Frank Pallone

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening in amazement at what can only be described as the utter inflexibility of the Reverend Ian Paisley. Mr. Paisley's dislike of the Catholic population in the north of Ireland is well documented and needs no repeating on the floor of this body. Suffice it to say that John Hume's observation ``if the word `no' was removed from the English language, Ian Paisley would be speechless'' is an accurate description of Mr. Paisley's ability for thoughtful negotiation and compromise. What does deserve recounting here, however, are the remarkable strides that have been taken by Sinn Fein in the quest for a just and lasting peace for all the people of Northern Ireland, as well as the hard work and dedication shown by the Taoiseach Bertie Ahearn and Prime Minister Tony Blair in this endeavor. Prime Minister Blair has not always used the full force of his office to secure peace on the island of Ireland. However, he has shown himself to be a true friend to the Irish people and a strident negotiator for peace, and I am proud to commend him for that. His diligence and the pursuit of peace stands in stark contrast, however, to that of Mr. Paisley. Mr. Speaker, heroic efforts have been put forth by all parties, republican, nationalist and unionists alike, to address this situation. It began with the signing of the Good Friday Accords in 1998 and the commitment of the IRA to end its armed campaign and commit to the development of purely political and exclusively peaceful means. The IRA then went on to put their arms completely and verifiably beyond use, which was confirmed by the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. Then, most recently, Sinn Fein voted in its extraordinary Ard Fheis, or political convention, to support the policing institutions. This includes a police service that has been shown by the independent Police Ombudsman to have engaged in collusion with loyalist paramilitaries, resulting in the death of at least 10 people, both Catholic and Protestant. Despite all of this, Mr. Paisley has refused to enter into government with Sinn Fein and put the needs of his constituency and that of the citizens of Northern Ireland above those of his own petty hatred and extremist allies. Mr. Paisley cannot continue to stand in the way of peace and justice for the people of Northern Ireland. The people of the North have waited far too long and sacrificed far too much for him to continue to be a roadblock to peace. Responsible leadership is needed on the unionist side of the North to show that extremism, bigotry and hatred will not be tolerated. Mr. Speaker, I have taken to this floor many times in the last few years to talk about the situation in Northern Ireland. The progress which has been made is nothing short of remarkable, considering the violence that has plagued this area literally for centuries. But the one constant that those of us who care about a just and lasting peace have seen is Mr. Paisley, increasingly out of touch, afraid of losing his grip on power, and more interested in living with the past than embracing the promise of tomorrow. It is well past time that Reverend Ian Paisley move along and let the people of Northern Ireland get on with their lives.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, the debate taking place here in the House this week is long overdue. We are approaching our fifth year of this war. This is the first time Congress is debating the strategy President Bush wants to implement in Iraq. Congress can no longer stand on the sidelines, and the President has to know that to escalate the war in Iraq is not acceptable. The President hopes this troop escalation plan will help secure Baghdad and reduce the sectarian violence that is ripping the country apart. But there is no evidence to support those hopes. In fact, on four different occasions, the President increased troop levels in Iraq, and every time these plans failed to calm the violence in Iraq. Additional troops are not going to make a difference because there simply is not a military solution to the war in Iraq. The devastating sectarian violence is going to continue. But our troops should no longer be asked to serve as referees in a battle between religious sects that have been fighting for centuries.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, the debate taking place here in the House this week is long overdue. We are approaching our fifth year of this war, and this is the first time Congress is debating the strategy President Bush wants to implement in Iraq. Congress can no longer stand on the sidelines, and the President has to know that to escalate the war in Iraq is simply not acceptable. We have lost too many American lives, seen too many soldiers seriously injured and spent too much of our hard-earned taxpayer money for no good reason. I am proud of my vote against the initial Iraq war resolution, and see this resolution before us tonight as the beginning of the end to U.S. military involvement in Iraq. