Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, it is really unbelievable. I met with representatives of the Egyptian Government today, and they were talking to me about the democratic reforms that they are making and being more inclusive and involving their public in the role that government has. And I just cannot even imagine what kind of example the President is setting to burgeoning democracies and democracies that are trying to become even more democratic. I mean, if the President of the greatest democracy in world does not feel that the right thing to do is to let anyone into a town hall meeting whether or not they agree with him, then that really sends a terrible message.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if I could jump in here for a second.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. And that is because they do not want the facts to go out. Because if light is shed on their proposal, if they are forced to face their accusers, so to speak, if they are forced to respond to people who have the facts, their facts just do not hold up under the sheen of light. So what I started to say a few minutes ago was what his proposal does is, and like I said, I call it a proposal, but I should say his vague outlines of a proposal, he has promoted across the country the concept or the belief that private accounts would be a windfall and has led people to believe that they would both be able to have the money in their private accounts as well as their Social Security benefits, and that is not the case. There would be a commensurate cut in Social Security benefits, about 46 percent, commensurate in proportion to the amount in someone's private account. An average 20-year-old, over their 20-year retirement, would lose about $152,000 in Social Security benefits under the vague outlines of the President's proposal. Let us take disability insurance and survivor benefits, because I am not sure if the gentleman talked about that before I got here; but Social Security provides disability insurance for young families. There is no private insurance plan that could compete with the disability benefits provided by Social Security. For a worker in her mid-20s who has a spouse and her two children, and there are millions of those across this country, Social Security provides the equivalent of a $350,000 disability policy. Most people, especially a young widow with two children, cannot afford to go out and buy a policy on the private market like that. It would just not be available to her. Suppose, God forbid, there is a young parent who suddenly dies. Social Security provides for the children who are left behind. Social Security provides survivors benefits. Survivor benefits replace as much as 80 percent of the earnings for a 20-year-old average-wage worker who dies leaving two young children and a spouse. For that parent, Social Security survivor benefits are equivalent to a $403,000 life insurance policy. That is what it means when we talk about what privatization would do to young families. That is real. That would be gone, that benefit. Because when it comes to disability and survivor benefits, privatization does not apply because there is no income being generated. One has to have income in order to have a private account. People who are disabled and people who are widows and widowers do not have that income coming in by its very nature.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you so much, Congressman Meek. We are continuing to try to educate our generation and other generations about the significantly negative impact that privatizing Social Security would have on them. As much as the President, as you have outlined, would like to lead people to believe that privatization is not going to harm people 55 and older, and there is going to be this amazing panacea, this incredible windfall for our generation and for supposedly savvy investors that are from our generation, we know differently. What we have been trying to do as the 30-something Working Group convened by Leader Pelosi is to try to separate fact from fiction. To follow up on some of your really excellent descriptions of what the kind of money we are talking about really means for people, you just talked about $5 trillion and what $5 trillion, which is what the President's privatization proposal would cost and add to the deficit in the next 20 years, what that would mean, what we could do with $5 trillion instead of ballooning the deficit. I was just elected. I am a freshman Member of the Congress. We have had an opportunity to work together over the years. I am still definitely in learning mode, and I have got a learning curve. One of the things that I have noticed in my learning curve is that when you go from being in the State legislature like we were where you are dealing with billions of dollars, with a B, to the Congress, when you are dealing with trillions, with a T, it is hard for anyone, Members of Congress, Members of State legislatures and average citizens to really grasp what that kind of money is. No one deals with trillions of dollars. The current budget deficit is more than $7 trillion. It is $7.7 trillion. And what the gentleman just described, the President's privatization proposal would add another $5 trillion to that. So let us just take the $7.7 trillion that is included in the projected deficit now and try to help people get their minds around what that is. If we took $7.7 trillion and can pile enough $1 bills, and there are actually people that figure these things out, on top of one another, it would reach the moon and back. The Moon is 93 million miles away from here. I am pretty sure that is right, 93 million miles away from here. So that is two stacks of $1 bills that would reach the moon, and that is how much our deficit is. We would still have almost $6.5 billion left over. With that money, after traveling to the moon and back, we could make 1,329 stacks of $1 bills that would reach up into the stratosphere, however high that would go. There is a