Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I thank the gentleman from Rhode Island. And I also find it a bit peculiar that our friend from Florida, being from Ohio, we disagree on our favorite college basketball team, we disagree on our favorite college football team, so it is not a real surprise that we are going to disagree here. But I find it peculiar that he was saying that he was trying to support the workers. And I wish he would remember the vote on the minimum wage when he and the leadership of his party were consistently trying to prevent us from passing the minimum wage to help the American worker. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The bottom line is that this is not just us, or the Democrats or the American people. Mr. Meek, Mr. Murphy, these are the soldiers who are coming back. I don't know what your personal experiences have been, but the soldiers in my district who have come back, and I meet them for a cup of coffee at the coffee shop and they talk off the record, they say, Get us out because this is insane. It is ridiculous. The only thing we all hear from the soldiers who say I want to go back, they say they want to go back because their buddies are over there. They are not going back because there is some great cause that the President has outlined for them. They are so far beyond that. They go back because their buddies are there, and God bless them. Those are the kind of buddies that we all want. I think it is important that that picture that you showed, Mr. Meek, and what the minority party is trying to do here by not giving us enough votes to override a Presidential veto in the House and in the Senate is they are complicit in following President George W. Bush's foreign policy that has taken this country right off the cliff. Mr. Meek, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Speaker, $600 billion, thousands of lives lost, innocent people in Iraq getting bombed. And here's the bottom line that I think the country needs to know and completely understand. This President has made the country less safe. There are more terrorists today that are gunning at the United States than ever before. Even pre-9/11, and now al Qaeda is coming out and saying we are stronger than we have ever been. We are as strong as we were on 9/11. We have thousands and thousands of more terrorists who want a gun to come at the United States. There are sleeper cells I am sure in the United States, but when we try to pass a Homeland Security bill that funds 3,000 more Border Patrol agents, that puts the proper equipment and the proper technology on the borders to make sure that when the cargo is coming into the ports that those are checked, that our first responders have the proper equipment that they need, the Republican minority basically filibustered in the House and tried to stop that from happening. So what we are saying here is that if we don't quickly rectify this problem and start making investments that we can go after Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda instead of this mess that we are in in Iraq, then we are more vulnerable as a country. And if something happens in this country, it lays right at the footsteps of the White House because we have been fighting this war. It has been ridiculous. The whole concept has been ridiculous. George Herbert Walker Bush said it was crazy to go into Iraq. This has not made any sense since the beginning. And now we are wasting $600 billion fighting a war in some country that we don't know a whole lot about instead of focusing that money on making sure that we get Osama bin Laden, making sure that we destroy al Qaeda. That's the war. And so if al Qaeda hits the United States of America, it is because George Bush led us into a war in a country that didn't have any al Qaeda members in it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We're slingshotting the kids then for 5 months.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That's the God's honest truth of where we are. The force of the American people broke through in the election, but it is yet to penetrate the ideology of the Republican leadership and the Republicans in the House, many of them, and everything is coming down to priorities. It's all coming down to priorities. And when Mr. Murphy and Mr. Pallone and yourself are talking about making this investment in the children's health care, poor kids getting health care, our friends on the other side are so void of any ideas on how to make America competitive in the 21st century that they have got to scream socialism, and I urge all of our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to go back to the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s and 1960s. The only argument our friends on the extreme right have is socialism. We're talking about a bill that passed out of the Appropriations Committee with bipartisan support. The Members who are coming down here are extremists. They are the extreme neoconservatives who have implemented their policy over the last 6 years and have run this country domestically into the ground, have run our foreign policy into the ground, and now all they have is names to call us. Well, go out, and when these millions of kids have health care, go to them and say, you know what, you really shouldn't get that health care because it's socialism, okay? When you go to college and you have an