Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Who works at the White House, and the engagement, I guess, was blessed by the Greek Orthodox archbishop. How about that for off to a good start?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We said that you said these are the benchmarks, and guess what, we are going to hold you accountable for what you have said, because up to this point, you have been saying whatever you want and there has not been the kind of force of law which we passed out of here on Friday.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Is that not interesting that the soldiers we talked to, Mr. Speaker, at Walter Reed, back home, the kids that have gone, come back, gone, come back, and they are going back again, the reason you hear about why these kids want to go back and you think why would you want to go back, they want to go back because their buddies are still there. They feel like if they go back that they will be able to save their lives. The last couple of funerals I have been to with kids who were stop- loss and were supposed to come home but ended up staying longer than they probably should have and ended up not making it back, the reason they wanted to go back in the first place was to protect their friends, and that is the heroism, that is the valor, that is the nobility of the cause. That is why these kids go back. To talk about that the debate last week, and many of us did not get an opportunity to speak for a variety of different reasons, but to hear, Mr. Speaker, some people say that if we bring these kids home, somehow that is going to make us less safe here in the United States, is an appalling argument, that this administration and this Republican Congress would rubber stamp this war to go over there, and that National Intelligence Estimate has told us that this war has created more terrorists, not less. It has created terrorists, Mr. Speaker, and then now that we have thousands and thousands and thousands of more people gunning for us here, these folks have the audacity to tell us, Mr. Speaker, that somehow us bringing our kids home is going to make us less safe. Now, that, to me, is appalling and to continue that kind of disjointed logic is unacceptable to me because we have kids in our districts who are not back home. They are either in Iraq, and many of them have gotten killed under the guise of the war, and to tell us that by bringing our kids home and getting them out of a civil war is going to make us less safe does not make any sense because all of the intelligence in the whole world is saying this war in Iraq has completed the final piece of the fanaticism of the Middle East. We have given anyone who kind of wanted to join but did not really want to, they are now joining. They are now a part of everything. They are now a part of the terrorist groups. They are now a part of the terrorist organizations. They now hate the United States more than they ever have, and so I find the whole operation appalling.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Civil war.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Right up to the staff level. Mr. Speaker, we yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The sense I am getting from my district now is that this is all fine probably if everything is going okay for everyone else. But the fact that things aren't going well, people are struggling to pay for their health care and college tuition. They are living paycheck to paycheck, bankruptcies are up, foreclosures, and kids are getting killed because of an administration that has been less than forthright with the facts. I think that is what is stirring among the American people. That is what happened in the election in November; and I think quite frankly the key to moving the kind of agenda we want to move here is going to be organize and tap that energy that is back home in a lot of our districts. Unless we do that, we are going to struggle. But I think we have the wind at our back. We have the American people at our back. They like what we are doing. There are good responses from the bill we passed on Friday. We have got to get out of Iraq, and this President does not have the credibility to I think withstand the kind of pressure that is coming from the American people. The American people want out. They are tired of watching what is happening. Five more soldiers got killed, more kids maimed, more kids injured, more kids at Walter Reed, more kids go into a VA system that is less than adequate, and the American people are looking for the kind of changes that you have talked about, Congressman Meek has talked about. The bottom line I think is this, and whether you are talking about the war or anything else. For the war, it is like, well, there is only two options here. We either go down the road the President has taken us down and keep going or we have this alternative that we presented to get us out in the next year, hopefully earlier. An alternative to not going with our proposition is to continue to give the President a blank check, continue to have kids get killed, continue to not have a plan with absolutely no explanation as to what we are doing over there. No one even knows anymore. To go along with the President's budget means that as we look through our notes here and the research we did, 1 million children who are currently covered under the SCHIP program will get cut out of it. Our plan, invest $50 billion to cover millions of children who are currently uninsured. Which way do you want to go? I mean, this is not brain surgery. The President wants to continue to give tax cuts to the top 1 percent. We want to cover kids with health care, without raising taxes. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Speaker, but this Congress wants to add up to $50 billion to cover $50 million of new children on the State Children's Health Insurance Program. We want to get the Pell grant up to at least $4,600 and we reject the President's proposals for cuts. Now, imagine the leadership in the United States of America in 2007, Mr. Speaker, 2007 where he is going to say we want to not fund Pell Grants, we want to not fund children's health insurance and we want to continue to spend $2 billion a week in Iraq.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I want to thank Father McCarthy for your inspiring prayer. Albert Einstein once said that ``Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.'' And for almost 46 years Father Tom McCarthy has served the Diocese of Youngstown as a priest, and in that service he has lived that motto. A Warren native, Father McCarthy attended St. Mary's School and St. Mary's High School, which was the predecessor to my alma mater, John F. Kennedy High School. After his seminary training, he was ordained on August 15, 1961 in St. Columba Cathedral by Bishop Emmet Walsh. Those who know him would describe Father McCarthy as pastoral, charming, gregarious, a great friend, funny, everything Irish, and above all, holy in his service to God. Father McCarthy has served at many parishes in the Youngstown Diocese, including St. Ed's in Youngstown, St. Joseph's in Austintown, St. William's in Champion, St. Michael's in Canfield, Blessed Sacrament in Warren and St. Joseph's in Mantua. Father McCarthy has also spent much of his career in service to other priests. He has served as Diocesan Director of Vocations, Priest Personnel Adviser, a member of the Priest Personnel Board, and for 6 years served as a director of that board. Father McCarthy also spent time in Chicago as president of the National Federation of Priests' Councils. Since 2003, he has served as the Bishop's Delegate for Retired Priests. I am happy to have invited, along with my colleague, Charlie Wilson, Father McCarthy to Washington, D.C. I thank him for his service to our community, for his prayer this morning, and for his many, many years of service to the Catholic Church.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Because I have to take off a few minutes early, and I want to go through real quick, I want to talk about what these folks who say they are going to vote against this bill, what they are voting against from the veterans' standpoint, okay. Now, these are folks who consistently say, Mr. Speaker, we support the troops, work for the troops. We have got to get the troops back. I think we all believe that, but there will be an opportunity on Thursday to really put your voting card where all the rhetoric is. Defense health care, we add $1.7 billion of an increase to the President's request. Here is what you are voting against if you vote against the supplemental. You are voting against an additional $450 million for post-traumatic stress disorder and counseling. You are going to vote against $450 million for traumatic brain injury care and research, and if you have been to Walter Reed, as we all have, you will see unbelievable brain injuries. You will be voting against $730 million to prevent health care fee increases for our troops. You are going to vote against $20 million to address the problem at Walter Reed, and you are going to vote against $14.8 million for burn care. Now, that is just defense health care. Now veterans health care. Now, we have got to support these veterans coming back; an additional $1.7 billion above the President's request for veterans health care. If you vote against this supplemental, here is what you are voting against. You are voting against $550 million to address the backlog in maintaining VA health care facilities. You will vote against $250 million for medical administration to ensure there is sufficient personnel to support the growing number of Iraqi and Afghanistan troops coming back. That was the major problem at Walter Reed because of the contracting issue, because some people had to make some money on the deal; $229 million for treating the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. It is a growing number, $100 million for contract mental health care and $62 million to help speed up the process. Now, there are other things in here. We are going to talk about readiness. But if you vote against this, that is what you are voting against. I would hate to see the political commercials that may be run if you are on the other end of this thing. I mean, that is just, I wouldn't want to be in that position, but that is what is in the bill. So rhetoric is rhetoric, action is action, and it is $1.7 billion more for defense health care, $1.7 billion more for veterans health care.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The President has to deal with Congress now, and what is in this bill I think holds the President accountable. This bill does not just hold the Iraqis accountable, but it holds the President accountable. The benchmarks that are in this supplement that we are going to pass are the President's benchmarks that he outlined in January that we need to hit. Now, if we do not hit them, then what do we do? The President says, do not tie my hands. We are saying, these are your benchmarks. We have been there for a long time, and if they do not step up, the Iraqi troops do not step up, it is time for us to go. The bottom line is that there is no incentive for the Iraqis to step up because at this point they feel like we will stay there forever, and we are saying that we are not going to be there forever; get your act together.