really instructive Web site that the Department of Treasury has, and I think it would be helpful for people to know what that Web site is. It gives what the current deficit is, and it also gives what is each American's share of that deficit. It is a ticker and it is constantly changing. But that Web site is www.house.gov/ budget_democrats. And they can get access to the U.S. Treasury Department's Web page with that information; if they sign on to that Web site, it will link them right to that information. The national debt as of April 21 is $7,782,705,281,978.34. We could really improve the quality of people's lives with that kind of money. And the direction that this country has been going in is really disturbing. When I go home and talk to the people that live in my community in Broward and Miami-Dade Counties, and we represent both of the same counties in South Florida, it does not matter whether I talk to people who consider themselves conservative, people who consider themselves moderate, people who consider themselves liberal. After the events of the last few weeks and the concerns that people have over the deficit, their share of it, this privatization plan which the President is suggesting would pull the safety net of Social Security out from under people. People are really starting to say just hold it a second, we need to get this train back on the tracks and start going in the direction that most people are comfortable with. And I think we really need to start encouraging people, as we have been doing, to raise their voices to help get that train back on the tracks, because it is moving so far to the right even for people who consider themselves on the right, even people like that are coming up to me and telling me they are disturbed. So I just wanted to share that illustration with people. We have talked often about the impact that privatization has had, and we had been on a break and we were not able to spend time during our 30-something hour. We did not have a 30-something hour last week because of votes. So I think it is important, and I am not sure if the gentleman already talked about it, the impact that privatization would have on different categories of people. Particularly as the 30-something Group, we want to explain how it would hurt young people and working families. The cost of privatization would just explode the national debt, which we have been talking about, but what it means beyond exploding the national debt is that people who collect Social Security would literally experience a 46 percent cut in their benefits. There has been this portrayal by the President on his 60-day tour of the country to try to sell this plan, which I know the gentleman outlined and talked about, how they restrict access to their town hall meetings and we let anybody come and we are willing to take on the people who stand up and actually ask questions that are not the same as the position that we take in our town hall meetings.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That is why we spend an hour on this every week, because there is plenty of information to disseminate. I sit on the Committee on Financial Services, and I have an opportunity to interact with people on the New York Stock Exchange and Chairman Greenspan, who testified before our committee, and representatives of the Mercantile Exchange and the Board of Trade and all of the exchanges. One of the things that I got out of those meetings that was clear and that has been written about in the last few days is, let us remember what the foundation of this whole privatization is built on. It is built on the stock market. It is built on stocks and bonds. Now, last week, we had one of the most significant drops in the market in over 2 years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen more than 9 percent in the last 6 weeks, including a drop of 115 points, or 1.1 percent, on Wednesday. Now, I do not know if most Americans are going to want to throw their retirement security to the whims of the stock market. There are two words in the name of this program: social and security. This proposal removes and decimates the concept of ``security'' in Social Security. It would be social insecurity, because there would be no ability to ensure that future retirees would have that investment there for them when they retired, because we have fluctuations in the market.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the honorable Dan Pearl. Mayor Pearl retired in 1972 to the town of Sunrise, Florida, in Broward County after having served 30 years as a parole officer with the New York Division of Parole. In 1979, he was first elected to the Sunrise City Council and later served as mayor and deputy mayor. It was during his tenure as mayor that Sunrise made the transition from a strong-mayor system to a professionalized city government administered by a city manager. In appreciation of his tireless service to his community, county officials took the unprecedented step of naming the Oakland Park Boulevard Library after Mayor Pearl in 1993. Those of us who had the pleasure of working with Mayor Pearl will always remember his contributions and insights as a public servant. He was a member of numerous boards and organizations, including the Florida League of Cities, the Gold Coast League of Cities, the Broward Planning Council, the South Florida Regional Planning Council, and the American Cancer Society. His death in 1996 was a tremendous loss to his family, colleagues, and the citizens of south Florida; but we will always remember the warmth, sincerity, and friendliness of Dan Pearl that he shared with everyone. On behalf of the people of south Florida, it is my honor to salute the life and legacy of Mayor Dan Pearl.