Carol Shea-Porter

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Madam Speaker, 4 years ago today, 4 long years ago today, we heard ``Mission Accomplished.'' What mission? We are not even sure what the mission is anymore, the President has changed the mission so many times. But I have to tell America the truth about this war. I sit on the Armed Services Committee, and I'm tired of hearing what I hear every hearing. What am I hearing? I'm hearing that the American military is strained to the breaking point. I'm hearing that 88 percent of our National Guard is not ready to be sent. I'm hearing that we're having problems with equipment. I'm hearing problems from military families. What I'm hearing is that at the top leadership, we have failed the military and we have failed the people of the United States. We need to get a grip on this. The Democrats have presented the White House with a responsible exit from Iraq. We need leadership here. The President has failed to show that leadership, but the Democrats are prepared now to give that responsible road map out of Iraq. I urge the President to sign this legislation.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 261, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, President Bush has an opportunity to provide real hope to millions of Americans who are suffering from debilitating diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and cancer. All he has to do now is reconsider his threat to veto this promising legislation that has recently passed the House. Here in the House we passed, in a bipartisan manner, during the first 100 hours of Congress, legislation that would increase the number of embryonic stem cells eligible for Federal funding. The Senate, in strong bipartisan passion, did exactly the same. Now it has arrived at the President's desk. Last year the President vetoed stem cell legislation, the only issue he vetoed throughout his Presidency. We have a real opportunity finally to solve some of these debilitating diseases. There are 100 million Americans waiting for the President to say ``yes.'' I urge him to reconsider.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 293) supporting the goals and ideals highlighted through National Volunteer Week.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Madam Speaker, I request 5 legislative days during which Members may insert material relevant to House Resolution 293 into the Record.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Ms. SHEA-PORTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. House Resolution 293 is a bipartisan bill recognizing the important role of volunteers in local, national, and international communities and their dedication to improving lives, strengthening communities, and fostering civic engagement through service and volunteering. April 15-21, 2007 is recognized as National Volunteer Week. The theme is Inspire by Example, which reflects the power volunteers have to inspire the people they help and to aspire others to serve. Inspire by Example has been the theme throughout our history. We have 61 million volunteers out of a population of 300 million who volunteer some time each day to serve others. From the very beginning of our time, we have been committed to serving each other. Benjamin Franklin started a volunteer fire department in a library and took care of those in the community, as have others. From the beginning, through war, through disaster and through famine, we have seen the greatest step forward to serve our country. Who could forget the service of the Greatest Generation who came forward in so many ways as others went to war and we saw our own population step up to fulfill the roles in our community and to each other? What do these volunteers do each day of the year? They teach others to read. They care for others who are ill. They work on the forefront for disaster. Right now, in my own State of New Hampshire, which has once again been hit by flood waters, we have volunteers who are out there serving our community. They serve to take care of babies and young mothers. They serve to take care of alcoholics and drug addicts and the most vulnerable in our communities, and they continue their service right through hospice and in senior settings. So we have to thank our volunteers and also recognize what motivates them and to encourage them. That is what this resolution does, to speak to them and to urge them to continue their service. While we have had the greatest numbers at all in the past year, 61.2 million volunteers, we have also had a slight drop. We have to make sure it is possible for volunteers to continue their full-time lives of service in their own jobs and then also in their communities. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky, John Yarmuth.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes).

