Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. www.housedemocrates.gov/30something. All of the charts that folks see here tonight, Mr. Speaker, can be accessed on this website. www.housedemocrats.gov/30something.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, I just want to say what we are spending our money on, instead of spending it on the Pell Grants, this is what we are spending it on, just the interest on the debt that we have been talking about, and this is what we are spending on education. We have got to balance the budget, implement these PAYGO rules that say that you are not going to spend any money in this government unless you know how to pay for it. And you are not going to go out and borrow it. We tried to do it with H. Con. Res. 95, couldn't do it. Zero Republicans voted to put PAYGO rules on to reign in spending. We tried it again with roll call vote Number 91 on March 25 of 2004. Dennis Miller tried to do it in Kansas. Charlie Stenholm tried to do it. Democrats have tried to reign in spending here in the United States Congress by putting these PAYGO rules in, Mr. Meek, by putting these rules in. And no Republican, ladies and gentlemen, we had a huge vote today and the Republicans kept talking about we are reigning in spending. Baloney. We have tried to put these restraints on time and time again and no Republican, not one, tried to implement these rules. I yield to my friend from Florida.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The point I want to make is one that we have made many, many times here, is that this outfit, on the other side of the aisle, has for the last 14 or 16 years run down government. The only problem in society is government. And so, when it comes to Katrina or comes to a war and you actually need government or education, you actually need government to work on behalf of the American people, all of a sudden it doesn't work. And it doesn't work because you have disrespected it for the last 14 or 16 years. You have appointed people to positions that are not qualified to actually run it. And I think what we see here, with the Defense Department and Secretary Rumsfeld and the Pentagon and the way they have executed the war has been atrocious. Katrina, you have people who are not qualified to run the emergency management system in the country. And you get the kind of results that you have talked about. You get what you think about it. If you have a good attitude about things, good things will happen. Run it down, you get crap. And that is basically what has happened. I yield to my friend.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Can I make a point?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think that we are starting to see, every single day in the news, and we don't need to bring up all the different topics, but every single day over the course of the last couple of years, we have seen the dismantling of the credibility of the Republican majority. The party that came in saying they were going to balance the budget, gone. The party that came in and said they were in charge of real security in the United States, gone. Smuggling in nuclear material. The party that said that they were going to get the economy up and moving hasn't happened. All of the promises pre-war, none have happened. None. The party that said America first, well, Mr. Meek, you have the beautiful poster, beautiful in the sense that it illustrates the point of where this Republican Congress is borrowing their money from. That is not America first. That is not taking care of home. I mean, we have got to get back to the basics. And so every single day this Republican majority and this President are getting dismantled day by day by day in news accounts from people who work, underlings who have diminished the credibility of this administration. They have Republican generals coming out talking about how this has been such a foolhardy effort, and how the execution of the war has been an atrocity, how Katrina just fell apart right before the country's eyes on all of the cable news channels and on the network news channels. And now, my friend, we have the father of the Republican revolution. I yield to my friend to talk about that because this it is one thing for Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Tim Ryan from Ohio, Mr. Meek from Florida, it is one thing for us to be critical. It is not just us. I yield to my friend.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Just save the transactional cost.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate that, and I wish the Republican majority would start putting the country before their own political interests. It seems that time and time again they have chosen the loyalty to their own party. We have got a nice third party validator here. The former Republican Director of the Congressional Budget Office, who was talking about the borrow and spend Republican Congress, he said, Budgeting is about making choices, and this period the Bush presidency and Republican Congress is one that shows a complete absence of that. They do not have to make any choices. Why? You get the credit card out. But let us take your analogy one step further. You have got the credit card. You are going to Europe, but you are living paycheck to paycheck. Who ultimately suffers in that little family scenario there? The kids. Because there will not be money for education. There will not be money for the health care bill, and they will become a burden on the rest of society. All the way down the line the ripple effect goes. And as Mr. Meek and Ms. Wasserman Schultz were saying earlier, this is what they are doing. They have increased the debt limit in the United States by $3 trillion, trillion with a big fat ``t.'' In June of 2002, May of 2003, November of 2004, March of 2006, total over $3 trillion, this Congress raised the debt ceiling that would allow the Secretary of Treasury to go out and borrow money from all the countries that Mr. Meek showed. Time and time and time again. I just want to reiterate the point that Ms. Wasserman Schultz made, and that point is this: The Democrats, whether