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) very much for yielding and thank him so much for giving us this opportunity to talk to the American people about what is essentially a startling contrast between our vision and our view on what tax reform should entail and what the majority's vision is. I think that is really what we should ask people to take a look at, because the perception that is out there in America is not what it should be, and really what I would like to spend some time talking about is how the majority talks about making taxes simpler. As we can see, they have plenty of rhetoric that they have thrown around over the years as far back as 1997 and even for the years before that. Yet their actions do not match the rhetoric. That is really what it boils down to, and I am a person that is all about action. That is what our caucus is about, and I think you have to walk the walk when you talk the talk, and that is not happening with this administration. It is not happening with the leadership of this body. It is critical that the American people understand the consequences of the years, and I know that they do. Every working family sitting around their kitchen table understands the consequence of the complexities and the carving up of the tax code by the Republican majority here. I mean, that is what they have continued to do, in spite of the fact that they go out in America and talk about how complex it is. Well, it is time that something gets done about it. The time for talking needs to stop. Their tax policies clearly favor some citizens over others. They pick and choose. They pick winners and loser among businesses and industries, and they do it all under the guise and cloak of tax reform. One of the most important consequences is that the Federal Government and State and local governments, they do not have adequate resources to pay for the day-to-day services that our constituents need. That is a direct consequence of not having tax reform. There are real needs that are not being addressed because our local governments cannot provide the services because of the tax system as it is currently constructed. That squeeze is being felt all across this country, and particularly in the towns and cities in my district and in the districts of many of our colleagues. That is because the debt burden faced by the Federal Government is going to dramatically worsen in the future if the administration's tax cuts are made permanent. If the Bush tax cuts are made permanent, this problem is only going to get worse. The Government Accountability Office projects that interest on the national debt would nearly equal all of the Federal taxes, including income and payroll taxes that we generate in 2040, not now but the taxes that we generate in 2040, if the recent tax cuts are made permanent. Current and proposed debt and the rising level of interest that we pay on that debt, which is soon to average about $300 billion a year, which is more than we spend on Medicaid to help make people understand what that means, we weaken Social Security and threaten benefits for today's seniors, for disabled workers and their survivors, much of which affects women disproportionately which I want to address in a moment. The amount merely required to pay interest on the national debt ultimately will be almost twice the amount that is paid out to all Americans in Social Security benefits. That is unbelievable. The interest on the national debt will be more than twice what we pay out in Social Security benefits. Unlike interest on the national debt, Social Security has its own dedicated taxes, and the President fails to acknowledge that these costs crowd out resources for other priorities that affect people of all ages, people over 55 and younger people as well, in health care, in education and in homeland security. I want to take a minute and just talk about the impact on women of the Bush administration's policy decisions as it relates to tax cuts and the lack of tax reform. There are programs serving women and families that are really bearing the burden of deficit reduction. The President's budget now in front of us slashes funding for countless domestic programs. The administration itself in child care calculates 300,000 additional children could lose assistance by 2009 from the continued freeze in funding. Between 2003 and 2004, 200,000 children have lost child care help. In Medicaid, the administration would cut $7.6 billion over 5 years, and the House even more. Education and training: Investment in high school vocational education programs that can help train women and girls for higher paying, nontraditional jobs is totally eliminated. Supplemental nutrition for women, infants and children: The cut of $658 million could mean 660,000 fewer pregnant women, infants and children receiving WIC assistance in 2010. I want to boil this down for another few seconds. Millionaires' average tax cut in 2004 was $123,592, which is more than five times the annual income of a typical single mother with children, whose median income is $22,637. That is what their policy translates into for regular, everyday people. More than one-quarter of single-parent families, who are overwhelmingly headed by women, get nothing from the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. These tax cuts, the bottom line, and the budget simply makes the wrong choices for women, for their families and for all Americans. Mr. Speaker, I want to again thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) so much for this opportunity for us to help the American people understand that it is Democrats that are committed both in action, deed and rhetoric, and our actions will match our words when it comes to tax reform.