extra 700 bucks in a Pell grant or over the next few years it will be an increase of over $1,000 by 2011, from $4,050 to over $5,000, go to that college family, the parents that are struggling to pay for that, and let our friends on the other side say we have no business helping you with college; that's not the role of government, Mr. Speaker, that's socialism. And when we cut student interest rates from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent, I urge all of our friends on the other side, go to all the millions of families across this country and say we don't want to do that, that's socialism; let the free market work. These banks have been sucking off the government for years. We didn't raise taxes to do this. All we did was say the banks aren't going to make a big profit on the student loans. We're going to give it to the kids and give them a nice 3.4 percent rate so they can go get an education and go get a job and go create wealth and go start a business and hire people that are going to pay taxes to keep tax rates low for everybody. They're void of ideas, and this is the best investment. I mean, this is great. We get to go, over the course of the next year, and campaign on this? This is good stuff.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, $50 million for children's health care or 5 months more in Iraq, let the American people make that decision. Poll that, get the focus group out and figure that one out, where the American people are going to be. They're going to be with the leadership. They're going to be with the Speaker. They're going to be with the majority leader in the Senate. They're going to be for making these investments. And I just love, Mr. Speaker, how our Republican counterparts went way back to 1992, they went into the deep parts of the Republican library, the CATO Institute and everywhere else, and they pulled out the 1992 talking points, and they've dusted them off and everything's socialism and union bosses. And it's typical of why they're not in power.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Can I make a point because I think this is so important. There's not been a tax increase here. This is not where the President can say, I'm going to veto this bill because the Democrats increased taxes on someone. What we did is we shifted this money that was going to the banks and allowed them to charge students 6.8 percent. It was basically corporate welfare, and we're saying that that same amount of money that went to them is going to go to more students for cheaper loans, less interest rates, 3.4 percent instead of 6.8 percent, just a shift in the money, shift in priorities. So what the President's basically saying is I would rather have the banks make the profit than expand student loans to more kids and more parents. Now, that's just reading the facts. Ignore our rhetoric.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate it, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Meek, Mr. Pallone who was here earlier, any emails from our colleagues who may be up right now, at www.30somethingdems@mail.house.gov">www.30somethingdems@mail.house.gov or www.speaker.gov/ 30something.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That seems like 10 years ago.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think that is such a poignant argument to make. Our friends on the other side are basically saying we are against the minimum wage, we are against increases in the Pell Grants, we are for higher interest rates for students to take out loans to go to school, we are against stem cell research. We are against research in alternative energy. They were for offering amendments to cut the budget for all the increases we were making, instead of giving the money to the oil companies to put in alternative energy. They were offering amendments to cut that. When we offered earlier on to strip the oil companies of the $14 billion in corporate welfare they were getting, our friends voted against it, the extremists in their party. So you are exactly right. What are you for? What are you for? I think we are quite clear as to what we are for on this side: lower student interest rates, more money for grants to go to college, higher minimum wage, focus on alternative energy, secure the country, 3,000 more Border Patrol agents in this country, technology to monitor biological chemical weapons on our ports, more funds for police and fire interoperability through the walkie-talkies, and able to talk and communicate with each other. I mean, we have got a real agenda here.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are trying to compete with 1.3 billion people in China, 1.2 billion people in India. We only have 300 million people in the country. So it seems to me that these investments that we are making are very wise, targeted investments. There is no tax increase. But what we are saying is, is it better to make sure that the banks have an increased inflated profit margin, or is it better for us as a country, the public, to make those investments in the families and basically give these families a tax cut? These middle-class families are getting a tax cut. If you are taking out a loan, and you have two, three, four people in your family, you have a couple of kids going to school, both parents work, you are making 60 or $70,000 a year, and you are taking out a student loan, and last