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Those just happened.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are all important.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is right, and now all our friends on the other side are saying, you cannot possibly set a deadline, you cannot possibly tie the President's hands. Very interesting when you go back and do a little research. In June of 1997, when our troops were on their way to Bosnia under President Clinton, House Republicans brought to the floor an amendment that would, guess what, set a timeline and a date certain for withdrawal from the U.S. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, a mission that was only 18 months old. So all of the Republicans who say that we cannot possibly be for a timeline were for a timeline 10 years ago in Bosnia. Now, our friend from Indiana Mr. Buyer, who we had a nice debate with over the resolution a few weeks ago, offered an amendment that by December 15, 1997, President Clinton was required to report to Congress on political and military conditions in Bosnia. By June 30 of 1998, all troops had to be withdrawn. That was an amendment that the now-ranking member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs offered in 1997, and you will never guess all of the Republicans, members of leadership today, who voted for that amendment, and now all of the sudden they are saying, you cannot possibly be for a timeline or a date certain, and on and on and on. We will continue to go through this debate. This will be the debate the next couple of weeks, but the Republicans in 1997, some of the top leaders in Congress today, supported a date certain that we would come out of Bosnia, withdraw the troops, and that was only 18 months into Bosnia and only $7 billion, and here we are today, 48 months, $379 billion, and over 3,200 American lives.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is right.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Thursday it passed out of committee.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are saying basically and General Petraeus is saying this. Now they are saying that we are going to need until summer to figure out whether or not the surge is working. In our bill that we are passing, that we are going to pass on Thursday, it says by July 1, which is the summer, that if by July 1 there is no progress being made, that we immediately begin to withdraw our troops down in 180 days; and if by October 1 the President does not certify that the benchmarks that he came up with are met, we begin to get out of there; and at the absolute latest, we start withdrawing March of next year and have everybody home by August of 2008. Here is what I want to say, because here is the big argument that we had. We are saying that there are benchmarks that they need to meet, and if they do not meet them, they are deadlines, and we are coming home. What we are hearing from the other side is that you cannot have benchmarks, you cannot possibly have any benchmarks, you cannot tie the President's hands. Well, actually, it is funny.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate it, and no more important than the Ways and Means Committee, of which you serve on, and all your hard work over the past 4 years in the United States Congress, previous to that in the Florida Senate, previous to that in the Florida House, following in your mom's footsteps, who was also an appropriator in the United States Congress. So it is an honor to follow in her footsteps. I think there is a couple of very important points that we want to make in regards to this bill that we have before us on Thursday. It passed out of the Appropriations Committee last Thursday, and this, in essence, in fact, in reality, is the piece of legislation that will help change the course of our Iraq policy. The President has had free rein for the past 5 years from a Republican Congress that just went along with everything that he wanted to do, and I found it funny this weekend, as we were watching some of the weekend shows, and I was watching Meet the Press and former Congressman Tom DeLay was on, Richard Perle, one of the top, President's top defense advisers was on, and they were arguing that if we pull out of Iraq, that somehow the sky's going to fall, okay, and that this whole thing, that Iraq is going to turn into a catastrophe, and it is going to fall apart; it is going to spin out of control. I just could not help but to think that these people, Mr. Speaker, have absolutely no credibility to comment on what is going on in Iraq. They can talk and they can say what they need to say, but the bottom line is they have expressed their opinion over the past 5 years, and it is difficult to find any statements that they have made that have been either factual or predictions that they have made that came true. I want to say a couple of things about this bill that we are going to pass.