Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Thank you, my friend. One quick piece of business that has been mentioned several times here today is the countdown to the Bush prescription drug tax. Now, for those Members who do not remember, the Republican Congress voted this boondoggle a few months back, told us it was $400 billion before we cast a vote on it, and it ended up being $700 billion. The real number was actually hidden from Members of the United States Congress before they voted. What happens is through this bill seniors have until May 15 to sign up for the prescription drug plan, and if they do not sign up by May 15, they are going to be penalized with the Bush prescription drug tax, which means that there will be an increase in monthly premiums by 1 percent for every month they do not sign up. So if they do not sign up by May 15, they will not be eligible to sign up, I think, until January of 2007 to begin again. That means there will be a 7 percent increase if seniors do not sign up by May 15. This is a complex plan, a complicated plan; and we are rushing and forcing our seniors to make a decision. So we just want to put a little X here on Thursday, March 30, a couple days before the Final Four begins, so our seniors know that the countdown is on and they have several weeks before this President will levy a tax on them.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Just like you get your food, just like you get the toys that shipped to the local store that you are going to buy, same thing. Those all come in through the ports. Now, here is what is interesting, Mr. Speaker. And I think this is something that really makes your ears perk up when you hear about this. On March 28, just a day or so ago, Senators said that a report, this is from Bloomberg News, Senators said a report that investigators smuggled enough radioactive material to build two dirty bombs into the United States called into question the Bush administration's efforts to secure the borders. Now, check this out. A sting operation that was described in one of three Government Accountability Office reports, now this is the GAO, this is not a partisan deal, said, they released a report. The report accused the Bush administration of being slow to deploy equipment that would detect radioactive materials, and they say corrupt foreign border officials and poor maintenance of detection devices have left the U.S. vulnerable to terror plots. Enough material for two dirty bombs to go off in the United States was snuck in by, you know, through a sting operation that we were trying to figure out what is going on. We are not doing enough. Now, third-party validator, which the 30-somethings like to promote. We don't want this to be all our opinion here. This is from a retired Coast Guard commander who is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He says: ``Both the opportunity for terrorists to target legitimate global supply chains remain plentiful, and the motivation for doing so is only growing. We are living on borrowed time.'' We are not here to scare anybody, but the reality is, when you only check 5 percent of the cargo coming into the country, and your own folks are sneaking in enough nuclear material to set off two dirty bombs, and we are giving tax cuts to billionaires and not funding port security, when we are giving $12 billion in corporate welfare to the oil companies, when we are giving billions in corporate welfare to the health care industry, and we are not funding our national security priorities, when we are spending a billion and a half in Iraq a week, and $9 billion of it no one can find, and we have these kinds of situations, we have an obligation. When we come here the first part of every second year and we swear our allegiance to the United States and the Constitution and everything else, we have an obligation to oversee what is going on. So we have an obligation to come down here and be critical of things like this and provide solutions, which we have time and time again. Now, President Bush's Congress has not taken any of our recommendations, and they are up for a job review in November; and I hope that the American people, Mr. Speaker, take a good look at what has happened over the past 4 or 5 years and hope that our plan on real security, which you can find on our Web page, housedemocrats.gov, you can get the whole deal and you can see our comprehensive plan to try to do this. You can also check out our plan on innovation, how to get the country moving economically again. Periodically, we will have unveilings of different ideas that we have. But we have tried on port security. We have tried on PAYGO. We have tried on school funding and we continue to get shot down by President Bush's Congress. So we have got the plan; we just need the opportunity to implement it. For Members who are in their offices and would like to send us e-mails or anyone else, www.housedemocrats.gov/30something. All the charts that were here that we used will all be on the Web site so you can go back and reference them all. Yield to my friend.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Prevention.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I hope you guys pull it off. Since there is no Ohio team, with a good conscience I can root for Florida.