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), and it is good to be here with you once again. Quite honestly, it is good to be here to talk about once again an extremely important issue and that is Social Security. I can tell you that I wish that that is what we had been able to talk about for the last 2 weeks as opposed to some of the other issues we have been focused on, but I am glad we are able to refocus again. What we have been trying to do in our 30-something Working Group over the last several months and prior to my arrival here in Congress, you and our other colleagues have done yeoman's work on getting the message out about the facts as its relates to Social Security because our generation, your friends, my friends, when you go home and you sit down and you are having coffee or you are having a beer, which we may occasionally do among our friends, and the conversation may turn to whether you think or your friends think that there is going to be Social Security there for you when you retire. Most people our age, they believe the myth that has been put out there by the President and by the leadership of the Congress. They believe that Social Security will not be there. My colleague and I being in our 30s and we are trying to get the word out to other people our age across this country, the solvency issue to which you just referred, literally, before there is even a concern about a potential drop in benefits, is not for 37 years from now, at the earliest. More likely, 47 years when in my case, I will be 75 years old in 37 years and 85 years old in 47 years, long past retirement age, long past the point after which I would begin collecting Social Security. So like my colleague said, we are not suggesting that there is not a problem that needs to be addressed. What we are suggesting is that there is not a crisis; that there is no need to sound the alarm bells; that we need to make sure that we approach this problem responsibly; that this is a 70-year program of success, probably the most successful program in our Nation's history, established as an iron clad safety net that no one should have to worry about it being there upon their retirement, which is why that if we are going to make changes, which we should to ensure its long-term solvency, that we take the time to do it correctly and responsibly and not rush to judgment and not make drastic changes which privatizing Social Security, I think by anyone's definition, would be drastic. We have got to make sure that we preserve Social Security into the future, and what is ironic is that most of the talk coming from the White House and in the leadership of this body has been about privatizing Social Security, setting up private accounts, and this has just been mind-boggling to me because, like you said, privatization does nothing to deal with the solvency issue. We could privatize Social Security, and all we would be doing is adding to our deficit and putting our Nation more in debt than we already are, and we are badly, badly in debt. So you can go that far and still have to address Social Security solvency problems, and we need to make sure that we responsibly make changes to preserve Social Security into the future.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Just a couple, because I think we again need to maybe finish up by zeroing in on the impact that this proposed privatization scheme would have. The private accounts do not make up for the 46 percent cut in benefits that would be part of this proposal. A 20-year-old who enters the workforce this year would lose about $152,000 in Social Security benefits under the Bush proposal. Social Security provides disability insurance that young families need, and there is no private insurance plan that can compete with the Social Security disability benefits that are offered. The cost of those benefits bought privately would be beyond most people's ability to pay for them. For a worker in her mid-twenties with a spouse and two children, Social Security provides the equivalent of a $350,000 disability insurance policy, again not one that most people can afford to pay out of pocket for. And suppose, God forbid, you have a young parent that dies suddenly. Social Security provides for the children who are left behind. Social Security survivors benefits will replace as much as 80 percent of the earnings for a 25-year-old average-wage worker who dies leaving two children and a young spouse. For that parent, Social Security survivors benefits are equivalent to a $403,000 life insurance policy. What we have been trying to do in our Thirtysomething Working Group is explain to our generation what the reality would be in their lives without Social Security as a continued safety net.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thought it was very interesting that just last week the former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, in a speech to the Kaiser Foundation said it was his biggest frustration in the negotiations on the Medicare prescription drug reform bill because he believed the Secretary should have that ability, that the Secretary, just like they do in the VA, should have the ability to negotiate those discounts, and it absolutely ties the hands of the Health and Human Services Secretary. In talking about this in his speech to the Kaiser Foundation, he said, unfortunately, membership of the leadership of his party, including the President, did not agree, and he was not able to get through to them that that was an important component, to reduce those prices. What we have here is we have a Social Security plan, or an outline of a plan, that is going to harm young people and hopefully not harm older people who are imminently collecting benefits or already collecting benefits. It is hard to get young people to think about when they are going to collect Social Security. We are having town hall meetings for younger people and trying to get them to come, and talk to them about why they should think about this, because it is not looming on the horizon of their lives. And then we have Medicare. We also with our generation have a group of people who just are not thinking about whether Medicare will be there for them. They just feel like they are invincible, and there are no major health care issues for most people in our generation. We have got to make sure that we continue to pound the drum on this issue and talk to as many people as we can, because if we do not, we will all get caught asleep at the switch. As a result, this train will run smack into a wall at the point in our lives when we do need to worry about it.