Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. For the record.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman would yield, I want to make a point that we have kind of left out when talking about technology. We talk about the $682 billion from Japan and the $249 billion from China that we are borrowing. Earlier in the evening, we talked about the 600,000 engineers that are going to graduate in China. They are taking, they are basically lending us money, we are paying them back with interest, and they are investing that money right here to train engineers to the tune of 600,000 a year. Do you think these engineers are working just in private industry in a communist country? No, they are working for the Chinese military. They are working on the next-best technology that the Chinese military, their communist government, could maybe put up possibly in the international community. We are funding our own enemy's military because we are fiscally reckless here at home.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. In fact, I thought that was a joke. In fact, I wrote it down in a journal, and I laughed about it later in the day because I thought it was a joke. Then I find out that they are serious. Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Inslee.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Holt and thank him for his good leadership.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, to get ahold of us, any of the Members who are in their offices or anyone else, the Website is www.housedemocrats.gov/30Something. All of the charts you saw here tonight are available on our Web site, and we will be back in an hour.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. You are exactly right, and it is that. It is the cost of the American people of the kind of corruption that is inherent in this system today as the Republicans run the House and the Senate and the White House. Let me just say this so we are clear. After record profits had been earned by the oil industry, they received in the energy bill $12 billion in corporate welfare, but nothing is done by this Congress to address lowering gas prices or home heating oil. Now, Halliburton, the former company of Vice President Cheney, got billions of dollars in no-bid contracts, and they have since been fined $2 million for over charging the government and are suspected of costing the government $1.4 billion. Halliburton has been fined for basically stealing the taxpayers' money. The oil industry is getting $12 billion in subsidies, and nothing is being done to lower Mom and Dad or Grandma or Grandpa's gas cost, and the top Medicare administrator, Tom Scully, negotiated to get a lobbying job at the same time he was negotiating the Medicare prescription drug bill, which helped companies more than it helped senior citizens. You say corruption tax, and that is what I mean. Tit- for-tat, taxpayer pays for it. Corporate welfare to the oil industries, nothing to lower gas prices, citizens pay that corruption tax.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. There have been a few Members who I consider very good friends on the other side of the aisle who have over the past few weeks and few months have really come out and said we have got to get rid of the corporate welfare, we do have to make these changes, we do have to get rid of the things that are going on with the oil industry. The problem is, is they are just a handful of those people, and the rest are putting the kibosh on the minority of the minority of the minority of the Republican party, just like they are doing to the Democrats.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Absolutely. Let us just look at one thing we have been talking about here. One of the major costs of the kind of institutional corruption that is going on right now is what is going on with the interest on the debt. The Nation's debt is now over $8 trillion with a T, and the interest in the 2007 President's budget, the interest alone is almost two-hundred-and-twenty-some billion dollars out of this budget. Now, when you look and you compare what we have to pay in interest on the debt compared to what we are paying for education or homeland security or veterans, it is totally and utterly disproportionate to the kind of investments we need to be making, because this money, and on the chart here, we are borrowing this money from the Japanese government. We are borrowing the money from the Chinese Government. We are borrowing the money from OPEC countries. We are ceding our country away to these other foreign interests, and at the same time, we are asking Japan and China to borrow money because we do not have enough because we are giving out corporate subsidies to the oil companies and corporate welfare to the pharmaceutical companies. While we are doing that, we have to go and borrow the money from the Chinese government, and then we have to borrow it from the OPEC countries, and as we showed before earlier, an hour or so ago, the Chinese Government is taking this money, they are lending it to us, collecting the interest and investing that money in the training of engineers to the tune of 600,000 engineers that they are going to train next year while we are training 70. That really is the bottom line, that these kind of decisions are leading and costing. They are leading to enormous problems for our country, and they are costing us a lot of money. They are really beginning, I think, to push the burden down on to the next generation. We cannot continue to sustain the kind of deficits that we are running. The next year or 2007 year's budget deficit is projected at over $400 billion, $400 billion, and that is unacceptable while we are giving the oil industry $12 billion and $16 billion to the energy industry, and we are giving to the tune of $50, $60, $70 billion to the health care industry in subsidies. It is a coincidence, or maybe it is not, that the oil industry's profits are going through the roof. So it begs the question, why are we subsidizing them? The energy companies, profits going up, subsidizing them, too. Pharmaceutical companies, profits through the roof, subsidize them, too. This is pay-to-play in Washington, D.C., and all the while, it is happening at the expense of average people. All this is happening at the cost of the American people. There is a corruption tax. There is a K Street tax to average people who are trying to do business, trying to make ends meet in middle America and all across the country, and they are having a very difficult time of it. They are paying the cost of K Street and the cost of the corruption that is going on.