Tim Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

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

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Absolutely. I hope from the responses we have been getting, it sounds like some people are listening. Thirtysomethingdems@mail.house.gov. Send us an e-mail, or you can go to the Web site, democraticleader.house.gov/thirtysomething, and join in our discussion. We will be happy to read some of the e-mails. We have been off for the last few weeks, so maybe next week we will read some. I would also like to say before we close up, the President of the Ukraine, Victor Yushchenko, is going to be here tomorrow. If you had followed everything that was going on with the West and the Russians and the poisoning, it was like a soap opera going on. I think it is an important point for us to make, he is going to be talking to a joint session of Congress, his election and his uprising and his move to power in the Ukraine was led by young people. We need to continue to try to encourage, not everyone has to run for office, not everyone has to be involved to the extent they make a career out of it, but it is so important when you see what is going on down here day in and day out and the lack of, I think, long-term vision. It is important because the young people are the ones who are going to be involved in the system longer than all of us are because they are younger. It is important for their voice to be heard. I thank the gentlewoman from Florida. We missed the gentleman from Florida, but I know he will be back with us next week.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The gentlewoman makes a great point about just kind of how the whole system is working right now. Basically by not having the Secretary of HHS be able to negotiate down the drug prices and by not free-trading pharmaceuticals, it is basically corporate welfare. It is basically public taxpayer, hard-earned money coming down here, and we are giving it to the pharmaceutical companies and inflated drug costs through the Medicare program. So we have corporate welfare going to the most profitable industry in the world right now. Then you give tax cuts to those people who make more than $350,000 a year so they do not have to pay. You reduce the corporate tax rate so those shareholders, and those people who benefit most from moving jobs overseas get the tax benefits there, too. And then you are cutting services here with Medicaid and food stamps and education, the Pell grant and everything that we have talked about. And now you want to go try to mess with Social Security. So if you see what is happening down here, if you take a step back and you see the whole process, there is all this corporate welfare going to all the big major corporations, they get all the tax cuts, the people who run those companies get tax cuts, and the rich get richer, and the poor are getting poorer. They say, well, that's class warfare. Mark Shields had a great line. He said, The war's over. The rich won. There is not much there anymore. But that is the way things are going, and that is why it is so important that at the bare minimum we keep that basic Social Security system in place. I think having discussions like we are having tonight and town hall meetings, I think it has been very successful. The response I am getting, and I know the response the gentlewoman is getting down in Florida, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), who could not be with us tonight, is getting, and all our colleagues on both sides of the aisle are getting it. I yield to the gentlewoman for any final comments that she may like to make.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And everyone who was telling them there were no weapons of mass destruction, they ignored them; and to now push the blame off on some bureaucrats is unfair. And that was the war. We all know that. And then the prescription drug bill started off $400 billion as we sat in this Chamber, because many of our fiscal friends on the other side of the aisle did not want to spend more than $400 billion. After the bill was signed, 2 months later, all of a sudden the real price was $500 billion and an actuary was threatened not to give the real numbers to Congress. After the election a few months ago, we find out this is going to be closer to a trillion dollars in cost. I am saying the track record here is not good for when the administration comes forward and says trust me because we have, we have been burnt; and we are certainly not going to let this happen with the Social Security system.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And, Mr. Speaker, when you look at when you would want to actually take out the money, our colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner), who was here a few weeks ago with us, had a great explanation. The stock market goes up. The stock market goes down. The stock market goes up. The stock market goes down. Well, what if you are going to retire at the wrong time? What if you were planning on retiring in 2001, 2002, and your private savings account was cut in half? Now all of a sudden you are not retiring. Social Security grows at a steady pace and keeps up with inflation and makes sure that you would be able to maintain the kind of buying power that you would normally have, and it is stable, and it is safe, and it is guaranteed.