ventured into oil rich Iraq? Are Americans safer? Is the war against terrorism being conducted effectively? The answer to all of these questions is no. Should we pass this resolution which pretends to honor the troops but has been concocted to ambush legislators into stating that they endorse the war in Iraq? The answer is no.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for having this Special Order at this critical moment in the history of Haiti and world relations. First, I would like to salute Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Father of Democracy in Haiti. In all the years Haiti has existed, it has never had a democracy. Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected democratically in 1991. He was deposed by a coup d'etat by the army. He was here in this capital for 3 years. He went back after the Congressional Black Caucus urged President Clinton and worked very closely with President Clinton to restore democracy to Haiti. He went back, and he gave up the fact that he had missed 3 years. He did not insist on serving 5 years, he just completed the term, 2 years. Like George Washington, he stepped down in order to guarantee there would be a constitutional process going on, just as George Washington stepped down. He stepped down and there was another president for 5 years, and then Aristide came back. He was reelected later on for another 5-year term. It is important for people to know that Jean-Bertrand Aristide was not in charge of Haiti for all these years that you hear talked about, especially the year that the parliamentary elections were questioned. The parliamentary elections that were questioned were held and the irregularities that were charged, which involved six out of 100-some people elected, those irregularities were charged during a period when Jean-Bertrand Aristide was not in power. It is important to get the chronology straight. There are many people who say that Jean-Bertrand Aristide has only one fault, and some of us might have a tendency to want to agree with that, and the fault is he is not a seasoned politician. He came out of the priesthood. He was a priest. He was almost murdered three times before he was elected president. This priest, who some say is an inept politician, also was able to maintain influence, to maintain a following for all the years that have gone on since he was first elected. While he was out of office, he had influence and had a following. Does that sound like somebody who is inept and not a person who knows how to organize people? He has been accused of being a ruthless dictator. I have been trying to find out what the basis of that charge is. What ruthless dictator do we know who would disband his army? What ruthless dictator would not want an army? One of the most important things that Jean-Bertrand Aristide did when he went back after being deposed by the army was to abolish the army. The army of Haiti has been in charge ever since the United States created the army. Most people do not know the United States Marines created the army of Haiti. In their long occupation of more than 30 years, they built the Haitian army. After they left, whenever there was somebody not liked by the rich governing families, the oligarchy of Haiti, whenever there was somebody not liked by the United States, the army was used to remove them. He got rid of the army. What ruthless dictator would get rid of the army? I just want to say that this democratically elected president, this very unusual person of a magnitude you do not see in politics usually, who is accused of so many crimes in general, but when you start asking people specifically what he did, nobody ever has an answer. Did he go all over the world shopping, like Baby Doc Duvalier and his wife, spending $1 million on a weekend? Did he have palaces built like Saddam Hussein while the population starved? Where is the personal use of government funds to be seen? Nobody can tell me specifically any of that. But what I do know is because of his antipathy toward violence, because he understood the long history of Haiti and did not have an army, he has been taken advantage of by terrorists. Terrorists. If you look at the fact, this is a group of terrorists that has taken over Haiti. Terrorists. Now, we have varying degrees of suspicion about to what degree our own government was involved. We do know certain individuals well known to our government who have cooperated with the CIA in the past have shown up among these terrorists. We do know that they had modern weapons, United States weapons, machine guns, grenade launchers and so forth, that are not made in Haiti. We do know that our government said to Aristide, we will not accept your agreement. Aristide agreed to the CARICOM agreement, and our government would not support the legitimate government of Haiti, and say, well, you agreed, therefore we will step in and protect you from the violence until there is some kind of settlement. No. They said to Aristide as long as the opposition, as they called it, do not agree, we will not get involved in trying to guarantee the safety of your government. They empowered the terrorists. Whatever else they did not do, whatever other lack of complicity there is, there is the open complicity of the United States Government in empowering the terrorists, making them equal to Aristide, saying unless they agree, you have a doomed government. Beyond our own United States of America, the international community went along with all that, unfortunately. There is a