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this evening to commend our troops for the valiant work they have done over the last 5 years. I am thinking of them when I voice my strong opposition to the President's plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq. The President hopes this troop escalation plan will secure Baghdad and reduce the sectarian violence that is ripping the country apart. But there is no evidence to support those hopes. In fact, on four different occasions the President increased troop levels in Iraq, and every time these plans failed to calm the violence in Iraq. Last summer the President moved more troops into Baghdad and said that he hoped to see some results in a matter of months. By October, General William Caldwell had publicly stated that the surge was a failure and the operations had ``not met our overall expectations of sustaining a reduction in the levels of violence.'' Additional troops are not going to make a difference because there simply is not a military solution to the war in Iraq. The devastating sectarian violence is going to continue, but our troops should no longer be asked to serve as referees in a battle between religious sects that have been fighting for centuries. Mr. Speaker, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim that if you speak out against the President's proposal, you are not supporting our troops, and this is nonsense. And if they listened to the troops, they would know that not even a majority of our troops support the President's plan. According to a poll conducted by Army Times, a weekly newspaper popular with Active Duty and retired Army personnel, only 41 percent of our troops support the President's plan. But they will do whatever is asked of them, regardless of whether or not they agree with the command. Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of the war, our troops fought without the body armor they needed to protect themselves against improvised electronic devices. It now appears that the military doesn't have the protective equipment needed to properly outfit the troops the President plans to send to Iraq. According to the Army, it lacks not only armor kits for soldiers, but also trucks and vehicles needed to accommodate any escalation in troop levels. Lieutenant General Steven Speaks, the Army's deputy chief of staff for force development, said any additional units of troops sent to Iraq would have to share the trucks assigned to the units now there. Do supporters of this plan really believe this Congress should allow the President to move ahead without properly investigating whether or not our troops will have all the necessary protective equipment they need? Mr. Speaker, we also need to realistically look at the distraction that the Iraq war is causing in the overall war against terror. While the administration and the Pentagon focus their attention on Iraq, the war in Afghanistan has been forgotten. The Taliban has significantly grown in strength in Afghanistan, and America needs to focus its attention there, the source of the attacks on 9/11. Mr. Speaker, I opposed this war from the very beginning, and want to see our troops home. The President should be putting forth a plan for withdrawal from Iraq, not escalation. I am willing to vote to cut off funding for the escalation. I have voted against the Iraq supplemental appropriation bills to send a message that we need to end U.S. military involvement in Iraq. With this resolution, we begin the process of getting out of a place where we should never have been from the beginning.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise this morning to share my concerns regarding the Turkish government's threats to retaliate against our country if the U.S. Congress adopts a resolution affirming the Armenian genocide. These shocking threats have been issued in response to the recent introduction of the Armenian genocide resolution, H. Res. 106. This measure seeks to affirm the U.S. record on the Armenian genocide by recognizing it as a historical fact. It also praises the American record of opposition to this tragedy which is marked by courageous diplomatic protests and unprecedented American relief efforts for the survivors of this crime. Senior Turkish government officials have warned that if Congress ever considers this resolution, they will cut off supply access for our forces serving in Iraq. In fact, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told Vice President Dick Cheney that the U.S. must, and I quote, calculate the costs of losing Turkey. Such a brazen threat to interfere in U.S. military operations is absolutely unacceptable. I am outraged that the Turkish government would put the lives of soldiers at risk in the pursuit of its desperate campaign to deny the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians. This extremist behavior is known as blackmail in my book and it should be publicly and forcefully rejected as such. Clearly, Turkey is no friend of the United States. As an American, I am deeply offended that another country is seeking to dictate where our Nation stands on core moral issues. Especially a country that claims to embrace democracy, yet has a longstanding history of abusing minorities, intellectuals and the principle of freedom of expression. As a Member of Congress, it is extremely troubling that a foreign government is meddling in our Nation's legislative process through threats and intimidation. This is the most dramatic intervention of a foreign government in U.S. congressional affairs and it has been going on for much too long. Mr. Speaker, senior Bush administration officials, rather than outright rejecting these outrageous intimations by the Turkish government, are passing them on to Members of Congress as justification for not supporting the Armenian genocide resolution. The Bush administration is showing no courage on this issue, instead giving Turkey a free pass on their efforts to deliberately reject the truth. They seem to go to any lengths, including having soldiers call into their Representatives in fear of their lives, to deny the Armenian genocide simply because Turkey demands that they do so. Mr. Speaker, the Armenian genocide resolution already has 175 cosponsors. I am certain that if Members of this House were given the opportunity to vote on this resolution, we would pass it overwhelmingly. Congress should be allowed to reaffirm what we all believe and know to be fact, and that is that genocide was orchestrated by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 to exterminate its Armenian citizens. Reaffirming the Armenian genocide is a matter of conscience. It is my hope that this Congress will rebuke any warnings against the United States by Turkey and consider legislation on the Armenian genocide.