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And that is not the way we did it in 1983. And everyone has been talking about this monumental national discussion and Tip O'Neill sitting down with President Reagan and Bob Dole, and we had all the great political figures of that generation coming together to say we are going to put politics aside, and we are going to fix the problem. And we are not here to bash the President or to bash the Republicans or to bash anybody, but we are here to say we have issues here that are going to affect the long-term interest of the country. In many districts across the country we are losing manufacturing jobs. One of the main problems we have with this whole thing is we do not have enough taxpayers working and making a good living and paying into the Social Security System. My own opinion is that is what would really help fix this long term. But we are just here to say we want to sit down and work with you. You cannot have a national discussion if you do not include the opposition into your town hall meetings. Boy, it would be great to go to a meeting and never have anybody stand up and question any votes you have had or anything like that. We cannot get away with that in our congressional seats, nor should we be able to. And so the President needs to come to Congress and work with us. We want to help him figure this out. Now, private accounts, for us, are off the table. That is ridiculous. That is not going to happen. But we want to work with the President

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. One bill that equals $1,000 stacked. Okay.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Absolutely. And, Mr. Speaker, when you just look at how the privatization process would be set up, you are actually taking money that would be going into the system out away from the system. And we do not even know, and the President's proposal from all the ones I have read, is that the 4 percent that I would be able to take and move into the side account, the business match will not go into the Social Security account either. So you put in your 6.2, the business puts in theirs, but if I divert 4 percent, then that is 4 percent less that the employer has to put in. So you are talking about taking out trillions of dollars. And I think if there is one point we want to make tonight, that will be it. We brought our handy-dandy charts here. Privatization equals massive borrowing. There is only one way to fill the gap. We do not have money to plug a $2 trillion hole. And it says in the first 10 years of the plan, anywhere from $1.4 trillion to $2 trillion in borrowing, and over the next 20 years it will be $5 trillion that we will have to borrow just to plug holes in the President's plan. We are running a $400- to $500 billion trade deficit in a year, and we are going to go out and borrow $5 trillion? Where are we going to get $5 trillion to plug the hole in the Social Security plan? We are borrowing the money from foreign countries, and we are shifting the burden on to the next generation. It is irresponsible. It is lunacy. There is no reason to have to do this. So, again, push the taxes off. Now, this is the chart I like, and Tom Manatos, from our staff, is responsible for this. This is it. The national debt, my colleagues. There are so many numbers here. And this is always changing. You can go to the United States Treasury Web site, and this ticker here will keep going and keep adding, but it is $7.7 trillion. And we are going to go out and we are going to borrow $5 trillion? This is our debt now, almost $8 trillion. And if the President gets his way and we have to implement the private accounts, we are going to go out and have to borrow $5 trillion, which is more than half the national debt that we have right now. But here is the number you will love the most, your share of the national debt. Your share, one person sitting at home right now, if you are sitting there or if you are born today, you owe $26,000. That is what you owe because we spend more than we take in. Now, if we are going to add $5 trillion to this over the next 20 years, this number will almost double. So when you think about a baby that is born today that owes this, and if we keep going at the rate we are going, running $500- to $600 billion annual deficits, and this number keeps going, and we are out borrowing money and paying more interest on it, and you live your whole life and this number keeps going up, and then at 18 you go out and borrow money to go to school, to get a bachelor's degree, master's degree, Ph.D., become a lawyer, you are going to borrow more money, what does this number look like? How are we providing opportunity for our children in the next generation? We are being irresponsible here. The gentleman talked earlier here about the trade deficits and how we have to balancing those off and balancing the budget, but we are not being very kind to the next generation coming up. Mr. Speaker, I yield once again to my colleague.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman. We also want to recognize all our friends in Youngstown at this time, where at the Italian-American War Veterans Post 3 the veterans and community leaders on April 14 will hold a tribute honoring the Mahoning Valley area sons and daughters at war. We would like to thank Herman Adams, Ray Ornelas, and Dom Medina for all their help in putting this together and organizing it, helping us to honor those troops.