Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is a great point because this is not your father's Republican party. This is not the Richard Nixon Republican party or Abraham Lincoln Republican party. This is a right wing agenda that is coming down the pike here with ANWR drilling coming in. If you are pro-environment and you are with the right wingers, you are in the wrong party because they want to drill. And they do not want to have an alternative energy program.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Who are they borrowing it from?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I served on that committee my last term in Congress. I sat on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. And that gentleman that you are speaking about had a relationship with the veterans that was unsurpassed. It was unbelievable. The veterans groups loved Mr. Smith. Loved him. And he advocated for them on their behalf as chairman of the veterans committee. You do not have to ask me or the 30-something Working Group; you do not have to ask us. Go talk to the head of the disabled veterans groups, go talk to the head of AMVETS, go talk to any single veterans group and they will tell you that they loved them, and he advocated for them, and he disagreed with not fully funding and providing mandatory funding for our veterans health care benefits.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Unbelievable.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. There is no question, it is the abuse of power. And we have been given an awesome gift to just be here in the Chamber, to be here as a Member of Congress. To be in the majority is even a greater gift. And to take that and to use the power that you are given by the American people for the sole purpose of advancing the cause of your own political party, the Republican Party, instead of looking out for what is in the best interest of the United States of America, that is an abuse of power. I think we have seen it here time and time and time again. We saw it here during the prescription drug bill where we were here until 3 in the morning and it passed by just a couple of votes. We were told as Members of Congress voting on that bill that it was only going to be $400 billion, and then this bill ends up being over 700 almost $800 billion. And the Democrats had two provisions that we wanted to put in that bill: allow for reimportation from Canada to drop the costs of prescription drugs in the United States and, therefore, save the taxpayers' money; and also allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services the opportunity to negotiate down the drug prices and go to America and say, if you want the contract from the Medicare recipients, you have to sit down and we have to negotiate price. Just think how much money we would have saved the taxpayer if we would have done that. Just think about that.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We heard a lot in the last few weeks, you know, that you are sending the wrong signal to the troops. You are sending the wrong signal to the troops, when we want to have a discussion about when we are going to actually pull the troops out and end the war and redeploy and how things are going to work and what does it look like and how is this all going to end. You are unpatriotic, you should not have that discussion. You are not allowed to talk about that kind of stuff, you know. The people may find out that maybe things are not going as well as we think they are going, so let us not talk about it because it will affect the morale of the troops. I have got to tell you, when we went to Iraq, it was probably the first meeting, as soon as we got there in Baghdad, Mr. Meek was in the meeting with the troops and there was about 20 of us sitting there, and I specifically asked one of them, I think we were with the marines, specifically asked, does the debate that we are having now in the United States, that was shortly after Mr. Murtha came out for his redeployment efforts in 6 months and figuring this out, and I asked one of the kids, I said, does this hurt your morale over here? Does this offend you? The kid said to me, this is why we are here, so the Iraqis can have this kind of discussion. We expect people in Washington to be having a debate in a democracy, in a representative democracy. The great Republic should have these debates. And he just said that is why we are here, so the Iraqis will be able to have this discussion too one day. Would that not be great, if the Iraqis can have a parliament and get in a squabble and fight without someone saying that that is somehow having a negative effect on the troops. So we hear that a lot, that this debate may hurt them, which it is not, hurting the morale of the troops, which the troops are telling us it is not, it is okay. But then to try to somehow take the Defense bill and put campaign finance language in it so that the Republican majority can raise more money to further corrupt the institution is an outrage.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We talk a lot on the 30-something group here about how the Republican leadership in this Chamber and the Senate and in the White House right now consistently over the past few years have put their party's interests above the country's interests. We know on Energy and Commerce, you know, you are talking about telecommunications and there are a lot of business interests and labor. There are fights, there are scraps, and it gets very partisan. For this kind of attitude I think to permeate into the Armed Services Committee during a time of war is outrageous. It really is. And Mr. Spratt, I cannot thank you enough, because we come down every night, and to have someone of your caliber, your experience, your understanding of the issues to come down and share with us means a great deal. But for campaign finance issues to work their way into the Defense bill is just crazy.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We have been on the committee 3 years now, Mr. Spratt has been on the committee a few more years than we have, but when you first get on the committee, I think the leadership on our side has always told the younger Members who come on, you know, this is a bipartisan committee. This is one of the committees in Congress where we try to do what is best for the men and women in uniform, to do what is best to protect the security of the United States of America. And I think this tradition we have had has really been damaged throughout this whole process. I am sure Mr. Spratt knows a lot better than I do.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. So when they say after 5 years of all of the misrepresentation and all of the lack of accountability and the incompetence and the cronyism and the corruption, the culture of corruption that we have here, when you come to us 5 or 6 years later, in the midst of a war and huge budget deficits, and you say to the American people just trust us, it becomes very difficult for us to just trust.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, can I make another comment in addition to what you just said, why are not the people who are in his administration being held accountable? You tell the American people and you talk them into something by saying it is not going to cost you any money, we are going to use the oil revenue, we are only going to be there a little while, we will not need as many troops as we actually do really need; why were not any of those people held accountable for their mistakes, all the mistakes that were being made? We went to Iraq, and we are on the Armed Services Committee, and we support the Defense appropriations and body armor and up-armor. We were on all the letters, all the pressure that was applied to make sure these troops had what they needed. We were there to support them every step of the way. No one's going to tell me that I am not supporting the troops, but someone needs to be held accountable. All the mistakes that were made, are you telling me that no one should get fired? Who is the guy who hired the contractor who committed fraud in the 1990s and then stole $200,000 in the last year or two? Who hired him? What is this Mike Brown all about? I mean, you hire cronies, they do an incompetent job, and no one gets fired.