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Can I say something? There has been this whole discussion over the last 10 or 15 years, and it started with President Reagan's government, you know, government is the problem. I think it is fair to just on balance say that we understand government cannot solve all the problems nor should it, and we understand the private sector can solve a lot of these problems, but there are areas where the two need to work together. That is what we are talking about with The Innovation Agenda. A lot of the recommendations that we have here are coming from CEOs, Republicans, who are saying this is what we do, and if you look at the history of the country, railroads, the space program, the interstate highway, National Institutes of Health research and development that has been going on for years and years, National Science Foundation, they are critical. Universities are government. They are publicly funded, publicly subsidized, and they are doing all kinds of research for all kinds of really good causes. So we have a responsibility here, and our responsibility is to take the public's tax dollars here that they give us and spend it wisely and spend it in a way that there is accountability. Now, $9 billion lost in Iraq is not accountability. Borrowing from the Chinese and the OPEC countries and the Japanese governments to fund our deficits, that is not accountability. That is reckless fiscal policy, and it prevents us from investing in the kind of innovation that we want to invest into. That is the cost to the country of this nonsense that is going on down here, $400 billion deficits, and we are spending $16 billion in corporate welfare to subsidize the oil industry? $400 billion projected deficit for 2007, and we give it in a giveaway to the pharmaceutical companies? That is irresponsible fiscal policy because we do not have the money to give them in the first place. I will stand up here if we had the money and make the argument that we still should not give it to them, but we are borrowing money that we do not have to give to people that do not need it. That would be like giving Bill Gates a tax cut. We have given Bill Gates a tax cut, too. We are giving people money that we do not have and they do not need it, and it is coming at the expense of things and investment in technology, and innovation is a part of this. I just want to read a couple of quotes because the 30 Somethings are all about the third party validator. There may be some people who say, well, there goes the Democrats, there goes the 30 Somethings, they are the on the floor, they do not have any solution. What are they talking about? This is a third party validator about our Innovation Agenda that Leader Pelosi came up with.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And we talk about getting our children prepared to become engineers and scientists in part of our innovation agenda. Just what we pay every day on the debt could enroll almost 61,000 children in Head Start for an entire year. We are getting young kids who are at risk into the Head Start program which has shown that there is constant improvement and they fare much better than kids who don't get in.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is exactly right. John Chambers, president and CEO of Cisco Systems, Incorporated: ``The Innovation Agenda focuses on the right issues for building on our Nation's competitiveness, from investing in basic R&D, expanding science and math education and broadband infrastructure, to creating a globally competitive business environment. This agenda thoughtfully addresses how government can best play a role in improving our economic competitiveness by focusing on innovation. I look forward to working with both sides of the aisle to implement these laudable goals.'' That is the CEO of Cisco Systems. And then we have the managing director of Federal Government Affairs for Microsoft saying, ``At Microsoft Technology we are committed to changing the world through innovative technology; and in order to fulfill that commitment we need a pool of well-educated, skilled workers. We ask Congress to give these issues serious consideration and support.'' We need a pool of skilled workers, American skilled workers, and we need to increase it. Our innovation agenda calls for 100,000 new scientists and engineers over the course of the next 4 years and putting broadband in every household in the country in the next 5 years. And we probably could do it quicker, but we have this tremendous trade deficit and budget deficit here in the United States that will not allow us to do it because of the reckless fiscal policies of the Republican Party that run the House, the Senate and the White House. Mr. Speaker, this is what we are competing with. China is going to produce 600,000 engineers next year; India, 350,000 engineers next year; the United States of America, Mr. Speaker, 70,000 engineers next year. That is unacceptable. And I recognize that they have larger populations than we do, but when we have many of our school districts that have 70 or 80 percent of the kids living in poverty, we are never going to be able to catch this number because we do not have enough players on the field. This is a broad approach that the Democratic Party has. Our friends on the other side of the aisle, and many of them are very dear friends, they have been in charge of this House since 1994, and we have the highest budget deficits that we have ever had in the history of the country. They have had to pass a debt limit increase five times since President Bush has been in office.