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to pay tribute to the veterans of the Persian Gulf who are from the Mahoning Valley in Ohio. Our valley has long been blessed to have local sons and daughters willing to volunteer to serve in our country's military, and our most recent veterans of the Persian Gulf are cut from the same cloth. When they were called on to serve overseas in the Middle East, leaving their families and friends for extended periods of time to fight in a foreign land, they answered the call. They answered the call, even though they faced great physical risk, even death; and I thank them for their service, for their patriotism, and for their sacrifice. We as a country owe them a tremendous debt and are forever grateful. We need to ensure that they are provided the equipment and support they need in the field to complete their jobs effectively, that their families are taken care of when they are away, that they have jobs to come home to when they return, and that they receive the benefits that they have earned as veterans. We have no higher legislative priority, I know myself and speaking for the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), than fully funding the veterans benefits that they have been promised. Yesterday, I voted for the supplemental funding bill for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I believe that we need to finish the job we started in the Middle East and bring stability to that region and then to immediately bring our troops home. God bless the men and women who have served during the war on terror, and God bless the men and women who are still serving on the other side of the world. These veterans have protected this country for years, since its inception; and the highest honor that we could bestow upon them is to make sure that we take care of them. Mr. Speaker, we have the freedoms we enjoy today because of the sacrifices that our soldiers have made throughout history, and I am proud today to honor the men and women of the Mahoning Valley who have served this country in the Persian Gulf and have served so nobly. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I would like to start off by thanking the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), our leader on the House Committee on Armed Services, for his very thoughtful remarks. I too rise this morning, Mr. Speaker, to talk about how House Democrats feel about our national security. My colleague, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), talked about how Democrats are unanimous in supporting our men and women in uniform. I wholeheartedly agree with that. The gentleman from Missouri also made the point that we are perilously close to breaking the force, and I agree with that observation too, and that is what I would like to focus on here this morning. Extended global deployment is straining our forces. Fifteen hundred American troops have been killed in Iraq so far, despite the President's claim a year ago that our mission was accomplished. The implications of these decisions and these remarks is that our recruiting is suffering. The Marine Corps missed its recruiting goal for January. The Army missed its goal for January and February. Items not funded in the Marine Corps request include $13.9 million for recruiting. It also goes without saying that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is using up our equipment at an accelerated rate. Current projections are that it would take the Army at least 2 years to recapitalize its current equipment. Unfunded requirements include: In the Army, $443 million for small arms; $544 million for the Stryker armored vehicle. The Marine Corps list includes $145 million for ammunition; $104 million for light armored vehicles. Mr. Speaker, these are the very things that our troops need most in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet they have been relegated to the Services' unfunded priority list. The Air Force, Mr. Speaker, is projecting a $3 billion deficit in its operations and maintenance budget for fiscal year 2006. Navy leaders directed their regional commands to absorb a $300 million reduction in base operating funds as a result of the war costs. The Army's shortfall in base operating support is projected to be $1.2 billion. Mr. Speaker, forcing the military services to absorb costs of this magnitude is important for several reasons. The budget request for our military services is not adequate for war and general operation. We are about to pass a 2005 supplemental and we will need a 2006 supplemental. Democrats believe the administration should be honest with the American people about the real cost of the war. Is the administration doing everything it can to address equipment shortages, personal protective gear and the armored vehicles for the troops? Figures in this budget suggest that the Department of Defense may be robbing Peter to pay Paul. Does the administration have a plan for success in Iraq and to pay the costs of this war? Repeated supplementals is no way to go about doing this country's business. We would not have to make such difficult decisions with regard to our troops' safety if Republicans had not insisted on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Administration witnesses have not been able to tell us what the benchmarks for success are in Iraq. They do not know when Iraqis can protect themselves. They cannot describe how they intend to integrate the Sunni, Shia, and Kurd factions into those security forces. They cannot describe the new government's plan to ensure inclusion of these groups into the body politic. They cannot tell us when essential services will be fully restored. They cannot tell us how much Iraqi oil revenue is helping to pay the cost of providing security in Iraq, which was promised to us before we went into this war. It has been 2 years since we invaded Iraq, and we should, by now, have a strategy for success. House Democrats support our troops. We work to ensure they have the equipment and training and to ensure that they succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We support taking care of their families here in the States while they are deployed. We cannot do that in a smart, cost effective way that protects the taxpayers without a plan for success in Iraq and honest budgeting for the military departments here at home. We also need to mention the veterans. The pending budget resolution proposes $798 million in cuts to mandatory programs. It is unconscionable, I say to my colleague from Missouri, that we are going to have all these troops coming back to the United States and not have the veterans benefits that they need, deserve, and that they have earned.