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, Congress has a responsibility to the American people and to our troops bravely serving our Nation in Iraq to debate the President's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. Today this House will begin debate on a bipartisan resolution supporting our troops and voicing disapproval with the President's plan. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, it really concerns me that some of the Republicans on the other side this morning talked about this debate as silly and tried to trivialize a debate that involves our troops who are fighting, some of whom are dying in Iraq. Our own intelligence agencies released a report earlier this month saying that the war in Iraq is not a civil war, it is worse, with numerous groups killing each other to gain the upper hand. Four times before, the President has sent thousands of additional troops to Iraq, and each time the situation on the ground either remained the same or grew even more dangerous. Could that be why our generals concluded, before being let go by this President, that sending more troops to Iraq simply will not help the situation? Mr. Speaker, Congress needs to ask the tough questions this week so we can begin taking our Iraq strategy in a new direction.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, as this body plans to debate tomorrow the ongoing war in Iraq, I come to the floor this evening to discuss what I feel is the forgotten war, the United States' war on terror in Afghanistan. I have stressed on numerous occasions the importance of the United States not losing sight of the real front in the war on terror in Afghanistan. Too often, the Bush administration has placed all of its efforts into fighting the war in Iraq while the Taliban and al Qaeda increased their presence in Afghanistan and western Pakistan. It was promising to see Secretary of State Robert Gates visit Pakistan this weekend to meet with Pakistani President Musharraf. Unfortunately, Secretary Gates stated that the meeting was, and I quote, not aimed at securing the assurance of action from Pakistan. As I have stated before, assurances of action are exactly what the United States must demand from Pakistan at this time. President Musharraf has acknowledged that his country's Frontier Guards have allowed insurgents to pass freely at the border shared by Afghanistan and Pakistan. If the Pakistani President is fully aware of Taliban insurgents crossing the border, why is he not taking the necessary steps to bring an end to these violations? Mr. Speaker, in Afghanistan the Taliban seems to be ramping up its efforts and possibly planning a spring offensive. Last week in a speech on the House floor, I mentioned a town in southern Afghanistan, Musa Qala, which has been overrun by forces despite a peace deal brokered between local leaders and NATO-led forces. This deal called for the local leaders to take control of the town and ensure that Taliban fighters not create a stronghold in the area. Unfortunately, these deals failed, and this week it has been reported that roughly 1,500 families have fled Musa Qala and, as an anonymous Taliban commander has claimed, there are thousands of Taliban in the region preparing for a possible attack by United States or NATO forces. Now, it is extremely important for the United States to step up its efforts in this deteriorating country. Of particular significance is the alarming rate at which the opium trade is growing in Afghanistan. According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, opium poppy production reached a record 6,100 metric tons last year, and this is 49 percent greater than the total in 2005. Corruption is rampant within the opium trade, and the Taliban not only profit by selling and trading the opium, but also through providing protection to opium farmers and traders. Corruption is so pervasive that police chief posts in poppy-growing districts are auctioned off for as much as $100,000 for a 6-month appointment. While these police chiefs will only make $60 a month, they know the kickbacks they will receive from working with the opium farmers and the Taliban will be extremely financially rewarding. Now, some claim that the U.S. and NATO should simply fly over Afghanistan and spray chemicals over all the opium fields to destroy the crops; but not only will this cause environmental and health damage, but it will also raise the price of opium and drive farmers towards the Taliban insurgents. What the U.S. should do instead is use the additional aid that it plans to send to Afghanistan this year to bolster rural development in poppy-growing areas. This money must also be used to create new rural industries so the farmers will have options other than growing poppy and participating in the illicit opium trade. The main goal of U.S. efforts to eradicate the illicit opium trade should be to target illegal drug traffickers and corrupt officials such as police chiefs. Our government must couple this with aid to the rural poor in Afghanistan in order to provide financial alternatives to the illicit opium trade. Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues and I debate the merits of the President's plan to escalate the war in Iraq, which I oppose, it is important for us not to forget where the real war on terror continues today in Afghanistan. The United States must intensify its redevelopment efforts in Afghanistan as an alternative to the opium trade, which is only providing further financial backing for the Taliban-led insurgency.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, last week ExxonMobil, the biggest of Big Oil companies, announced that its profits for 2006 totaled $39.5 billion, the highest annual profits ever recorded for an American corporation. Now I don't begrudge the right of any company to make profits, and certainly ExxonMobil has done quite a good job of doing so; but while they are out making money, it is our job here in Congress to ask what price we have all paid for those profits. The most obvious price has been the squeeze on working families. When gas prices hit $3 per gallon last summer, it was low- and middle-income families just trying to get to work that took the brunt of the impact and had to readjust tight household budgets. Are ExxonMobil's profits worth that kind of cost to our society? Is it fair that the world's most profitable corporation gets even more profitable while everyday Americans struggle to get by and provide for their children? Certainly that does seem unfair to me, but maybe the problem is not entirely ExxonMobil's fault--after all, they are just feeding America's fossil fuel habit. As President Bush said last, America is addicted to oil. As long as this addiction persists, Big Oil gets richer and average Americans suffer more. Despite the President's pronouncement, however, that addiction has gotten worse over the last 6 years, when the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress came up with new and clever ways to hand out goodies for oil and gas companies. That was no way to run an energy policy, and all we wound up with 6 years later is higher gas prices, greater dependence on countries that really don't like us, and the increasing threat of global warming. That is probably one reason why during last year's elections the American people clearly chose a new direction for America, and the new Democratic majority in the House responded. During the first 100 hours of this Congress, we repealed massive tax breaks for Big Oil and funneled the money into a fund to promote clean and efficient energy technologies. It will go a long way towards promoting the right kinds of energy sources. It also signaled that Democrats are willing to end outdated policies that do nothing more than worsen our addiction to fossil fuels. And that is certainly not the end of our efforts. Madam Speaker, our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Majority Leader Hoyer are planning new efforts to get the House to focus on energy independence and combating global warming. Energy independence means diversifying our energy sources so that we can free ourselves from the national economic and environmental security concerns of being too dependent on oil, gas and coal. And that means keeping gasoline, electricity and natural gas prices stable to make sure American families aren't jolted by sudden high prices. It means reducing our oil consumption to the point where our foreign policy isn't being held hostage because we need oil from some of the most unstable or unfriendly places in the world, including Iran and Venezuela. It also means making sharp reductions in greenhouse gas pollution so we can stave off the worst impacts of global warming. I just want to reemphasize that last point because global warming is one of the most serious challenges we are facing in the 21st century. For a district like mine near the Jersey shore, it means dealing with rising sea levels, more frequent floods, and stronger storms. For the country as a whole, it is a security issue. The more the Earth warms because of pollution from fossil fuels, the more American families and businesses will have to deal with bigger disasters, more unpredictable weather, and a completely different climate. The bottom line is that working towards energy independence and fighting global warming are real security questions for the American people. Unfortunately, we have wasted the last 6 years spending more time helping ExxonMobil's bottom line than we have dealing with these serious questions. So this new Congress means an opportunity to move in a new direction. When it comes to energy independence and global warming, the new direction means actually putting forward solutions that will move us towards a clean, sustainable, secure energy future. We are going to raise the bar in this Congress. No longer should we be satisfied just to hear sound bites like ``addicted to oil'' and ``serious challenge of climate change'' that we heard in the President's State of the Union address. Now we can have a real dialogue about how to address these issues. And I would just say, Madam Speaker, ExxonMobil may keep earning record profits, but this Congress, this Democratic majority Congress, has to keep its eyes on doing what is best for American families and for our environment.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate the gentleman's comments. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin again.