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And they are going for number six. We need to get the fiscal house in order and start making targeted investments in education and making sure that we have enough people to compete on a global economy. This is brutal competition that we are facing. I have an opportunity to spend 2 weeks in China in August, but the brutal competition that we must face in order to continue to lead the world because we cannot have a tier one military with a tier two economy. And you want to maintain your superiority in the world, you better have a tier one military, and if you want a tier one military, you better have a tier one economy. If you want to have a tier one economy, you better make the kind of investments that the Democratic Party wants to make in order to start evening out some of these numbers so we have job growth in the United States, so we are filling the need and filling that pool of well-educated, skilled workers that companies need.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. As you were talking about, the Democrats have a history of balancing budgets in this Chamber. In 1993, without one Republican vote, the Democrats balanced the budget and it was signed into law by President Clinton, led to great surpluses, the greatest expansion in the history of the country and created over 20 million jobs. Now, the Democrats have tried, while we have been down here, to try to get our friends on the Republican aisle to show some fiscal discipline, to show a little bit of fiscal restraint. And we have tried. There is a provision here called PAYGO, pay-as-you-go. If you spend money, you have got to pay for it. If you cut revenues, you have got to pay for it. If you increase spending in a certain program, you have got to pay for it. Pay-as-you-go. Now, over the last few years, Democrats have tried to reinstate PAYGO which led to all these surpluses in the nineties, and then our friends on the Republican side got rid of this a few years back. But over the last few years, we have tried to put these PAYGO rules in. Let me give you three third-party validators, not Tim Ryan, not Kendrick Meek, this is in the Congressional Record. March 30, 2004. Republicans voted by a vote of 209-209, ties lose, to reject a motion offered by Representative Mike Thompson, Democrat from California, to instruct the budget conferees to put the pay-as-you-go requirements in the 2006 budget resolution. That is 2004, vote number 97, if you would like to check it out, Mr. Speaker. Also, May 5, 2004, Republicans voted by a vote of 208-215 to reject a similar motion by Representative Dennis Moore, Democrat from Kansas. That is 2004, vote number 145. And then again, November 18, 2004, Republicans voted to block consideration of the Charlie Stenholm amendment to the debt limit increase bill which would have restored pay-as-you-go requirements. That is 2004, vote number 534, basically saying, we need to put a system in place to make sure that this Congress doesn't just spend money recklessly like they are doing now. $9 billion lost in Iraq. $16 billion to the energy companies, the oil industry in particular, the most profitable industry in the world right now. Billions upon billions upon billions of dollars to the pharmaceutical industry in corporate welfare. And we are not balancing the budget. We are taking the money again and we are borrowing it. We are borrowing money we don't have and we are giving it to people who have a lot of money. This is the interest payments that we are making in the red. This is the investments that we are making in education, homeland security and veterans. Mr. Meek, I know we are beginning to wrap up and work our way out here, but I just want to share this with the Speaker and the Members of Congress. What else could the government do if we weren't so far in debt and had to pay all this interest?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is an important answer. What else could the government do with the interest the country pays every day on the publicly held debt? We could invest $1 million a day, Mr. Meek, in every single congressional district. Every district. So at the end of the year, you would have $365 million to invest into your congressional district in South Florida. I know that you have a lot of needs down there, as do I in Ohio.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I want to talk about how the veterans could be helped.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I wanted to finish up. I want to just say thank you to you for coming down here every night and making these points in such a passionate way. The debt and the deficit I think really as you are talking about are part of this corruption tax. And I know I wanted to get into this, but these are the numbers here. This is what we owe. This is what the national debt is. $8.2 trillion. You want to let a number sink in? Try to wrap your brain around that sucker. $8.2 trillion. Every Member of Congress, every child, every adult, every senior citizen, your share of that debt is $27,500. So take your credit card debt, take your house, take your car, add it all up and throw another $27,500 on it. Take your college loans and throw another $27,500 on it because of the fiscal irresponsibility of this Congress and this administration. This number has gone up dramatically over the past 5 years. The Republican majority has raised the debt limit, allowing the Treasury Department to borrow more money, five times. And they are not done. Five times, Mr. Meek. And they are not done. Many high-powered Members of Congress got this letter from Secretary of Treasury John Snow saying that the United States needs the Republican Congress to raise the debt ceiling one more time.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. As soon as possible. This particular letter was sent December 29 to Senator McConnell. Dear Senator McConnell: The administration now projects that the statutory debt limit, currently $8.184 trillion, will be reached in mid February of 2006.