Frank Pallone

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I could not help but remember within a few days of the hurricane when President Bush gave a speech, I think from New Orleans, and he talked about how they were going to reconstruct the city and provide all of these programs and benefits, and none of it has happened. It sounded like he was doing a reconstruction program like in Iraq, or the Marshall Plan after World War II. Now they are proposing cuts in all of the programs that would actually benefit people. It is not just poor people. If you look at the things that we are mentioning here for the U.S. versus Iraq, I talked about health care. The Republican budget would cut $9 billion in student loans, $806 million from No Child Left Behind. That is for all Americans. On the other hand in Iraq, they rehabilitated 2,717 schools, and 36,000 teachers and administrators were trained. Even the environment, everybody breathes the air and drinks the water. In the U.S., the Republican budget has a $200 million cut in clean water State revolving funds, and opens ANWR to oil drilling. In Iraq, we spend $1 billion for safe drinking water, $4 million for marshland restoration. Everybody is drinking the water and benefiting from environmental infrastructure. It is just really Americans versus Iraqis, and I am not saying that we should not help the Iraqis in some way. I did not support the war, and I still oppose the war, but I do not mind spending some money to help rebuild Iraq, but it is not fair to spend all of this money on Iraq and cut money for Americans. Look at the infrastructure. In the U.S. under the Republican budget, $336 million is cut from the Army Corps of Engineers, including funding for the levee construction in Louisiana. It is no wonder the levee gave. We did not keep it up. There is a $2.3 million cut from Amtrak; high-speed rail funding is eliminated. In Iraq we are rehabilitating the canal system, including repairs to levees, and rebuilding the Iraq railway line.

Mr. PALLONE. Is the gentleman sure about that?

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, one of the things that the 30-Something Group has been talking about, and it relates directly to what he said, is this idea that there should be a bipartisan commission in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And it is the same principle that the gentleman from Massachusetts brought up, that they just do not want any kind of investigation of themselves. The Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representative. They know there are problems that came out of Hurricane Katrina. They know they are responsible. They do not want any investigation by a bipartisan commission because they do not want an investigation of themselves. They are afraid of what it is going to reveal. And that is the problem around here. They do not want oversight. They do not want accountability. They do not want any kind of effort on a bipartisan basis, which would happen with the gentleman's subcommittee, because it might reveal that they have basically created a lot of problems and screwed up on a lot of things. That is what they are against.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. PALLONE. The gentleman mentioned before Medicaid. Medicaid is a matching program, 50 percent Federal, 50 percent State. So if the States do not get the 50 percent from the Federal Government, they have to make it up themselves or drop the people completely. I know we are almost done so I would like to yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) because he is going to give us the 30-Something information.

Mr. PALLONE. I am so glad that the gentleman used that example and the other examples that he has been using. Tomorrow in the Energy and Commerce Committee we are going to have a hearing on the health and social costs associated with drug use, particularly methamphetamine use. And I just have the statistics because I am getting ready for the hearing. In 2000, researchers estimate the annual health and social costs associated with drug use, particularly methamphetamine use, was approximately $116 billion, $15 billion of which was attributed to health care costs. A lot of the things that we talk about here, particularly health care, are actually preventative. And so the Republicans think that somehow they are saving money. They are not saving anything because they are going to drive people, as the gentleman says, he is talking about methamphetamine, they are going to create a situation where the problem is going to even get worse and it is going to cost us more in the long run because the people that are impacted are going to get sick. I was thinking of the gentleman's dad again, and I do not want to keep bringing it up. But one of the things that the Republicans are talking about doing, this $10 billion in Medicaid cuts through reconciliation, the gentleman from Oklahoma pointed out that we are not just talking about poor people and indigent people here, we are talking about working people. Maybe you call them the working poor or middle class, I do not know what the word is, lower middle class. The Medicaid cuts that the Republicans are talking about mostly impact senior citizens who go to nursing homes, because what they are proposing to do is to make it more difficult for the spouse who is left behind to keep their home or to keep their car. They want to make the guidelines so that they take the money from those very people in order for them to be able to continue to stay in a nursing home. And I remember, I was thinking again about the gentleman's dad, because one of the things that he did was the so-called Boren Amendment. I do not even know if my colleague remembers that, but that was