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, in 1792 citizens came to northern Ohio to find a place to call their own after the American Revolution forced many out of house and home. They called this place the Western Reserve. It was a place of new beginnings, and these fervent and industrious people made Ohio strong and prosperous. These settlers, mostly from Connecticut, were descendants of the brave immigrants who came to the Americas in the 17th century. It is with great honor that by passing this legislation we will preserve the integrity of the cultural landscape for future generations to call home. The Western Reserve is significant to our Nation's history, and it will be through education and public investment that we will help redefine our communities with the designation they so deserve. The Western Reserve holds the distinction of being home to three U.S. Presidents and three U.S. Supreme Court Justices. This was home to the foundation of the steel industry and the world's rubber capital. The Western Reserve had the first U.S. newspaper for African Americans and the oldest labor newspaper. We are an inventive people, with many firsts in the automotive and electrical worlds. This is the birthplace of Thomas Edison and John Brown, the famous abolitionist. We have regional strengths that set us apart from other areas, from our respected universities to our diverse business community to a wide range of natural and recreational resources. The agricultural and industrial base that began in the Western Reserve still lives strong in these prosperous and historical counties. These counties include Trumbull, Mahoning, Summit, Portage, Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Medina, Ottawa, Ashland, Lake, Geauga, Lorain, Huron, and Erie. The Western Reserve Heritage Area will unite northern Ohio and will help develop a plan focused on conserving the special qualities of the local culture and landscape that will once again define these communities as a good place to settle and make new beginnings. We are already starting to see some of the benefits. The original Packard car was developed in this Western Reserve and the annual event that we have brings $5 million to Trumbull County in travel tourism money. I would just like to share a quote because now, not only with the Western Reserve Heritage Area coming together, the counties in the old Western Reserve are coming together economically as well. The foundations are coming together to focus their efforts and their money and certain aspects that will help transform our economy. I would just like to share a quote from the fund of all of these, the Fund For Our Economic Future and the fund chairman, Robert Briggs, says that ``most of the pieces needed to make northeast Ohio a global economic powerhouse are in place. One of the missing pieces, however, is a shared vision and understanding that the residents in these counties in northeast Ohio are interconnected in a regional economy. By breaking down jurisdictional boundaries created by cities and counties and thinking regionally, we will think economic transformation to stimulate exponential growth.'' The Western Reserve Heritage Area can be the organizing principle of this area and lead to the transformation of our economy. I thank my colleagues for the opportunity to share these views today.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pride to honor the words of John Jackson, a steelworker from Warren, Ohio. I am proud to claim him as my constituent. I Am an American Steel Mill I was born over 100 years ago. I am a true American. I survived the depression. I have lived through wars. I sweated. I poured ton after ton out for you. When called upon I answered. At wartime I served my country. I served it true. I worked 24 hours a day 7 days a week for you. Never stopping, never slowing down. Never asking for anything in return. I have supplied you with the materials to build Planes, trains, ships, cars, and whatever you asked of me. I have helped make you the super power that you are. I have made you feel proud, safe, secure, and superior to other nations. I have given people their way of life. I have taken away life from people. Do You Know Who I Am? I Am An American Steel Mill I have helped you when called upon, I have supported you through good times And bad times. Now I am asking you this great country of ours Think what life would be like if I die Think how safe, proud, secure you would feel if I die. The cries for help are all across the country. The same country I helped build. The same country I helped become strong. Please don't let me die. Serve me as I have served you.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. How many people in poverty? Did the gentleman say that?