Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

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

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Wait a minute. He did not yield to you.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. He did not yield to you.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. No doubt.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. What is that?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Before you can spend any money, you have got to find a way to pay for it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We heard from the President during the State of the Union address a bunch of fuzzy math, but we are going to balance the budget by 2009.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are going to cut the budget in half by 2009. That reminds me of the old Lou Rawls song, I will see you when I get there. Do you know what I mean? This is just to put a bow on everything that we have been talking about. When we are paying the interest on all of this debt, you know, we are not borrowing the money from Sky Bank or Home Savings in downtown Warren, Ohio. We are borrowing it from these other countries, and we are paying them debt. Look what we are doing just on the interest on the debt, Mr. Meek, Mr. Delahunt. This is the net interest we pay in the 2007 budget, what we are going to have to pay, almost $250 billion just on the interest on all of that money that Mr. Meek showed you where we are borrowing it from. But also look what we are not spending it on because of it. Here is education. Here is homeland security. Here is veterans. All of these programs are taking a hit because our friends on the other side do not know how to balance the budget. They waste spending. They lose $9 billion in Iraq. They waste $300 billion on 11,000 trailers sitting in the mud in Hope, Arkansas, and meanwhile Pell grants are going up, veterans are asked to pay more, and we cannot take care of our own ports. We will be back in an hour. But if you want to get a hold of us, Members who are watching this in our offices, www.housedemocrats.gov/ 30something