the one that said that the nursing homes had the ability to seek redress if the Federal Government was not providing enough funding for nursing home care, because what happened is that the quality of that care decreased and people became sicker, and so he wanted to have some enforcement mechanism to make sure that the quality of care in the nursing homes was still good. When the Republicans came in, they wanted to repeal that, of course, and they did repeal it ultimately. So these cuts, they directly impact people, not just indigent people. I am not saying we should not be worried about the poor, we obviously do. But a lot of the people who may not necessarily be aware of the fact that they are going to be directly impacted, middle class people, senior citizens, they are going to be impacted by these health care cuts. Even the student loan programs. These are not just student loan programs for poor people, these are middle class kids that are struggling. These cuts impact the majority of Americans. I mean, that is a fact. And I appreciate the fact that all of you are bringing that out, because I think it is very important. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, the gentleman from Ohio is absolutely correct. I want to go back to what he said before, because we are talking about all of these terrible things that the Republicans are doing and are proposing to do, and I am sure a lot of the people say, well, why would they do those awful things. I think it is important for us to go back to what the gentleman from Ohio said before, which is why is this happening? I mean, obviously, it is not happening because they want to reduce the deficit, because my understanding is that this budget that they were going to bring up tomorrow, this budget resolution actually increases the deficit by more than $100 billion, so it is not for deficit reduction. Any spending cuts, in my opinion, are being used primarily for 2 things. One is because they want to offset the tax cuts; again, these are tax cuts primarily for the wealthy, for the special interests that are coming down the road. The other thing that I think we need to point out, and that is why I asked the previous Democrats from the previous Special Order to leave this chart up. Also what is happening here is that the Republicans want to continue to pay for these infrastructure and other improvements in Iraq. Now, I am not saying that it is bad to do all of this reconstruction work in Iraq. I mean, I strongly believe that it needs to be looked at, because a lot of times it is going to Halliburton and other companies that are skimming the money and not necessarily delivering the services. But I think it is very interesting to see that almost every one of the programs that were mentioned here tonight by each of my colleagues, well, to the extent it is being cut in the United States, it is being done in Iraq. I just do not think that is fair. I want to just read this again briefly, because it is just amazing to me. Again, this comes from the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), our democratic colleagues: health care, because the gentleman from Oklahoma mentioned the community health programs. Health care in America, $10 billion in medicaid cuts through reconciliation, $252 million in cuts for health care professionals, $94 million in cuts to community health care centers that the gentleman from Oklahoma mentioned. In Iraq, 110 primary health care centers built and renovated, 2,000 health care professionals trained, 3.2 million children vaccinated. We are spending the money in Iraq rather than here. Education, the gentleman from Florida talked about education. The Republican budget cuts in the United States, $9 billion in cuts to student loans through reconciliation, $806 million in cuts to No Child Left Behind. In Iraq, 2,717 schools rehabilitated, 36,000 teachers and administrators trained. I am not going to go through the whole thing because it was gone through before and I do not want to repeat it. But I will just never forget, within a couple of months after the invasion of Iraq, a couple of my Republican colleagues came down here one night on the Floor and they had just come back from Iraq and it was the first day of school and they had all of the books and the pencils and the papers that were being provided to the students in Iraq. I had just come back from New Jersey and was hearing complaints from the schools about how they did not have pencils and paper and supplies. There is nothing wrong with helping the people in Iraq, I am not trying to take away from them. But for them to say to us that we have to cut similar type programs for people who are really in need, including the hurricane victims, it is just not right. An the reason they are doing it is because they do not want to cut the programs for their special interest friends and, at the same time, I believe they are trying to build in money that they can use for these additional tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy. I just want to also say, again, I am showing my age here because I know this is the 30-Something club, but I am going to digress for one minute. I am so pleased that the gentleman from Oklahoma joined us tonight. I followed his election last year and I was so happy that he won, because we certainly need Democrats in Oklahoma. I know you are in a long tradition of people that the rest of my colleagues probably do not even remember, and that is your father, who was the Senator; Brad Carson, your predecessor; Mike Synar. Oklahoma always had conservative populace, I guess I call them, who were conservative but, at the same time, understood the needs of the people. So I am very pleased that you are with us here tonight.