lesson, unfortunately, here, for all the Caribbean nations of this hemisphere and for small nations throughout the world. There is no more gunboat diplomacy. There will not be any obvious takeover that the United Nations can object to, but look forward to a new kind of takeover process; and that is the process with the use of terrorists. Evidently, some people think there are good terrorists and bad terrorists; there are terrorists you can use and terrorists you have to worry about. But I say that Haiti is a victim of terrorism, and we should bear that in mind as we start sifting out the facts. As we go to our hearings, as we call into account our own elected officials and our appointed officials connected with this, let us remember to ask the question, have we acted in complicity with terrorists? I thank the gentleman very much for yielding to me, and again congratulate him on this Special Order.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to join my colleagues in this vital discussion on Haiti. I want to first pay tribute, proper tribute to the people who are on the Haitian Task Force who have kept the caucus position going. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), and a few others have established a firm record of negotiations and letter-writing and they have allowed us to make a paper trail and a record of consideration and compromise that brings us to the point where we are today, and all that has been done, and now it is time for action. Today, we decided to take action after being frustrated in numerous meetings where nothing was accomplished. We asked for a meeting with the President of the United States. We asked for a meeting with the President of the United States, and I stand here as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who must admit I was more surprised than anybody else that we finally got the meeting with the President of the United States. It took some drama. We were sitting there talking to two of the President's representatives for an hour before finally he agreed to meet with us, and I will not go into all of that. I will not also go into the background of what is happening presently in Haiti unnecessarily. I have two items I will submit for the Record at this point. One is a press release that I issued today, February 25, and also a letter to Colin Powell which I sent on February 19. Owens Pleads for French Emergency Action to Save Democracy in Haiti In response to the dangerous escalation of the violence driven by a thug army in Haiti Congressman Major Owens offered the following motion at a Wednesday (February 25th) meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus: ``To halt the escalating violence and the possible assassination of democracy in Haiti all of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus should immediately go to the French Embassy in Washington to plead for the dispatch of French forces to protect the government and the democratically elected President of Haiti.'' ``This White House and its agents are like Pontius Pilate pretending to wash their hands while the democratic nation of Haiti is assassinated,'' proclaimed Owens in a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives on February 24, 2004. The Congressman from Brooklyn, which has a large community of Haitian Americans further charged: ``At least one former CIA asset has been identified as a leader of the band of savage guerrillas. The people of the United States must turn their backs on this conspiracy and demand that the democratic nation of Haiti, the democratic government, the duly-elected President of Haiti be supported by the United States Government and that Aristide be allowed to serve out his next 2 years without any compromise with bands of thugs in the street.'' In a letter sent last week to Secretary of State, Colin Powell, Owens insisted that: ``History will hold the United States accountable for the situation in Haiti! Years of hostile U.S. policy with regard to Haiti has brought about the current political crisis and deteriorating economic and social conditions there.'' The Congressman, who from 1991 to 1995, served as Chairman of the CBC Task Force on Haiti, is applauding other current actions being taken by the CBC: A demand for a meeting with President Bush; a CBC Delegation trip on Haiti on Friday, February 27th; a demand for a second meeting with CIA and U.S. State Department representatives; and united actions with students and other Haitian support groups.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the bloody spectacle of this week is not the release of Mel Gibson's gory movie exploiting the suffering of Jesus Christ. In this hemisphere, 600 miles from our shores, blood is flowing in the streets of Haiti with the complicity of the Bush administration. This White House and its agents are like Pontius Pilate, pretending to wash their hands while the democratic nation of Haiti is assassinated. At least one former CIA asset has been identified as a leader of the band of savage guerrillas. The people of the United States must turn their backs on this conspiracy and demand that the democratic nation of Haiti, the democratic government, the duly-elected President of Haiti be supported by the United States Government and that Aristide be allowed to serve out his next 2 years without any compromise with bands of thugs in the street. There is only one opposition. The so-called civil opposition is not civil at all. They operate hand in hand with the violence. Stop the violence and support democracy in Haiti.