Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The machine.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Who do not give money.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. ``Understand that this situation is totally unacceptable to the VFW and its 2.4 million members and auxiliaries. We will do what is necessary to protect, in Lincoln's words, `He who bore the battle, and his widow, and his orphan.' These words are marked on the front of the VA headquarters building. I urge you to take them to heart. Sincerely, Robert E. Wallace, Executive Director, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Washington Office.'' We are not making this up. This is the VFW.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, this is about third-party validators. This is not Kendrick Meek, Tim Ryan, Bill Delahunt; this is not just us spewing out rhetoric to the American people, Mr. Speaker. I want to read a letter that I think may be of some interest to the Republican majority as they are all deciding right now how they are going to vote. It is about time you get on your knees, you say your prayers before you go to bed tonight. The Republican majority needs to remember this letter: ``The absolute folly and moral bankruptcy of this plan is apparent.'' He is referring to the budget reconciliation package that the Republicans are about ready to pass out of this Chamber. This gentleman says, ``The absolute folly and moral bankruptcy of this plan is apparent to the United States Senate, who voted to bar funding for it from the appropriations bill now in conference. ``The VFW,'' I say to my friends, ``urges the Congress to put a stop to the wartime assault on past and present warriors who have fought for and continue to defend our country.''

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I will enter the letter into the Record at this time. November 7, 2005. All Members of Congress: The absolute folly and moral bankruptcy of this plan is apparent to the United States Senate, who voted to bar funding for it from the appropriation bill now in conference. We have heard, however, that the House Leadership fully intends to strip this provision from the bill, and require the VA to execute this witch-hunt of a review. The VFW urges the Congress to put a stop to this wartime assault on past and present warriors who have fought for, and continue to defend our country. Understand that this situation is totally unacceptable to the VFW, and its 2.4 million members and auxiliaries. We will do what is necessary to protect, in Lincoln's words, ``He who bore the battle, and his widow, and his orphan.'' These words are marked on the front of the VA headquarters building. I urge you to take them to heart. Sincerely, Robert E. Wallace, Executive Director, VFW Washington Office.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Article 1, section 1 of the United States Constitution creates this Chamber right here, the people's House. And we have oversight of everything else that happens in the government, over the executive, over all the agencies, the Cabinet, departments and everything else. This is the people's House. And as my friend from Florida likes to say, you cannot get appointed to this House. You have to run if I pass out here and I die.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Almost 60 percent of the American people believe that Karl Rove needs to resign, 60 percent. This is not me or my colleagues or the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), who failed a little bit on us tonight. We tried to squeeze him into the 30- something Group. We tried to help him out, then he faded on us, got a little sleepy, started yawning. We had to dismiss him. But here it is. There is a poll. This is a Washington Post poll in November of 2004. Fifty-nine percent of people in this country believe Karl Rove needs to resign.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And there are a lot of other people in the country because the poverty rate has gone so high.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. They call it the bootleg: fake left, go around the other side.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Let us try.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yeah.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Let us be a little more specific. Maybe the 30 Something Working Group will offer an amendment to the House rules to say that a bill specifically called the Deficit Reduction Act.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I do not want that either. I am not ready. But if I pass out here and I die, the Governor in Ohio will call a special election and people will run for my seat and have to get elected here. That is the bottom line. This is the people's House. We directly represent the people in our district. And we have the ability in this Chamber to oversee every other aspect of the government. But our Republican friends refuse to investigate the CIA leak. They refuse to have an independent or create an independent investigation. This has become so political here that we cannot get straight answers on how to fix the way our government runs.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. People are going to make career decisions tomorrow.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We have the new ideas to take the country in a new direction and get away from this corruption and the cronyism of hiring friends to run major organizations like FEMA. How rotten is the system, how corrupt is a system that the Republican majority will not go to the wealthiest people, will not go to the oil companies or the pharmaceutical companies to pay for Hurricane Katrina or invest in the student aid and those kinds of things because they need the money for their campaign contributions. That is a corrupt system. That is what we want to change. We want to move away from that and allow this body to once again become the independent body that it should be, that the Founding Fathers wrote up Article I, Section 1 in the Constitution providing the oversight for the executive branch, like the Republican majority has shown they know how to do. They did not do it for a great reason. They did it to get into the personal life of President Clinton. But now we have public violations, violations of the public trust through CIA leaks, leaks of CIA prisons, and all of this nonsense that has been going on. Let us restore some integrity back to this place and get rid of the three C's: corruption, cronyism, and the lack of competence.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The American people did not give the Republican Party the power that they have to use it to suppress good ideas or to suppress other Americans' voices. So the question may be, as we are talking about the closed rule and all the parliamentary procedures used here to shut down Democrats, many people would be saying, Well, what would you offer? Well, a couple of things I can think of off the top of my head, one of the amendments we would offer on this floor is to strip the $16 billion that we are giving right now to the oil companies in corporate welfare. We would take that back. The Democrats, Mr. Speaker, would offer an amendment to repeal the $16 billion. And the Democrats would offer an amendment on this floor tomorrow during the budget debate to pull back the prescription drug Medicare Part D and put in the bill a provision to allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate down the drug prices. We would also put in there that we would allow reimportation to drive the costs down. We would save the American taxpayer, with just those two or three amendments tomorrow, billions and billions and billions of dollars. And probably, over the course of the next few years, we would be able to pay for Katrina and be able to invest in our students through the Pell Grant and the student loan, and be able to make sure that every child has adequate health care. That is what we would offer. So if you are sitting at home paying attention to this debate, those are a couple of the basic things the Democrats would do. I yield to my colleague.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the Web site is 30SomethingDems@mail.house.gov. Send an e-mail recommendation to the Members of this body tomorrow. And bring your PJ pants. We may be here into the wee hours of the morning. We want to apologize in advance to the veterans organizations we are supposed to be at Friday morning for speaking engagements because we may be here voting on this budget.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This is real stuff. It is why we are up at 11:35 at night talking about it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are not kidding here either. If you are watching at home, you might think these guys are out there telling a story.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Those are new people. Those are not people who were probably on food stamps.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is what we are fighting against.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is late, and I appreciate my colleague correcting me.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.