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, 6 weeks ago all Americans saw the human face of poverty in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. President Bush vowed that after the botched Federal response to the hurricane that the Federal Government would do everything it could to help those displaced in the gulf and to finally address the issue of poverty. Six weeks later, the House Republican majority is already forgetting about America's most vulnerable. This week, Republicans had planned to cut Medicaid, higher education, food stamps, and possibly the earned income tax credit in order to achieve budget reconciliation. We heard today that the budget reconciliation has been postponed. We are not going to vote on it tomorrow, and that is certainly good news. I think it is a strong indication that this budget plan was a bad plan for America and that it was, in fact, going to be used as a method of basically hurting the poor and might have had a direct impact on those hurricane victims. But it does not mean that the Republican leadership is not going to try to bring it up again next week when we come back. And the problem is that it just is not fair, it really is not fair. It is un-American, in my opinion, to say that we are going to try to pass this budget reconciliation by making cuts in the very programs that impact the people who suffered during the hurricane. The Republicans are claiming that their budget reconciliation bill is fiscally responsible and will cut the deficit. But, obviously, we could tell from the last Special Order that is simply not true. The budget actually raises the deficit, gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest, and makes matters worse, obviously, for the victims of Katrina. Essentially, this is a way of trying to build in, if you will, the Republican tax breaks that primarily go to the wealthy, to the special interests, to corporate interests that the Republicans would try to pass further down the road this year. And it is amazing to me, Mr. Speaker, that it only took Republicans 6 weeks to forget the images of Hurricane Katrina. They are once again putting the priorities of the wealthiest few ahead of the working-class Americans. It is now clear that the Republicans learned absolutely nothing from Hurricane Katrina. I could go on myself, but I have to say that my ideas and my concerns with this budget bill were very much set forth in a Washington Post article or op ed that appeared today by Harold Meyerson called ``Gunning for the Poor.'' And I am not going to read the whole thing, Mr. Speaker, or put it in the Record, but I wanted to highlight some of the things that Harold Meyerson said because it basically says in probably better language what I just indicated and how I feel. And Harold Meyerson said in this op ed today in the Washington Post: ``Congress is back in session and it's gunning for the American poor. ``A revolt of House conservatives has persuaded that body's Republican leadership to offset the increased Federal spending going to rebuild the Hurricane Katrina-devastated gulf coast by reductions in Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs for the indigent. If things go according to plan, this week the House will begin to cut $50 billion from those efforts. ``The emerging Republican response to Katrina, apparently, is to comfort the drenched poor and afflict the dry. ``For a moment last week, it looked as though the Republicans were going to enact across-the-board spending cuts. ``That, however, would have meant less money for defense contractors and the highway industry and other contributors to congressional Republicans' campaigns. GOP committee chairmen made that point so forcefully that the idea was scrapped. ``The beauty of taking the cuts out of Medicaid and student loan programs, by happy contrast, is that it does not reduce the flow of funds to the Republican campaign committees by a single dime. ``Even before the right-wing House leadership capitulated to the even further right-wing House rank and file, the government's response to Katrina already appeared to be driven more by laissez-faire ideology than by need or common sense. The administration has opposed efforts by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley to extend Medicaid coverage to those Katrina survivors who lost their jobs and health insurance in the flood. And by suspending the requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act that construction workers on federally funded reconstruction efforts be paid the prevailing wage, President Bush has ensured that much of that work will be done by illegal immigrants, as one New York Times report on the Mexican workers rebuilding Gulfport, Mississippi made abundantly clear.'' The article goes on, Mr. Speaker; but the bottom line is, and this is what Meyerson says at the end: ``The same Republican zealots who demand fiscal responsibility by cutting $50 billion for the indigent sick are now also demanding a new $70 billion in tax cuts, including the permanent repeal of the estate tax, that would chiefly benefit