Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Which means you don't have to pay your dues.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I do not know if they believe it. They are going along with it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. WWW.HouseDemocrats.gov/30-Something. All of our charts and visual aids will be available on this Web site. HouseDemocrats.gov/30-Something. And you can e-mail us there, too. Any comments, please feel free. Members who are watching or listening right now can have an opportunity to e-mail us and ask us any kind of questions. Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Pay your dues?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentlewoman would yield, so you are saying and it is fact that there is not anyone who believes that there was any connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda except for the two or three main leaders of this administration, period.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Are you a member?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think whether you are talking about foreign policy, what's going on in the war, or what you stated their agenda was the last week, which has been pretty much the same for the past couple of years, just a bunch of stuff that really hasn't worked, and you could just look around to see the facts of the matter, but there is a general sense by this Congress, and I think this administration, of we don't have to fix these problems. They are somehow just going to fix themselves. I found it very interesting, one of the bills I am most excited about when we get back in is Representative Tanner's bill and Representative Cardoza's bill that says we are going to basically audit the government. We are going to find out whether there is fat, where there is wasted money, where there are programs that aren't working cut them and squeeze them and put that money into stuff that is working. But that takes initiative, as Mr. Meek has said, it is about rolling up your sleeves and going to work and doing the hard work. But I found it very interesting, as I was going through former Speaker Gingrich's basic proposals in the Wall Street Journal, I am sorry, and going through here, he makes a lot of comparisons to the Civil War. It is very well written and very insightful. I want to just share with the House, Madam Speaker, a couple of things that Mr. Gingrich has said, which I think is the kind of attitude that he wanted to bring in 1994, and I think the kind of attitude that we want to bring in, and we will bring in when we take back the House of Representatives next year. He says, as he is going through the war, some suggestions for the President. He talks about several initiatives. One he said, then, he, the President, should announce an aggressively honest review of what has not worked in the first 5 years of the war. Based upon the findings, he should initiate a sweeping transformation of the White House's national security apparatus. The current, hopelessly slow and inefficient interagency system should be replaced by a new metrics based and ruthlessly disciplined integrated system of accountability with clear timetables and clear responsibilities. That is what the Democrats want to do. Let us provide some oversight to all this nonsense that has been going on, and then we have to listen time and time again, new show after new show, about how everything is going okay, we need to stay the course, and we have the former Speaker telling us, no, it is about an aggressive honest review of what has not worked. There are numerous examples of that, and it is about time that the body that was created by Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution, provides the proper oversight. We are not talking about what's going on in local Rotary Club project. We are not talking about a local Kiwanis Club project to go create a river walk in a downtown. We are talking about almost 3,000 American soldiers being killed. We are talking about 20,000 of our soldiers being injured. We are talking about thousands and thousands of Iraqis, many of them very innocent people, being killed, because we haven't figured out how we are going to win this war, and we have a Secretary of Defense that says he will fire the next person who asks for an exit strategy, or a post war plan. That is not leadership. I don't care what party you belong to. This isn't about Democrats and Republicans. This is about fixing a major problem that will cripple the American economy, bust our budgets for the next generation. Again, Mr. Gingrich says, because the threat of losing of millions of Americans lives is real, Congress should hold blunt no-holds barred oversight hearings on what is and is not working. Lives should be changed to shift from bureaucratic to entrepreneurial implementation throughout the national security and homeland security elements of government. That is exactly what Representative Tanner's bill will do. That is exactly what Representative Cardoza's bill will do. Let us throw it all out on the table. Let us hold oversight hearings. Let us audit this government that is not working. This government was meant to work in an industrial society, and it is operating like it is 1950, which it would be fine if it was 1950, but it is 2006. Everything has changed except for our national security offices and our homeland security offices. We created a 20th century bureaucracy with the Department of Homeland Security to battle a 21st century problem.