Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Okay, make your point.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. There is a surprise.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yes. And it is a shame that a company that gets that much public tax money would pick up and leave the very country that they get their money from to have their corporate headquarters. But it is important that we are living up to our commitment. We are providing the oversight, 104 committee hearings. We are restoring accountability with the whistleblower protection; Presidential library donation; FOIA requests, where you can actually access documents in the government, freedom of information. So a lot of sunshine came down on the Capitol this week. And I couldn't be prouder of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn and Rahm Emanuel and John Larson, our leadership and the Chairs of our committees for really applying the pressure and really trying to fix things and make things better. I yield to my friend from Florida.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think it is important for us to really recognize the importance and the results already of what has been happening. And I don't know if this is a coincidence or not, but Halliburton just picked up and moved; they just picked up and said we're moving out of the country.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. In a couple of months we've had more hearings than the Republican majority had.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And what is today, March 14?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be here for another session of the 30-something Working Group. We have had a very interesting week in Congress this week, and we want to share some of that with our fellow Members of Congress and those people paying attention for the record on the week of sunshine in the United States Congress. In the past several days we have, as Democrats, continued to honor our pledge to try to open up government, knowing that the more information that we share, the more information that we have about the inner workings of government, the better off we are all going to be. I think we have all seen over the past several years how a very closed, secretive government rules and what the end result may be of a very closed and secretive government. We are trying to fix that problem. As you watch the news, Madam Speaker, as you watch the news every single day, it seems like we continue to hear stories about problems that we knew about many, many years ago, but we never did anything about it because you are not allowed to admit you make mistakes. What we have tried to do this week is try to prevent the kinds of situations we have had with Walter Reed, try to prevent the kinds of situations we have had with Iraq, and try to prevent the kinds of situations we have had with Hurricane Katrina. All of these things were happening behind closed doors, and the people involved at the Pentagon or the Department of Defense, or whether it was in FEMA, the problem was people in the organization or in the agency or in certain departments knew things weren't going well or knew there wasn't a plan or knew we didn't have the proper people in place to execute whatever the exact role was of that agency, but nobody was allowed to tell anybody or talk about it. And if you talked about it, you were fired. We saw Hurricane Katrina on TV. We continue to see the war on TV, and we see what has happened at Walter Reed. Can you imagine people knew about what was going on at Walter Reed and didn't say anything? And then getting up in front of the TV cameras and say: We are for the troops, and you're not. That is a problem. The new Democratic majority has begun the problem of fixing that problem this week. We are restoring accountability. This week we passed whistleblower protection and other government reform bills so that those people involved in the agencies who know how the agencies need to be run will not be subjected to the political whims of the day. We want them to share with us what the problems are. We want them to share with us how we fix the agency or the department or the execution of the mission of a specific department. And I think it is important politically. As I am joined here by my good friend from Florida, Mr. Meek, I think it is important that we recognize what has happened since the Democrats have taken over. Now we are not here to just say we are the only political party in the country and we are the best and this and that. We had a political situation in this country since 2000 where the presidency was Republican and for the most part the House and the Senate were Republican the whole time, and the Republicans have controlled this Chamber for 14 years. And a culture of coverup happened, to where the Republican majority in the House would not oversee or provide the proper oversight to what was going on in FEMA, in the war, and a lot of these other agencies. And what has happened when the Democrats took over Congress and the American people said we need to bring a little balance to this situation, just look at what has happened. Walter Reed, who knows if that would have ever come up if the Democrats weren't poking around saying what is going on with veterans' health care? All of the issues in Iraq. Today we passed a supplemental to begin to put the framework together to get our kids home from Iraq. And look at what is going on with Katrina and the oversight we are providing for that. These are things that are happening because the American people put balance back into the government. And we want to continue to honor the pledges that we made previous to the last election. We want to make sure that it is not just the whistleblower protection, but it is the 67 hearings that we have already had, Democrats have already had on Iraq. Sixty-seven. No, it's even more.