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. No doubt about it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Let me say real quick, trust us, this is the debt limit increases just since 2002. Since President Bush, Republican House, Republican Senate, $3 trillion in new borrowing from the Republican Congress. This is third party validator. This is fact. The Truth Squad can come out and check the facts and maybe help us find a positive way to talk about it. June 2, 2002, the Republicans raised the debt limit by $450 billion. May of 2003, $984 billion. November of 2004, $800 billion. Now, the next increase is going to be for $781 billion more. $3 trillion since President Bush and the Republican House and the Republican Senate have been in charge of this operation here. And we just keep going and borrowing and borrowing and borrowing from the Japanese, the Chinese, the OPEC countries. And at the end it is mortgaging the future of this country.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Like you said, what is our benefit? We get to fund our deficit and that is about it. We do not go belly up. But what is our benefit? We do not have more money to invest in education as Ms. Wasserman Schultz pointed out. We do not have more money to invest for our veterans. This is money that is going to pay the interest on the money that we are borrowing.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I would be happy to. This is the pay as you go. This is if you spend money or you give tax cuts, you have got to find other areas to cut spending or raise another kind of revenue. There will be no budget deficits. Everything will be deficit neutral. Pay as you go. Mr. Meek just gave 3 scenarios where the Democrats put forth amendments or motions to try to control the spending of the Republican Congress, and in each instance the Democrats all voted for balancing the budget and the Republicans all voted against balancing the budget. Again, Mr. Spratt, our good friend from South Carolina who is our ranking member on the Budget Committee, who was the architect of the Clinton balanced budget from 1993 that led to 20 million new jobs and surplus revenue, Mr. Spratt offered a substitute amendment. Rollcall vote number 87 on March 17, 2005. It failed. Not one Republican voted for the PAYGO that was included in Mr. Spratt's substitute amendment. Again, Mr. Spratt offered another amendment. Rollcall vote 91 March 25 of 2004. Again, pay as you go. Deficit neutral. Help us reduce the deficit. Help us get back to balanced budgets. Again, not one Republican voted for that substitute. Time and time again, Mr. Meek, we have offered solutions to this problem to quit selling off our country piece by piece, and the Republican Congress has voted against it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, I 100 percent agree with you. You know, the fact that they could even claim that there is some kind of oversight going on is an absolute joke. Anybody who has even been paying the least bit of attention to what has been happening here the past 4 or 5 years can see that there hasn't been any oversight. The discussion tonight has been about foreign countries running our ports, as if this is the first time, or as if this hasn't been going on. Other countries have, piece by piece, been taking more and more of the United States of America. In the last 4 years, this has been the increase in our national debt: $1.18 trillion has been the increase of that debt that this Nation, the Republican House, the Republican Senate and the Republican President have run up. $1.16 trillion of that has been borrowed from foreign interests. Of this number, this is what we get from foreign interests, and this is what we borrow from domestic interests. This is piecemeal, piece by piece by piece by piece, selling off the United States of America. So it is not just the ports, as Ms. Wasserman Schultz was saying. This is about the debt, the interest, our country. Who is holding the debt? Japan, China, the Caribbean, Taiwan, OPEC, Korea, all own bits and pieces of the United States. If you look at Japan and China, they own almost $900 billion, almost the whole kit and caboodle of the $1.18 trillion that we have. Most of that is owned by Japan and China. Again, I ask my friends, including the judge who was down here, give us a good, solid way to explain this scenario of our country raising the debt limit, the Republican House and Republican Senate and Republican White House raising the debt limit by $3 trillion since President Bush has been in, more debt than we have borrowed from foreign interests in the past 224 years, the Republican Congress and the President. How do you explain that and make it sound good, make it sound positive? Because there is no way. But our constitutional obligation, Mr. Meek, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, is that we are here to oversee what this President is doing, and if we feel that this President and this Congress, Republican Congress, is not doing what they need to be doing to strengthen the United States of America, then our job is to call you out on it; not because we want to, but because that is our obligation here. Not because we like it. This is our second hour tonight. We could be doing a lot of other, different things. But this is important to the country because this President and this Republican Congress is selling this country off piece by piece by piece. I say this to our friends in Congress, Mr. Speaker, who may be watching in their offices, that if you are a business person, you can't just keep going out and borrowing money and borrowing money and borrowing money; and if business isn't going so well, borrow money. Get it from China, get it from Japan, get it from Korea. You can't go out and borrow and borrow. We have an obligation. The trade deficit with China, $202 billion from $84 billion just a few years ago in 2000. I yield to my friend, who has been just a strong advocate on being a deficit hawk and getting us to balance our budget. I appreciate your leadership.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. They will get over it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If anybody in America that watched what was going on during Katrina thinks that FEMA's response was adequate, then we have a total communication problem here, and we maybe need to come up with a couple new words, because the performance there was not adequate. Brownie's performance was not adequate. The Secretary of Homeland Security's performance was not adequate. Appointing an attorney to an equestrian society is not adequate. That is inadequate, and this country deserves better. Government, you cannot, and this is the problem, what I really disagree with our friends on the other side. I do not believe that government is the answer. We cannot create jobs, and I do not believe that. The private sector creates jobs. We create a good environment. Our friends on the other side for the past 12 to 20 years have just been saying government is the problem. Well, you know what? Government was the problem there because you do not have any respect for what is going on. Who else is going to come in in a disaster, other than FEMA? That is our responsibility. Who else is going to help with broadband access all over the country? The government. Now, we do not want the government in everything; and I, quite frankly, think the government is too involved in too much right now. But there are targeted areas where the government can be effective. One of those is emergency response, and we are getting inadequate performance from this administration. Another one is when you go to war. Who is going to go to war? Two private businesses? McDonalds against Burger King in the great grudge match? No. Countries go to war. Governments go to war. And $9 billion just unaccounted for, inadequate, ineffective, inefficient, waste of the taxpayers' money and, quite frankly, a disgrace, Mr. Meek. And this is why I think that we need some wholesale changes. One final point before I yield to my friend. Part of the problem is, we have a one-party government here. Republicans control the House, Republicans control the Senate, Republicans control the White House. Somebody should be getting kicked around if you cannot find $9 billion that was supposed to be spent on a war in Iraq and it is not and no one can find it. Where are the oversight hearings from our friends on the other side? We are in the minority. We do not have subpoena power.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. No, I understand what you are saying.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I agree with you 100 percent, Mr. Meek; and I appreciate your passion. The $9 billion, you talked about some of the irresponsible domestic fiscal problems, challenges that we have here in the United States. They are unbelievable, the magnitude that they are at right now and the magnitude that our friends on the other side let it get so far out of hand. But not only here at home do they have problems governing and balancing budgets and trying to put our fiscal house in order here. $9 billion lost in Iraq. Okay? Third party validator. This is not Tim Ryan from Ohio. This is not Kendrick Meek from Florida. This is not Nancy Pelosi saying this. This is the Inspector General that said nearly $9 billion of money spent on Iraq reconstruction is unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management, according to a watchdog report published Sunday. And the IG says the same thing. Unable to account for the funds. $8.8 billion was reported to have been spent on salaries, operating and capital expenditures and reconstruction projects between October of 2003 and 2004. The CPA, Coalition Provisional Authorities, have left auditors with no guarantee the money was properly used. Severe inefficiencies and poor management. What is going on over there? Haliburton is inflating their numbers to increase their profits at the expense of the United States taxpayer. Back home with Katrina, we have----