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think that is a telling point and I appreciate her sharing that story because I will use it to further make a point on this. What we have to realize is that this is a program that helps a lot of people, too. It is not just the 70 percent of the program that goes to the retirees. This also has survivorship benefits in it. It also helps people who are disabled, blind, deaf, whatever the situation may be. This is something that brings a lot more value to our society than just the numbers that we put up on boards here in the House Chamber. There is more to this whole deal here than just money. This is about helping people and this was about bringing dignity to people so that they would not have to work until they died. It lifts seniors out of poverty. All our parents and grandparents recognize that. I think if the President says, like he said, 55 and over, you are fine, you are all right, which implies that if you are 55 and under, you better look out because we are not sure what is going to happen. If we really wanted to help kids, students right now, and that is sometimes how he pitches this, hey, these young people would be able to go save in a private account. If you really want to help these college students, increase the Pell grant more than $100 a year for the next 5 years. Let us help these kids reduce their college debt. They are graduating from college on average with about a $20,000 debt already which takes away from our national savings. Why do we not help them with that, as long as they put the money into some kind of long-term pension fund for themselves? There are ways we could get creative here and do this, but to say to dismantle the greatest social program in the history of mankind, I think is pretty foolish. The gentleman from Florida looks as if he has something very important to say.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I do not even think that counts the war.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We want to be a part of this. I do not want anyone at home sitting there listening to us to think that we do not want to be a part of solving this problem. Not crisis. Problem. Long-term problem. We all have long-term problems. My family has heart disease. I have a long-term heart disease problem, long-term.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We all have problems. I think this shows really where we are at philosophically, too. I have a school district, Youngstown city school district, over 50 percent of the kids in that school district live in poverty. Seventy percent qualify for free and reduced lunch. That to me is a crisis, immediate, needs to be addressed. Cuts in Medicaid and food stamps, that is a crisis. We need to fix that now. This is long-term. There are a couple of points I want to make. Let me get to this chart here. This is the U.S. trade deficit with China. This is the country we are borrowing all this money from. It is about $163 billion, maybe a $165 billion trade deficit. We are buying more than we are selling. I just want to show this because I think as we look at the big picture with the $420 billion or $430 billion annual trade deficit, this is all U.S. investment going over to China. A lot of these job that were in the United States are now in China. Fewer people paying that 6.2 percent into the system, which would certainly help, as opposed to making 8 bucks an hour. The good high- wage jobs that were 18, 20, 25 bucks an hour, 6.2 percent of 25 bucks an hour is a lot more than 6.2 percent of 8 bucks an hour, which is the rate we pay in. So I just wanted to put this up to give everybody some perspective. And we talked about Alan Greenspan and his testimony. I just want to read a paragraph from Bloomberg News. It is pretty interesting: ``Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's testimony yesterday before the Senate Banking Committee,'' a couple weeks ago, ``undermined virtually all of the Bush administration's arguments for diverting some Social Security tax payments to fund private retirement accounts. If the hole left in Social Security finances by the diversion were filled by added government borrowing, as proposed by President Bush, creating the private accounts would not add to national savings, and for Greenspan national savings is the overriding long-term retirement issue facing the Nation.'' Greenspan says we need more national savings. The administration's plan is borrow $5 trillion. Two complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

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

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a comment on the AARP. These attack ads, the same consultant groups that attacked Presidential candidate Kerry, the same groups that did the Swift Boat ads are now attacking AARP, and they are saying that AARP is for gay marriage and against the troops. And the reason I want to comment on that is because their reference is to the Ohio AARP chapter, which was against an issue that was on the ballot in Ohio, and I believe it was Issue 1. The issue was to ban gay marriage, but it was written so broadly that it eliminated civil unions between men and women who were older, who were senior citizens. And I have people in my district, friends of mine, who were married and their spouses passed away and they were senior citizens and they were 70-something-years-old and they had families on both sides and kids and grandkids. They did not want to get married, but they wanted a legal binding contract. So the AARP, obviously, was against that because it took away the civil unions for senior citizens. Now all of a sudden here come the attack ads against AARP just to try to slam them because they are not for the President's proposal. So I just wanted to clarify that to the folks in Ohio. That is why AARP was against Issue 1 because it is eliminating the ability for two human beings, American citizens, to write a contract between each other, man and woman, a contract not allowed in Ohio.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. So they would be in poverty if it was not for Social Security?