it is port security or pay-as-you-go, time and time again we tried to restrain, pull in this Republican Congress, get yourselves under control. And I know, Mr. Rothman, you were probably in the committee when these amendments were being offered time and time again by Mr. Obey, not once but twice, by Mr. Spratt and the Budget Committee, by Charlie Stenholm when he was here. The Democratic Party was trying to say if you are going to raise the debt limit, you had better put some restraints on the runaway spending that these Republicans have gotten into a very bad habit of doing over the past 4 or 5 years. This is ridiculous. We are sacrificing the future of the United States of America, selling it off piece by piece, diminishing opportunity for our kids and our grandkids, and at the same time just spending money like it does not matter. Let us be responsible in the United States Congress, Mr. Meek. Mr. Speaker, let us be responsible here. We have a solemn oath that we swear to when we come into this Congress. One of the great honors is to be in this Chamber. Only 10,000 people have actually served in this body. Let us take the responsibility seriously. And one final point, like Mr. Meek said, we have a responsibility. And people may grumble when we walk by them in the hall, and they may look at us a little cross eyed because we come down here every night, but we have an obligation to the American people. And if we have got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, then so be it. And I have a lot of respect for the people on the other side of the aisle, and many of them are our friends, but we have legitimate differences here. And I would say this to my friends, Mr. Speaker: You have borrowed $3 trillion from foreign interests, raised the debt ceiling, cut funding for education, and you gave tax cuts to people who make $10 million a year. You have given them $1 million back. Do you expect us to sit up in our office and go to the little refrigerator and get out a Diet Dr. Pepper and a bag of Cheetos and just sit there and watch VH-1 in our office? No, we are not going to do it. We are going to keep coming down here until the American people get the message.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Can I intervene here for one second because I am thrilled with everything that is happening here. But I came down here to listen to Mr. Delahunt a little bit.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I think the gentleman makes a great point. America is not the only country with really, really rich people. There are wealthy people in every country. The difference in America is that we had a strong, vibrant, energetic middle-class of people who worked as of last night on the third shift at the GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio. That is what makes America America, and that resolve to go back and say we want everybody on board here, at least to have the opportunity; not to give the top 10 million people who make $10 million a year a tax cut, $1 million back, but to create that middle-class again and the economic environment that would do it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I want to do one-third party final validator. The former speaker the House, Mr. Gingrich, the leader of the Republican Revolution in '94. He said the Republicans, they are seen by the country as being in charge of a government that can't function. As my friend from Florida so eloquently put it earlier today on the House floor, it is scary when the head of the Republican Revolution is referring to his friends on the other side of the aisle as ``they.'' I think that is a tremendous point. Www.housedemocrats.gov/30something, Madam Speaker. Www.housedemocrats.gov/30something for e-mails that folks may want to send to us. All these charts that were available here tonight, Madam Speaker, are available on this website. I thank everyone for the vigorous discussion.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We have to talk to this guy. I just want to make a point because I am for tax cuts if they go to the right people, if they go to the middle class. I couldn't believe we had other people citing this, but today in the New York Times an analysis finally came out that talked about the 2003 tax cut. What this says is that among taxpayers with incomes greater than $10 million annually, their investment tax bill, just for the investments that they made, was reduced by $500,000 so they got $500,000 back, less in taxes, and total savings for someone who made $10 million a year was $1 million from the Bush tax cuts and the Republican bobble-head Congress who said yes, Mr. President, deficits do not matter. We can borrow from foreign countries to foot the bill for this. We don't have money to give a guy or woman who makes $10 million a year, we do not have the money to give them a million dollars back. We had to go out and borrow that million dollars.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I just want to point this out. This is publicly held debt. Tax cuts are given to a fellow, a woman who makes $10 million a year giving a million dollars back in taxes. We do not have it so what do we do, we go out and borrow it. This is the publicly held debt by China. It had quadrupled under President Bush. In 2000 it was $62 billion. In 2005 it was $257 billion. We are borrowing money from the Chinese to give a person in America who makes $10 million a year $1 million in a tax cut. Now somebody come down here and explain how that is a good thing for our country because the money that they get, that $1 million, they are not investing it in Delphi stock. They are not investing it in General Motors stock, they are not investing it into the United States of America. They are investing it in China.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. About 6:30, 7:00 this morning my e-mail goes off. I pick it up. The third shift at a General Motors plant that I have in Lordstown, Ohio, the third shift is being eliminated, and 1,200 United Auto workers, nothing is official, but the third shift is being eliminated and 1,200 people will be out of work. Those are average people in the United States of America that are making $60,000 or $70,000 a year, paying taxes and trying to send their kids to school and we are giving a person who makes $10 million a year a $1 million tax cut. That makes no sense to anybody except the Republican majority.