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I think it is important that we focus on what Ms. Wasserman Schultz said and what has been said by several of my colleagues here, Mr. Delahunt and the gentleman from Florida, and after watching the weekend shows and going through the pain and angst of trying to decipher reality from fiction, I think it is important that we do not get to a point in this country where, because there has not been a terrorist attack in the past few years, that somehow that makes everything okay. We are combating an enemy here that their ability to wait and then strike is staggering. They are patient people. The last terrorist strike prior to September 11, 2001, was in 1993, 8 years prior. So to say we are doing everything right, as was stated on one of the weekend shows by a major member of this administration, I think does not show the kind of responsibility and the kind of urgency that I think Ms. Wasserman Schultz pointed out. With border security, we do not know who is coming over the borders. They may be coming through Mexico, but it does not mean they are Mexicans, which has been an ally of ours. You do not know who is coming through. So I think it is foolhardy to say that. And then I want to almost in our private meetings make a motion to make the former Speaker Newt Gingrich an honorary member of the 30- Something Group because of the kind of analysis that he continues to provide us and what we are in agreement on. Now, let's look at what the former Speaker has said about staying the course. And this isn't just Iraq; I think this is also dealing with homeland security. The former Speaker says in the Wall Street Journal on September 7.

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

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Delahunt, I have got to tell you, over August break I had numerous conversations with business folks, Republicans, card-carrying, who would talk to me about the fact that if they were running the business and Rumsfeld was their assistant or vice whatever, he wouldn't be around. He would have been gone years ago.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. He was the man who set the basic principles of what the Republican revolution was going to look like. So on September 7, 2006, in the Wall Street Journal, he says: ``Just consider the following: Osama bin Laden is still at large, Afghanistan is still insecure, Iraq is still violent, North Korea and Iran are still building nuclear weapons and missiles, terrorist recruiting is still occurring in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, and across the planet.'' Is that the kind of leadership we want in the United States of America to secure our country? I don't think so. Given that foreign policy and domestically, given what Ms. Wasserman Schultz has said about our borders and our homeland security and our ports, that is not the kind of leadership we need. And the final point I would like to make before I yield to my friend from Florida is that we have tended to take the long view. I think we have made some difficult decisions, our party, in the last 10 or 15 years that have been difficult, balancing the budget in 1993, leading the lower interest rates, creating 20 million new jobs, welfare reform. All of those things were very difficult decisions politically, but over the long haul history is judging them to be good decisions on behalf of the country. And to look and see what Secretary Rumsfeld said when he kept getting questioned about what we were going to do in post-war Iraq, Madam Speaker, I think says it all. And this is from a story in The Washington Post on Saturday, Madam Speaker. It says: ``Long before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said. Brigadier General Mark Scheid told the Newport News Daily Press in an interview published yesterday that Rumsfeld had said ``he would fire the next person,'' who talked about the need for a post-war plan. He would fire the next person that brought it up, Madam Speaker. This isn't saying, I don't want to hear the other side. This isn't saying, we aren't talking about that yet. This isn't saying, we are having a meeting about something else right now, maybe we will bring that up later. Or, we are having a meeting about that tomorrow. The Secretary was saying he would fire the next person who even brought up designing a post-war Iraq plan. Now, that is the kind of leadership we are getting. And I think in September of 2006 as we see where this country is, where former Speaker Gingrich is saying where the country is and all the lack of successes that we have had, to see the kind of leadership coming out of the Pentagon and the Secretary saying we will fire you if you even bring it up one more time about a post-war plan in Iraq, I think speaks volumes about what is going on. I yield to my friend.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think I am taken care of. The crack staff here at the 30-Something Working Group. I thought maybe you missed my being over in the other part of the well, and this made me nervous because I know how you like things the way you like them. Very habitual.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Bill Clinton.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Democrat.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. George Bush, the second.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is good to be back. There are several things that I want to touch upon after hearing some of the comments that have been made.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. 30-Something Working Group www.housedemocrats.gov/ 30-something, housedemocrats.gov/30-something. And all the charts that you have seen tonight, Madam Speaker, are available on the Web site. I yield back to my good friend from Florida (Mr. Meek).