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, can I make a comment? We have the poster here from Newsweek that has our esteemed leader in a bubble and it is called the ``Isolated President.'' And I think this goes to exactly what the gentleman was just saying and what Ms. Wasserman Schultz was just saying and what Mr. Meek of Florida was just saying. The comments that Secretary Wolfowitz made and Secretary Rumsfeld just were not true. The comments about the tax cuts and what they would do for average people just did not turn out to be true. And about the war and how we would progress just did not come to be true. And the bubble here symbolizes all these people like Mr. Lindsey who are saying, no, it is going to cost us $200 billion and they fire him. And the general who said we are going to need a couple hundred thousand troops in order to do this properly, and they dismissed him too. It turns out that we needed all these troops there. It just seems that this administration does not want to hear from other outside viewpoints in order for us to fix this problem. Now, Mr. Meek was talking about what I found very interesting. I have the President's speech here that he was talking about earlier, and the President talks about the first milestone we had was the transfer of sovereignty at the end of June. And the second milestone was the Iraqi election, and the third milestone, if we had these milestones as Mr. Meek said, these benchmarks, when we were going to transfer, when the election was going to be, when the interim government was going to take place, then December 15, which is coming up in just a day or two, we had benchmarks. So why would we not have benchmarks for when we are going to get out? That is all we are arguing here. No Child Left Behind, in which we all agreed on, the Republican majority has not funded it, which was a key element, but we agreed that schools need to be accountable, and if you do not hit certain levels, you are not helping kids. Accountability, the President talks a lot about accountability. We need to just say, Mr. President, this administration, Mr. Secretary, you need to be accountable, need to be accountable in Iraq, accountable for the budget deficit, accountable for cutting food stamps and giving tax cuts to the top 1 percent. You need to take responsibility for that.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Can I just make a point there, because I think it just fits right into there? $100 billion more in Iraq, $200 billion we have already spent, $100 million here for media campaigns. We have Republican media consultants slopping at the trough of the Defense Department so that they can put on a PR campaign in Afghanistan when the Afghanistan people do not even want it. The same in Iraq.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I just totally agree. I think we are talking about some basic principles here of which the government that currently rules is not reflective of what is going on in Ohio, in Florida, in the Gulf States, in Massachusetts. We are clearly not addressing the main issues. I know my friend from Massachusetts has some comments to make, so I am going to kick it over to him. But I think as we make our presentation tonight, this is not personal with the Republicans, because I think we have all agreed, we have got some good friends on the other side of the aisle. We are just disagreeing with their philosophy of governing. When you see here tonight, with some great charts that Tom Manatos from our staff has put together for us, the kind of spending that our country is doing in Iraq and the kind of cuts that we have here in the United States, when you see the tax cuts, the amount and who they are going to and the cuts in the budget in specific programs that are geared towards the middle class, Medicare, Medicaid, and the level of sacrifice that average people are being asked to make here, it is unbelievable. When you talk about Delphi going bankrupt; Ford came out last week, they are going to cut 30,000 jobs and close 10 plants. The economy may be growing, but average middle Americans are not seeing it in their paychecks, and they are seeing tremendous increases in their energy costs and gas and heating oil and the like. I know you have been very instrumental in a variety of ways in Massachusetts to help with that.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Just to clarify that, we are running an $83 billion deficit just for one month, just for the month of November, which means we do not have the money; we are not taking in the money to pay out the bills, and we have got to go and borrow the money. And this $83 billion that the gentleman from Massachusetts was talking about, we are borrowing it from China. We are borrowing it from Saudi Arabia. We are borrowing it from Japan, and we have to pay interest on it. So we are running up a tab here for the next generation that is not fair. And we are doing things to the next generation, our generation, our generation, that we are going to eventually have to pay the bill.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I want to say, and I know Mr. Miller was being complimentary of us when he said he liked the culture of corruption, but I do not like it. I do not like it. I do not like coming down here and trying to inform the American people what third-party validators are saying about what is going on down here in a negative way. Because I would hope we could come down here with solutions and work on it and talk about how we are making this better, how we are having oversight hearings and everything else. Do not think for one second we like it. But this is going on here and the American people need to hear about it. 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov. That is 30, the number, somethingdems@mail.house.gov.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. One of the proposals that we had was to take out the $16 billion in corporate subsidies in the energy bill. Would you be willing to support us on that?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we know when the shareholders ask the leaders of the corporation, we want to see the books, we want to see what is going on, the leaders of the corporation or the business cannot say no, no, no, you are not allowed to see that.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Some people say what does that have to do with the 30 Somethings, are we not supposed to talk about the interests of college education and child tax credits and that stuff? No. The future of our country is being placed in another country's hands, which gives up control of our own destiny because we are going to have to make payments. It is just like when you go to a bank. You borrow money, you have to pay interest on that money, and we are borrowing it from the Chinese. We are going to have to pay interest on it, and the Chinese are taking that interest. They have a lot of State-owned companies that they are going to pump our money back into. It is bad enough that General Motors and Delphi and a lot of these other corporations are investing money into China. Now they are getting it from the American taxpayer, and the Chinese Government will invest that money into their economy, whether it is in the auto industry or some other industry. They will have that money invested into their economy, long term. This is a dangerous proposition to not balance your budget in the United States of America, and we are Democrats. We believe in a balanced budget. We believe in fiscal discipline. This long-term recklessness coming from the Republican party and Republican leadership is putting our country in danger, not just danger, grave danger.