the rich.'' So Meyerson basically explains, and I think it is abundantly clear, the Republicans are not trying to make these cuts in programs for the indigent that would essentially help the hurricane victims because they want to balance the budget. Because, no, the deficit is still going to be huge. They are basically doing it because they want to build into the budget the opportunity to come back with permanent tax cuts for the wealthy, for the corporate interests; and this is their way of cutting programs that essentially are crucial for the hurricane victims in order to accomplish that. And the amazing thing to me, Mr. Speaker, is that we heard President Bush just a few days or a week or so after the hurricane struck say that the hurricane showed that there were a lot of poor people, a lot of people that were unemployed, a lot of people that did not have basic necessities; and rather than trying to help them in some way by extending Medicaid benefits to them so that if they lost their health insurance, they will still have some health insurance, or rather than giving them an opportunity to have a job so that they can help rebuild New Orleans or the various towns along the gulf that were impacted by Hurricane Katrina, this administration and this Republican Congress are just cutting the legs out of any kind of help that those hurricane victims would receive and basically saying we do not care about them; all we care about is giving tax cuts to the very wealthy. I think it is scandalous, frankly, and it is another reason why we need an independent investigation of what happened with Hurricane Katrina. A number of my colleagues and I have been coming down here for the last few nights as well as before the congressional break that we had last week and have been saying, and so have the media been saying, that a bipartisan Katrina investigation is needed because the Washington Republicans, the ones who have set up their own committee or investigation on a partisan basis, are the same people who are responsible for the problems that we faced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In other words, the Bush administration botched what happened in the aftermath of the hurricane. And they continue to do things that are primarily for special interests, for the people who contribute to their campaign coffers, without worrying about the people, the victims, that are suffering in New Orleans and other cities along the gulf. So why in the world would we let these Washington Republicans who control the White House, control the Senate, control the House investigate themselves? It makes no sense. The only way that we are going to get a true analysis of what is really happening in the aftermath of Katrina, including what was discussed today in terms of the unwillingness of the Republicans to help the victims in the aftermath of the hurricane, is by having a bipartisan commission so that Democrats and Republicans are both involved in the investigation, both can look at what is happening and not have this fake Katrina inquiry that would just essentially be a whitewash, if you will, for what happened in the aftermath of the hurricane. I notice that I am being joined now by some of my colleagues who have been here every night making this point; but we are particularly upset with the fact that, in addition to not having this bipartisan investigation, this bipartisan commission, we now face a situation where the Republicans want to bring up a budget plan that actually is going to cut the very programs that these hurricane victims need. I would like to point out the other night I read a part of an editorial in the New York Times which I think says it all about this fake Katrina inquiry, and I am not going to read the whole thing, but I just wanted to read the very beginning and the very end. This was in the New York Times on September 26. It is called, ``Faking the Katrina Inquiry,'' and it says: As the Nation reels from Rita's devastation along the Gulf Coast, any hope for a thorough investigation of government's gross mismanagement of Katrina is quietly ebbing away behind the political levees of Washington. The White House and the Republican-controlled Congress, resisting popular support for an independent, nonpartisan commission, remain determined to run self- serving, bogus investigations. There is no way to whitewash a hurricane. The government dominated by one party should be disqualified from investigating itself. Just as President Bush repeatedly fought the creation of the 9/11 Commission till public pressure forced him to yield, so should the public now demand that the administration and Congress get real about Katrina.'' I feel even more strongly about this in the light of this budget reconciliation bill that we understand now has been postponed because the Republicans do not have the votes. Thank God they do not have the votes, and hopefully, they will never have the vote for this scandal. I would yield now to my colleague the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) who has been here practically every night making this point.