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Before we go, I know you have a Florida team in the Final Four this weekend, and I want to wish you the best of luck.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is a great point, and I thank the gentleman. So, in this Congress, the Democrats have tried to reimplement this pay-as-you-go system because Bush's Congress, Bush's House, Bush's Senate, President Bush, they got rid of the PAYGO requirements. They said we did not need them anymore, and the Democrats, time and time, you know, we hear a lot about, well, what is the Democrats' plan? This is the Democratic plan: We want to implement PAYGO rules back into the United States Congress to rein in this spending. John Spratt from South Carolina, our ranking Democratic member on the Budget Committee, tried to put a substitute amendment in on the 2006 budget resolution, and that amendment failed. Zero Republicans voted to reimplement the PAYGO rules. We tried again with another Spratt substitute amendment, H. Con. Res. 393. I am not making this up. This happened. It is in the Congressional Record, Mr. Speaker. The Members can go and look and check it out. It failed 194-232. Zero Republicans voted to reimplement the PAYGO rules. Mr. Thompson from California tried; Mr. Stenholm, a former Member from Texas, he tried. Mr. Moore from Kansas, he tried. We have been trying to implement fiscal restraint on Bush's Congress, and they refuse to accept it time and time again. Now, the funny part about it, and not really funny ha-ha, just funny peculiar, is that this is the same outfit that campaigned in 1994, Mr. Speaker, that they were going to pass a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution. They wanted to enshrine balanced budgets into the U.S. Constitution and make a constitutional amendment. Now, 12 years later, they are the most fiscally irresponsible group that has run the show in the United States Congress. Time and time again, when Democrats have tried to rein in spending, we keep butting our heads up against the Republican majority, President Bush's bobblehead Congress that just continues to say ``yes'' to every single thing that they do. I remember, too, my good friend from Florida, time and time again we heard about how government needs to be run like a business. And you know what, put me in. Sign me up. I agree. I think it should be run like a business. But when you apply this scenario to a business model, we are the board of directors, the United States Congress, and the majority in particular. The President is the CEO. So if the CEO keeps going back to the board to say, hey, we want to go borrow more money, the board should at least ask some questions, like, Where are you spending it? And when you hear where they are spending it, in Iraq a $1.5 billion a week, and then Halliburton, who is getting the contracts in Iraq, is inflating prices and has been fined already for inflating prices, basically bilking the taxpayer, Mr. Speaker, is what that is called in laymen's terms; yet there is no oversight. Where is the $9 billion dollars in Iraq. Where is it? You got it. No, I don't. You don't have it? He's got it. Wait a minute, I don't have it. Nobody knows where it is, $9 billion. This is not an operation that is being run like a business, especially in Iraq. Then we look at what happened when Katrina hit. That operation, FEMA, was certainly not run like a business, because you don't put a horse lawyer in charge of an emergency management operation. That is the bottom line. You put people in who will respect the operation and respect what needs to be done. So if all this is happening, we've got to make some changes. And if it is General Motors, the American people do not have a vote as to who is on the board or who is the CEO of the company. But, fortunately, my friend, in the United States of America, the American people have the opportunity to pick a new board, and in November of 2006 the American people are going to have an opportunity to pick a new board.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. From a security perspective, we need to be tough; we need to be smart. We need to have our act together, and we have a comprehensive plan. You know, these bumper-sticker solutions to complex world problems do not work. They just do not work. They have gotten us into the situation we are in now. If you look at the plan that the Democrats have, we talk about 100 percent of the ports. Right now, we are only inspecting 5 percent of the ports here. The Democrats have tried. Let us get those charts out about all of the amendments we have offered to try to increase funding for port security. We only check 5 percent of the cargo coming into the United States ports. That means 95 percent is not checked at all because of the failed leadership on behalf of President Bush's Congress. What have the Democrats tried to do? Some people ask: What are the Democrats doing? Here is what we are doing. In June of 2004, Mr. Obey tried to put on an amendment right here in Congress to increase port and container security by $400 million; Republicans refused to even allow a vote. That was for $400 million, and we need $6 billion worth to actually do the job. That is what the Coast Guard says we need. We only asked for $400 million, and could not even get a vote on it. October 7 of 2004, another amendment by Mr. Obey, Mr. Sabo and Senator Byrd to