Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. No.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentlewoman would yield, that is a tremendous point. They have deceived and misled the American people. Then, when the Democrats want to change things and try to take things in a new direction, people say, well, we were all dealing with the same intelligence. So we say, well, let us go and look at the intelligence. When we say let us try to fix this problem together in a bipartisan way, because there is so much at stake here, we get stymied. Senator Reid had to shut the Senate down the other day on behalf of the American people so that we could get a good, solid overview of the intelligence. We are not saying this just to say it.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. A double standard for people working in their administration.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Reclaiming my time, you are leaving all of the decision-making power in the hands of the 11 Republican Members.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the way the committee is set up right now, there are 11 Republicans and there are 9 Democrats on the committee. The Democratic Party cannot subpoena a witness without the support of the Republican Party. We cannot subpoena the documents. We cannot get the kind of information that we need without the approval of the majority party, and you are asking the American people to trust the Republican Party, the same people that appointed Brownie to run FEMA, and he is still on the payroll.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, he did. But the same party that is overseeing him has left this man on the payroll making $148,000 a year.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Tim Russert, son of Big Russ, Buffalo, Ohio, John Carroll graduate. Mr. Russert says to the Vice President, this is 2 months after the Vice President told Libby about Joe Wilson's wife. Russert says, Joe Wilson says he came back from Niger and said that, in fact, he could not find any documentation that in fact Niger had sent uranium to Iraq or engaged in that activity and reported it back to the proper channels. Question: Were you briefed on his findings in February-March of 2003? Vice President Cheney: No, I do not know Joe Wilson. I have never met Joe Wilson. Now, talk about what is the meaning of ``is'' is. I mean, give me a break.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Two months earlier, the VP told Scooter Libby about Joe Wilson's wife; and then he says 2 months later, to Tim Russert, I do not know Joe Wilson.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is not us.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we are getting into some procedural stuff here, but the Republican Party does not need to offer amendments because they get everything they want into the bill during the committee process. They offer it. They do not need to offer amendments.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Do you know why? Because the kids that have to pay this debt, that $8 trillion, they are not just Republican kids, they are not just Democratic kids, they are kids born in the United States of America.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. So are you saying that the interest that the American taxpayer pays on the money we are borrowing from China is being invested on the Chinese people to create 600,000 engineers a year?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I want to share with the American people something we shared with them earlier in the last hour or 2 hours ago about being fiscally responsible. In fact, in the last 224 years, 42 Presidents, they borrowed $1 trillion from outside sources, other countries. Forty-two presidents, 224 years over a trillion dollars. In the last 4 years, the Republican President with the Republican House and the Republican Senate have borrowed more than we have borrowed in the previous 224 years, over a trillion dollars from foreign countries, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia. Here is the kicker. See, now they are the bank. Now China is the bank. Now they are already taking our jobs. Now they are holding the bank notes, and we got to pay interest on it. Here is the kicker. Here is what just really frosts me. At the same time, China is graduating 600,000 engineers a year; and the United States is graduating 70,000. So what does the Republican majority do? After borrowing billions of dollars from the Chinese and watching them educate their kids and have 600,000 engineers when we only have 70,000, they raise the fees on student loans. They cut the education budget. Then the kids who need health care, so that they can at least concentrate in school, so they are not sick, they cut that, too. Where is the long-term vision from the Republican party?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, there is also another welfare state: Iraq. We have forgotten to even bring this up tonight, but there is a welfare state in Iraq. And as they are cutting programs in the United States on student loans, do we know what they are doing in Iraq? They rehabbed 2,717 schools in Iraq. They trained 36,000 teachers in Iraq. As they are cutting Medicaid and Medicare in the United States, they have trained 2,000 health educators in Iraq, 3.2 million children vaccinated in Iraq, 110 primary health care centers built in Iraq. We have a welfare state in Iraq right now that is being funded by the American taxpayer at the same time that the Republican Congress is cutting funding for the United States citizens that live right here in this country. So they take your public tax dollars and they give $16.5 billion of it to the oil companies, $100 million of it to the pharmaceutical companies, do nothing to reduce the cost of pharmaceuticals; they give between $200 billion and $300 billion to the welfare state in Iraq and, at the same time, they are cutting programs here in the United States of America. That is just corrupt. They put their party before the country. We want to take this country in a new direction, change what is going on in this country, and create some independence from shakedown street.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentlewoman will yield further, I think the point really is that not only do they disrespect government, and if you disrespect something, it tends to not work appropriately, they see government as their little sandbox, and they see government as their opportunity to take care of their political contributors, to bolster their own political party.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I understand.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And we are getting lectured to by people telling us that that party on that side of the aisle is responsible? Is this responsible? Is that good leadership? We have not seen good leadership out of this administration yet. Come on.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This is cronyism at its best, because this fellow is not the least bit qualified to be in charge of FEMA. The top 8 or 10 people of FEMA were all political appointments of people who were not qualified. We want an independent commission to oversee this whole process. Why? Because this could have been a terrorist attack, and we have got someone in charge of responding to the terrorist attack who is talking about rolling up his shirt sleeves so he looks good on CNN.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Still on the parole for $148,000.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will yield, I want to share with the Speaker and the American people to get this in the Congressional Record some of the e-mails that Brownie was sending on the day of the Katrina tragedy and the days after the Katrina tragedy. First of all, this is about cronyism in politics at its best, a culture of cronyism and a culture of corruption. We see it all the time at the local, sometimes at the local level, but the way that the cronyism has permeated, permeated, the Federal Government with President Bush's friends is really absolutely sickening. This is an article today out of CNN.com. The quotes are posted on websites. The gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Melancon), from New Orleans, has all of the quotes posted on his website from Brown, the former head of FEMA on the day of the Katrina tragedy. This is just startling. This is just startling. First let me say that Mr. Brown spent a decade as the Stewards and Judges Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. How he ended up as the head of the FEMA agency is beyond my ability as a human being to put into my head, to conceptualize. I cannot believe that the President would put someone who was the Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association in charge of FEMA. He did not get an appointment as an ambassador to a country that has a lot of beaches. He ends up in charge of FEMA after 9/11. Here is what he says, one of the e-mails. Brown wrote to Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs the morning of the hurricane, ``Can I quit now? Can I come home?'' A few days later Brown wrote to an acquaintance, ``I am trapped now. Please rescue me.'' I mean, give me a break. A few days later, Brown is talking to his PR director, his press secretary, Sharon Worthy, about his attire, asking her, can you imagine this, asking her ``Tie or not for tonight? Button down blue shirt?'' He is asking her about what he should wear. This is a couple days after Katrina, when the American people were watching on all the cable news channels people suffering in pools of water, flooding everywhere, nothing to eat, people who do not have their insulin, old folks starving to death, dehydrating, no water, no ice, and this guy is saying ``I am trapped now, please rescue me?'' Is that the kind of leadership we want? No. The United States wants leadership and we get cronyism. A few days later, she says, this is his press secretary again, ``Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt, all shirts. Even the President rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this crisis and on TV you just need to look more hard-working.'' You got to be kidding me. This is what your FEMA director is doing during Katrina? He is talking with his press secretary, who said roll up your shirt sleeves so you look like you are working.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, there is a certain amount of corruption within the system, is there not, when that happens? There is just a certain amount of corruption and incompetence in the system. Now, I know our friends, they like to say, well, all the Democrats, all they want to do is spend, spend, spend. But they have borrowed and spent over $1 trillion just in the last 4 years from foreign countries, more than the past 42 Presidents.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, can the gentleman explain who offered that motion, what party?