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And at that time unless the debt limit is raised or the Treasury Department takes authorized extraordinary actions, we will be unable to continue to finance government operations. Now, that is where we are. Because of that number, my friends, because of that number and that number, the government will shut down unless we go out and borrow more money. That is irresponsible. I have got a friend back home. I won't give his last name. His first name is Dave. He is a banker. He consistently addresses this issue as we talk, how the country cannot keep going on and on and on borrowing this kind of money without putting the burden on the next generation. For those people who don't think this matters, your share of your tax revenues are going to pay off the interest on this debt. And those payments are going to the Chinese government and the OPEC countries, Mr. Meek. That is a shame. That is a dirty shame.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. A lot of air comes out of the balloon.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, it is good to join the gentlemen. As we are talking about the debt and we are borrowing this money from the Chinese, from the Japanese, from the Koreans, from the OPEC countries, as we borrow that debt we have got to pay interest on that debt. So as we are paying interest on that debt, this chart will show us that out of our priorities that we have in this country, the red is what we are paying in billions of dollars in the 2007 budget in interest, compared to education, compared to homeland security, compared to veterans. So when we are talking about borrowing the money and what we are paying the interest on and what country we are paying the interest to, that interest money, the red, is going back to China. It is going back to Japan. It is going back to Korea.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The fact of the matter is, as you just so eloquently put it and passionately put it, this money that we are borrowing is not going to fund education. It is not going to lower tuition costs. It is not going to fund No Child Left Behind. It is not going to fund the veterans. This money that we are borrowing from the Chinese and Japanese and the Caribbean and OPEC, the oil-producing countries, is going to fund corporate welfare to the oil companies, $16 billion in corporate subsidies to the energy companies in the last energy bill, and billion upon billion upon billions of dollars that go to the HMOs and the pharmaceutical companies and all these other health care providers who are getting all their money. Your tax dollars, Mr. Speaker, are going for corporate welfare; and we do not have enough to give them so we have got to go to the Japanese to borrow them so we can give them to the wealthiest industries in the United States. This is craziness, and we need to stop it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I heard tonight on CNN earlier this evening that the cost of the 11,000 trailers was upwards of $300 million. So basically what happened is FEMA is so screwed up, okay, because there are not many other ways to put it. They are so screwed up that they bought 11,000 trailers that they moved to Hope, Arkansas, and put them in a field that is full of mud. They sunk in the mud so they are not even good anymore. They will probably have to get rid of them. Real estate people in Louisiana said that $300 million could build 2,500 homes for middle-class people in Louisiana or in the gulf States. It could open up all of the schools in the gulf coast. So when we come down here and we are talking about the debt, the deficit, and the recklessness and the irresponsible spending, reckless abandon for balancing the budget, that is one issue. But another issue is look at the waste. My goodness, $300 million to buy trailers that are now sitting in the mud in Hope, Arkansas, instead of actually housing people? You mentioned Speaker Gingrich earlier. He was talking, and I read in the paper the other day, he is as critical of the Republican establishment in this House and in the Senate and in the White House as any of us are. This is not about Democrat and Republican. This is about America functioning as a government in the 21st century with the communication capabilities that we have, with the technology that we have, with the know- how that we have. To hear afterwards that experts were trying to tell folks in FEMA, and outside of FEMA, what would happen if there was a category 3, 4 or 5 hurricane that came into the gulf States. We knew. What we are trying to say here is that the Republican majority in the House and the Republican majority in the Senate, in this administration, Republicans in the White House, do not know how to govern. Now, because the whole philosophy is that all government from top to bottom does not work, it is worthless, it has no value, that is not true. That is just not true. We are saying that government needs to get out where it does not work, and it needs to be efficient and effective where it has responsibility. Now, FEMA, for example, who else is going to coordinate between the gulf States and emergency response? Who else is going to protect us with Homeland Security, of which you are a committee member, Mr. Meek? Who else is going to provide for the defense? Who is going to balance the budget? Government has some responsibilities to invest. All we are saying is do it in a responsible manner. This nonsense is reckless, paying $225 or $230 billion in interest on the money you are borrowing from the Chinese Government, Japanese Government and the OPEC countries, and then basically raising tuition and underfunding No Child Left Behind. In Ohio, No Child Left Behind is underfunded by $1.5 billion a year. Cutting veterans benefits? Not funding Homeland Security? You know, this is not very visionary on behalf of our brothers and sisters on the other side of the aisle.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is going back to OPEC.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is the cost of the K Street project, and the average person that pays taxes foots the bill.