Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Right.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We write the checks out of this body. The checks come if you are going to write the checks but not oversight.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We have said it 1 million times. Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution creates the House of Representatives. The people of the country govern. Anything that is created from there we have oversight of, and that is the essence of this democracy. We try to represent the republic that we have. This is our job, overseeing FEMA.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I would be happy to yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And how many years the majority said about the Democratic controlled Congress tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend. Well, the last 10 years and the last 5 years in particular, borrow and spend. We are borrowing the money from China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, a lot of people who do not have really friendly interests with the United States of America. And the problem is, we have got to pay interest on the money we are borrowing. Reckless fiscal policy, incompetence, corruption, cronyism, time and time and time again. Tom DeLay's House of Shame (By Jonathan Alter) A decade ago, I paid a call on Tom Delay in his Ornate office in the Capitol. I had heard a rumor about him that I figured could not possibly be true. The rumor was that after the GOP took control of the House that Year, DeLay had begun keeping a little black book with the names of Washington lobbyists who wanted to come see him. If the lobbyists were not Republicans and contributors to his power base, they didn't get into ``the people's House.'' DeLay not only confirmed the story, he showed me the book. His time was limited, DeLay explained with a genial smile. Why should he open his door to people who were not on the team? Thus began what historians will regard as the single most corrupt decade in the long and colorful history of the House of Representatives. Come on, you say. How about all those years when congressmen accepted cash in the House chamber and then staggered onto the floor drunk? Yes, special interests have bought off members of Congress at least since Daniel Webster took his seat while on the payroll of a bank. And yes, Congress over the years has seen dozens of sex scandals and dozens of members brought low by financial improprieties. But never before has the leadership of the House been hijacked by a small band of extremists bent on building a ruthless shakedown machine, lining the pockets of their richest constituents and rolling back popular protections for ordinary people. These folks borrow like banana republics and spend like Tip O'Neill on speed. I have no idea if DeLay has technically broken the law. What interests me is how this moderate, evenly divided nation came to be ruled on at least one side of Capitol Hill by a zealot. This is a man who calls the Environmental Protection Agency ``the Gestapo of government'' and favors repealing the Clean Air Act because ``it's never been proven that air toxins are hazardous to people''; who insists repeatedly that judges on the other side of issues ``need to be intimidated'' and rejects the idea of a separation of church and state; who claims there are not parents trying to raise families on the minimum wage--that ``fortunately, such families no not exist'' (at least Newt Gingrich was intrigued by the challenges of poverty); who once said: ``A woman can't take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure.'' I could go on all day. Congress has always had its share of extremists. But the DeLay era is the first time the fringe has ever been in charge. The only comparison to DeLay & Co. might be the Radical Republicans of the 1860s. But the 19th-century Radical Republican agenda was to integrate and remake the South. The 21st-century Radical Republican agenda is to enact the wish list of the tobacco and gun lobbies, repeal health and safety regulations and spend billions on shameless pork-barrel projects to keep the GOP at the trough. Another analogy is to Republican Speaker Joe Cannon, who ran the House with an iron fist a century ago. But Cannon had to contend with Progressive Republicans who eventually stripped him of his power. DeLay's ruling radical conservative claque remains united, at least for now. Comparisons with fellow Texan Sam Rayburn fall short, too. Rayburn was respected on both sides of the aisle for his rock-solid integrity. He and most other House speakers carefully balanced their support for corporate interests like the oil depletion allowance with at least some sense of public good. And they had to share much of their power with committee chairmen. Today, seniority is much less important. Chairmen are term-limited (six years) or tossed if they displease DeLay. And this crowd views ``the public interest'' as strictly for liberal pantywaists. How have they succeeded? A new book ``Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy,'' by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, explains how the GOP is simply better than the Democratic Party at the basic blocking and tackling of politics, including the exploitation of cultural and religious issues. The authors argue that even if DeLay goes down, the zealotry and corporate shilling will continue as long as the GOP controls the House. Consider DeLay's temporary replacement, Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt. The Washington Post reported last week that Blunt is respected by Republican members in part because he has ``strong ties to the Washington lobbying community.'' That's a qualification for office? The only reason the House hasn't done even more damage is that the Senate often sands down the most noxious ideas, making the bills merely bad, not disastrous. What next for the House of Shame? If DeLay's acquitted, he'll be back in power. If he's convicted, his proteges will continue his work. Reform efforts by fiscal conservatives determined to curb their borrow-and-spend colleagues are probably doomed. The only way to get rid of the termites eating away the people's House is to stamp them out at the next election.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We are borrowing it from China. We do not even have the money.