increase funding by $150 million. That was shot down. We kept trying, we kept going. On September 29, 2005, Mr. Obey, Mr. Sabo, increase funding for port and container security by $300 million. The House conferees defeated this amendment along party lines. Democrats for, Republicans against. Again, March of 2006, Republicans blocked an effort by the Democrats to bring the King-Thompson port deal bill to the floor. Again, Republicans voted against the bill. Time and time and time again, the Democratic minority tried to get President Bush's Congress to support these deals, to support increases in funding so we can get it from 5 percent to 100 percent. We should check all of the cargo that comes into the country. So that is one issue. We need to check the ports. Okay? But there is not one little bumper sticker we could say we are going to have, we are going to put it on all our cars, then the problem is going to be solved. That is just one component. We believe, in the Democratic Party, that if we do not have a long- term alternative energy proposal where we are going to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we will continue to be in these squabbles and these entanglements in the Middle East, time and time and time again. So the Democrats want to fund the ports. We have made efforts to do that. We want an alternative energy program. We need to get the oil man out of the White House in order to do that. And not only are we trying to take on the oil companies, the Republican majority in the energy bill gave the, check this out, gave the oil companies $12 billion in corporate welfare. So not only are your gas prices going up; your public tax dollars that you send to Washington, D.C., the Republican majority is also giving that to the oil companies on top of what you are already giving them. The first day we take over, next January, we will implement the 9/11 Commission's report, make sure we put that thing front and center and we do what the bipartisan commission has told this country that we need to do. The COPS program that you mentioned, our first responders, that program is gone. It is gone. President Clinton had a goal of putting 100,000 cops on the street. And the Republican Congress has almost nearly eliminated that program, if it is not all gone already. So what we are saying is, real security is an opportunity for all of us to have a comprehensive plan, implement the 9/11 Commission's report, make sure that we secure the ports and fund the funding level that the Coast Guard recommends, not Kendrick Meek and Tim Ryan, what the Coast Guard recommends. Let's develop an alternative energy policy in this country so that we are not reliant on oil from the Middle East that gets us entangled in all of this stuff. And let's make sure we fund our police and fire and our first responders, the first line of defense here. So be tough, but be smart and make proper investments that are going to yield value and protect the country, not where did the $9 billion go that we are spending in Iraq that no one knows where it is. Be happy to yield.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, you have to be tough, there is no doubt about it, but you have to be smart. What we are doing now is not smart. We talked earlier about the debt and deficit and everything else we have now. In 1993, a Democratic House, Democratic Senate and a Democratic President balanced the budget in the United States. It led to the creation of 20 million new jobs. The Democrats know how to govern. We had an incident in the late 1990s with Bosnia. General Clarke, a Democrat; Madeleine Albright, a Democrat; President Clinton, a Democrat; we went into Bosnia with a coalition of countries around the world to help us stop basically what we said was happening in Iraq. We went in there, and we did not lose one American soldier. The Democrats know how to administer governments, and the Republicans, quite frankly, do not because the numbers do not bear it out. The budget is ballooning. They have raised the debt ceiling by $3 trillion. They are borrowing money from Japan, China and the OPEC countries, and whoever else will loan them money. The deficit next year is projected to be about $500 billion. Tuition costs have doubled in the past 4 or 5 years. The gap between the wealthiest people in our society and the poorest people in our society has grown to a point we have not seen since pre-World War II, and Iraq is a mess. $1.5 billion a week. We are losing soldiers every day, and there is absolutely no end in sight. We did not go in with enough troops, and whether you supported the war or not, you want to make sure that you succeed, for God's sake. Mr. Speaker, we have not seen the rebuilding effort in Iraq that we need to see in order to get out of there.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

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

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This isn't, Mr. Delahunt, and Mr. Meek, saying we are going to run a sting operation to check the ports and see how the borders are. This is the Government Accountability Office. This is their report, and they were able to sneak in, through the northern border and the southern border, enough radioactive material to build two dirty bombs in the United States of America. We are not here because we want to pick on anybody.

