Ted Strickland

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. If my friend will yield for a moment, we keep talking about the $21 billion for Iraq, and that is out of the $87 billion the President has requested. But we should not forget that we have already appropriated $65 billion. What we are talking about here is over $150 billion that has already been requested out of the American taxpayers' pocketbook. So it is maddening to me when the President stands before the U.N. today and he says we are going to build 1,000 new schools in Iraq, and we are underfunding the No Child Left Behind bill by $8 billion. We ought to care about Iraqi children, but we ought to care about American children and American kids as well. And then he says we are going to build hospitals and health care clinics, and we are underfunding our VA health care system by $1.8 billion. So which is it, Mr. President? Do you care more for the Iraqi citizens or for America's veterans? Do you care more for Iraqi children or America's kids? It is just maddening to me. I do not think the President has been a straight shooter with the American people, and I do not think it was any coincidence that when the President finally came clean and 'fessed up that there was no evidence that connected Iraq with September 11, 2001, that he did it in the midst of a hurricane, when the Nation's attention was focused on the weather. But the fact is, it is significant, because about 70 percent of the American people apparently continue to believe that we went to Iraq because Iraq was involved in the attack upon our country. Afghanistan was involved in the attack upon our country, and I think we all supported going into Afghanistan. But the American people need to know that there was no connection between Iraq and September 11, and no weapons of mass destruction have been found. So I find myself asking, what is the justification for what has happened, and how are we going to deal with this mess we have gotten ourselves into?

Mr. STRICKLAND. I would just like to point out to my friend that 202 Democrats have signed the discharge petition. Only one Republican has signed the discharge petition. It is something that I think the American people, especially the veterans in our country, need to know. They need to ask their Representative whether or not they have signed the discharge petition; and if they have not, they should ask them why they have not.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield just for a moment, the numbers are startling, I agree, but I think they are even more troublesome when we put them in perspective. We are talking about billions and billions and billions to rebuild Iraq, and as has been pointed out this evening, we are underfunding our veterans' health care by $1.8 billion. It seems so easy for the President to talk about billions and billions and billions for Iraq, and yet this administration and the leadership of this House, they are fighting us tooth and toenail to keep us from getting the $1.8 billion we need just to provide the basic medical services to our soldiers. I want to tell my colleagues something that I found out today that is shocking. I think the American people will be appalled when they find this out. The soldiers who have been wounded in Iraq and have been brought back to this country and are currently in hospitals a few miles from here, Walter Reed Hospital, when they leave the hospital, if they are able to leave the hospital, they receive a bill. They are being charged $8.10 every day they are in that hospital for the food they eat. Think of that. You are in Iraq, you get your leg blown off, you come to Walter Reed Hospital here outside of Washington and get medical care, and when you leave the hospital, they present you with a bill totaling $8.10 for every day you are in that hospital for the food you have eaten. Why are we willing to nickel and dime our veterans and be so incredibly generous with those who are living in Iraq or Turkey or elsewhere around the world? It is almost beyond belief.