year if you took it out it was 6.8 percent and if you take it out this year and it's 3.4 percent, that's a tax cut for that family. When you go to file for the Pell Grant next year, and there is an increase of 4 or 5 or $600, that is a tax cut for a middle- class family. What we are saying is we have a totally different philosophy from the Republican Party. They are cutting taxes in half over the past 6 or 7 years for the top 1 percent of income earners in the country. We are saying, and the American people will make a judgment on this in the next election, would they rather have their Congress give a tax cut to someone who makes $1 million a year, or would they rather have us make the investments in the Pell Grant, in SCHIP, in community health clinics, reduce and cutting student loan interest rates in half and investing in alternative energy? Because that's what we are saying. We would rather make these investments. We haven't raised taxes on anybody at all. That's the beauty of this whole thing, is we are just shifting our priorities. Instead of $14 billion going to the oil companies and corporate welfare, we are investing that money in alternative energy research. Instead of having billions of dollars go to the banks, we are investing that money into kids and giving them more access to college education, raising the minimum wage. The American people, and many people are seeing, we all are seeing the numbers of Congress right now. We are not good, we understand that. But when these budgets hit, and the American people file their taxes next year, and they see there has been no increase, but yet they go to file for a Pell Grant and they see an increase in that and they see the student loan rate has been cut in half for the loan last year they had to take out for their kids and they get a boost in the minimum wage, and we are hiring thousands of scientists to do research and development through the energy bill that we passed last week, or that we will pass this week, these are the things that the American people will recognize, will understand and will see and these are going to yield long-term benefits. One final point, the Republican Party has had their opportunity over the past 6 years to fully implement their whole agenda. They had a Republican House, huge majority, Republican Senate, Republican White House. They implemented the extreme neoconservative domestic agenda and foreign policy agenda, and the country has never been in worse shape. Their philosophy, there is no more debate, what are we going to debate? They have had the chance to do it. They have done it. It's over. They have implemented it. We have got the chart you showed, all the money borrowed from China, you know, all the money borrowed from foreign interests, the wages stagnant for 30 years, a foreign policy that's an atrocity right now, not a friend in the world. So they have had a chance, and the American people have been kind enough to give us a chance, and they are going to be very proud. I understand that they may not all have felt yet what is going to come their way, but I believe that early next year, when our budget is implemented and they are having a chance to actually experience what we have done, they are going to say they are the Democrats again, and we are glad they are back in power.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to share some of those minutes with my good friends who are here, and I just want to kind of go on the point that Mr. Murphy was making. We have a situation now where everything that we've done I think is going to help average folks, middle-class folks, lower middle-class folks, poor folks, upper middle-class folks. Think about a family who in July is going to get an increase in the minimum wage, struggling to get by, looking to get a little boost, and they get the boost because of a new Democratic Congress and the priorities of the Speaker that we're going to implement. And then you have a kid in school or you have young kids that need health care, and you're going to now be able to access the SCHIP program. You're going to be able to go to more community health clinics because there's been an increase of hundreds of millions of dollars. Some more people are able to be covered. Then, if you are in a State like Ohio, where the Governor, Governor Strickland, used to be a Member of this body, signed a budget that has a zero percent increase in tuition costs this year and next year, that used to be 9 percent on average in Ohio. Now this same family has an increase in the minimum wage; they have a $500 increase in the Pell Grant. They have student loans they are taking out that will be cut in half from 6.8 to 3.4 percent. If they have young toddlers, they will be covered under SCHIP. This family now will be a healthy, educated productive family in the United States of America, so that the 300 million people we have in this country can all be on the field competing against China for us, competing against 1.3 billion people in China for the United States, competing against 1.2 billion people in India for the United States. Now, isn't that a good thing? Aren't these good, smart, targeted investments? I would say they are, and the benefits that we are going to yield from these investments are going to serve us for generations to come. We did a study in Ohio years ago; I think the University of Akron did the study. For every dollar the State of Ohio invested in higher education, they got $2 back in tax money, because those people made $40,000 a year instead of $20,000 a year. Now, this is a good investment. These are good investments for us to make. Long term, they are going to make us more competitive. When you look at what we are doing, what we are trying to do with stem cell research, what we are trying to do with alternative energy research, this is good stuff.