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, as Mr. Kucinich said earlier, we are continuing our Delphi E-hearing here, which we are going to share with the House of Representatives and the American people, stories that have come from families who are being affected by the shake-up in the auto industry in the United States of America. I come from a district in Northeast Ohio, Youngstown, Akron, Warren, home of the original Packard car, the original Packard Electric Company. I would like to share a few stories and make a few comments, Mr. Speaker, because today not only do we have a concentration of Delphi employees in my district, today the local General Motors plant that has been in Lordstown, Ohio since the late 1960s, there was an announcement that 1,200 third shift employees would no longer be working at that facility, and it is tragic news for many, many families. And so we want to bring attention to the United States Congress and to the American people about the communities that are being affected and how the policies here under the big dome aren't exactly addressing the needs. Let me share with you, Mr. Speaker, a couple of stories from back home. This is a letter. First of all, thank you for letting me voice my opinion. I hope someone will actually read this. I was hired in at GM, Lordstown, in January of 1971, with the negotiated promise that if I came to work for General Motors, I could retire after 30 years of service. It was always said as GM goes, so goes the country. ``And I challenge all of you to look back and think of when you were young and innocent. My God, what has happened to the USA? You have the chance to stop this injustice, this rape of the American worker in its tracks. I pray that God give you the courage and wisdom to do the right thing. And isn't that what it is all about, doing the right thing? God help us all.'' That is Stephen P. Medici in Lordstown, Ohio. This is William Ruppel in Cortland, Ohio. ``I was in the infantry in Vietnam in 1968. After going to college for a while, I was hired at Delphi Packard Electric in September of 1973. After working there for a while, we agreed in one of our contracts to an attrition. For every three people who retired, the company only had to replace one. This was to help the company's costs and to afford a decent wage. Next came the movement to Mexico. The jobs would first come to us. We would work out the kinks, and then off to Mexico they would go. Delphi, Packard Electric's 146,000 employees working for them outside the U.S. is just about exactly how many troops we have fighting in Iraq. Who is more important? Are these men and women who are supposedly fighting for democracy and fairness going to have their wages cut 60 percent, health care and pensions cut, or maybe have no job at all? I was in the infantry in Vietnam in 1968 and I support and sympathize with these brave people. Do the rich ever get rich enough?'' ``I just read where Delphi wants an extension on the reorganizations,'' said Charlie Stowe from Warren, Ohio. ``This is not fair. I want a 30-year extension on my pension.'' ``With no support,'' this is Jean Wooler. ``I have worked for Delphi Packard Electric for 38 years. It has allowed me to live a good middle class life and to raise my daughter with no support from her father. My daughter is now 21 and in college. I do not live lavishly. I have a 3- bedroom ranch and a nice car. I don't dress extravagantly. I live paycheck to paycheck as a single mother on the wages that I may make.'' Mr. Speaker, in closing, let me just say that data has come out now that the Bush tax cut has lowered the tax burden on the richest people in this country. If you made $10 million a year in 2003, you got $1 million back, Mr. Speaker, from the Bush tax cut. And if your average income in this country was $26 million, you paid the same share in taxes as someone that made $200,000. We need changes, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for 5 minutes.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, the father of the Republican revolution is now saying it has turned into a Republican devolution, with $3 trillion in increased debt since President Bush has been President. This Nation owes $8 trillion-plus, with $27,000 per citizen that they owe back just for the national debt. And this money is being borrowed from foreign interests, the Japanese, the Chinese, and OPEC countries. We are selling off our country piece by piece, Madam Speaker. Borrow and spend, borrow and spend, borrow and spend. This President, with the Republican bobblehead Congress that just can't say no to the President, has borrowed more money from foreign interests than every previous President. Madam Speaker, that is an atrocity. That is an assault on the American people. The father of the Republican revolution says it has turned into a devolution and that this government cannot function. Madam Speaker, it is time for new leadership. It is time for the Democrats to take charge of this House.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Who is with them?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is about $16,000 a year even if it was adjusted accordingly; right? Eight bucks is about $16,000 a year.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I am offended that they are not offended. That offends me that they are not offended offended.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This is Bush's Congress. This is President Bush's Congress.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We have got to get past the rhetoric. Let's get past the words. Words, words, words, no substance.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Can I interrupt here? It's tough to tell that she is a Gators fan tonight, isn't it?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. What isn't it?