Mr. PALLONE. Well, the one thing that I keep hearing, of course, with the hospitals is their ability to care for what they call uncompensated care. One of the things that the President proposed both in the State of the Union and his budget was to take money from the hospitals that get what they call disproportionate share, DSH. I hate to use these acronyms because it gets so bureaucratic, but your hospitals that have a disproportionate share of people that do not have health insurance, the uncompensated care. Over the years, we have provided more funding for those hospitals through Medicare and other Federal programs so that they can cover the uninsured. Again, the President says we will give the States more money by cutting the payments to these disproportionate share hospitals. In my home State of New Jersey, I mean, that is absurd. We have State legislators and the Governor now that are talking about trying to provide some kind of comprehensive health insurance so nobody in New Jersey goes without health insurance. The only way to do that is if the Federal Government provides some additional help in some of the ways we discussed tonight, but if you start cutting back on the funding that is going to these hospitals that cover all these uninsured people, it is like robbing Peter to pay Paul, I guess is the expression. It just does not work. So I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. PALLONE. Can I just ask you, because I know you are a physician, when we talk about some of these programs like Medicaid, SCHIP, Medicare, and I know the gentlewoman from Florida brought it up. I know it is hard a lot of times when you are on the floor and you talk about doctors and they are not getting enough money for Medicare. They will say the doctors are all making a lot of money; why are you bringing that up? The reality is we are getting to a crisis now where many physicians simply will not accept payment from some of these programs because the reimbursement rate has gotten so low. Now, you mentioned Medicare, because that is the big one for seniors and the disabled, and how a lot of doctors now are not even looking to take Medicare, but when you talk about Medicaid, which I mentioned before, that has gotten to the point of no return. Could I yield to you? Do doctors even take Medicaid in Wisconsin anymore?

Mr. PALLONE. I should mention that you are a physician as well.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this evening I am joined by some of my colleagues who are new Members, and we are going to talk about the President's health care proposals and also what he articulated both in his State of the Union Address, and more recently last Monday when he gave us his budget message. And my concern, as always, is that President Bush has prioritized, or says he wants to prioritize, health care as an issue and particularly deal with the problem of the uninsured. And we certainly recognize that under his watch as President for the last 6 or 7 years that the problem of the uninsured has grown greater in this country. There are more uninsured than ever. But at the same time the proposals that the President puts forward, in particular the amount of money that has been allocated in his budget for some of these health care needs, does not go along, essentially, with the rhetoric that he has been using, saying that he wants to cover the uninsured and prioritize the concerns of the uninsured. And, again, I always say my effort is not to chastise the President. I appreciate the fact that President Bush is prioritizing health care and talking about it, because he has the bully pulpit, and to the extent that he is out there talking about health care, it gives us an opportunity in the Congress to address the issue. But it is unfortunate that the proposals in the budget that he proposes do not really go along with any kind of concerted effort that would be meaningful to address those health care concerns, and particularly the problems of the uninsured. Before I begin, I wanted to yield to my colleague from Colorado. I know he and I were both watching the debate by our Republican colleagues in the last hour. I know he would like to address some of those concerns. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate the gentlewoman's comments. I just wanted to mention one more thing. The President in his budget message highlighted this SCHIP program, this kid care program, saying they are going to get another $5 billion, which, as I said, is not enough to keep up with the kids currently in the program. But at the same time the Medicaid program, which deals with those who really are in poverty and whose parents probably are not working because they are disabled or whatever their situation is, covers even more kids than the SCHIP, because SCHIP was put in place to try to supplement Medicaid. So I asked this question of the Secretary. I did not even get a response, because in the President's budget Medicaid, which covers 23 million children, SCHIP only covers 6.6-. So Medicaid covers 23-, SCHIP covers 6.6-. They herald the fact that they are giving $5 billion in extra dollars to SCHIP which does not even keep up with inflation, but in the same time over the 5 years, they cut Federal funding for Medicaid by $25.7 billion, and Medicaid covers, what did we say, five times as many kids and five times the cut. So we are not even talking about the poor kids here. He is just saying, well, forget them. I mean, I am not even addressing the problem of the poor kids and what happens to them. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. This does directly relate to the health care debate, because if you are in a State where your deficit continues to climb, as we face now under the years of the Republican majority, it is very difficult to address any unmet needs, whether it be health care or whatever, because of the deficit and the constant having to pay back on the debt. I wanted to say something about what you mentioned in response to our Republican colleagues. I have been here a long time, almost 20 years now, I am in my 19th year. When I first started in 1988, the Democrats were in the majority. There were a group of Republicans who used to come down every night doing special orders, just like we are, and they would have the pages bring this huge digital clock that literally was the whole length of the well, from this chart over to where my colleague from Colorado is, and there would be two or three pages that would bring this big digital clock down. They would go on and rail about the deficit and the deficit was going up so much a day. This literally went on for like 6 years while I was down here, from when