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

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate that. And you know, as we are beginning to wrap up here, I think it is important to make this point, because I am sure you did, and you guys have experienced this too. There is a certain level of frustration that I have because I feel like our generation is getting dealt a pretty bad hand here.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, last week, we had an opportunity, Mr. Sabo from Minneapolis-St. Paul offered an amendment in this House to add over $1 billion to port security, homeland security, in the supplemental, and it got shot down on pretty much a party-line vote. Time and time again, the Democratic Party has offered amendments in committee to increase funding for homeland security, and the majority side, time and time again, shoots down those amendments to add additional funding. But if it comes to giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country, they are all standing, saying we have got to go for it, but if we need an extra $1 billion for homeland security, everyone heads for the hills, and they hide under the seats. Here's a list, June 17, 2003, Mr. Obey from Wisconsin, increase port and maritime security by $500 million. Republicans defeated the amendment on a party-line vote. June 24, 2003, another amendment by Mr. Obey, increase port and maritime security again by $500 million. We are not even addressing the problem. I mean, $7 billion more we need, $6- or $7 billion more just to address what the Coast Guard is telling us we need. Mr. Obey is only asking for $500 million, Madam Speaker. Republicans block consideration of that amendment by a vote of 222-200. That is Rollcall vote 305, Madam Speaker, and this other one was in the House Report 108-169, page 97, for the Members, Madam Speaker, who would like to look it up. We are not making this up. You people want to know what the Democrats want to do? We want to increase funding for port security, and the Republican majority will not let us. September 17, 2003, Mr. Obey, Mr. Sabo and Senator Byrd tried again to increase funding to enhance port and maritime security, $475 million. Guess what happened, Madam Speaker. Republicans defeated this amendment on a party-line vote. You want to know what the Democrats want to do, Madam Speaker? We want to increase funding for port security by half a billion dollars. June 9, 2004, another amendment by Mr. Obey of Wisconsin in the Appropriations Committee to increase port and container security by $400 million. We are not asking for an arm and a leg here. We are still $6.5 billion away from where we need to be, but we are just trying to chip away. Throw us a bone. Help us out. We just want to get moving in the right direction here. What happened again? Republicans defeated the amendment on a party-line vote, House Report 108-541, page 128. Go look it up. I am quite frankly tired of hearing that the Democrats do not have an agenda because every single day in committee, no matter what committee it is, Appropriations Committee, Armed Services Committee, Education Committee, Homeland Security Committee, we are trying to get things done, and the Republicans block us every single time. This is what the Democrats want to do and we are getting blocked.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. As we wrap up, www.housedemocrats.gov/30something. All of the charts, Madam Speaker, that we used here tonight are on this Web site for the Members to review and check out. And again, in closing, before my friend wraps this up, I think again this administration, this Republican Congress, has really put the next generation behind the 8-ball with the war, with the debt, with the income inequality that has not been at this level of separation of the richest to the poorest since before World War II, and all the other issues we talked about. And I think it is unfair to do that to the next generation. America has always been about making the next generation better. And, hopefully, with our advice and counsel, this Republican majority will take that and move forward. If I do not get a chance to tell you guys, Go Gators.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. As you just showed, we are mortgaging off our future. This is public debt held by China that has quadrupled. We went over that earlier in the evening. The debt limit has been increased by $3 trillion just since President Bush has been in, $450,984,800 and recently almost up to, almost up to $9 trillion in publicly held debt. The war, I mean, this administration is strapping our generation with debt, with war, with lack of investment, with increased tuition costs, increased energy costs, millions of our fellow citizens without health care. This administration and the Republican Congress is dealing our generation a pretty bad hand. And I started telling a lot of these student groups that come in and out of here, we go to schools and talk, hey, it is going to be our generation's responsibility, our life's work in this Congress, or wherever we may end up, to try to fix this mess. And that is exactly what it is. I yield to my friend.