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

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This President has been the first President in the history of our country to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans in a time of war. Where is the shared sacrifice? I mean, average people are struggling. I have a district that has thousands of Delphi workers, General Motors workers. We are hearing now that Ford is going to cut 30,000 jobs and close 10 plants in North America. These are the challenges that people in middle America are facing, and the time and energy of this body is spent figuring out a way to reduce the tax burden. So I tell you what, if you make over a million dollars and you are out in America today, today has been a great day for you. This Congress has treated you pretty well. You are going to have a good holiday season probably for the next couple of years because of what has been happening. Our obligation here is to represent the public. Our obligation here, when we swear to the Constitution, is to do what is best for the entire country and to do this in a couple of different ways. We are running a $323 billion deficit projected for 2006, $323 billion that we are going to have to borrow in order to close the hole in the Nation's budget. We are borrowing that money from the Chinese, the Japanese, the Saudi Arabians and other countries. At the same time, because we are running those huge deficits, we are also giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country. So, if you make over $440,000, you are going to get on average $87,000, plus what we did today. So you are talking about closer to $100,000. If you make between $34,000 and $54,000, that is what you get, $840. I think we said today that the average person who makes under $100,000, half of those people will get $30 back. So, if you make $100,000 a year, on average, half of those people will get $30 back today. That is not much of a middle class tax cut as far as I am concerned. We are moving in the wrong direction. At the same time that we are borrowing money from the Chinese, running these huge deficits, cutting taxes for the wealthiest people in our country, at the same time we are doing that, we are also cutting programs here in the United States, the food stamp program, the college tuition program. The Pell grant program is being cut. The child support enforcement program which will help fund local county commissioners and local county organizations to go out and get deadbeat dads who are not paying their child support, that is what we are cutting. It just does not make any sense, and I think the American people, when they start hearing this stuff, they intuitively know something wrong is happening. But I think when they hear the facts of what is going on in their government right now, this culture of corruption that is here is starting to make its way back into their households. Let me make one final comment point. At the same time we are doing all this, the legislation that we are passing out of here is benefiting the interest groups that donate a lot of money to our friends on the other side, to the Republican majority, and this body, this Congress and this White House has been used as a sand box, as a trough to where the cronies, the Michael Browns who are running FEMA and the seven or eight top people at FEMA, this administrator who was over in Iraq who had $87 million to administer in the war and took a couple of hundred thousand in kickbacks, who was convicted of fraud in the 1990s, they hired him anyway because he was a crony of one of the administration officials. This is completely incompetence and an inability to govern, and these tax cuts are out of control, and they are happening at the expense of average people. Again, today has been great day for the millionaires in the United States.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The reason I think it is important that we are down here right now at 7:15 on a Thursday night when most Members have gone home is because we are talking about the future of our country. This is to run the deficit up another $30 billion in order to give tax cuts primarily to those millionaires. 45 percent of tax cuts that we passed today will go to millionaires. Forty-five percent. Now 45 percent of taxpayers are not millionaires, but they are going to get 45. So it is totally disproportionate to the average income in the United States of America. Here is what we have been doing before today as far as the tax cuts go. And if you have made $441,000 and up, you have got on average $87,000 back. $87,000 back. And today the average millionaire is going to get $32,000 more back. And that is so you are talking about a millionaire getting well over $100,000, $130,000 because this is the average: $130,000 back in tax cuts. You are talking about borrowing money from the Chinese Government, from the Japanese Government, from the Saudi Arabians in order to pay for this. We do not have money. We are not running a surplus right now.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is right.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. There is more than that.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yes, this is the 30 Something Working Group. Send us an e-mail at 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov. Thirty, the number, somethingdems@mail.house.gov.