Mr. STRICKLAND. And where Osama bin Laden is still hiding somewhere out there planning the next attack upon our people.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I know of no issue that most clearly shows the differences between the Republican and the Democratic parties than does this issue. President Bush came to Ohio on Labor Day. He stood and he talked about the child tax credit. It was reported in the paper that he said folks here in Ohio can use this $400 per child tax credit to buy clothing for their children, to buy school supplies. What the President did not say to the citizens of Ohio is that the Republican Party is excluding 500,000 children in Ohio, children from low-income families, children from families who are most in need of help, and yet they apparently do not count. We are told that they should not get this benefit because their parents do not pay income taxes. Well, they pay payroll taxes. They pay property taxes. They pay all sorts of other kinds of taxes. Why is it that my Republican colleague focus only on the income tax? Do they not know that a dollar being given for the payroll tax is just as difficult for that poor family to pay as a dollar on an income tax? Mr. Speaker, 500,000 children in the State of Ohio. Now, people need to be very clear. These are children whose moms and dads work. Sometimes they may work two or more jobs. They just simply do not make enough to have to pay income tax. Think about that. If you are a resident of Ohio and you make $60,000 a year and have two children, you get $800, $400 per child. But if you are a family that lives next door to the $60,000 family and you only make $25,000 and you have got two children, they get nothing. They get zero under this plan. It does not make sense. I think it is cruel hearted. I think it is hard hearted to react to the children in this manner. Mr. Speaker, I call upon the President to exert his influence so that the next time he comes back to Ohio he can say he cared about all of Ohio's children, even the poor kids. I think this is a matter of values. And for those of us in this Chamber who support family values, I would like to quote from the New Testament. Jesus said, ``As often as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.'' What we are talking about here today are the poorest kids. We are talking about the poorest kids, the kids whose moms and dads work but who struggle. We are talking about the kids who need clothing for school, who need school supplies, who need all kinds of other essentials that their moms and dads may not be able to provide to them unless we do the right thing in this Chamber and provide this rebate, this tax credit for all the children.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I was standing here listening to the gentleman, and I am thinking to myself, these are very serious accusations; that this administration, this President, his staff, were not fully candid with the American people, and consequently we find ourselves in a situation where today the polls tell us that a vast majority of the American people believe that Saddam Hussein was in some way responsible for what happened on September 11, 2001. There is no credible evidence to support that conclusion. The President needs to say so. I watched Vice President Cheney on television this past Sunday. I was stunned that even at this time, after the evidence is so crystal clear, he is still holding on to these, what I would consider, fabrications. The American people I think can be trusted with the truth. But without the truth, the American people simply do not know where to go for the truth or who to believe. Now, I was listening to the two of you earlier in my apartment, and I wanted to come over and share something that I think is relevant to this discussion, at least in a tangential way. Earlier today, I was over on the Senate side participating in a House-Senate joint committee meeting of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. The national commander of the American Legion gave testimony to us today, and he told us what we all know, that we are underfunding VA health care by $1.8 billion. Now, I think it is relevant, because the President has recently come to us and he has asked for $87 billion additional, on top of what has already been appropriated for fiscal year 2003. $87 billion. As the gentleman has said and we all believe, we will do whatever we must do to care for our troops, to make sure they have adequate equipment and protection, and I understand $300 million to $400 million of that request from the President is to perhaps purchase body armor for our soldiers, armor that I think they should have had a long time ago, because, as I shared not many nights ago on this floor, I got a letter from a young soldier in Baghdad saying that the men in his group were concerned that they had cheap armor that was incapable of stopping bullets; and they wondered why they could not have the best protection possible under the circumstances. But, anyway, of this $87 billion, a large part of it will go to providing for our troops, and we want to support that; but approximately $20 billion, my understanding is, approximately $20 billion is for the reconstruction of Iraq. The question that I think the American people should be asking the President and this Congress is what are your priorities? Why is it so easy to ask for multiple billions of dollars for Iraq and for the rebuilding of Iraq, when we are underfunding our most basic needs here at home, veterans health care, by $1.8 billion? If there are veterans listening, they may think Strickland can't be telling the truth. This President would certainly not take such a position with VA health care. I would just encourage them perhaps to contact their veterans service organizations, the VFW, the American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Vietnam Vets. All of these groups know what is happening to VA health care. It just troubles me that we seem so willing to ask for so much for Iraq and for other places around this world and yet we are neglecting the most basic needs at home. And surely, if we are going to set priorities, we should put the American needs first and other needs second or third or fourth. So I just wanted to point that out. I think it is appropriate that we ask the administration these questions: what are you going to do with that money? And one more thing before I stop. Mr. Speaker, before this last request for $87 billion, a lot of money had already been spent in Iraq, and my understanding is the Halliburton Corporation, the former employer of Vice President Cheney, received an unbid contract in the range of $1.7 billion. I think it is appropriate that we ask the President to commit to us that if we approve this funding that he has asked for, that none of it, absolutely not a dollar of it will go to corporations, Halliburton or any other corporation under an unbid process. The American people need to know that the tax dollars they pay and the money that is appropriated for these needs are spent wisely, and we ought to have an open, transparent process. No more of this unbid contract stuff that leaves us wondering, at least I am wondering, whether or not there was some deal, whether or not there was some sweetheart arrangement that enabled this company or some other company to get access to large amounts of American tax dollars without having to go through a competitive bidding process. I think that is the least the administration can do, is to make that commitment to us. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues allowing me to participate tonight. I will stick around and listen to what else is going to be said here. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. They have a gag order. They have a gag order. They have instructed their doctors and social workers and nurses who work in our VA hospitals, they have told them they cannot participate in community health fairs. They cannot send out newsletters informing our veterans of the services they are entitled to receive. They cannot make public service announcements informing the veterans of what this Congress has provided them under the law. We are willing to spend money in Iraq but we are not willing to take care of our veterans. In my judgment it is shameful what we are doing to our veterans. Then they decided that they were going to create a new category of veteran. We call them Priority 8 veterans. You can make as little as $25,000 and this administration considers you high income. And they say you cannot enroll in VA health care. You can be a combat decorated veteran and be excluded.