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H. Res. 293, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Madam Speaker, from its birth before the Revolutionary War, the National Guard has served as our first defense against catastrophic disaster. We all remember the scenes during Hurricane Katrina. The National Guard came to the rescue. They were the ones in the helicopters, along with the Coast Guard, rescuing people after FEMA had collapsed and had not fulfilled its responsibilities. After we invaded Iraq, it was our brave soldiers in the National Guard that once again answered the call to duty. They have served side by side with the regular forces doing an incredible job. They also have a job to do in our country, though. But multiple deployments and use of equipment has degraded the equipment they have at home to protect us in our own States. The National Guard currently has about 40 percent of the equipment that it needs at home. The American people deserve to know this, that we do not have the equipment that we need, and the National Guard has a right to have the equipment so they can fulfill their duty in case of a national domestic disaster. I thank the National Guard and their families who stand by day after day, serving us during any kind of catastrophe. I urge the American public to ask Congress and ask the executive branch to make sure that our National Guard has the equipment at home they need.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Madam Speaker, when I ran for Congress, I ran for the rest of us, the bottom 99 percent of us who as a social worker I knew were not getting a fair shake under this administration and its followers. I knew they had created the greatest deficits in American history and that it was the middle class who had been harmed. I stand here with great pride to ask my colleagues in the House to pass this Democratic budget which actually finally represents the middle class. What does this budget do? Unlike the President's own budget proposal, the Democrats' House budget protects middle-class families from a tax increase. Our resolution protects 19 million families against the alternative minimum tax this year and creates a reserve fund accommodating a permanent fix. The reserve fund also will accommodate other middle-class tax cuts, including extending the child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, the extension of the 10 percent individual tax credit and the elimination of most estate taxes. Compare these middle-class tax cuts to the $500 billion tax increase the President proposed in his budget over the next 10 years. Madam Speaker, this Democratic House is committed to balancing the budget in the next 5 years without raising taxes, and that is what we are going to do here.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. I am pleased to rise today in support of H.R. 1538, the Wounded Warrior Assistance Act. When men and women go to war, they are willing to give their bodies and their lives to this country. When they return, if they are broken, we have the obligation to try to restore them and to care for them and their families as they go about the long process of rehabilitation. Our soldiers deserve a lot more than phrases such as ``support the troops'' and yellow ribbons and visits from celebrities. They deserve the right medical care and a seamless transition going from a military hospital to a veterans hospital for their care. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. This is what we owe our soldiers and their families. When we talk about supporting the troops, we honor our commitments to them, and this is a very solid bill that will do just that.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 266) supporting the goals and ideals of Professional Social Work Month and World Social Work Day.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I request 5 legislative days during which Members may insert material relevant to House Resolution 266 into the Record.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Ms. SHEA-PORTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to offer House Resolution 266, which honors the dedication and compassion of professional social workers. Our highest calling as humans is to provide service to others, especially those less fortunate than ourselves. At the turn of the 20th century, thousands of people lived in despair and poverty, and it was the early progressive moment in which the social work movement was born, providing food, clothing, health care and education to the less fortunate. Social workers had a role in civil rights and in women's freedom. Today, social workers continue this fight to ensure that vulnerable families have the support and the health care that they need. Social workers are everywhere in our society, caring for all of us. They help people in all stages of life, from children to the elderly, and in all situations, from adoption to hospice care. You can find social workers in hospitals, police departments, mental health clinics, military facilities and corporations. Professional social workers are the Nation's largest providers of mental health care services. They provide more mental health services than psychologists, psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses combined. More than 600,000 people in the United States hold social work degrees. The Veterans Administration employs more than 4,400 social workers to assist veterans and their families with individual and family counseling, client education, end-of-life planning, substance abuse treatment, crisis intervention and other services. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Today we thank all those who have toiled in the fields of our community, including my maternal grandmother, who left the comfort of her home each day at the turn of the century and went to the Lower East Side to help immigrants. And we praise all of those who reach out to others every day in their community. Social workers' service makes our communities stronger. March is National Professional Work Month, and Tuesday, March 27 is World Social Work Day. I honor their service and thank them for caring for all of us each day. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, this conversation is 4 years too late. If we had this conversation 4 years ago, we would have known that we had the wrong intelligence, the wrong country and the wrong war. This administration is now borrowing $10 billion a month with the help of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. If they are truly concerned about fiscal responsibility, $10 billion should catch their attention. We borrow the money. Let's talk about our troops and supporting our troops. If we were to support our troops, first of all we would take them out of a civil war. Secondly, we would care for them while they are here. Third, while they were there, we would make sure that they have the equipment they need. We know this administration has failed on all levels. Our President says we need to listen to the generals. All of the generals are saying that we have weakened our military. Let's support our country and let's support our defense. Make our military strong again so we can practice self-defense. This administration and its allies have hurt us abroad, hurt our reputation, and will spend us into financial disaster if we allow them to. Fortunately, Congress has the power of the purse, and we will exercise it. I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Madam Speaker, there are those who say we need to support our troops. The question is what troops, the same troops we have sent out three and four times? I have asked my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to please look at the armed services numbers and see the strain that we are putting on our military. I have also asked them to think about if they had family members there, would they still be talking about supporting the troops in such a way as to put them in harm's danger? Supporting our troops means getting them out of a civil war. Support our country by caring for our own people and bringing our money home to protect our borders in this country. We need to spend money to build our military back up. We need to protect our borders, and we need to support our troops and support their families by bringing our troops home now.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. We are at the anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq. Things are not going well. Our troops are strained. Our generals are speaking to the President of the United States, who does not seem to be listening. I would like to read this to the President of the United States on this day. General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked last month by a House panel whether he was comfortable with the preparedness of Army units in the United States, he stated simply: ``No, I am not comfortable.'' Mr. President, that is one of your generals. General Peter Schoomaker, Army Chief of Staff, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday: ``We have a strategy right now that is outstripping the means to execute it.'' Mr. President, that is one of your generals. The Army Vice Chief of Staff, General Richard Cody, described as ``stark'' the level of readiness of Army units in the United States which would be called on if another war breaks out. The readiness continues to decline of our next-to-deploy forces, Cody told the House Armed Services Committee Readiness Panel last week. Mr. President, hear your generals and end this war now.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I was interested in hearing from Members on the other side speak about the money we needed to save and the debt we have, because it was the Republican administration that drove us into the greatest deficits in history. Indeed, they are the reason I am standing here today. I am a social worker by profession, and for years I noticed things were getting worse and worse for the middle class. I kept saying the middle class is stumbling and the poor have fallen, because while the very wealthy were enjoying the tax breaks, thanks to this administration, the middle class was trying to figure out if they had enough money to go to the movies on Friday night and have money for pizza. Indeed, this is the first time we have seen this great, great difference in the rich and the poor since the time of the Titanic. Wages have been flat for several years now. The American public understands this. This is not a Republican issue, it is not a Democratic issue, it is an issue about protecting the middle class, building the middle class, and bringing the poor so we do not have a permanent underclass in this country. The way to do that is to make sure we have a fair tax system, and we have to have accountability and oversight to make sure that we do. We know that the tax breaks have gone to the top 1 percent for too long. So this drove me to Congress, looking at this; and the final, final nail in the coffin was looking at what happened after Hurricane Katrina because even if the administration could not find it in their hearts to take care of the people of Katrina, where was the homeland security? When you look at Louisiana, you realize there is a port there. Gas and oil are there. Our food, our grains come there. Seventy percent of the grain passes through there. Certainly that is a vulnerable area. We heard that we were spending all of this money for homeland security and for programs to protect the American people. But when Hurricane Katrina hit, the American Government was missing in action with the exception of our military, and I give them great credit for what they did. I know this because I went there not once, but twice. It was very frightening to see that the Federal Government was missing in action. And then the extra insult of having to listen on television while they were praising each other for the good job they did. They didn't bring the resources to the American people. They didn't have the money to bring the resources to the American people. Where is the money? That is why we are here in