I first started in 1988 until 1994. In 1994, the Republicans took the majority under Newt Gingrich. The digital clock disappeared, and all we heard were constant spending and going deeper into debt, and nobody in the Republican Party ever mentioned the deficit again as it continued to climb in those years, and particularly now under President Bush. For the life of me, I don't understand where this whole traditional Republican philosophy, which was to care how you spent the money and you didn't want to go into debt, just disappeared from their ideology. In fact, I have to say, in the last campaign, because you mentioned it, President Clinton was actually at an event that I attended in New Jersey, and I am not sure I can repeat exactly what he said. But essentially he said that he watched the Republican party under their congressional majority in the 12 years or so that they were in the majority go from this party of principles that was worried about not getting involved in wars that were not in the interest of the United States, worrying about the debt and spending money, to a party that just abandoned all these ideals. He actually said, right now, the Democrats cover both the left and right ideologically, because we are still concerned about the problems of the average person in that we want to cover people who don't have health insurance. We want to make sure people can afford to send their kids to college. But at the same time, we have covered the area where we don't want to get involved in foreign wars or foreign entanglements that are not in our interest. And, most importantly, we are the ones most worried about the debt and trying to make sure we are not spending a lot of money. Now, all of a sudden, we are in the majority, and they are starting to talk about the deficit that they have grown so much in the last 12 years. It is unbelievable. When you talk about the health care debate, this goes to the heart of it, because the bottom line is, if you want to expand and deal with the problem of the uninsured, some of them are people that are not going to be able to afford to buy their own health insurance. If you don't have any money because you just keep racking up this huge debt, you are not going to be able to cover the people. So it directly relates. I just wanted to give these statistics about where we have been in the last few years. If you look at this, the point I have been trying to make is under the President's watch for the last 6 or 7 years, not only have the number of uninsured gone up, but the cost of health care and health insurance keeps rising. Therefore, it has just become unaffordable for a lot of Americans. This chart says that workers are now paying an average of $1,094 more in annual health care premiums for their families than they did in the year 2000. You can see the problem with the affordability of health care. Then the next chart has the number of uninsured in 2001, 41.2 million, and the number of uninsured in 2006, 47 million. One million more Americans become uninsured each year under the President's watch. The chart over there, I will leave to the gentleman to explain.

Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate your comments. And I really think it is important that we keep stressing how we want to prioritize these health care needs, and there are so many, whether it is veterans or children or whatever it is. I just want to give you a couple statistics. And I know it gets so bureaucratic to say, what is he doing up here with these statistics? When we talk about the uninsured, the biggest groups still are the kids, and the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands knows how much over the years what this SCHIP or kid care program, that we have tried to prioritize that, send the money back to the States, use their help to try to insure a lot of these kids. I just use my State, but you could use any State. In my State right now for this SCHIP or kid care program, we have more kids that are eligible, meaning that they could theoretically sign up, or their parents could sign up, for this program than are currently enrolled, even though the program has been around for a while, and that is true in almost every State. What we were hoping was that the President, in saying he wanted to deal with the uninsured, and knowing that the biggest group of uninsured is children, believe it or not, that he would simply provide funding to at least enroll those kids that are not enrolled who are currently eligible for the program. I am not even talking about expanding eligibility to kids who would not be eligible right now. We got some statistics because we had a hearing with the Secretary of Health and Human Services earlier this week, and the number of children, if you want to just enroll those who are currently eligible, we figure it would take about $12- to $14 billion over 5 years to keep up with medical inflation to prevent current enrolled children from losing their coverage. I am talking about the ones that are now in the SCHIP program, $12- to $14 billion over 5 years just to make sure that they are still funded, those that are in it, and then at least another $35- to $45 billion over 5 years to reach eligible but uninsured children. These are the ones that could enroll, but they just have not for some reason. Their parents do not know about the program, the application is difficult, who knows. So you are talking about what, maybe $60 billion over the next 5 years if you want to keep, to keep those that are in the program and expand it to those who are eligible, and we are not even talking about expanding eligibility. He comes in, the President, in his budget with $5 billion. That would not even allow us to keep up with the kids that are currently in the program. These are not kids that are really poor and the parents are not working. These are working parents. I think the eligibility is up to like $38,000 for a family of four. They are working, but they cannot get health insurance on the job. We went into that before, and so they try to tap into this Federal program. Well, the Secretary said, well, we think $5 billion is enough, and if it is not, well, then the States will have to take care of it. You know, the States are not in a position, I mean, they already have a hard enough time coming up with the money under the current match without having to go beyond that. So I just use that as an example. The SCHIP, the kids health care program, is for those kids whose parents are working and who are making a little more money and are not eligible for Medicaid, which is for kids that are actually at the poverty level, like less than $20,000 for a family of four.