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. A deficit, $500 billion? Now that is not even factoring in the war, a war that we got ram-rodded into, lied into. Is that the great triumph of ideas?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity for us to just grab a few more minutes here and finish up, the 30-something working group that we have here, and we want to kind of end the conversation tonight talking a little bit about a recent periodical that we like to call Newsweek. It is about the power outage. And we have mentioned a couple of words here tonight, competence or lack thereof, and cronyism. Now, we like, at the 30-something working group, to get third party validators. And here on the cover of Newsweek, GOP, a mounting crisis of competence and cronyism, which I think is exactly what we have been talking about here tonight. Madam Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record an article here, Tom DeLay's House of Shame, by Jonathan Alter. Before yielding to the gentleman, I would like to just share a little bit a couple of the quotes. I want to share a couple of quotes from this article today or this week. This gentleman is saying, Mr. Alter is saying that historians will regard this as the single most corrupt decade in the long and colorful history of the House of Representatives. That is pretty sad. And that Congress has always had its share of extremists, but the DeLay era is the first time the fringe has ever been in charge. And when we talked about Katrina, we talked about trying to implement this extremist agenda, regardless of what the circumstances are, and using Katrina as an opportunity to implement this agenda. I want to just share one more quote before we open it up here of what then House majority leader Mr. DeLay said after the hurricanes, and I quote, that Katrina and Rita ``introduced a valuable forum to promote the triumph of our ideas and solutions for government over the crumbling and outdated policies of the Democratic controlled Congress of past decades.'' The crumbling or the triumph of our ideas. Triumph of our ideas. I mean, let's just look at where we are right now. Triumph of the Republican ideas? What? Increased poverty? Stagnant wages? Health care going up by 15 to 20 percent a year? Pharmaceutical costs going up by 20 percent a year. What triumph of ideas?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is a little late tonight. If you are still up, 30somethingdems@mail.House.gov. Send us some e-mails. We have been getting some really great ones, and a lot of them lately.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, I am just going to wrap up here in the final, unless the gentlewoman has any final comments.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Pork.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This is the Democratic bill that establishes a congressional commission to examine Federal, State and local response to the devastation by Hurricane Katrina. It is an independent commission. What we are doing, we want to ask the American people and other Members of Congress to support this and become a citizen cosponsor of this bill, at www.housedemocrats.gov/katrina. This is an opportunity for all Americans to participate in the movement to try to establish an independent commission. Get rid of the partisanship, get rid of the nonsense, let us get some real oversight here.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, if I may add something, the shame of the whole matter is, it is about priorities. We have time to pass tax cuts through this Chamber that give billionaires and millionaires hundreds of thousands of dollars, billions of dollars for the oil industry, to pass a prescription drug bill that does nothing to contain costs, so it is a billions of dollars in giveaways to the pharmaceutical companies, and then the reality is, that money has to come from somewhere. So this kid does not have goggles and some average American has to go out and buy them. People say, well, what is the government doing? You know what we are doing here? You know what the Republican leadership here is doing? They are giving billions of dollars in tax credits and subsidies to the oil industry. That is what they are doing. They are giving Warren Buffett and Bill Gates a tax cut. That is what they are doing. Here is where we ask for the opportunity to lead the country. Democrats are asking the American people for an opportunity to lead this country, and say if your priority is for that kid to have the goggles he needs, that is the priority of the Democratic Party; in health care and education, that is the priority of the Democratic Party. We want a chance to govern, because this outfit has dropped the ball.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. FDA? They have got to be kidding me.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Save their political appointments for the ambassadorships with a lot of beachfront property. That is where they put their political people. And we understand that happens. Do not put them in charge of FEMA. Do not put them in a position where if they do not like the science, then change the science.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If they don't like the science, change the science.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman will yield further, the reason we want to do this is because the record over the past few years has been simple: Everything that happened, everything that was told to us prior to the war, has not been true. No one has been held responsible for that at all. No oversight. We were told that the prescription drug bill was only going to cost $400 billion. We find out after it is $700 billion. No oversight, no one is held responsible for it. And on and on and on. The budget projections, the economy, gas, energy costs, everything, no oversight, no one is being held responsible, and we think that it is in the best interests of the American people to have an independent commission.