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I thank everybody for joining us tonight for a very important Special Order.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, 6 weeks ago all Americans saw the human face of poverty in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. President Bush vowed after the botched Federal response that the Federal Government would do everything it could to help those displaced in the gulf coast and to finally address the issue of poverty. Well, 6 weeks later and the House Republican majority is already forgetting about America's most vulnerable. This week Republicans plan to cut Medicaid, higher education, food stamps, and possibly the earned income tax credit. These are programs that have helped the most vulnerable in our Nation. Republicans will claim that their budget reconciliation bill is fiscally responsible and will cut the deficit, but that is simply not true. This budget actually raises the deficit, gives more tax breaks to the wealthy and makes matters worse for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It only took Republicans 6 weeks to forget the images of Hurricane Katrina. They are once again putting the priorities of the wealthiest few ahead of working class Americans. It is now clear that Republicans learned absolutely nothing from Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I am just reading from Time Magazine, so I do not see why I cannot continue. As I said, the gentleman from Texas may no longer be the majority leader, but he is still wielding power here in this Chamber and that power is not benefiting the American people. Instead, the actions of the House Republican majority benefit only a small few to the actual detriment of everyday Americans. Mr. Speaker, it is no wonder that this House only brings legislation to the floor that benefits the wealthiest few in our Nation, because these are the people who are in Tom DeLay's black book. The House Republican leadership has heard that the American people are struggling to afford skyrocketing gas prices, so what do they do? House Republicans pass an energy law this summer that even the Bush administration admits will do nothing to lower gas prices for the American consumer. Instead, the energy law provided billions of dollars in tax breaks for oil and gas companies, and these are companies that are already experiencing record profits. What about the American people? Well, as Alter explains in the Time Magazine article, they are not in the Republican leadership's black book and so their concerns really don't matter to the Republican leadership. Mr. Speaker, whether you are in New Jersey or wherever you happen to be, the American people do not like what is happening here in Washington. They see examples of cronyism in every Republican corridor and they want it to stop. The American people want us to get back to addressing their needs and their concerns. It is time for the House Republican leaders to throw away their special interest black books like the one that Tom DeLay has so they can finally listen to the real needs and concerns of ordinary Americans.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, at a time when working families are trying to pinch pennies to pay for skyrocketing gas, record high heating bills and ever-increasing health insurance premiums, this is not the time for Washington to ignore the real needs of the American people. But that is exactly what has happened over the last 5 years under Republican leadership in Congress. Mr. Speaker, a culture of cronyism exists here in Washington unlike anything we have ever seen before. At the White House, we have the President's chief political adviser and the Vice President's chief of staff under investigation for illegally leaking a covert CIA operative's name to reporters. Today we learn that the Vice President himself may also be under investigation in that case. Evidently, according to today's Washington Post, the special prosecutor is assembling evidence that, and I quote, ``Cheney's longstanding tensions with the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame.'' Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Despite the fact that President Bush promised 2 years ago to fire anyone that was involved in the leak, both Karl Rove and Scooter Libby remain on the White House payroll. And it is just not over at the White House. Here on Capitol Hill, you have the Republican Senate leader under investigation by the SEC for possibly having inside information on stocks that he sold off earlier this year. Over on this side of the Capitol, the Republican majority leader was forced to step down from his leadership post---- Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. PALLONE. Okay, Mr. Speaker. Shortly after the majority leader stepped down, Time Magazine's Jonathan Alter wrote about the majority leader's tenure as majority leader and how the Republican majority leads this House. Alter recalls his first visit with DeLay a decade ago. These are Alter's own words, and I quote: ``A decade ago, I paid a call on Tom DeLay in his ornate office in the Capitol. I had heard a rumor about him that I figured could not possibly be true. The rumor was that after the GOP took control of the House that year, DeLay had begun keeping a little black book with the names of Washington lobbyists who wanted to come see him. If the lobbyists were not Republicans and contributors to his power base, they---- Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this week House Republicans plan to move ahead with drastic cuts to domestic programs. Republicans say the cuts are necessary to help fund the reconstruction of the gulf coast after Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Speaker, the programs House Republicans plan to cut this week are the very ones that have helped Americans in the gulf coast begin to pick up the pieces after losing their homes and their jobs. Imagine being injured during the hurricane and not having any access to health coverage because your job simply no longer exists. The Federal Medicaid program has helped thousands of gulf coast residents with their health care bills over the last month. Now House Republicans are demanding that we cut Medicaid services. I know Republicans will say we need to make these cuts to address the deficit they created; but if Republicans really wanted to address the budget deficit, they would revisit their giant tax breaks for America's millionaires. We are really helping the wealthiest elite in our Nation when there are so many people struggling from Hurricane Katrina. I cannot believe that the Republican answer to Hurricane Katrina is to cut the programs for the poor.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. If I could just say, that is the other part that is so important is, again going back when the Democrats were in the majority, most legislation was done on a consensus, bipartisan basis. In other words, you would find in my committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, who of course was the chairman, and legislation, if it was an energy bill, if it was a health care bill, he would start by going to the ranking member, the Republican man, the minority, and saying what input do you want into this bill and let us sit down and there would be meetings, and they would try to build a consensus on legislation. That does not happen anymore around here. I mean, it is very rare to see someone who is the chairman of the committee on the Republican side reaching out to the Democrat on the committee and saying let us see if we can work together and come to a consensus on a bill. That is why most of the time you did not have to have these situations where you would vote in the middle of the night and have to get people to change votes because, if the bill came to the floor most likely it was a consensus measure and most people voted for it. Some people may say not everything has to be that way, and not everything was that way, but the bottom line is when someone is elected, when you are elected or I am elected, our constituents send us down here. They do not expect us to just come down here and object to everything because we do not have input. They expect that we are going to have some input on what goes on, and to deny us that, which is what the Republican leadership does for the most part now, I think denies the basic principle of democracy. We are not supposed to be coming down here and just objecting. We are supposed to be part of what goes on, but we are not allowed to for the most part. We cannot bring up amendments or ask for hearings. So this is the problem. I just want to go back and say one more thing. The reason why the Republicans do not want the oversight and do not want the accountability is because they are doing bad things. The reason they do not want to have this bipartisan Katrina Commission is because they do not want the commission to come back and report that there were problems in what the FEMA Director and the administration did during the hurricane. It is pretty simple stuff, because if it is bipartisan and it has equal members and there is a lot of oversight, they are going to show what the problems were. They want to whitewash. That is the bottom line. That is why they do not want this independent commission. It is uncovering things.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want you to know that one way to deal with the age problem is to hang out with the younger people so I feel younger.