Mr. STRICKLAND. And we are talking about if we had an additional $1.8 billion, we could include those veterans. We are quibbling over $1.8 billion when we are being asked to approve $87 billion for Iraq. It is beyond belief.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Absolutely. Mr. Speaker, I got a letter from a young West Point graduate. He graduated from West Point just literally a few months ago. He is in Baghdad tonight. He wrote me about 2 months ago. He said, Congressman, they are issuing two kinds of vests here, one is capable of stopping bullets, the other is only capable of stopping fragments. And my men are wondering why they have the cheap vests. We took months to build up to the engagement in this conflict. We had plenty of time to make sure that every need that our soldiers may face in terms of equipment was available for them. It disturbs me that there may be young Americans tonight whose lives are unnecessarily in danger because this government has not provided them with the best possible protection. That really disturbs me. It ought to disturb everyone who serves in this Chamber, everyone who serves in the Senate and certainly it ought to disturb the President.

Mr. STRICKLAND. I think so.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Pretty certain.

Mr. STRICKLAND. I hope the Secretary never says that in my presence, because if he does, I am going to have to challenge him. None of us, none of us condone terrorism. In fact, we are here because we are concerned that this administration is not adequately waging the war on terrorism. ``Osama bin Forgotten'' is out there somewhere planning the next attack on this country. The President said he can run, but he cannot hide. Well, he ran and he has hidden, and he is planning the next attack. And for the Secretary to say such a thing outside the country, outside the country I think is grossly unfair and I think the Secretary owes this Congress and each of us who have a responsibility under the Constitution to represent our constituents and to speak our mind as we believe the truth to be, he has no right to make such an accusation against any of us.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Can I respond to that, please?

Mr. STRICKLAND. That is right.

Mr. STRICKLAND. The American people really do not care what word we use, but they understand what has happened. They listened to the President go on TV and address the national audience. They heard his references to a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq and September 11. They heard everything that was said about weapons of mass destruction. We do not have to pick a particular word. The American people understand that the situation that was described for them was an unreal situation, and the result is this: we have got thousands of our troops in Iraq tonight. They are inadequately protected. We are not providing them the best protection possible. We are not. And I challenge anyone in this administration to challenge that statement, to tell me that they have got the best vests that we can buy, to tell me that they are as protected as they possibly can be. I do not believe it, based on what I have been told and I think what the facts show. So I do not want to quibble about what words we may use, but my friend has been very accurate. The gentleman has laid out the case as it unfolded. Now we are being told, well, we are there, so we might as well just, oh, get on board and get this over with. I think it is appropriate for us to ask whether or not those who are providing leadership are worthy of our confidence. Are they competent people? Have they told the truth? Can we trust them to make further decisions about what is happening in Iraq? Those are the questions that must be answered.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, it is good to be here this evening. I am here tonight to say something that for me is kind of difficult to say. I believe the President has deceived us, that he has distorted the truth, and that he has engaged in false claims which has taken us into a war which is daily claiming the lives of our soldiers. The President and his administration told us that there was a connection between what happened on September 11, 2001, and Iraq, and thus far we have found no substantive evidence that such a connection existed. The President told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that it was necessary for us to engage in a preemptive attack because of an imminent attack from Iraq, and thus far no such weapons have been found. Vice President Cheney said we would be welcomed as liberators, the people would consider us their friends; and yet the truth is that on a daily basis, young Americans are losing their lives and many more are being horribly maimed and injured, disfigured in Iraq. The administration told us this would not cost us a lot of money because Iraq had lots of oil and as already been mentioned in March, Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz told the House subcommittee that Iraq could generate $50 billion to $100 billion of oil revenue over the next to 2 to 3 years. He said we are dealing with a country that can finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon, and yet the President in total has requested over $150 billion of our tax dollars to pay for our adventure in Iraq. The President said recently that we must provide every benefit to our soldiers and protect them in any way possible, and yet tonight as we stand here on this floor in the safety of this great hall, young Americans are in Iraq wearing vests that do not have the capacity to stop bullets. They are wearing cheap vests because we have not spent the money necessary to get the highest quality protective vests for our soldiers. Moms and dads are asking me questions. Wives and sweethearts are asking me questions, questions that I cannot answer because this administration is unwilling to come forth and tell us what the plan is, how long they are going to be there. The President recently asked for $87 billion, American tax dollars, and we have heard a lot about that over the past few days on radio and television, but the truth is it is more than $87 billion because he asked for billions earlier. It is over $150 billion. But this $87 billion is three times the amount we are spending on homeland security, three times more than we are spending to keep our country safe. It is more than we are spending on education and homeland security combined. In this Congress we are underfunding the No Child Left Behind bill by $8 billion. We are underfunding veterans health care by $1.8 billion. The President is trying to impose additional costs on our veterans. He is asking our veterans to pay $15 a prescription, up from $7 a prescription. He is wanting to impose a $250 annual enrollment fee so that many of our veterans can participate in the VA health care system. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, last spring I received an e-mail from a sixth grade math teacher by the name of Dawn Spurr. Dawn teaches in a small town in my district, and she wrote to me just after she had given her students a standardized test that she did not feel fairly measured her students' progress. She told me that several of her students were very upset. Some even left the classroom in tears because they simply did not have enough time to finish the test even though she felt they knew the answers, and she was upset as a teacher because she will be judged based on how well her students perform on that test. As a result, she said in her letter, Congressman, ``instead of teaching students, I am to teach a test.'' As a result of this e-mail I received, today I am introducing a bill titled The Student Testing Fairness Act. This bill will address some of the problems with all of the new testing mandates contained in the No Child Left Behind law. Even though the test Dawn gave her students was not one mandated by the No Child Left Behind law, the law does mandate certain standardized testing procedures which will make the situation even worse. The No Child Left Behind law establishes two important goals: First, the law requires schools to make all students proficient in reading and math by the year 2013-2014 school year. And, second, the law requires schools to close the achievement gap between subgroups of poor and minority students and their more affluent nonminority peers. The No Child Left Behind law requires annual testing in reading and math of all students in grades three through eight and once in grades ten through 12 beginning in the 2005-2006 school year. Mr. Speaker, effective and appropriate standardized tests can be used to measure student progress and to target help where it is most needed. However, test scores alone cannot accurately measure a student's success or a school's success. Other measures such as attendance rates, dropout rates, and the percentage of students taking advanced placement tests all contribute to the overall picture of a school's success or failure. While the No Child Left Behind law does allow the use of multiple measures in assessing a school's success or failure, it provides no balance. Test scores are always a prerequisite for a school's success, and other indicators cannot be used to help a school succeed even though they can be used to determine whether or not a school is sanctioned. This has very troubling consequences. For example, since schools cannot succeed by reducing dropout rates but they can incur sanctions if their test scores fail to show consistent annual improvement, they have little incentive to keep at-risk students who are more likely to get lower test scores from leaving school. The Student Testing Fairness Act will give schools and teachers and students the flexibility to measure progress using more than just a single standardized test. Among several other provisions, my bill will give schools credit for any student improvement, not just improvement that brings a subgroup of students into the proficiency category. And my bill will ensure that help is targeted where it is needed by limiting public school choice and supplemental services to those subgroups of students who have failed to improve. Standardized tests can work, but they are not the only answer, and I hope my colleagues will join me in ensuring that the educational reforms enacted by the No Child Left Behind bill are truly effective by passing the Student Testing Fairness Act into law. Mr. Speaker, we have passed huge mandates from the Federal Government down to the States. We are underfunding those mandates by $8 billion. As a result, students will drop out and teachers and schools will be unfairly punished.