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I would just like to make a couple more points to support you before I take off. I don't know if you have seen this. I am sure you have as a distinguished member of the Armed Services Committee in your fifth year already. The memo from the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ortiz) chairman of the Subcommittee on Readiness, and Mr. Abercrombie, House Armed Services Committee, Air and Land Force Subcommittee, these are the folks in Congress on the ground. They submitted a couple of days ago for Members of Congress, editors, defense writers and other interested parties a memo on military readiness. I want to say a couple of things that I think are very important on where this war has put our military readiness, an elective war in Iraq as opposed to a real threat to our national interest, and the situation it has put us in. And our distinguished gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) who sits on the Defense Committee could probably speak better than I can on this. Short-term readiness in this memo addresses the needs of soldiers on the field today. Iraq and Afghanistan have been marked by a lack of adequate funding for equipment, from effective Kevlar vests and helmets to uparmored Humvees which are better able to protect our personnel from roadside bombs. Compounding the lack of equipment for both deployed and nondeployed units is the fact that if nondeployed units don't have the same equipment they will use in combat, their training is less than optimum. So if you don't have a Kevlar vest to train in when you actually are in the field and have to wear one, it is a much different scenario, and you may not have the proper training you need. Long-term readiness, military preparation for any challenges our Nation may face tomorrow, that encompasses everything from manpower training and equipment to preposition stores of military equipment strategically located around the world that, the Government Accountability Office reports, have been deeply ransacked for Iraqi operations. Check this out. Roughly half of all of the ground equipment in the United States Army is in Iraq or Afghanistan, nearly half the ground equipment that the Army owns. Since the start of the war, the Army has lost nearly 2,000 wheeled vehicles and more than 100 armored vehicles. Harsh desert climate, mountain terrain, virtually continuous combat and the physical weight of extra armor is wearing out equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan at up to nine times the normal rate. The Army GAO report details that the Army has not been keeping accurate track of what they have or what they need to reset the force, nor can they provide sufficient detail for Congress to provide effective oversight. The National Guard, between 75,000 and 100,000 pieces of National Guard equipment worth nearly $2 billion are now in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of National Guard armories around the U.S.; and National Guard units are left with about one-third of their equipment. These urgent equipment shortages hit especially hard on the military's ability to train Guard and active Army units, and they are forced to prepare and train for deployment with minimal equipment. We have a real problem where the American Army is not ready should we have another incident around the world, or should someone, heaven forbid, attack the United States, or should we have another Katrina. For this President to talk, Mr. Speaker, about protecting the troops and saving the troops and being on the side of the troops, this is being on the side of the troops. Mr. Speaker, I am going to yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the dean of the Ohio Democratic delegation.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Going on 5. Sixty to 65 percent of Iraqis believe it is okay to kill Americans, to shoot at Americans. We are in the middle of a civil war and we need to get ourselves out of it, not get ourselves further into it. So these hearings are an important component of that, to try to pull ourselves out of this situation that President Bush has gotten us into. I say that because--for several reasons. One is, some people say well, if you have an end date, then they are just going to sit back and wait until we leave. The problem with that theory is if we say we are going to stay forever, then they are never going to do their share, and the problem has been the Iraqi soldiers won't get trained, the problem is we can't get a political solution because everyone thinks we are just going to stay there and keep the situation intact. They need a goal, and the goal is, in our supplemental bill, if you do not have improvement in some of the benchmarks we have in there, political and military, if you don't have improvement by July, we are getting out. If you are showing some progress, we will give you until the end of the year, until the fall. And if you haven't met the goals by then, then we are out. You have got to meet your obligations. Believe me, I didn't support this war from the get-go, and it kills me, it kills me, that we have got to spend $100 billion to get us out of a situation. That kills me. This last couple of weeks we have had hearings in the Labor, Health and Education Subcommittee on Appropriations, and you see the millions of dollars the Bush administration submitted that they cut from physical education programs, art programs. They flatlined TRIO, GEAR UP, Upward Bound. All flatlined, with thousands of more kids going into those. Head Start. Only 60 percent of the kids eligible for Head Start get covered. There is a $100 million cut in Head Start, and we are going to go spend $100 billion? I am voting for the supplemental, because I will do anything to get us out of there, and I believe this supplemental is the best step for us to take to get us out of there. But it is not only what is going on in Iraq, Mr. Meek. I don't know if you had a chance to see this memo.