Mr. PALLONE. The bottom line is that this Republican majority is starting to fall apart because their policies are not good for the American people. Even some of the Republicans are starting to realize it and are not willing to vote for some of the junk bills that come to this floor with the Republican leadership. I just mention that because I think there is hope here. I left last Friday thinking maybe now because of yourselves getting on the floor, maybe because Democrats are speaking out and talking about why these Republican initiatives are not helpful, maybe people are starting to realize it. Maybe some Republicans are starting to realize it. That is why I admire what you are doing because I think it is making a difference.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, he is absolutely right. This is strictly an abuse of power. That is what is going on here. This is the majority, the Republican majority, abusing their power. And I think that last Friday was the perfect example of it. And it was not the first time. I have to say one thing that was interesting that he pointed out was that was the first time I remember that they did it in broad daylight, because if the gentleman remembers, most of the time when we had to deal with these major policy initiatives, which that was not, they waited until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning so nobody was watching. And, of course, the best example of that was the Medicare prescription drug bill, which, as the gentleman knows, was voted on at 3 o'clock in the morning. We had to wait here for hours while they were twisting arms all night for that too and even lied about the fact of how much it was going to cost; otherwise they would have never passed it. Remember when they said it was only going to cost, I guess, 400 billion, and then it ended up being 600 or 700 billion? We see this abuse of power constantly. I see it in my committee because what happens is when bills come to committee, they do not go to a subcommittee. They do not have a hearing. When the Democrats were in the majority, every time we had a bill that we wanted to move, we had a hearing, sometimes several hearings, in the subcommittee. Then we would have a markup in the subcommittee. Then it would go to the full committee. Then it would go to the Committee on Rules. And at every point there was an opportunity not only for the majority but also for the minority to have some input into what went on. But that does not go on around here. A lot of bills just go to the floor without even having a hearing or even go into committee, and then they change it when they get to the Committee on Rules. They do not allow us the opportunity to offer an amendment or to offer a substitute so that our voice is not even heard. And what is going on, the reason why they have these closed votes and have to do this arm-twisting is because these are bad bills. These are not bills that are good for the average American, and they can barely get enough people to make a majority and they are even starting to lose some of their own Republicans. If the gentleman noticed, a lot of Republicans voted ``no'' on that energy bill, and then they had to twist their arms to get them to come back and barely pass the bill. This is happening all the time. It is an absolute abuse of power. It is not letting the minority have its say, not letting the minority have a voice. And I think it is very important that we get that out there. This is procedure and a lot of times people maybe listen and maybe they get bored or they yawn because they say this is just procedure, but in a democracy these kinds of procedures are very important. And when the Republicans are abusing the procedure, it is really bad. And I want to mention one more thing. I cannot help but mention it. The other day when the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader, was forced to step down because of the indictment by the grand jury, a lot of people forgot that the only reason why that happened was because Democrats insisted that the Republicans go back to the original rules. They tried to change the rules of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct at the beginning of this Congress to say that if somebody was indicted in leadership that they did not have to step down. And we came here, and the gentleman was part of it too, and insisted that we go back to the old rules, the bipartisan rules, that had that type of provision in it. And there were other changes as well that we insisted on. So, again, it is important that we speak out because we can make a difference and the public needs to understand the abuse of power and the cronyism that is going on here.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I do not know how many times I am going to have to endure these comments about my age.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, let me follow up on what the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) said because he certainly was right. We had a week when we were back in our districts doing things locally. I was thinking when I was listening to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) about three events that I attended in the last 48 hours in my district or nearby which point to this whole idea of what is good and what is the Republican leadership and what is President Bush doing because all I hear are complaints about his policies. For example, on Sunday, I went to a senior complex for a group of seniors that were meeting in Lakewood, New Jersey, which is a community just outside my district. It used to be in my district until redistricting a few years ago. What I heard was how expensive it is for seniors to buy their prescription drugs, and how they did not feel that the President's new program, which goes into effect in January, was going to help them in any way. One gentleman in particular, I remember, was one of these guys who was essentially forced into early retirement and promised a fairly generous health care plan that included prescription drugs. What he has found since he retired is that every year the cost goes up and the whole agreement, if you will, that was initially set out has essentially made it so he really cannot afford to buy the prescription drugs even though he has the coverage under a plan for his early retirement. The other seniors were talking how the Federal Government should negotiate price reductions like they do for the VA or the Department of Defense. My answer was that is what the Democrats wanted to do. The reason it did not become law was because the Republicans opposed it. I remember in the Committee on Energy and Commerce I had an amendment that would have required negotiated prices by the Medicare Administrator, and it was defeated on a party line vote. The bottom line is Republicans are so aligned with lobbyists and the cronyism they do not want to do anything that is going to be helpful to the average person. This prescription drug bill is a perfect example. In addition, all the seniors were saying as of October 1, all these different private drug plans are being promoted on television and they have no idea what they are all about. I said be very, very careful. Do not sign up for these things until you really look at the details because they may not be helpful to you.