Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think it is important for us to recognize that we want to make cohesive, coherent arguments, and we are asking, Mr. Speaker, other Members in this chamber and the citizens around the country to help us with that, make points that we feel that maybe they feel need to be made. Before we get into today, before we get rocking and rolling here, the big issue now is the pre-war intelligence. The President has dusted off this same old speech that he has given hundreds of times already in a hundred different viewing areas regarding the pre-war intelligence. The President has said that anybody accusing the administration of having ``manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people was giving aid and comfort to the enemy.'' So if you question the pre-war intelligence, you are giving aid to the enemy. So it seems like the President is asking us as Members of the United States Congress not to even question any of the intelligence or any of the drum beat leading up to the war.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. He was in the room.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Then one of the questions we have here, Mr. Speaker, from Hayward, California asked, What is our mission in Iraq other than being targets for anyone with a weapon? That is really what we are saying. If you try to ask the administration why are we there, what is going on, when are they coming home, we get called unpatriotic. If we ask these questions that a man like Robert Veloza asks, Mr. Speaker, we get called unpatriotic. These are the questions. We have got a lot of questions that people ask, what are we still doing there? What is the plan for getting out? A lot of these. We have got 400 or 500 of these now. A lot of people are asking us, Mr. Speaker, what are we doing? If we try to say to the President, Mr. President, what are we doing, we are unpatriotic now?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. $40-some million.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. How many under this administration?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I would love for the gentleman to be the majority right now.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Maybe we should clear up exactly what happened here. In the indictment on or around June 12 or 13, Karl Rove told ``Scooter'' Libby about Joe Wilson's wife. On or about June 12 Karl Rove told Libby about Joe Wilson's wife and that Bob Novak was going to probably write an article about it. So Rove was tipping off Libby that this article was going to be in the paper and we need to deal with this somehow. That was in June. On September 14, Karl Rove tells ABC News that he does not even know who Joe Wilson is or his wife or anything else. And then 2 years later, I think it may have been last summer, he reiterates the fact. Okay, so we have Karl Rove telling Libby one thing about Valerie Plame and then telling the American people a few months later he does not know anything about it. That is why Karl Rove is no longer fit to serve the American public because he did not lie to ABC News. He did not lie to CNN. Karl Rove lied to the American people. Period. Dot. End of story. And he tried to revise, he tried to recant but he just cannot do it. This is the fact. The indictment says he lied to the American people. He needs to be fired. I mean, no one here would accept that from their staff.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. He is the deputy chief of staff in the White House, in the West Wing.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Deputy chief of staff.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is outrageous. I would be happy to yield. MS. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Because, you know, I think most people would understand why a CIA agent, a fellow CIA agent, would be outraged at the conduct coming from the Vice President's chief of staff, that he would do anything that would potentially put their lives or the lives of their colleagues in jeopardy. So some people might say, well, of course that would upset other CIA agents, and of course they would think that that was a problem. But in the spirit of continuing our desire to demonstrate that this is not just our opinion, and that we have some other third-party validators who agree, let us look at what Ed Gillespie, who is the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said. He was speaking to Chris Matthews on ``Hardball,'' and Chris Matthews asked him what he thought of it. And his comment to Chris Matthews then was that I think if the allegation is true, to reveal the identity of an undercover CIA operative is abhorrent, and it should be a crime and it is a crime. And then Chris Matthews went on to ask Chairman Gillespie, he said, it would be worse than Watergate, would it not? And Gillespie's response was, Yeah, I suppose in terms of the real world implications of it, it is not just politics. I mean, if that is not the ultimate third-party validator saying that it is abhorrent and it should be a crime and it is a crime to reveal the identity of an undercover CIA operative. Now, let us just make sure we say that Mr. Libby has only been accused of conduct related to that likelihood, not convicted of that. So, you know, of course we want to remember that this is a democracy and in our democracy you are innocent until proven guilty. However, it is really deeply disturbing that this is the first time in 130 years, 130 years, that we have had a White House official indicted on anything, never mind betrayal of this country's deepest secrets. And we have a long list of people who have commented on that possibility. We also have in the White House, still, I mean, Scooter Libby has left. Scooter Libby has now resigned from the White House. But you still have Karl Rove there in the White House as the right hand of the President with full, the highest level of security clearance.