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Not at all. We are starting to figure out what has been going on. Part of it, over the past few years, everyone kept saying 6 more months. Give them 6 more months. Six more months. Well, 6 more months, we are 4 years later 6 more months.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Armored Humvees. Up-armored Humvees. Kevlar vests. The proper amount of rest. I want you, Mr. Meek, to try to name me one person in this country that would dare send one of their own kids off to war without the proper equipment, that would not ride in a Humvee that was armored. And there are kids still getting killed in Iraq now because the Humvees are light armored and not heavy armored. They don't have the proper equipment and everything else. We are still losing kids because of that.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Shake and Bake. Right back at you.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. These are the same people, Mr. Meek, these are the same people who were in charge several months ago, and for the previous 14 years, that led to the dismal display that we see at Walter Reed, the conduct of some of the people in the Veterans Administration. The same people that had oversight then are now upset and trying to point the finger.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate that. And it is an honor for me to be in the Appropriations Committee, and my friend on the Ways and Means Committee provides the ways and the means for us to get the job done. One of the issues that we have talked about today a little bit is what the Democrats have been doing in Congress since we got here a couple of months ago. And I think it is very important, as we see all of the news stories about Walter Reed, as we see the news stories about the Attorneys General, we see the news stories about what is going on in Iraq, a year ago or 2 years ago, those stories wouldn't have even been possible because the threat of oversight hearings that Speaker Pelosi and the Chairs of our various committees have been executing is the exact balance of power that we were talking about prior to the elections last year. And the American people, very wisely, thought it was time for there to be some oversight. But I must say, Mr. Meek and Mr. Speaker, that all of the thoughts that we had about what was going on in a lot of these various agencies we thought were bad, but we didn't know they were this bad. And I don't think anybody would have said the level of pressure, for example, in the Attorneys General situation, the level of incompetence and neglect at Walter Reed is just absolutely shocking. And we knew about it with the war. We saw the lack of execution in the war. We saw it in Katrina. And now, because the Democrats are in power, we are now able to begin to fix these problems. The whistleblower reform strengthens protections for Federal whistleblowers to prevent retaliation against those who report wrongdoing, waste, fraud, abuse. This is how we begin to reform government, by allowing those people who are in the institution of government to be able to speak freely and to be protected and not to be bullied or prevented from somehow improving the institution. The Freedom of Information request, we had some provisions here. More timely disclosure of government documents, restoring the presumption of disclosure to FOIA, helping FOIA requesters obtain timely responses, improving transparency and agency compliance with FOIA, providing an alternative to litigation, and providing accountability for FOIA decisions, opening up government, transparency in the 21st century. It is an information-based society, an information-based economy; and the more we open it up and allow the information to flow, the more we are going to be able to improve things. One of the great problems we had in China several years with the SARS issue is that nobody knew about it and you can't fix problems that you don't know about. And whether you are in a family or on a team or in a business or running a government, you need to make sure there is free and open access to information. Now, granted, there are sensitive issues, national security issues that need to be protected and need to be kept in order to secure the long-term future of the country. No one debates that. But when we are talking about government documents and the execution of an administrative or executive branch department protecting whistleblowers who may have information in order to make the government improve, this isn't to punish anybody. This is to improve the government. And that means some difficult decisions need to be made. And I think, under the leadership of this House, we are moving down that road, step by step, very methodically to improve the lives of people in this country and to reform the institution of government. That is what we are all here to do. We have had several other things that we had. But I want to talk for a minute, Mr. Meek, if you don't mind, about oversight. I know you had mentioned oversight earlier in the evening, but what is going on and what has gone on already in this Chamber, as I mentioned, the Walter Reed thing came because of the threat of Democratic oversight and the committee oversight process that has already been going on. For example, the war in Iraq, between the House and Senate, more than 97 oversight hearings have looked into the conduct of the Iraqi war. Ninety-seven. There is the big number hearings. And more are coming. Tomorrow in the Appropriations Committee we are going to pass out the supplemental that is going to begin the exit of this war, begin the end of this war.