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I just want to reiterate a couple of points, because we seem to be having this debate every week. It seems to be on the same issues we have always been talking about. But I find it not necessarily enjoyable, but an obligation, to get up and communicate to the American taxpayer and the citizens of this country that over the last 6 years, the Republican House, Republican Senate, Republican White House, borrowed $3 trillion. They asked the Treasury Department to raise the debt limit five or six times to allow them to go out and borrow more money. You borrowed it from China. You borrowed it from Japan. You borrowed it from OPEC countries. On and on and on and on. All of a sudden, 5 or 6 months into this year, before we have even passed a budget, you are lecturing us on fiscal responsibility. I want the taxpayers, Mr. Chairman, to keep their forms from this year and compare them to their tax forms next year. They will see absolutely no increase in their taxes whatsoever. None. Zero. So, there is not a tax increase in this 2008 budget. Now, let's talk about what you are proposing to cut with this amendment. Superfund sites. Okay, you want to cut the Superfund site program that is going to clean up the most toxic sites. In many of the old industrial areas like mine, the gentleman knows very well, they were polluted in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. We can't develop the local economy because where we have water lines and where we have sewer lines, they are contaminated. Quite frankly, the city of Youngstown and the city of Warren do not have millions of dollars to put into this because their tax base has eroded. If you want us to contribute to the tax base like we did in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s when, quite frankly, a lot of that money that was taken out of Youngstown, Ohio, was used to develop the West and to develop new water lines and sewer lines in the South in many of your districts, all we are asking is for a little bit of help. Help us clean up the brownfield sites. How about your cutting the methamphetamine prevention and treatment program? I am sure you can't wait to get back to your districts and tell that to your constituents. How about those of you in the West fighting wildfires? You are going to cut that program. Mr. Chairman, many will say there are not any cuts in this bill. There are cuts in this bill: $193 million cut from construction account, it eliminates $31 million for landowner incentives; $39 million cut for the EPA Mexican border program; $24 million cut from the EPA Alaska Village setaside; $24 million cut from the Indiana land consolidation. There are cuts in here. We are not raising taxes. We are making investments into our community. Just because, Mr. Chairman, the minority party raised the debt $3 trillion, just because the minority party is ashamed, quite frankly, of their behavior over the past 6 years doesn't mean that they can displace all of their shamefulness on the new Democratic majority. I wouldn't want to admit that I borrowed $3 trillion from Japan and China either. I would run from it as fast as I could. But that doesn't change the facts. So I think we should vote down this amendment. There are great investments for local communities all over the country in this bill, and I think we should keep it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I just want to respond to the gentleman from Georgia who said the individual taxpayers can spend their money better than government. The taxpayers in my district can't clean a brownfield, go out with 50 bucks and clean a brownfield. This is something we need to do collectively as a community and as a country, to clean that up. Individuals can't do that. Individuals couldn't build the interstate highways and the railroads and the Panama Canal and all the great infrastructure projects that we have had. We need help to do this in some communities so we can be self-sufficient, and individuals can't do that.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, in the city of Akron, which I represent a part of, their obligation for the EPA is $400 million in the city of Akron. Our friends on the other side are saying that there is no role for the Federal Government to play. You have communities like Akron, you have communities like Youngstown that have lost significant industry over the past 20 or 30 years; and if we want to bring industry back, if we want to grow industry, we can't have brownfields all over our cities. This is an investment. This is going to clean the site up. This is an opportunity for us to redevelop sites in our communities. Now, 30 years ago when the steel mills were pumping, when the rubber industry was pumping, a lot of our tax dollars were going to many of your communities to help lay down roads, build the interstate, rail lines, water infrastructure, all of these things. What this bill does is it tries to reinvest back into some of these communities. We want to be self-sufficient, but we don't have the local tax base. There is a role here for the Federal Government. Mr. Chairman, I ask my friends, why would you want to prevent us from cleaning up brownfield sites in the old industrial areas? We don't need it forever. We just need to clean them up, and then we will have a tax base there and have more taxpayers to pay taxes and keep the tax rates low for everybody, because we will have more. But if we can't develop these sites, it becomes very, very difficult for us to grow our local economy. We need the Federal Government to make these investments, and that is exactly what this bill does.