Mr. PALLONE. Just briefly, I want to yield to the gentlewoman, and I have my colleague from the Virgin Islands here, too. The problem with what the President has proposed, both in the State of the Union and the budget message on Monday, there are really two major ways to cover more of these uninsured. One is, you do something with the employer-based system, which is traditionally the way most people get their insurance, on the job, so it is easier for employers to provide health insurance and for their employees to contribute to it. The other, of course, is to build on existing Federal programs, whether it be Medicaid or Medicare or SCHIP, the program for kids, to expand eligibility and make it so more people can sign up for them. The problem that I wanted to point out tonight, and we will get into it more, is that between the State of the Union address and the budget message, what the President has proposed totally really does nothing to affect either of those areas. He is basically talking about taxing employer-sponsored benefits, group plans, if they are a good plan, and sending people into the individual market with some kind of a tax break. Generally speaking, that is not very helpful because it is going to penalize the people who have a good employer-sponsored plan and at the same time push people into the individual market where they probably cannot afford to buy a good policy. Then with the budget message on Monday, we got all these cuts in Medicaid, SCHIP, the government programs that we would like to see expanded to cover more of the uninsured. So, between the two, he is addressing the problem but coming with proposals that, in my opinion, actually make it worse. I yield now to the gentlewoman from Florida. I am glad she is with us tonight.

Mr. PALLONE. If you could just yield to me for a second. I really appreciate you bringing this up because I think it is so much on point. And I know there is a lot of confusion. We have a fiscal year that goes from October to October. Last year, when the Republicans were in the majority, they didn't deal with the budget at all. They literally left at the end of the session in their lame duck in December and said, we can't pass the budget, we can't deal with the appropriations, so we are going to go home, and we will leave it to the next Congress. So literally last week, we had to adopt the budget of the appropriations of the previous year that had already began October 1st, and it was level funding. In other words, it was basically a continuing resolution that didn't add any money and used the previous year's budget as a baseline. And even with that, we were able to increase money for veterans' health, for Ryan White, which deals with HIV, for global AIDS, for the National Institutes of Health. The emphasis and the priority was on trying to provide more money for health care even as we were cutting other things, and we did that. The reality is that President Bush's budget that we got this week, which is for next year, because the last year's budget has not been passed in the Senate and gone to his desk yet, didn't even take into consideration, and in many of the cases, those health care items that he put in this budget are less than what we adopted in that continuing resolution. So here we are trying to make everything right, and we are not getting any help either from the Republicans last year when they were in the majority or now from the President and the Republicans on the other side. And for them to even come down here tonight and talk about the budget or the deficit is absurd given their record. I yield back.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's remarks. You brought it home. It is hard sometimes to talk about the budget. The budget at the Federal level is a very complex thing. But we have to give an explanation, I think, about what the President's proposal is doing, which is really the opposite. It is not going to make it easier to cover the uninsured, it is going to make it more difficult. I now yield to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands, who is a physician and who has been very active in the whole health care issue for a number of years here in the Congress, particularly on the whole health care disparities issue, which is another thing that we haven't really talked about so much in this Congress, but has to be addressed. I thank my colleague for yielding, and I want to thank Congressman Pallone for his leadership on health care for a number of years. And we are really happy that you are going to be chairing the Health Subcommittee, and we look forward to addressing all these issues with you. But certainly, as you were saying, as we look at how we can expand access to health care and bring more Americans under coverage, we can't start by cutting what has been the backbone of health care, Medicare and Medicaid, SCHIP. Those need to be really strengthened. As we look at the President's budget, which is very disappointing and one fairy tale that is not going to end, ``and they lived happily ever after,'' because the cuts that we are seeing are leaving our seniors, our disabled, and our children and pregnant women who are about to bring children into the world without the access to the kind of health care that they need. Beyond that, as we look at health disparities for people of color, African Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans, Asian Pacific Islanders, there is nothing in the budget that addresses the gaps in health care for these populations. And certainly, if we are ever going to reduce the skyrocketing cost of health care, we need to focus on prevention and comprehensive systems of care that help people to stay healthy. And we also have to look at the social determinants of health care. You can't live in rundown housing and