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I look forward to the old team being back down here. And I just want to continue as to what we are doing to try to fix this problem. As I said, with the benchmarks and making sure the Iraqi soldiers stand up, but a key component of this, as Ms. Wasserman Schultz has just mentioned is that we are saying that our troops can't leave here, the United States, and go to Iraq if they don't have the requisite level of equipment and training. And I don't think there is anybody in the country who would want to send one of our soldiers or lots of our soldiers off to war knowing, and the legal term is mense rea, you know, with intent, send kids that don't have the proper equipment and training. And the training part is something that Ms. Wasserman Schultz was just talking about. We have a readiness crisis in the Army. We are not capable now of handling another situation, military situation. Now, I think if you would ask the American people are we overstretched, they would all say yes. And if you talk to the military families, they say, yes, we are overstretched to the point where we have kids in battle who don't have everything that they need. And that is unacceptable. And so in our supplemental bill, we are saying that if you don't have the training and the equipment and the proper amount of rest, you are not going. Now, we put a waiver in there so that the President could waive it if there is a national security interest involved. But we don't like it. I know I don't like it. I shouldn't speak on behalf of everybody. But the bottom line is, the President is the President. He is the Commander in Chief. He won the election in 2004. So we are left to deal with the situation. And if you look at some of the polling in the country, 76 percent of Americans favor requiring U.S. troops returning from Iraq to have at least 1 year in the U.S. before being redeployed. That is a Gallup poll. Seventy-seven percent favor requiring U.S. troops to come home from Iraq if Iraq's leaders fail to meet promises to reduce violence there. And 76 percent of the American people don't think the Bush administration has done everything they could reasonably be expected to do to care for the needs and problems of veterans. But the bottom line is the American people want accountability, and the American people want to change course. You don't see the kind of tidal wave election that we had in November without a message that comes with it. And the message is, we need to change direction. And the Iraq supplemental bill that passed out of the Appropriations Committee today and will pass off the floor next week is that change in direction. Is it everything all of us want? No. Are there things in there that we don't like? Yes. But we have to change direction in this war. It is not going well. And you talk to the families and, you know, as a Member of Congress, I have made the phone calls, other Members of Congress have made the phone calls to parents. We have been to the funerals, and it is not good. And quite frankly, I don't want to go to any more. But I found out yesterday that I have got to go to another one. This war has got to end, and it has got to stop. And what we are doing is the quickest way for us to go about bringing a reasonable, thoughtful end to this war, and that means getting our troops out of the middle of a civil war in Iraq. There are only 2,000 al Qaeda members in Iraq. The war on terrorism needs to move back to Afghanistan, the country that harbored Osama bin Laden. And in this bill there is 1.2 billion additional dollars from the President's request to focus back on Afghanistan, because now Afghanistan, we are starting to lose our way in Afghanistan now because of the lack of focus. So I think it is very important that the American people recognize what is in this bill. There are benchmarks there that the Iraqis need to meet. And if they don't begin to meet them and show some progress, we start moving out. We have had 4 years for them to get their stuff together. And for whatever reason, they haven't. And think, contrary to what some of my friends on the other side have been saying, and the President has said, and people who have kids and everything realize this, this is very basic, that the President is saying, well, if you give them a benchmark, then they are just going to wait us out, and then we leave, and then they will take over, like everything is great right now, and then it will get bad. But it is bad right now. What we are saying is if we communicate to the Iraqis that we are going to stay there indefinitely, then they will never get their stuff together because they are always relying on us. And what we are saying is, we are not going to be there indefinitely; you better start getting along with each other. And I hate even saying that because I didn't want this war to happen in the first place. Now we broke them and now we are saying, get your stuff together. But the bottom line is this, we are where we are, and they need to get together. And the political and religious factions need to get together. And if they don't, we need to leave. And if they do, we need to leave. I think we have spent enough money, 400, going to be $500 billion in Iraq. $500 billion. And 3,100-plus lives, 20-some thousand soldiers who have been amputees, brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder. Enough is enough. Enough is enough. It is time to bring this war to an end. And that is what our supplemental ultimately does. And so, in closing, I would just like to say, Madam Speaker, that the last 3 weeks we have had hearings in our Labor, Health and Education Subcommittee, and we have had great people testifying on health care in the United States, education in the United States, very interesting stuff. But there are two things that have really hit home to me as I was sitting through these committees with all these experts. And we had the education experts saying to us that this may be the first generation of Americans who will not have the standard of living or improved standard of living, compared to that of their parents. That was one hearing. And then the next hearing came in and it was the health care experts. And the health care experts were saying that this generation may be the first generation of Americans that do not exceed the life expectancy level of their parents because of the crisis that we are having in health and obesity in the United States. Literally, your parents may, if you are a kid, your parents