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I also want to commend my friend, not only for his athletic ability and his talents on the basketball court, but also for his focus and discipline in regards to this issue.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, as we a couple weeks ago had a big brouhaha here on what we would do as Democrats to protect the homeland, I think Frank Rich is exactly right: They are already trying to get us here, and this war has created more terrorists who are trying to get at the United States. Many may be here already. We don't know. But if you look at what we wanted to do with the homeland security bill a couple of weeks ago, put 3,000 more Border Patrol agents on the borders, make sure that we completely fund the cargo inspections coming in and out of our ports, make sure the technology is at our ports to find out if biological or chemical weapons are coming in, fund the first responders, fund the cops, fund the firemen, fund the equipment that they need for interoperability, so we have an agenda on how to protect the homeland that is much different than this one here. But as Mr. Rich said, and there was also an article today in The New York Times, U.S. generals doubt the ability of Iraqi army to hold gains. Now, no kidding. They had a big brouhaha with the speaker there, who was a Sunni Arab, who was put on leave at the request of a broad coalition of the three parties after incidents in which he lost his temper at other members and struck them or allowed his guards to rough them up. Now, I understand we have had a few brouhahas here in the House and in the Senate, but we didn't have an occupying force telling us to get along and get together. These guys can't get their act together, Mr. Larson, in a way that will allow them to take over their own country. When you look at what is going on here and the testimony before Congress on June 12 from General Dempsey, in charge of training the Iraqi army, he said there is a need to increase the Iraqi forces by at least 20,000 troops this year and a further expansion would be needed in 2008. That is not possible. He said, ``However, the past few days of fighting have not yielded the kind of success that we needed. Despite the efforts to encircle leaders from al Qaeda and others there, we are not getting the job done.'' We have so many cultural differences with the Iraqi people, the difficulties in training them, the lack of competence among the administration to jump on this, the lack of troops, on and on and on and on it goes. I want to lend my voice to yours, Mr. Larson and to Mr. Kendrick Meek from Florida, to say that it is time to bring these troops home. Let's redeploy in a very responsible way, protecting the safety of our troops, Mr. Larson, which we all support, and make sure that we handle this politically and diplomatically, because we won this military battle, but now it is an occupation.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Seaker, I rise today to honor a pillar of the community of Warren, Ohio, who recently passed away. There is a well- known saying which maintains that, 100 years from now, it will not matter what kind of car a person drove or how big their bank account was. The saying affirms that in 100 years, the world may be a better place because of what one person did to help inspire and uplift a child. Very few people in the town of Warren, Ohio, had as profound an impact on so many young lives as Nick Frankos did. A 1943 graduate of Warren G. Harding High School, Frankos was an avid supporter of Warren City Schools and their affiliated athletic teams. Affectionately dubbed ``Uncle Nick,'' he had a paternal, compassionate quality that allowed him to form lifelong bonds with Warren student-athletes and to transform the lives of many of Warren's youth. In 1956, Frankos opened his much-acclaimed Buena Vista Restaurant, famous around town for serving ``Uncle Nick's Greek Fried Chicken.'' Not only did the restaurant provide delicious meals, but it also served as a popular hangout for local student athletes, coaches, and fans. There were few, if any, high school football coaches who did not frequent the restaurant and who did not know Frankos on a first-name basis. Last year, Frankos was honored by the Warren City Council for 50 years of business excellence in the town. In addition to his business endeavors, Frankos also served on the Warren City School Board for 12 years. Frankos was notable for his strong support of high school athletics and for his determination to provide local youth with proper athletic facilities. In particular, Frankos was instrumental in securing support for the construction of a new press box at Warren's Mollenkopf Stadium and for the replacement of part of the stadium's seating area. These improvements serve as a remembrance of the staunch support Frankos gave to Warren high school athletics throughout his life. Madam Speaker, when ``Uncle Nick'' Frankos passed away on May 22 at the age of 82, the community of Warren, Ohio lost more than just a businessman. Many local athletes, coaches, and fans lost a friend. The Warren School Board lost a tireless advocate, and the city of Warren lost a dedicated and caring public servant. Most importantly, the area's youth lost a devoted mentor and role model. It is for his contribution to the youth of Warren, Ohio that ``Uncle Nick'' Frankos should be remembered.