polluted neighborhoods and be healthy. So we have a lot of things to address. And going beyond the cuts that you have already talked about in Medicare and Medicaid and SCHIP, there are so many other areas that are being cut as well that further undermines what we need to do to provide good quality comprehensive health care for people in this country. Some of them, funding for training: In the President's budget, again, nursing training is cut $88 million; the National Health Service Corps is cut; health profession training programs that bring some of the underrepresented minorities to serve our increasingly diverse population are cut $135 million, and it has already been cut in 2006; $143 million for children's vaccines is cut, vaccines, one of the bulwarks of prevention in this country; mental health programs cut $159 million; rural health cut $143 million. So instead of helping, and you rightly point out that the proposal, the only proposal that we have heard with respect to health care in this country, the President's proposal and tax credits does more to harm the system than help the system. And then, in addition to that, undermining the safety net of Medicaid, Medicare, and SCHIP, as well as cutting some of the programs that provide the services that would be there to keep people healthy. So this budget is a terrible budget. I know that we are under very, very tight fiscal constraints with huge unprecedented deficits, huge debts, but somehow the people are counting on us to improve health care in this country. And improving health care in this country really improves productivity. It keeps our country strong, and it is a matter of national security. And the health of our people is the health of our Nation, and we have to find a way to restore these cuts in the budget and close the gaps in health care, expand access to more Americans; and in doing so, we really will be helping our country.

Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate your comments, because I know, as a physician and someone so caring, that you really understand how these problems relate to individuals. I also appreciate the fact that you brought up the issue of priorities, because when we spend so much on the war in Iraq, as you say, we don't have the money, and the gentleman from Colorado talked about the deficit. The fact of the matter is that the President and the Republicans built up this deficit for so long, and now it makes it more difficult for us to find the funds to pay to cover the uninsured in the same way that we are spending all this money in Iraq, and it means that we don't have the money left. If I could just conclude, because I know we are running out of time, I do appreciate the fact that, in his State of the Union Address and also in the budget message, that the President was prioritizing health care and pointing out that we have a big problem with the uninsured. But unless the solutions and the money are there to lead us down the path of covering the uninsured or lowering health care costs, then it is not going to be good enough to just say that is a problem. I think, as you say, when we talk about going in a new direction, it means that the Democrats and the Democratic majority are determined to not only highlight that these problems exist and that we need to cover the uninsured to reduce cost, but to come up with solutions that practically are going to make a difference. That is why I am so happy that not only are you both here tonight speaking, but just that you are here, because all the new Members and particularly the new Democratic Members, I think, are going to make it possible to address these problems in a practical way. I would conclude, again, by thanking both of you and everyone who joined us tonight, because we are moving in a new direction, and it is going to make a difference. Thank you.

Mr. PALLONE. You are absolutely right. I appreciate the fact that you talk about how, by covering kids or even adults, you save money in the emergency room or in hospitalization or whatever it is. But also, you mentioned the outreach, because I talked earlier about how you have more kids that are eligible for this children's health care program than are even in it. The reason is because a lot of States have cut back on outreach, so they don't tell people that they can apply. They don't even know about it. Some States may even be doing it on purpose because they want to save money in the short run. So that is why we talk about reauthorizing this and expanding it. You even need money for the outreach, which is clearly not in the budget. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, democracy is based on the free exchange of ideas, debating issues to find a solution reasonable people can agree upon. However, when it comes to discussing the most important issue facing our Nation, the Senate Republican leadership is more concerned with giving the President political cover than engaging in a democratic debate of ideas. The Republican Senate leadership is even blocking the voices in their own party by filibustering debate on any resolution dealing with the war in Iraq, including the McCain-Graham resolution supporting the President's troop surge and the Warner-Levin resolution in opposition to it. The consideration of these resolutions, especially the bipartisan Warner-Levin resolution, would serve as the basis for the first real debate on the President's flawed Iraq war policy since the war began nearly 4 years ago. Mr. Speaker, the American people deserve a democratic discussion of ideas on the issue that is most important to them. Next week we will have a debate here in the House that will allow each of us to speak our minds on the President's plan, and I would hope that the Senate leadership would allow the same debate over in the other Chamber.