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, the fact is that if the efforts of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) had been successful in years past, it is very possible that August 16 would not have happened. It is a simple fact, and I want my colleagues to listen to this, the American people are watching, that if we reject this amendment, they have a right to know who is responsible if a blackout occurs next year and we have not yet taken action on this measure. Now, I listened to my colleague from Illinois, and he is a good friend of mine, I respect him a lot, and he talked about a lot of things. He talked about ethanol. He talked about coal and natural gas. And he talked about nuclear energy and about renewables. And I support all of these things. We all do. But the fact is that some of the provisions regarding these aspects of the energy bill are controversial. Now, our chairman says that this reliability provision is in the energy bill. It is. But does he actually believe that that bill is going to get through the Senate and be sent to the President and be signed into law? I think that is very questionable. It has not happened in the recent past. We have a responsibility to do what we can do, and what we can do is agree on reliability standards. Now, others of my Republican colleagues implied that somehow this effort was an attempt to dismantle the energy bill, to jettison, that word was used, to jettison provisions or to dismantle provisions. Quite to the contrary. All we are trying to do is to separate from the larger energy bill this portion that we can agree on and that we can actually pass and have signed into law and give the American people some confidence that this Chamber has the ability to do something that they need to have done. Mr. Speaker, that is all we are asking for. Now I believe that they are attempting to take this provision that is popular, that is well established as a need, and use it to try to accomplish something in the energy bill that they cannot accomplish without it. I think that is what is happening. I hope the American people are paying attention. We ought to accept this amendment. We ought to get on with separating this issue out, passing it here in the House, encouraging the conference to proceed with their work. We are not encouraging the conference to jettison any part of the energy bill at this point. We are simply asking for a reasonable action on the part of this House. I support this bill. We need a stand-alone piece of legislation that deals with reliability. August 14 happened. Lives were in jeopardy, economies were injured, and we can fix this problem. Mr. Speaker, I ask the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) to reconsider his position and accept this amendment for the merit it deserves, and let us move forward.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. I want to thank the gentleman. I sat here in my heart cheerleading as the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) was talking with us. Because the fact is we sit here in this Chamber, in the safety and security of this Chamber, and as we sit here and make decisions, young Americans are in danger. Every day I get up and I turn on the TV and usually the first thing I hear is that we have lost another American soldier or two American soldiers in Iraq. It does anger me. Because I think we have been irresponsible in the course we have taken, but we are continuing to accept in almost a casual way the fact that young Americans are being killed on a daily basis. I got a letter from a young soldier from Baghdad just the other day. In the letter, this young soldier said, I am so proud of the Army and we are working so hard to do the right thing over here. But, you know, my fellow soldiers are appalled at the President's bring-them-on rhetoric. The fact is this is a serious situation we find ourselves in. We all have different ideas, I guess, about how we should deal with this. But I think we should either put sufficient numbers of troops in there to provide a high level of security or we should go to the United Nations and we should seek their support and even cede some control over the decision-making, or we should bring our troops home, because just tolerating daily deaths is intolerable. I think it is intolerable for the American people, but it should be intolerable for this President and for those of us who serve in this House of Representatives. These young Americans are willing to fight and die for the benefit of this country, but they are not willing, I believe, to give their lives for purposes that are less than central, absolutely central to what is essential for this country's well-being. We need to rethink what we are doing. The President and this Congress needs to come together and to look at the seriousness of this situation and to change our course here.