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding and his comments about the field mouse and the owl. It is very important for us to remember that wisdom that he gives us. And I appreciate your running over here, hustling over here. I actually wasn't going to come. I have got some meetings tonight that I have to get at, but I saw you over here out of breath, and I thought I would come over and sling-shot you in.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a community activist that touched many lives throughout her 79 years as a resident of Youngstown, Ohio. Thelma Clark, who was born in Youngstown on August 15, 1927, passed away this past October. Mrs. Clark graduated from The Rayen School and later went on to graduate from the Choffin School of Nursing as a licensed practical nurse. She worked at Northside as well as Southside Hospital, but Thelma Clark's career as a nurse is not what her family and friends will think of when reminiscing about her life. Thelma Clark's most significant and lasting impact on the Youngstown community came through her many organization memberships and dedication to those organizations. Maybe no better example of this was her steadfast faith and love of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church, to which she was a member for 63 years. Thelma served as the secretary for the church for 25 years and also played an important role as the official church historian. Through her constant commitment to urban development and advancement of African Americans in the community, Thelma Clark was a shining example to her many children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Mrs. Clark was a member of the local branch of the NAACP for 52 years and served as 2nd vice president of the organization for many of those years. She was a member of the National Council of Negro Women while also serving as a co-chairperson of the Annual Negro College Fund Banquets. These are just a few of the many activities that became intrinsically connected to the life of Thelma Clark. In addition, Mrs. Clark was a member of the Pink Carnation Club, treasurer of the McGuffey Football Boosters Club, and a member of the Parent Booster Club of the Boy Scouts. Learning about people like Thelma Clark and the proactive and selfless life that she led, gives me a great sense of inspiration and optimism for the future of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley. The scope of Thelma Clark's influence on current and future generations is immeasurable, and I am deeply honored to have represented her.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate it, Mr. Meek. And I was watching you earlier talk about this, and I appreciate your concern and your passion on the issue. And I just can't help but thank Mr. Murtha and the Speaker for taking such quick action on this. This is the kind of thing that unfortunately has been going on for a long time, not only in this particular institution due to a lack of oversight, but also this is what has been going on in Iraq. The stories that we hear coming out of some of the oversight committees are absolutely atrocious to hear about the waste of money and some of the situations on the ground in Iraq. Then to hear the story about Walter Reed, it just seems to consistently be a lack of owning up to what the current situation is on the ground or in the hospitals or wherever the case may be. And that is why you have to have an open process. That is why you have got to have hearings. And if we would have maybe over the past couple of years had more oversight hearings on these situations, maybe we wouldn't be in the situation that we are in today. I want to share with you, Mr. Meek, and I apologize because I have to leave in a couple minutes but I wanted to come by and support you and add my two cents here, today in the Washington Post regarding the complaints at Walter Reed, and this is what is really damning here as far as the issue goes, on the front page of the Washington Post: ``Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's Surgeon General, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups, and Members of Congress for more than 3 years. ``A procession of Pentagon and Walter Reed officials expressed surprise last week about the living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares faced by wounded soldiers staying at the D.C. medical facility. But as far back as 2003, the commander of Walter Reed, General Kiley, was told that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds, according to interviews. ``But according to interviews, Kiley, his successive commanders at Walter Reed, and various top noncommissioned officers in charge of soldiers' lives have heard a stream of complaints about outpatient treatment over the past several years. The complaints have surfaced at town hall meetings for staff and soldiers, at commanders' sensing sessions in which soldiers or officers are encouraged to speak freely, and in several Inspector General's reports detailing building conditions, safety issues, and other matters.'' That is what hurts, Mr. Meek, is the fact that people knew about this. And one of the most prestigious obligations that we have as Members of the United States Congress, as Members of the House of Representatives, being the most closely, directly elected officials for the people of this country to represent them in their Federal Government is that we have oversight responsibilities. And to neglect those duties, as the 109th Congress did, on Iraq, on contracting, on intelligence, on all of these things, blistering accounts that we are learning about, this is what hurts, that these kinds of situations could have been prevented, and if not prevented, immediately fixed. And when you think about this, just ask, just ask us, is this Congress, whether Republican led or Democratically led, going to say ``no'' to our soldiers? That is not going to happen. But the fact that this administration refuses, talk about a culture which we talked about in the 109th Congress, a culture and a complete culture of an unwillingness to accept the