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Republican.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We want to congratulate our 30-something. Ms. Wasserman Schultz here was rated ``One of the Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill.'' And that is quite an honor. It is an honor for us to be here with you. Kendrick and I and Mr. Delahunt didn't even make the list. I don't even think we were nominated. But we have all have roles to play, and unfortunately, Ms. Wasserman Schultz covers them all. WWW.HouseDemocrats.gov/30-Something. All the charts you saw here tonight, and we could maybe get a copy of the Hill newspaper.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And I thank the leader and our leadership, Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn and John Larson for the opportunity to be here.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I want to thank Mr. Meek for the opportunity to speak on this point, which Mr. Gingrich stated back in March that they, the Republican majority, are seen by the country as being in charge of a government that can't function. When you look at what he is talking about, and what even Mr. Gingrich stated the other day on Meet the Press, is that the institutions haven't kept up with the times. And the majority has had now 12 years to try to reform these institutions, and they have made them worse, not better. Because, in the example of FEMA where they appointed horse attorneys, equestrian attorneys to run FEMA, or all the graft and patronage that is going on in Iraq, Mr. Delahunt, which you know about better than us and spoke very eloquently about at 11:30 last night by yourself, all of these issues add up. When you have higher tuition costs, the paycheck you get doesn't buy as much, when you have higher health care costs, when you are worried about your pension, when you have the auto industry collapsing before its very eyes, you have a low minimum wage that hasn't been raised since 1997, you are unable to govern, as Mr. Gingrich said.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Reclaiming my time, I yield to my friend from Massachusetts.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. 231.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I think that is the perfect example. Those are facts. We did not make it up. Those are facts on how the Clinton administration versus the Bush administration handled illegal immigration. But look, if you are just the average Joe and you are sitting in the cheap seats watching politics in America, that is not all you see, is the failure to address the illegal immigration problem. You have watched over the past 5 years, Katrina, in which our FEMA, the Republican appointed members of the emergency management system here in the United States of America, had five or six days, knowing that a hurricane was coming to the Gulf States, and we got the kind of response that we got go. You look at Iraq. You look at not when the statues fell, but look afterwards, and you see it has been an utter and complete failure. Utilities and all the electricity, all at below pre-war levels. Our army right now, two-thirds of our army is not combat ready. Two-thirds. That is atrocious. And when you look at lack of investment in alternative energies, and the median wage is down 4 percent, all of the increases in college tuition, all these things, if you are just watching this from afar and you see millionaires getting tax breaks and average Americans struggling to get ahead and falling behind every single paycheck, you have to at some point say, aren't you taking the country in the wrong direction? Aren't you taking us down the wrong road? Real quick, Mr. Delahunt, whether it is domestic policy or foreign policy, you look at what is happening, and there is a severe disconnect between where the American people want to be and where the administration and President Bush's Congress is taking us.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, one other thing that we have forgotten to mention tonight, and I know the clock is ticking, but with all these other costs, we keep forgetting to mention interest rates for people who are going out and trying to get a car or a house and the significant increase over the past year or so in interest rates. So you have the health care, you have the tuition costs, you have the gas, natural and what you get at the pump, and you throw in there if you are trying to get a new house or car and what your interest rates are now, or they would have been because everybody is going out trying to borrow money, you run into a difficult situation. Again, by balancing the budget, as President Clinton and the 1993 Democratic Congress proved, by balancing that budget, you will in turn reduce interest rates and then let the private sector go out and borrow money and make things happen in the market. Www.housedemocrats.gov/30something. All of our charts and everything are available, including the article that voted Ms. Wasserman Schultz one of the 50 most beautiful people on Capitol Hill. With that, I yield to Ms. Wasserman Schultz.