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. No gravy.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. An initiative endorsed by the CEO of Cisco Systems; the managing director of government affairs at Microsoft; and a laundry list, American Corn Growers; CEO of AEA; I mean, come on, Information Technology Industry Council, vice president. This is not a Democratic- supported agenda. This was the Democrat's ideas, but this is supported by Democrats and Republicans because it is the right thing to do for the country. Increase the research and development tax credit. Double the funding to the National Science Foundation. These are things that, these are smart business decisions. We are in the business of government. If you were in a business, you would not run yourself into debt and run annual deficits as far as the eye can see. You would not stop funding education or pull back or not make that kind of investment. You would not cut funding to research and development. That is your lifeline, that is how you keep yourself competitive, and that is all we want to do and try to give every kid an opportunity to get up in there.

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

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We talked about raising the debt limit. If you go back and review what happened during the Clinton administration, two times President Clinton had to raise the debt ceiling. Twice. Those were early on. They passed the balanced budget in 1993 without one Republican vote. Democratic House, Democratic Senate, Democratic White House, balanced the budget, helped the private sector create and provided the environment for the private sector to create over 20 million new jobs. We need to provide that environment again for the private sector to go out and do its work. We are not going to create the jobs here. We cannot create any jobs. It is not our job to create jobs. Our job is to create an environment in which people can go out and seize the opportunity that we helped create. So Clinton did it twice. This President has done it five times already, and he has only been in office 5 years. President Clinton was in office 8 years. Democrats know how to balance budgets and make proper investments. If you look at the execution of government, from this President, this Republican House, the Republican Senate. Katrina, a disaster, the way FEMA reacted, an absolute disaster. The way the American people in that region were treated and are still being treated, and the money that is being wasted, because there are 11,000 trailers sitting in Hope, Arkansas, that cost $300 million that are now sinking in the mud that no one is living in. I mean, give me a break. You look at the war in Iraq. We just find out in the last few days, $9 billion. Nobody knows where it is. Where is it? I don't know. Somebody find it. We don't know where it is. What would you do with it? I don't have it. I gave it to him. What did you do with it? He got it. It is like watching a Three Stooges episode. $9 billion of public money wasted. Halliburton, overcharging for food and all kinds of other stuff. Halliburton has already been fined $2 million for wasting the taxpayers' money. Fraud. Come on. All we are saying here is there is a way to execute government, and we know how to do it. You could know better than anybody else, Mr. Meek, living in south Florida, with how FEMA operates and how they don't always follow the proper procedure. We can compare that to FEMA as it was executed under President Clinton.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Fourth quarter.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think so.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Good guy.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We need corn, I love corn; but these are folks that are not just aligned with us philosophically. This is a very pragmatic approach to how to keep America competitive, and I think our plan is much better than the plan or lack of plan that the other side has. They have been in charge of this House since 1994 and have not been able to make strides in this area, and the numbers bear that out. These are facts. This is not something that we have made up.