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This is a Blumberg news article. Thank you. This quote is from a retired Coast Guard Commander who is now a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Steven Flynn. ``Both the opportunity for terrorists to target legitimate global supply chains remain plentiful and the motivation for doing so is only growing.'' We are living on borrowed time. And all we are saying here is that the strategy from this administration is wrong. You cannot convince me, Madam Speaker, that we could not marshal the resources of the United States of America and focus this country's energy on the equipment, the technology, the research that needs to be done to develop the newest technologies, and put them where they need to be, you cannot convince me that we could not do that, Mr. Meek. You cannot convince me that the United States could not do that. What we are saying here, and we are not here to pick on anybody, we do not want to hurt anybody's feelings but it seems that the end result can be tragic. And you know what, there may be a situation where we do do all we can and it may not be enough. But to sit here and see this haphazard garbage, lack of focus, this administration has the worst case of political A.D.D. we have seen in a long time and it is hurting the country.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I want to comment. This is the same article, from the GAO report, again, a third party validator, not from the 30- Something Group.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. One of the issues, too, is we are talking about this. We now have evidence where a recent report coming into our hands, through the United States Senate, that investigators smuggled in enough radio active material to build two dirty bombs into the United States, which calls into question this administration's efforts to secure our borders.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. As you are talking about the interest on the debt, we have got to get the money from somewhere; and as we show, night in and night out, here on the 30-something group, we are borrowing a good deal of this money from China. And this is what has happened since President Bush took over, Madam Speaker. In 2000, we borrowed $62 billion from China, and in 2005 it grew exponentially to $257 billion that we borrowed from China. So this is significant in so many ways, as the gentlewoman from Chicago, from Illinois stated, that we are paying the interest on the debt. And that is money that is not going to education. That is money that is not going to homeland security. That is money that is not going for health care, veterans, whatever the case may be. So that is bad enough, but we are borrowing it from China, so now we are paying them interest on money and they are taking that and putting it into their state-owned companies and hurting American manufacturing and a lot of American small businesses that I am sure are in your district, as they are in mine. And all we are saying is, this is a competitive global economy. We can't have this disadvantage here of where we are going to borrow the money and they are going to take the interest out of the American economy and pump it back in, so they are winning twice.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentlewoman would yield, I think the great example that we have used here a million times is Katrina.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We have a ton of snow, but no hurricanes. The fact that this government had days to prepare for Katrina and couldn't figure out how to do it. Now, we are talking about something that may happen that we will not have 5 days' notice to plan for it. It is difficult for us to understand, but this needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed immediately. Because the fact of the matter is, the American people were counting on us. Our first obligation here is to make sure that we are protecting the American people and to have 95 percent of the cargo not inspected, I think, is a dereliction of duty on our part. I will be happy to yield to our friend.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, you have two beautiful young daughters waiting in the cloakroom for you.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and its Goodyear blimps, which are celebrating their 80th anniversary as international symbols of American culture and innovation. The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, headquartered in Akron, Ohio for over a century, launched the first Goodyear blimp, the Pilgrim, in 1925. Since then, the company has built more than 300 of these graceful aerial giants, including numerous airships in a partnership endeavor with the U.S. Government to assist in military surveillance activities. Although Americans are probably most familiar with seeing the Goodyear blimps at sporting events, during World War II, the Goodyear blimps protected American ships and armed forces while escorting convoys and task forces across the Atlantic Ocean. Today, the Goodyear blimps support national and local charities every year, helping secure millions of dollars in donations. Perhaps even more important, the Goodyear blimps help federal and state emergency service agencies and victims of national disasters. For all of the above, and in many thanks to a distinguished American manufacturer, I am proud and honored to recognize the extraordinary contributions Goodyear blimps have made to our nation.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is the first step.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, it is great to be here. We have a lot to talk about again, as we wrap up another week of business here at the Capitol. There are a lot of issues facing our country, and I had a lot of meetings this week on different issues: education, folks in about manufacturing, about the local economy and the problems that they are having with pension and health care. I think if you look at what is happening in the country, you will see that most Americans either intellectually or in their gut realize that the country is going in the wrong direction. So our plan tonight, as we come here several nights a week, is to try to let the American people know that we are moving them forward.