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I cannot let that go unanswered. We are not promoting abortion. We are trying to reduce the number of abortions by providing contraception. The fact of the matter is the Republican party has no plan on reducing the number of abortions, none. There is only one way to do it, and you provide contraception to poor people. That's what we are trying to do. You're right. It's not about who's getting; it's about who's not getting. There are poor women who are not getting contraception and contraceptives. We are trying to provide it. I commend what you are trying to do. We are trying to reduce number of abortions, and all the explicit details of an abortion procedure are exactly why we are trying to do this.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I just would like to end this debate to say that we all have the same goals here. We all want to reduce the number of abortions. Nobody wants to celebrate it. I'm a pro-life Democrat. I voted for the ban on partial-birth abortion and I'm proud of my vote. But we do have an honest disagreement on how we reduce the number of unintended pregnancies. And to me it is clear that if we do not provide contraception to these poor women in these poor countries, then we will have more abortions. The statistics bear this out, the facts bear this out, and that's why this amendment needs to go down and we need to pass the chairwoman's language here, because I believe that if this amendment passes, there will be more abortions, not less. And one final comment to the gentleman from New Jersey, we were not pressured to support this position. We came to this position by honestly looking at the facts. No leadership pressured us, me and Mr. Langevin and those of us who have a different voting record than some people over here. So this is our choice. Please vote down this amendment and let's reduce the number of abortions.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I thank the gentlelady. I just want to make a comment. The money will not change; there is not going be an increase or a decrease with regard to the amendment. This is about where the money is going to go, and there are 20 countries at least where we are not able to get contraceptives to women and men in these countries who need it. This is not about increase or decrease. This is about getting the money to where it needs to be. The gentleman before me stated, how can we support coercive abortions. There are many prolife Republicans and prolife Democrats who voted for trade with China, to increase investment in China. We all don't have to rehash what China does with their pro- abortion policy. So the coercive argument needs to at least be consistent. I just want to share with my friends, I am a prolife Democrat, but I believe that this will reduce the number of abortions around the world. This is the only way to do it. The example I want to share with my colleagues is Ghana, where abortion is illegal. The oldest and the largest family planning organization in Ghana previously provided a third of the contraceptives in the nation with no abortion services. It has received no U.S. assistance for family planning, which has decreased access to contraceptives by 56 percent. This has led to an increase of almost 500 abortions in Ghana because we were not providing prevention. The abortion debate in the 21st century needs to be about prevention. That is exactly what this bill does, this amendment does, and what Ms. Lowey is trying to do. I also want to share with our colleagues, because we seem to get mixed information, prevention and family planning does reduce the number of abortions. We have many countries where we have implemented this, and it has worked. In the last two decades, in the last two decades, there have been significant declines in abortion rates in a number of countries like Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Chile, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Romania, Russia and Turkey. In Russia the abortion rate declined by 61 percent between 1988 and 2001 because of an increase of 74 percent of preventive and contraceptive use. We know prevention works. If you want to reduce abortion, we need to provide the prevention. Mrs. Lowey just went to great lengths to say we are just shipping the product. This is not money; this is not funds. We are going to ship the product, and then those organizations will be able to take the money they save and buy more contraceptives, not provide abortion, especially in these countries where abortion is already illegal. I want to support the amendment from the Chair.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?