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the Republican economists, the Wall Street Journal and other conservative propaganda organs are loudly proclaiming that the recession is over. They are trumpeting a new prosperity. But there are no jobs for the more than three million who lost their jobs. In my District unemployment is an awful reality. Every worker would like to be employed in a job that allows him to bring home a check big enough to meet his family's needs. However, if you don't have a job, then you welcome the desperately needed unemployment insurance. The stories of two unemployed workers in my district put a human face on the ugly statistics related to this calamity. John Pleck and Nina Worrell both face an uncertain future because of the Bush Administration's focus on tax cuts for the rich. John's UI benefits expired in December, leaving him with no income. He spends each day searching the ``job wanted ads'' while submitting applications for various jobs. The Democratic plan would provide John with more time to find a well paying job. John's story is heard everyday throughout the United States. In fact, John's current situation is very similar to another constituent in my district. Mrs. Nina Worrell spent 14 years working for United Airlines. Mrs. Worrell has been unemployed for more than a year and has struggled to pay her bills. Her UI benefits also expired in December, leaving Mrs. Worrell with few choices. While she has continued to search for a new job, the unemployment rate in New York has continued to skyrocket. We must extend UI benefits for people such as John and Nina. The Republican Administration continues to support policies that harm America: Continuation of the Republican war against working families; failure to appreciate contributions of working families to the overall national resources and purpose; the war in Iraq being fought by the relatives of these unemployed Americans. Democrats prefer an economic stimulus package for jobs. The compassionate, the right action to take, the policy which best serves the national interests and national security at this time is the simple extension of unemployment insurance. I urge a ``yes'' vote for this amendment.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. And I would like to inform him that I was tardy in arriving because I was informed that the Republicans would not be taking the next hour and that I would be taking the next hour instead. So I want to continue the gentleman's discussion in the next hour, and I invite any Members who would like to come and join me in that endeavor. I am going to talk about common-sense legislative priorities, and practically every priority I discuss will be related to budget and appropriations matters. And I want to thank those the three Members. I watched the presentations. And starting with the Technicolor presentation of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), I learned a great deal in terms of how you can graphically discuss what is happening in America. The chart with the Social Security was astounding. I have a good friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), who would like to make a speech that Social Security is not in jeopardy. It will go on for a long, long time, and in the foreseeable future it will almost never reach a point where it would be out of money. But the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) made those calculations a couple of years ago and he is still making them. He never anticipated the tax cut. He never anticipated the kind of recklessness that this administration has undertaken with respect to taking revenue out of the pot and driving us to a crises with respect to budget matters. It is hard for people with common sense or ordinary Americans to understand the excesses and extremes that are embodied in the policies of this administration. I did not hear any mention, but I am sure someone mentioned the fact that the war in Iraq by the most conservative estimates is spending $1 billion a week. That is a conservative estimate. A little arithmetic will let us know. A billion dollars a week, 52 weeks a year, that would be $52 billion a year in Iraq. We have already appropriated $87 billion and previously more than $70 billion. So about three times that amount, the $52 billion, has already been appropriated for the war. We are three times greater than $1 billion a week. That defies the imagination, when we look at the fact that in the President's State of the Union speech he talked about not allowing the domestic budget to go beyond a 4 percent increase, which means that many domestic programs would have to be cut, while on the other hand he did not attach a percentage or a figure to additional appropriations that he would be asking the Congress for with respect to the war in Iraq. We ought to focus in on budget and appropriations matters from one hour of the day to the next and from one day of the week and all the weeks and all the months. That is the issue, how are we going to expend the taxpayers' money to make a better life for the American people. We cannot talk about it too much. Let us focus on the fact that in the Constitution, the Preamble, they talk about promoting the general welfare. We provide for the common defense, but in that same Preamble, they discuss promoting the general welfare. How do we spend $1 billion a week in Iraq to promote the general welfare, or, really, three times that amount? It is $3 billion being spent somewhere over there. I do not know whether