may live longer than you live. First time. And when you look at the money that we are spending to destroy and to kill, as opposed to the money that we spend to create and to build up, it is tragic. It is tragic. And I hate voting for this stuff, but we have to because we have got to get out of there. But the bottom line is this, we are spending hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars, and the Head Start program that helps kids get off the ground is being cut by $100 million in the President's budget. We are going to fix that. That is not going to end up that way. But when you look at we are spending hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars and flatlining funding on programs like Gear Up and TRIO that help young kids get into colleges and that we are not covering enough kids with children's health care, I hope we all remember this when we get through this war and it is time to make the proper investments in our country. We only have 300 million people in this country. China has 1.3 billion. India has 1 billion. We need everybody on the field playing for us. Let's put this war to an end. Let's bring our kids home with dignity, and make sure that when they get home these veterans have the proper health care that they need and that they deserve, and then let's start making some investments into this country so that we can be the best that we can possibly be. Madam Speaker, you can e-mail us at 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov, or visit us at www.speaker.gov/30something and comment. All of the charts that were seen here are on display on the Web site. And with that, we conclude our 30-something for the week, and we will see you next week.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman will yield, there is no better way to support the troops than this supplemental bill that just passed out of our committee, and it will be on this floor next week. If you want to talk about sling-shotting the troops in, what we have done, and the Democratic leadership, and Mr. Murtha, Mr. Obey has been absolutely phenomenal as to what we have been able to do; $1.7 billion more than the President's request for defense health care. I don't know how you could vote against us; $450 million for post-traumatic stress disorder; $450 million for traumatic brain injury care and research; $730 million to prevent health care fee increase for our troops; $20 million to address problems at Walter Reed, and almost $15 million for burn care; another $1.7 billion in addition to the President's request for veterans health care, $550 million to address the backlog in maintaining VA health care facilities, which has been a huge problem; $250 million for medical administration to ensure sufficient personnel to support the growing number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are coming back so that they can have the level of service that they need. Now it's one thing to say you support the troops and then you turn around and you vote against a bill that has $4- or $5 billion in it to support the veterans and the troops coming back. It seems quite apparent to me that this is something that we need to do. Believe me, nobody wants to get out of war faster than me. I want to be out this afternoon, tomorrow morning. Let's come back. This has been foolish to begin with, but there is a certain reality on logistical needs and diversity in the country of how we should do this. So what we have done today was create a real framework for our kids to come back home, to let the Iraqis stand up, and put these benchmarks. I just want to talk for a minute about what these benchmarks are. Some people say, well, you are tying the President's hands, you are trying to micromanage more. We are not. That is not true. The facts of the matter are these, the President and the Pentagon have benchmarks. So how many Iraqi troops need to be trained, what does the political situation need to look like? Have they achieved their political and military benchmarks that have been set by the President? All we are saying is that you have to show some progress towards those benchmarks by July. Now, granted, we have already been in this war longer than we were in World War II. So by July you better show some progress as to meeting the benchmarks. If you are not showing progress, we will begin to redeploy out. But if by July you are showing some progress, you will then have until October to actually meet the benchmarks. If you don't meet them by October, we redeploy. If you do meet them by October, we redeploy, because you have met the benchmarks. This is just bringing this war to a reasonable end. What we have done today, I think the end is in sight.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The thing is, this has been going on for a long time, and it's not until now where the threat of oversight looms, like impending danger.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The Attorney General's office, with all these problems, let's think about the role and the mission of the Attorney General's office in the post-9/11 era. We now have Senators calling the current Attorney General not up to the job, I think was the phrase, he is not up to the job, and the other comments that those folks have made.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If I can make a point.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That just happened. And it is funny how the chiefs of staff are dropping like flies, first the Vice President's, and now the Attorney General's.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think we have gotten through that.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I didn't get invited to the White House.