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, that is a phenomenal outline of a consistent approach on what the plan was, has been, continued to be and now getting closer to try to implement. I think it is an ideological bent that is pushing us because as the gentleman said, we are going to have to go out and borrow the money. I think it is important that we mention what happens when the public side is out in the market borrowing money. The more money we are borrowing, there is less money to be borrowed by private interests which will drive up interest rates because there will be less money out there because we have to keep going out there and borrowing it for our own purposes, whether it is Social Security or running a deficit of $500 billion. That means increased interest rates, for those at home, who want to go out and get a car, get a house, want to go out and borrow some money for whatever reason, interest rates are going to rise if we keep going down the path we are on right now. One other comment I wanted to make that the gentleman brought up, the administration is trying to say crisis, crisis, crisis. The sky is going to fall in if we do not do something immediately. They used the word ``bankrupt.'' I think the President used the word in the State of the Union address. I am almost positive.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Something. And the money we do pay in, because Members of Congress do pay into the Social Security system, the 6.2 percent that we are putting in now that goes into the trust funds, the President is saying we will be able to take maybe all of that, maybe a portion of that and put it in a side account. In order to make up the difference, so that our grandparents and parents can get what they have put into Social Security and they get the full benefits, we have to borrow $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years. But the massive figure is $5 trillion over the next 20 years. Now, that is $5 trillion we have to go out and borrow and pay interest on, which I think is probably the best argument for not doing this. We should not implement a program that is going to strap our generation with massive tax increases to pay for this, the $5 trillion, the interest on the $5 trillion, and then end up with a benefit that is not guaranteed. I think when you add all that together, it is a recipe for disaster.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yes, certainly. I said that $1.4 trillion must be borrowed in the first 10 years of implementation of a Social Security reform package that includes the private accounts. And, again, I am 31, the gentleman from Florida is 30----

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Pleasure. Same here, my good friend. I would also like to just make a couple of opening comments before we get into the nuts and bolts, into the meat of the issue here. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), who every now and again I join down here doing an Iraq Watch or something on the veterans, he and I held a townhall meeting in Youngstown, Ohio, last week. And we had chairs set up for about 125 people. And the room was packed with 200 people. We had to turn people away at the local library, Boardman Public Library. It was just amazing because of the amount of concern regarding this issue and how many people want to try to understand what the President's plan is. And as you put it a couple of weeks ago when we were here, we really do not have any of these details. And we do not know exactly what the President's plan is. And he is talking in these very broad concepts, because once you get down to the nuts and bolts of implementation of the privatization accounts, it gets very, very hairy and very, very scary. And one of the main concerns at the townhall meeting in Youngstown was the concern of having to borrow money to try to implement this system. And when you look at what we have here, and average people understand this, we are running close to a $500 billion deficit just this year. And so we have to go out and we have to borrow that money, and we are borrowing it primarily from the Japanese and the Chinese, which puts our country in a position of weakness. The one thing the President has said that he wants to for sure do is he wants to have these private accounts, the side accounts. So instead of putting money into the Social Security trust fund, you would put it in this private savings account. Because the money is getting diverted into the accounts, and we want the current beneficiaries of the program to get what they deserve, we have got to go out over the next 10 years, the first 10 years out from this plan, and we have to borrow $1.4 trillion just to cover the cost of the transition in the first 10 years.