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I have ceased even referring to this program as Medicare because as far as I am concerned there is nothing Medicare about it. You said we need to show to the American people how we would do things differently because we want a chance to be in the majority and to run the country. Here we had a clear contrast. The fact of the matter is every Democrat, or maybe one or two that did not vote for a substitute, that basically would have been just like we do now with Medicare Part B, how seniors pay for their doctor bills, and that would have been under Medicare as a regular government program. They would have paid a $25 premium per month, and had their choice of whatever prescription drugs they wanted. They would not have to go out privately and shop around. They would have had a $100 deductible and 80 percent of the cost paid for by the Federal Government, 20 percent copay. We already have it for Part B, and the Republicans rejected that to a person. There is clear contrast. This is the kind of thing we would do if we were in the majority and in charge. I want to use another example. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) talked about the rain and the storms in New Jersey. There was a senior complex in my district that was near a brook where a number of homes were completely destroyed and people had to be moved out. I went there this morning with the Army Corps of Engineers because the Corps has a project that would correct the situation that we would like to do. It would cost about $8 million to do it. What I am hearing from the Corps, we would like to do it but we have to see if we have the money. What happened with those levees in New Orleans is no different from what is happening around the country. We are not funding these infrastructure needs, whether flood control or whatever it happens to be. The reason, and I am going to go back to another forum, right after I met with the Corps this morning and talked about this flood control project which has been delayed for a number of years now, I met with students at Rutgers, a State university in my district, and we talked about the Iraq war. I started out talking about an exit strategy and what needed to be done. A lot of the students were talking about the cost of the war, not only cost in terms of the lives and the wounded, but also the cost of the actual dollars we were spending and the fact that because we were spending so much money on the Iraq war, we were not able to pay for a lot of domestic needs, whether it be student financial aid. They were stressing that, of course. But I was thinking about my flood control project which would have avoided all of the damage and all of the people who had to move out if it had been in place. The bottom line is we are spending all of this money on the Iraq war. The President does not have an exit strategy. He keeps talking about how everything is going to get better, and the cost is not only lives and the wounded, but also in terms of the dollars we are not spending here domestically, and we are not investing in the future to remain competitive with China and the other countries competing with us. People get this. I am not making this up. This is within the last 48 hours at three different forums or opportunities I had to meet with my constituents, and this is what they are saying. They are not happy. They realize there are alternatives. The bottom line is some of those alternatives are easy, some are hard. Democrats are saying we have alternatives, whether it is prescription drugs or any of the other topics. Many of us voted against all these tax breaks that the President gave because we knew it would put us into debt and we would not have money to pay for a lot of the domestic programs, and most of the money went to the wealthy rather than the average person. One more thing, and that is when we were here last time, the week before being back in our districts, I think it was the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) talking about the energy bill because the next day we voted on the Republican energy bill. She pointed out there was no benefit from this bill. It would not do anything to reduce gas prices or reduce our dependence on foreign oil. All of the things that people would like us to do, the Republicans were not doing. What it was doing, two things she mentioned, one was it was going to allow for offshore drilling off the coast of Florida and New Jersey, all these sensitive areas. The second thing the gentlewoman mentioned was it was going to weaken the Clean Air Act. Lo and behold, the interesting thing was the next day the Republicans took those provisions out of their energy bill because there was such a hue and cry. When they finally passed the energy bill, they barely were able to pass it. We had to wait an hour for them to get the votes.

Mr. PALLONE. There was an editorial in the New York Times on September 26 about faking the Katrina inquiry. The last paragraph, if I could just read it, said this. It says, There is no way to whitewash a hurricane. A government dominated by one party should be disqualified from investigating itself. Just as President Bush repeatedly fought the creation of the 9/11 Commission until public pressure forced him to yield, so should the public now demand the administration and Congress get real about Katrina. That is what we are getting with this Republican-dominated committee. It is just going to be another whitewash, and we cannot allow it. So I appreciate the opportunity.