Mr. STRICKLAND. That is right. But we all know that talk is cheap. And the fact is that there are a lot of lofty words spoken in this Chamber, but we have a serious problem. There are moms and dads and sweethearts and husbands and wives, children, whose loved ones at this very moment are serving under the most difficult circumstances. They cannot be adequately protected. They are sitting ducks. We got excited in this town when there was a sniper loose and it took us weeks to identify that person, to find out who it was. Now there may be a sniper loose in the State of West Virginia and we are concerned about that. Baghdad is full of such snipers. Our soldiers are in fixed positions and they are being killed on a daily basis. I asked Ambassador Bremer, what are we going to do? What is the plan? How are we going to keep these deaths from occurring? The answer I got is that we probably are going to have to accept the fact that there are likely to be continuing casualties. That is not acceptable. We have got a responsibility to take a different course of action.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, despite the Republicans' promise to veterans during the budget process, we find ourselves with a VA-HUD appropriations bill that is shamefully inadequate. We have cut the $3.4 billion increase that we promised veterans in half. Even though the Committee on Appropriations took out the President's recommendations to impose new enrollment fees and copayments on veterans, they did this by simply shifting funds and adding no new money. Therefore, we have a new $264 million hole in the VA budget. Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Evans had an amendment to restore $1.8 billion. But it was denied a waiver by the Committee on Rules. Mr. Edwards had an amendment that would have added $2.2 billion to VA health care for all veterans including priority 8 veterans, they were recently shut out of VA health care altogether, but it was also denied. A few weeks ago some of my Republican colleagues held a press conference in order to calm the fears of the veterans across America who were concerned that their health care system would not be adequately funded. They assured the veterans that funding veterans service was a priority of the Republican Party. A priority of the Republican Party. We now know that their words were empty. Their promises were nothing, nothing but empty rhetoric. We can find money for a massive tax cut. We can find money for Pakistan. We can find money for Turkey. We are spending $4 billion a month in Iraq. We can find money for veterans health care. You just do not want to. Shame on you. I feel sorry for you when you go home in August and explain to your veterans why you turned your back on them, why you gave them an inadequate health care budget when you promised to do better.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, as we debate in this Chamber today, I believe a vast majority of the American people are angry. And why are they angry? They are angry because over the last 3 years, since President Bush came into office, this country has lost approximately 3 million jobs. I believe the people in this country are skeptical. Why are they skeptical? Because there is a disconnect between what so many of us say and what we do, a disconnect between rhetoric and reality. We talk about how these trade deals will result in additional exports and conveniently forget to talk about the imports that will flood our markets as a result of what we do in this Chamber. The American people are puzzled. They are puzzled because they think we are United States Representatives, that our first obligation ought to be to the American people, to the American worker, the American company, the American community; and yet we hear so much talk about what this will do to help the citizens of Singapore or Chile. Well, you know, I am concerned about those citizens; but our first obligation is right here at home. This agreement will result in jobs being sent out of the country and workers being brought into the country. Under this agreement, 5,400 workers from Singapore can come into this country every year, every year, with a visa that will be forever renewable. That means that in 10 years we can have 54,000 people from Singapore here in our country taking jobs that ought to be held by American citizens, by the people we are obligated to be representing. I do not know what it is going to take to cause this Congress to come to its senses. Vote ``no'' on this unwise trade deal.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting debate because it is not primarily between Democrats and Republicans; it is between the people and the pharmaceutical companies. The gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the distinguished chair of my committee, says he is concerned about safety, that if we pass this bill people may die. I contend that people are dying every day in this country. People are dying because they are not getting the medicines they need because they cannot afford the medicines they need. Does the gentleman believe if we pass this bill others may die? I believe if we do not pass this bill there will be many Americans who will die as a result of our inaction.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Reclaiming my time once again, Mr. Speaker, I sat in the living room of one of my constituents not long ago and he looked at the television and he said, ``Congressman, I would be willing to pay $50 more or $100 more for a TV if I could buy one that was manufactured in America by my neighbors.'' That is what is happening to us. Are consumers getting cheaper goods? Well, I suppose they are. At what cost? What is happening to this country, and I just urge my colleagues to look at the record and to reject these agreements. And I thank my colleague for the dialogue.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Reclaiming my time, please, Mr. Speaker, I will acknowledge that the gentleman's statistics are correct, but what has happened with trade between this country and Mexico? The imbalance has increased dramatically in their favor. I recognize that these trade agreements encourage trade, but what is it doing to our companies, our workers, our communities? Other countries are in fact benefiting, and I will acknowledge that, but what is happening to our communities?