Halliburton is getting the other $2 billion or not. The estimates keep coming out. It is $1 billion a week; but when we add up the arithmetic, we see we get more. So what is Halliburton getting? How are they skewing that? Halliburton Company admitted that in one transaction two of their employees have gotten a $6 million bribe. In one transaction, two of their employees have gotten $6 million. So we can see how big the figures are and how big the deals are and how corrupt and crooked the deals can become. At the same time, over here, if we look at $1 billion, we can build 100 state-of-the-art schools for $10 million a piece with $1 billion. Make the contrast. I heard my colleague from Virginia say that the interest on the national debt over a period of time is going to be $300 billion, and for $300 billion we can create 10 million jobs. Ten million jobs at $30,000 each, 10 million jobs for what we are going to pay in interest on the national debt because of the fact it is being recklessly racked up going forward. So what is $30,000 a year, you say? That is not enough to inject a mission crunch, but that is more than most Americans are making when we look at the income for families of four. Last week, I think, in Barbara Walters ``20/20'' show, they had a discussion of myths that need to be demythologized, and they talked about are people happy if they have more money. It is interesting that they said that people making less than $30,000 a year, family of four, they are miserable, and between $30,000 and $50,000 they begin to rise, and at $50,000 a year, a family of four can really be happy. The real happiness is not affected after $50,000 on up, but between $30,000 and $50,000 people are miserable, unhappy and to reach a point where a family can really be happy. I do not know how much science there is behind that. They do a lot of interviews, et cetera, but $30,000 per year can provide 10 million jobs. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) said that before, and I think it is something we ought to take into consideration. We are in a situation where common sense has been thrown out the window. Common sense is not driving policy in our Nation. Mr. Speaker, I am going to continue this discussion in a few minutes, and I appreciate the gentleman having started this, and he has cause to be congratulated for focusing on what matters most, this budget.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, because of an emergency in my district, I missed rollcall vote No. 6 and No. 7. If present I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue the discussion that we have just had in a slightly different vein. I would like to broaden it beyond numbers and figures and talk a little more of philosophy with the understanding that we decision-makers here in the Congress, all of us are very bright people. One does not get to Congress unless they are very bright. So whether it is Republican or Democrat, we have bright and educated people who are. If they make decisions that are wrong, it is not because they are not knowledgeable. So I am not going to question the knowledge of anyone. I do want to question the fact that we have allowed ourselves to be swayed into a situation where we make some very irresponsible decisions; and beyond irresponsible, we make some barbaric decisions. I have got barbarism on my mind because I am sort of a captive of a series running on the History Channel right now called ``The Barbarians,'' and they got Attila and the Tartars. They have got all these different obvious barbaric groups that for a certain period of time captured the known civilized world at that time and held it as their own. I was surprised to see they interjected into these obvious, understood to be barbaric groups that usually assign the concept of barbarism to, they have interjected the story of Hitler. ``Tyrant of Terror'' is the name of that series, and they also put the Japanese war crimes trials in another section. So what we have is these barbarians who seem to be guys who ate raw meat and they scalped people and they burned cities to the ground. They raped any female in sight. This series is also saying there are people who have risen to a new level of culture, the people who listen to Beethoven and Bach and go to the opera and who have enjoyed the legacy of great writers, others and Shakespearean translation. Those people allowed themselves to be captured by a barbarian philosophy, to be led by a barbarian, probably the world's greatest war machine. The German war machine was the world's greatest war machine that probably ever existed. Instead of being a war machine for defense and for the promotion of peace in the world, it was a war machine that was put to the spread of terror; and there are a few decisions, with one or two signatures, the Gestapo could send millions of people to their death. Conan the Barbarian, Attila the Hun, and all the other barbarians together did not kill as many people as the terror of Hitler did, both in concentration camps, in the case of people they considered undesirable, Jews and weak people and disabled people, and on the battlefield. On the battlefield they slaughtered millions. Russia estimates that the Soviet Union lost about 18 million people in that war. So here is a very well-advanced group in terms of art, music, literature and, most of all, in terms of science, military science; and they behaved and caused more damage than all the other barbarians put together. What does this have to do with America? What does it have to do