fact that things can go wrong. We are all human beings. Things go wrong; mistakes are made. The key is to fix them. The key is to not make the same mistakes twice, or in this case, many, many, many times over. And the fact that a few soldiers had to go through this is a shame. But when the problem isn't fixed, when the problem continues and we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of soldiers go through this same situation, Mr. Meek, when it could have been fixed I think is a tragedy. So I want to commend you for bringing this up and sharing this with the House of Representatives and the American people. And I want to commend you for your service on the Armed Services Committee in these difficult times and a lot of the tough decisions that you have to make on that committee. So I yield back to my friend, and I apologize for having to cut out on you early; but you are doing all right on your own.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is now public. And we yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I agree with you. One more, with the SCHIP thing, I get excited about this stuff because it is really cool, but with the SCHIP thing you will fill out your form, you do your free and reduced lunch, you will do your SCHIP deal and also start to get letters from the Department of Education at third, fourth grade as to what Pell Grant number you will get as far as how much you will be able to receive from Pell Grant based on your income. So these kids, this is the new way of doing things. This is you do not just spend the money. You change the psychology of the kid and the family. If a kid in third grade who would never think of going to college starts getting this Pell Grant, you qualify for $4,000 or $5,000 a year in a Pell Grant when you go to college, not if, when, you know that kind of kid all of a sudden is now thinking about college or trade or something. So we are trying to do this all in the same way. And I hope that we recognize, I think as Nancy Pelosi has, Madam Speaker, that America was great because we were the ones who wanted to be the best at everything. So why don't we have the best health care? Why don't we have the best education? And let's get down to business and start doing it. Any questions for Members who are listening, www.speaker.gov/ 30something is our Web site. E-mail is 30SomethingDems@mail.house.gov. And I have got to confess, I did not know your mom is Polish. I just figured you were 100 percent Irish.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. There is no question, and the more you get into this, the more you see, and again it is not that government is the only answer, but I will give you an example. We had today in our Health Appropriations Committee, there is a tremendous nursing shortage, health care shortage, and there are some programs that will help nurses with low-interest loans. If you are going to go into nursing, you get these low-interest loans to try to get minority and low-income nurses and health care workers into the field. So there is another program that will go in and try to recruit and get people in and help them pay for it in order for us to get nurses and health care workers in the underserved areas. That program, I think this is the one that was zeroed out by the President in his budget. Now, does that make any sense at all? We have a nursing shortage, and we have tremendous health issues for our kids and poor families that we need. As I said earlier, we have only got 300 million people. We need them all on the field playing against China and India, that we are not going to make this little bit of investment into making sure that we get health care workers in underserved areas? The health care system is already getting skewed to the suburbs where a lot of these health care systems can make money in the suburbs, and the level of charity care in the cities are going through the roof. So it does not make any sense not to make those investments because the yield that we are going to get is going to be tremendous. Not only are you getting someone that otherwise would be less productive to be more productive, they are in a field of nursing. They are going to make decent bucks, going to pay taxes. Their kids are probably going to go to college. I mean, this cycle continues. Let us get it going in a positive way, not dissimilar to what is happening, like you mentioned, with the college tuition costs. Four hundred thousand kids in this country qualify and have the grades to go to college but do not because they feel they cannot afford it or they can afford it, one or the other, but either way it is an impediment for 400,000 Americans going into college. Now, would that not be great? These are the kind of issues that I think we need to fix, and to ask a millionaire to pay a little bit more, I think, is a lot better than borrowing it from China, which is what we are doing now, and there is a real decision that we need to make. We are talking about in our committee about streamlining the SCHIP program, you know, like when you qualify for free and reduced lunch, you just sign your name, how many members of your family and what your income is, and you qualify for free and reduced lunch. Well, we want to do that for SCHIP so we make sure we are covering all our kids, that they have health care. You can argue about the situation of parents and everything else, but you do not blame the kids for that, and you make sure they have got the kind of health care that they need. And how do we make sure that my goal, and I do not know how long this is going to last, but my goal is to make sure we have nurses and doctors and clinics in some of these schools. You have some of these schools where 80, 90 percent of the kids qualify for free and reduced lunch, qualify for SCHIP. Let us put a clinic in there and tie it to the health care program, tie it to the wellness program, make sure these kids are getting the kind of attention that they need, and in all the while, make sure that we demand as elected leaders and leaders in our community, demand from the parents to send your kids to school ready to learn, and you as a parent do your share, too. This is not a one-way ticket where we are going to do everything, or the teachers are somehow going to have to do everything, but both sides. We need to be innovative. We need to create these new ideas and implement them and reform government and make proper investments in a balanced way, but the parents and the schools need to also step up, and the parents especially. The basic fundamental structure of our society is the family. They need to step up, send their kids ready to learn, and provide their own personal leadership. So I yield to my friend for some closing remarks.