Washington, to find out where is the money for the programs that the American people need, that we must have to protect us. I looked at Iraq. I went there a couple of weeks ago. I looked at the contractors there personally. There are more than 100,000 contractors in Iraq for 133,000 soldiers; some more now, we had over 100,000 contractors. The American public knows this word so well, Halliburton. The American people understand what has happened to the money. Every child born today has a birth tax of about $29,000. Think about that. We went from a budget surplus to the greatest deficit in history, borrowing money from Communist China along the way to pay our bills, which is a security risk that all Americans understand, and every child born today owes about $29,000 before he or she draws their first breath. This is an outrage, and we need to turn this around. Like the rest of my freshman class, this propelled me to run. I had never even run for office in elementary school or high school. I was a social worker. I taught politics. Yes, I got involved in politics, but never envisioned myself here. And it is a tremendous honor to be on the floor and to be able to protect and speak up for the American people. But we have an obligation to, first of all, provide programs that lift the poor and the middle class, to make sure that the wealthy pay their fair share; and we have an obligation to be fiscally conservative, and we can do that by good fiscal oversight and accountability. That has been missing for many years. We are having more hearings now looking at various aspects. I serve on the Armed Services Committee. It was a shock to me to find out that we did not have the equipment we need and that the soldiers were suffering so. Again, we can talk about Walter Reed. We had a week last week about that. Who could leave a soldier in rooms that had mold? Who could leave soldiers unattended and untreated? If we are going to honor our soldiers, we need to honor our commitments to the soldiers, and it is not right to say if we can afford to. When we put them into battle, we make sure that our commitment will be to care for them. Once they say they are going to serve us, it is our obligation to serve them. It is truly an honor to be here and to be able to be working for the people of my own State, New Hampshire, and the people of this country. It is an honor to be here with such wonderful colleagues who are driven by one motive, and that is service and patriotism. We were campaigning over a year or 2 years. We heard the message loud and clear from the middle class that they needed protection. They needed protection from policies and this administration that protected the wealthy and harmed the middle class. They wanted their children to be able to afford college again because that changed. They wanted their children to have the opportunities that they had growing up. Even rents have gotten so high and with wages so flat, adult children have to come home to live with their parents. This is not the American way. The American way is to be fiscally responsible and to make sure that opportunities are available for all. I think we have a terrific class with wonderful leadership. Speaker Pelosi certainly understands the direction this country needs to go in. We will do the job that the American people sent us here to do.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. I thank the gentleman, and Madam Speaker. I just came out of an Armed Services hearing where we were discussing, once again, readiness, and we had the Army there telling us the great strains on their budget, the strains on their equipment, and, most importantly, the strains on their soldiers. And so I am standing here today in support of our soldiers, in support of our military, in support of our ability to respond to any crisis in the world. And Iraq is not the place that we need to put our soldiers and all of our resources. Last weekend, I went to Iraq to look for myself what was going on. I saw a lot of contractors taking quite a bit of money, serving soldiers in jobs that soldiers could have done themselves. I saw the strains on the soldiers. I saw National Guard troops that were in for a third deployment. And I saw the difficulty that the Iraqis were experiencing. In flying over Baghdad, I saw a very sad city. Now, what I would like to see happen is for us to take the money that we are pouring into Iraq and put it into Afghanistan where the original trouble started, where we actually had the terrorist training camps, where we still need to finish the business that we started in 2001. But we need money to do that, we need resources to do that. They have been diverted and put into Iraq. There were no Iraqis on the planes that day on 9/11. We went into Iraq because we picked the wrong war, the wrong people, and we should have stayed in Afghanistan and supported the effort there. So I urge my colleagues and I urge the House to do the right thing by our soldiers and by the Iraqis as well, and to make sure that we tend to where the real problems are in Pakistan and also in Afghanistan. I also would like to see some money in homeland security. The first thing we need to do is support our own borders. We need to protect our borders. And when you look at the money that we have put in homeland security, it is miniscule. We are still not checking all of the cargo that comes into the belly of a plane, we are not checking the cargo that comes from overseas. They say that we don't have the equipment. We certainly could have the equipment. Hong Kong checks every single container that comes from abroad. And that is the great worry, that a dirty bomb could come from abroad in a container. We need to use the money wisely. Of course we need defense. We have to invest in our country. But we need to take those dollars and make sure that we are protecting our borders first and foremost, and then also working in Afghanistan; and, making sure that we have enough money and enough resources and enough troops to respond to anywhere else in the world that trouble could brew. Thank you.