with this discussion? I want to talk about commonsense legislative priorities, and I want to talk about the other extreme away from common sense. There is in the middle irresponsibility, and at the extreme is barbarism. Barbaric decisions can be made in this House in this Capitol, a combination of Congress and the President, barbaric decisions with barbaric consequences. And we ought to think deeply about that. We ought to think deeply about it because a few hundred years from now historians will be writing and looking back on the history of the world, and I think they would say that the American civilization brought mankind to a level never dreamed of before. Our constitutional civilization brought mankind to a point which is unrivaled anywhere else. We have the promise to continue to take civilization forward. We have the promise to do what has never been done in the world before. We already have done more for ordinary people. The masses of people live better, with more hope and happiness and necessities being provided than in any other society that has ever existed in the history of the world. We are the United States of America. And I often say nothing else has ever existed like this in terms of wealth and power. The Roman Empire was a village compared to the United States of America. I think we have great responsibilities as a consequence of that. I think that God has blessed America. God has blessed America in so many ways in terms of just natural resources, land, periods of peace, and on and on it goes, with great leaders who have come forward at the right time to take care of crises and reestablished the Nation on the right route. We have so much that we can appreciate, and I think we are indebted to God as a result. In fact, I am sure when God looks down on the kinds of things we propose sometimes and the number of children still hungry in America, he must weep; when he looks upon the kind of magnificent medical advances that we have made and still people in need die for lack of good medical treatment, with 40,000 people uninsured in the richest most powerful Nation that ever existed. So we should stop at this point as we go into the year 2004, which is a Presidential election year, and in addition to considering the numbers and the revenue estimates and the expenditure estimates think very closely about what are we deciding to do with the available resources. Taxpayers should not say I am against big spending; I do not want to spend any more money. The question is what do we spend money for. Are we against big spending if it is going to provide prescription drug benefits for senior citizens or, in the final analysis, for all who need them; if prescription drug benefits are a part of our civilization? There would be no magic drugs, no wonder drugs if it had not been for the group investment and the investment of government in research and the investment of the government in education. We invented constitutional civilization on the one hand, but we did a lot of great things after that. The Morrill Act, which is little known by most Americans, the Morrill Act established land grant colleges in every State. Land grant colleges were pretty much patterned after Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia. They were established to go beyond the study of philosophy and art and literature and study practical things. They were established to study agriculture and mechanics. The legacy of the land grant college is that it established throughout the whole United States centers of learning, which were not just centers of learning in the usual sense, but centers of learning which focused on everything there was to be learned about anything that existed in order to make life easier for all of us. Out of those centers of learning came the production of agriculture. In the world today it is unparalleled what we do in agriculture. That was one of the priorities of land grant colleges. But also out of the land grant colleges engineering feats and devices and procedures and so forth have evolved. Out of the learned world that we created, not by accident but by legislation, we have a dynamic out there which has produced these marvels of science in every area, including the area of medicine. So it belongs to all the people. It belongs to the people of the United States who are the recipients of that part of the Constitution which talks about promoting the general welfare. We have lost our way, and we need some common sense to go back and reread the Preamble to the Constitution and understand the real meaning of that. They did not say promote the welfare of just the corporations. They did not say promote the welfare of the 1 percent of the richest Americans. They did not say promote the general welfare of people who have college educations. They said promote the general welfare. We as a Nation can stand together and exist only if we clearly understand what that means. There is a time when we do not hesitate to call upon our citizens to risk their lives in this process of promoting the general welfare and providing for the defense of the country. The very fact that nations do not hesitate to call upon their citizens and demand that they go forward in times of crises when the Nation is threatened: the draft in World War I, the draft in World War II, Korea. On what basis, what right do we have to draft ordinary people, most of them poor, many of them from working families? On what basis can we do that? What moral principle is at work there? It is an assumption that we are all