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. A good Irish story.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I agree, and there are so many fields that we need to explore. It is nice to say, well, everyone is going to go to college and do this and do that, has my boy not done well, but there are a lot of other things that I think have great dignity and great contributions to our economy. By the year 2010, we are going to need 200,000 welders that pay pretty well, and in my community I met with a vocational school. They are starting at 13, 14, 15 bucks an hour. People told me a story of a guy making 30 bucks an hour as a welder with full health care benefits. So as we pursue this college, we also have to remember the community college pipeline, the vocational school pipeline for truck drivers and welders and a lot of these other industries that we continue to figure out how does this company, as China is expanding, how do we export and sell them something and grow our employment base here. So there are a lot of different things that I think we need to talk about that the approach is so much different from what we are doing than our friends on the other side.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. There was a funny article in, I think it was Roll Call when we first got in how frightened the banks were about the whole student loan deal. Because we have been talking about possibly doing just direct student loans, here is the government money, here is a student, you give him the money, he takes it and he pays you back with a little bit of interest, boom, done. That sounds pretty efficient to me. Well, the banks are upset because they were worried that if we changed the system as it was, that they were not going to make money, the banks, thanks to the student loans. And I am sorry, but we are not here to make you money. You want to talk about welfare, you want to talk about getting on the public dole, my God, you go out and compete with everybody else. We are not here to pay you 6 percent or 8 percent on a student loan. We are here to get a kid into college that cannot afford it otherwise. That is our responsibility, and this kid is going to get a degree and then a master's degree, and he is going to help us create this new economy. Here is what we are talking about with cutting student loan interest rates in half, the stem cell bill for stem cell research, and alternative energy, repealing the corporate welfare. We have got to create new industries. Whether you vote for the free trade agreements or not, we are in a global economy, and we are competing with China and India and the rest of the world. As we see some of the traditional manufacturing move offshore, some legitimately, some not so legitimately, because of what China's doing with their currency, we have got to come up with what the new industries are. So what we have tried to do is invest in the stem cell research and invest in alternative energies, the future job creators, and then also make sure that college is affordable by increasing the Pell Grant and making sure we cut student loan interest rates in half so kids will go to college and then have these long-term sectors of the economy that are growing that they can move into. But if we do not have healthy, educated citizens moving in, getting educated, moving into college and helping us create this economy, all this is for naught. We need a lot more people creating a new economy than we did 50 years ago. My grandfather worked in a steel mill. He went to high school until 10th or 11th grade. That was another world ago, and unfortunately in this institution, if we start playing the same game we have been playing for 50 years, and I think both sides, and I think we have recognized this because the minimum wage bill that we passed had $1.3 billion in tax cuts for small businesses to reinvest back into their companies. So the idea of if you cut taxes for the rich, they are going to invest back in the United States and create jobs, that is done. We know that. They get a tax cut, and they invest it in Asia, okay. It is your money; do what you want with it. But let us not pretend they are going to somehow build a factory in Niles, Ohio, and hire a thousand people. Not going to happen. And the Democratic philosophy, old one, not the one as we know from what we have already done here, was if you write a bigger check, somehow the problem is going to go away. I think the king of leadership that the Speaker is providing, and Steny Hoyer and Blue Dogs and Jim Clyburn and some of the newer members in the 30-something Working Group is there is a middle way here. There is a way where we can raise the minimum wage and give small business tax cuts. We can cut student loan interest rates in half and do stem cell research. We can repeal corporate welfare that is going to energy companies who seem to be doing okay, they do not really need our $13 billion, and put that in alternative energy research. There is a middle way here that we are trying to negotiate that I think is 21st century government.