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I think it is not only the corruption, and I think all of us here choose that word very carefully. I do not think that is the kind of word you just throw around here, because that is not right. But time after time after time, the White House, the White House, the procurement office, the FBI leaks, what we have here going on in the House, the Senate, we have a whole Martha Stewart scandal going on in the Senate. All of these things add up. At some point you have to use the ``C'' word because it keeps coming and coming and coming. But the problem for the American people is that the corruption leads to incompetence and an inability to govern. This side has proven time and time again that they do not know how to govern in the United States of America. You look at Hurricane Katrina, the economy, education, health care, gas prices, energy, pick a topic. It is incompetence, and they cannot handle the levers of government. Madam Speaker, I welcome the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the words of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek). I think we need to be absolutely clear that after all this time when we are talking about the committee that passed out of this House, this is a committee, 11 to 9, Republicans 11, Democrats 9; and what we are arguing from our side of the aisle, why not have an independent commission like for 9/11. That was a commission that worked, that solved problems, and that was bipartisan. Why would we not want that to happen again. We have seen time and time again, over the past 5 years in particular, when there was no check on the Republican power in the House and the Senate, that time and time again we have been getting bad information from the leadership here in the House of Representatives, the Republican leadership. We have been getting bad information. If you want to talk about the war, bad information. Why would we want the Republican majority in Congress to oversee the information and the intelligence and everything else that came from the war. It is the fox guarding the hen house. And when we talk about the Medicare prescription drug bill, it started out $400 billion. That is all it is going to cost. Then we find out months later it was $700 billion. Why would we want the majority party who originally gave us the bad information to then oversee the investigation into the bad information that they gave us in the first place. After Hurricane Katrina, after one of the great national and natural disasters in the history of the United States of America, decimated FEMA, terrible response on all levels, there is plenty of blame to go around, Federal, State and local, why would we want the party who is in charge to oversee their own investigation. Give the American people an honest assessment of how things worked and what the mistakes were, because at the end of the day, this is about fixing the problem because that could have been, that very well could have been a biological attack in New Orleans. And the response was terrible. So why would we want the Republican majority to oversee the Republican mistakes and expect at the end of the day that we are going to get an honest assessment. It just does not make any sense. Madam Speaker, I want to welcome the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) to the 30-something Group.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, the gentleman is exactly right. They are not qualified. They are ideologues. And I want to share with my colleagues a couple quotes here. They are not competent to hold a position, but yet they hold an ideology that they want to implement. And I want to just share with my colleagues that a gentleman from Heritage Foundation says that conservatives at the Heritage Foundation and elsewhere have advocated regarding Katrina that any recovery package begin with the understanding that the liberal social welfare programs of the last century failed the poor in every imaginable way. He added that the unique circumstances created by Katrina are an unprecedented opportunity to push for radical change. They want to implement their ideology, and they want to say that the social programs that the Democrats put in over the last 40 years somehow failed. What? Social Security that lifted 50 percent of the seniors out of poverty, Medicare that provided health care for seniors a failure?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

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

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, maybe if we were not so concerned in this House, the other body, the executive branch, about raising money and putting our political friends into certain positions all over, maybe this government would do a better job of actually executing its job. We spend so much time, not we, but the ruling party here, the Republican Party, spends so much time trying to raise money and squeeze donors and appoint their college roommate's friend to the head of FEMA. Maybe if we spent, if this government spent as much time and energy and the resources to actually govern the country, maybe we would be doing a lot better. Poverty is up. Our education levels are not where they need to be. There is a widening gap between the wealthiest people in the country and the poorest people in this country. We saw a good example of that in New Orleans, but it is the same in every city in United States of America, structural poverty that is here in this country. Maybe if we were spending a little more time actually trying to run the country instead of raising money and appointing political hacks, maybe we would be a little better off. We talked about the money and how it influences everything here. Is it a coincidence that through all this, all this money that is involved in this whole system, it is a coincidence that the wealthiest people in this country are getting tax breaks? That is like a direct connection. A lot of money donated from the wealthy people in the country, and the wealthy people in the country get a tax break, and everyone else seems to suffer. We are not saying for one moment that we do not think that our government needs reform: Education, health care, it needs reform. We are the reform party. This group has had control of this Chamber for over 10 years now. No reform at all. Numbers are not up where they need to be up. They are down where they need to be up, and they are up where they need to be down. It is about reform. But to see the influence of money in this Congress and then to see the wealthiest people who are contributing get the tax cuts just does not seem fair.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The website is 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov. If you think we have cronies in government, do you think there is an abuse of power, a waste of money, things are tilted too much, the website is 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.