a part of this country. And when the time comes for the country to be defended, then everybody has an obligation. And if we do not have volunteers, the government has the right to draft. If we accept that, then the government has an obligation to make certain that our families are taken care of, at least to provide a job and the opportunity to earn a living. The government has an obligation to deal with the elderly who no longer can work. Social Security is not a luxury. Social Security is a manifestation of the American civilization. We were not the first to get Social Security, so I will not say we invented it. There are nations in the world, particularly in Europe, who might have had it first. But as far as the change in American construct and the dedication of our resources, Social Security was a great step forward. Of course, there was Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal in a time of crisis, and later on the protege of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, took it further and we got Medicare and Medicaid. Now we want to trivialize some of these great achievements. At the beginning of the second year of the 108th Congress, I would like us to take a hard look at some commonsense legislative priorities, and those legislative priorities all involve budgets and appropriations. And before we can get to budgets and appropriations, we have to talk about taxes. We cannot talk about any of this unless we go to the core of our problem at this moment in our history. The core of the problem of decision-making in America right now is the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq can make us or break us. The war in Iraq will make us behave like barbarians if we are not careful. We will make barbaric decisions if we do not get control of what is happening in Iraq. I will not talk about the rationale for going to war. I will not talk about recklessly pulling out of Iraq at this point. Yes, we do need to take a look at the billions of dollars that we have appropriated. I did not vote for the $87 billion, but I hope that it is going to help those troops who did not have modern bullet-proof vests and communication equipment that they needed. There all kinds of things that have come to light in terms of the way our military treats some of its soldiers that need to be dealt with in terms of this war in Iraq. We are going to make people stay there longer. There are National Guardsmen and Reservists, people who never dreamed they were going to be in a combat situation for a year at least and being told that even after that year we cannot guarantee that they are going to get out. There are things happening which have nothing to do with dollars and cents that we have to deal with, and dollars and cents are a part of the problem; spending more money on the right things and not letting Halliburton charge enormous prices for gasoline, not letting Halliburton employees pay or receive bribes in order to pay unscrupulous people in Kuwait and other places to overcharge us for services and equipment. I see I have been joined by my colleague from New Jersey, Mr. Speaker, so at this point I would be happy to yield to him. (Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from New Jersey, I am sure, has had the experience that I have had, that they were glad to get the income tax check from the government because their unemployment was running out. That immediate cash was great, but the unemployment insurance would be far greater, an extension of it, would be a far greater benefit for any family than a sole check for $300. That is the kind of education that we have to give.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the word ``outsourcing'' ought to be branded into the minds of every young American. The folks with great hopes that if they stay in school and get an education, become a programmer or technician, that they were guaranteed a job, but outsourcing beyond the movement of manufacturing jobs, which has taken place already and taking jobs away from people who are not educated, entry-level people, the outsourcing is going to take everything. The highest and most complex jobs in science can be outsourced. You can have Russian and Chinese physicists, space experts in Japan, India. They are the people who will be filling those positions while the corporations that we have given the contracts to make big profits because they can get those people by paying them in 1 year what a scientist or a technician would cost for a month here. That outsourcing is a concept that ought to be branded into the mind of every young American. That is the death knell of our economy because as they do that, they take the last group of jobs that we feel secure about, and take away our consumer spending power. Our economy is driven by consumers, and it seems corporations do not care about that. They are looking at their individual bottom line, how much they can make. In one of the papers in my area there was a front-page article about the bonuses received by corporate CEOs at Christmas time. One of them got $18 million as a bonus, one got $4 million, $7 million. They want more. In order to get more, they will outsource and lower the cost of doing services. Where do we go from there unless we realize that our jobs as legislators and our job as American citizens is for a way to promote the general welfare in America. That means new laws and new policies and pulling out of trade agreements. Whatever is necessary, we have to promote the general welfare in America first.