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is absolutely right. Here is one CIA agent, Jim Marcinkowski. This was on ``60 Minutes.'' He says exposing Brewster-Jennings, let me give a little background here. When Joe Wilson's wife was outed, when it became public, the world all of a sudden knew that everyone she was associated with and affiliated with was a part of the CIA in some way, shape or form, and so they also outed Brewster-Jennings, which was a front company, CIA front company in Boston, not to mention the 20 years' worth of contacts that also got outed. But here is a quote from Jim Marcinkowski on ``60 Minutes,'' a former covert CIA agent. He said exposing the Boston firm Brewster-Jennings could lead foreign intelligence agencies to other spies. There is a possibility that there were other agents that would use the same kind of a cover so they may have been using Brewster-Jennings just like her. Another one from The Washington Post, a small Boston company, listed as Valerie Plame's employer, suddenly was shown to be a bogus CIA front and her alma mater in Belgium discovered it was a favored haunt of an American spy. By Karl Rove and Scooter Libby and the executive branch outing Joe Wilson's wife, they put a lot of people in jeopardy, and they hurt our intelligence capabilities all over the world because now people who have dealt with Americans who went to the University of Belgium or who had dealings with Brewster-Jennings are now being looked upon as suspect. Not only that, the word now is that the spouses of American ambassadors are being looked at suspiciously because now people think just because Valerie Plame was the spouse of an American ambassador and she was a CIA agent that every other spouse of an ambassador all over the world may be a CIA agent. This has ramifications, Mr. Speaker, that we do not even realize yet. And that has done nothing but weaken the country. Now, here is the ultimate third-party validator on why the corruption going on in the White House right now must stop, because it is hurting our ability to fight the war on terrorism. They are weakening our ability to fight this war. This is Melissa, who was a 14-year covert CIA operative, and she was asked a question on ``60 Minutes.'' She says because we are talking about lives, and we are talking about capabilities, we do our work. We risk our own lives. We risk the lives of our agents in order to protect our country. And when something like this happens, it cuts to the very core of what we do. We are not being undermined by the North Koreans. We are not being undermined by the Russians. We are being undermined by officials in our own government. That I find galling. Mr. Speaker, to come to the floor, for our Republican friends to come to this floor and to somehow defend this is crazy.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the opportunity for the 30-something Working Group to be back in action, and our friend from Iowa has not solved all the world's problems tonight. We will take it from here. We are ready, willing, and able to take the country in a new direction. A couple of the issues that the other side has addressed, one is the meth labs. I had a meeting recently with some sheriff deputies in Trumbull County, Ohio, from Geauga County, Ohio, and Ashtabula, Ohio, who were saying that they were unable to confiscate the methamphetamine labs because the drug program, the Federal drug task force program has been cut. So maybe we can work together in a bipartisan way to try to increase the funding for that, and you will be supportive, I am sure, so that we can make sure we crack down on these methamphetamine labs. This is something that we want to do. Also, Mr. Speaker, the other side brought up the fact that a CIA agent was outed, and there was some disagreement. The prosecutor here, Mr. Fitzgerald, said that the reason Scooter Libby was not charged with outing a CIA agent is because he lied so much to the grand jury that he could not prove it. And he used the example, he said that I am like the umpire. I am the Federal prosecutor. I am the umpire. And as I was trying to make a decision here of whether or not he outed the CIA agent, Scooter Libby threw sand in my eyes. So I was not able to get to the point where I could actually charge him with outing a CIA agent because he threw sand in my eyes. So he charged him with two counts of making false statements to a Federal agent, two counts of perjury to a grand jury, and one count of obstruction of justice. And how the other side could somehow say that that is all right, that is okay, I cannot believe that they would just charge him with that. You just lied to a grand jury? That was all you did? Okay. Well, that is all right. You did not out a CIA agent, or at least we could not prove it. And before we get going here, there are some CIA agents, former covert operatives that I think would disagree.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Why is that? Can I ask, can we have a discussion here, a serious discussion, you know, at 11 o'clock at night? Why would the President not fire him?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We want an opportunity to take this Congress and this country in a new direction, change the way we are going and derive some independence. We are at 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov. That is 30, the number, at mail.house.gov.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. You get punished.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman will yield, this is about protecting their party. If the Republicans control the House and the Senate and the White House, and they are not being investigated to find what went wrong, whether it was Katrina or the CIA leak or Karl Rove or ``Scooter'' Libby or the Vice President's role in all this, or how are we going to balance the budget, if the Republican Party is not willing to investigate those problems, those situations, then they are putting the Republican Party before the interests of the country. And that has been the consistent modus operandi of this institution.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Good man.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Exactly right, and there is a funny thing here. It is that none of these groups who are going to face the cuts tomorrow from our Republican friends have a lobby group on Shakedown Street, on K Street, not one of them. There is no lobby group for the college students who are going to have to pay more on student loans. There is no lobby group for the kids who need foster care. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that the American people recognize that this budget is bought and paid for by the special interests on K Street, down on Shakedown Street, because our friends who are given the tax cuts will not take the $16 billion from the oil companies that they are giving in subsidies. They will not reduce the cost of the Medicare part B prescription drug bill. They will not do it, the billions that are going to go to the pharmaceutical industry. Those people are off the table. The Republican majority will not cut from them. They have to go to poor kids who qualify for free and reduced lunch to go try to balance the budget; and at the same time, they are giving more tax cuts. It is frustrating to me as a Member of Congress, from a district that has a high unemployment rate, a district that 50 percent of the people in my district who pay taxes did not even receive a tax cut and many who either qualify for these programs or want to qualify for the student loans and the Pell grants so they could improve their lives are going to get hurt because of this. At the same time, the lack of leadership, the incompetence, the inability to govern in a way that will improve the country and invest in the country continues down here, this is a disgrace. This budget is an absolute disgrace, and you take any American and you ask them to come down here and be the distinguished gentleman like the movie and come down here and try to make the decisions that we have to make and you look at what we look at, there are not many Americans who would say giving tax cuts to people who make $1 million a year and cutting from the middle class, cutting from Medicare, cutting from our seniors' health care program or the poverty programs in this country is somehow okay. One final comment. We heard from a lot of the religious organizations through the course of the last election, the Christian Coalition. I spent 12 years in Catholic schools, and I remember the Christianity I learned about had more to do with helping people who were not doing so well and trying to do your best to lift them up. To listen to the rhetoric come out of the organizations, not the members of the organizations because there are a lot of Christians in my district, these cuts offend them. The people who work at Catholic Charities, this offends them; and for the organizations who say they are religious to be deaf on this issue is an outrage.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate that. So we go through this bill here and we look at the cuts. Medicaid cuts on poor and working-class families who are trying to get some health care for their kids, student loan cuts $14.3 billion; $24 billion in reduced child support collections. It is going to knock 300,000 Americans off food stamps. Many of them have been displaced because of the natural disasters. 40,000 kids are going to get kicked off school lunch programs. Foster care is going to take a hit of 7 or $800 million, I believe. Veterans are going to get cut $600 million. There is a funny thing here because at the same time all this is going on, our friends who make more than a half a million dollars a year are going to receive a tax cut worth $70 billion. So as all of these programs on college students and their parents, Medicaid, child support, food stamps, veterans, foster care are getting cut, there is going to be $70 billion in tax cuts for people who make more than a half a million dollars a year; and before I yield over there to my friend from Florida, there is something funny about this list that we have here. I am looking at this: poor kids and poor mothers on Medicaid, who have their kids on Medicaid; college students who are just trying to get a better life, improve themselves; kids on child support and mothers who are receiving child support; people on food stamps; kids and families who qualify for the school lunch program; veterans.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It had to be a joke. They had to be kidding.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. They are just saying stop. The VFW is telling the Republican Party, Mr. Speaker, stop. Look what you are doing. You are hurting veterans. I mean, the executive director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars does not just say I am going to send a letter to Congress today, Mr. Speaker. Stop it. You are going to hurt veterans. And at the same time, you are giving tax cuts to people who make $1 million a year or more. You are giving $16 billion in subsidies to the oil companies. You are giving handouts to the pharmaceutical companies, the wealthiest corporations in the world. And you are cutting veterans benefits. What is going on here?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And the American people, for that matter.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we may be a little more intense tonight than normal, and the reason is that tomorrow this budget may come before this House, and all the rhetoric over the past few weeks may become reality tomorrow on this floor. And we are not going to sit up in our offices and watch C-SPAN and watch this happen. We are not going to sit in our office and turn on Chris Matthews or some MTV, VH-1 show and just relax tonight. The American people will be hurt if this budget passes this Congress tomorrow. People who are on Medicaid will be hurt tomorrow. People who are trying to bite, scratch, and pinch to send their kids to college will be hurt tomorrow. And veterans who fought for this country will be hurt tomorrow. And if they think we are going to stand up, or lay down, in our offices and turn the TV on or go back home to our apartments and watch this happen without a fight, they have got another think coming, because they have taken this country, and in the last 4 years borrowed over $1 trillion from foreign countries. In the last 224 years, we have not borrowed that much from foreign countries.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I thought it was very interesting how, as we were gathering or coordinating our efforts here tonight, I thought as I was listening to our Republican friends on the other side, there were things missing that I think the American people, Mr. Speaker, need to know about. No one on the other side said that we should cut the $16 billion in oil subsidies to pay for some of the other cuts that are being made for poor children or middle-class college students. No one on the other side said anything about the $100 billion in subsidies that are going to the pharmaceutical companies. No one said anything about that. And if there is any concern about the lack of responsibility, the incompetent leadership, complete incompetence, complete inability to govern, all we need to do is look at what has happened in the last 4 years.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we have been talking for a little while here. I think it is important for us to just kind of recap before we get on to something else. The Republican budget that is going to pass this House tomorrow, probably without one Democratic vote, probably anyone on this side of the aisle will not vote for this bill because of the egregious cuts in there.