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the gentleman because the gentleman was here. The thing I talked about and heard about on the campaign trail last year was how we ended up with a Medicare bill that added a prescription drug benefit but did not allow, in fact prohibited, the negotiation of discounts for prescription drugs. I know that the VA, the Veterans Administration, already has that ability and drugs made available to our veterans through the VA are significantly less than they are on the private market. So maybe the gentleman can help clarify that for me because I was not here. People out in the real world do not understand that.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And the report said gross misrepresentation, grossly inaccurate facts when it comes to reports of there being weapons of mass destruction.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is so right. I represent a community where it is not just the poor we are concerned about; it is the regular middle- to lower-middle class who are struggling. I have hundreds of thousands of senior citizens in south Florida who struggle every single day because Social Security for the vast majority of them is their primary source of income. They are much more focused. It is what I hear when I am stopped at a picnic or at the supermarket. They are concerned about how they are going to pay for their medication. Some of them cannot even make their co-payments. They are concerned about the increase in their premiums for Medicare that just happened. That is the handwringing that is going on. They are not that concerned about a problem that does not face them for another 37 years. Quite honestly, in the senior citizen community, most of them realize 37 years is not something they are going to have to worry about. But 2017 is when the Medicare trustee report says is the point at which we would literally be paying out more in Medicare benefits than we are bringing in in premiums. That is a serious problem.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is so right. We need to boil this down in terms that people deal with every day. When we have these conversations on the floor, I try to zero in on the impact that this proposal will have on specific groups. For example, we have some information about the impact Social Security has on children. Social Security survivor and disability benefits help 6.4 million children. We talk about welfare assistance and TANF, which is Temporary Assistance For Needy Families, funding and how important a program that is to helping sustain the lives of millions of children, but Social Security survivor and disability benefits help almost twice as many children as welfare does. That, I think, is something that people just do not realize. I did not realize it until I received this information, and that is according to our nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Social Security is currently the largest source of Federal funding that prevents children from falling into poverty. Social Security benefits have kept 920,000 children out of poverty, and more than one- third of families with Social Security income would be poor without these benefits. If we look at the effects that privatization of Social Security would have on women, women comprise the majority of Social Security benefits. They represent 58 percent of all Social Security recipients at the age of 65, and women represent 71 percent of all beneficiaries by the time they are age 85. Privatization disproportionately harms women, especially because women really end up having much less because of the differences in earning potential, much less opportunity to benefit from Social Security when they are planning for retirement. There are a number of factors that leave women even more vulnerable to this really radical proposal. Women and poverty in old age is often rooted in the reality that their lives are shaped on. We earn less money. We are at 76 cents on the dollar compared to the same job that a man does. The reality of care giving, we are primarily responsible for caring for loved ones, both children and our older parents, and women have jobs more often that offer very few benefits. So women who have been in the workforce are far less likely to have IRAs and pensions and other outside extra benefits. Social Security for women ends up being the vast majority of the time their sole retirement benefit. So it disproportionately is pulling the rug out from under them. I think we have to talk about how these proposed changes would impact people. What I have noticed in the time I have been here, and this is a big room and there are a lot of Members, 435 of us, and we talk about a lot of really important issues here. At a certain point, I think Members of Congress forget that the decisions that we make here affect individual people. It is really easy to forget about that. It is easy to talk about numbers in the trillions, and we forget that Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Goldstein, those are real people where our decisions hurt them. Members need to think about them sitting in their kitchens and scratching out how they are going to buy groceries, cover their medication, and pay their electricity bill. The report that came out from the Social Security and Medicare trustees 2 weeks ago shows that the crisis we should be talking about is Medicare and the looming problem that is going to present because that is what is facing insolvency. But, of course, that problem, according to the leadership here, has been taken care of. They took care of that, according to the leadership here, in the bill that took 3 hours to twist enough arms, from what I understand, to get them to have the votes to pass it. I am not sure why in that legislation they would not have taken steps to address what appears to be the real crisis.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That is why we call it Social Security.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And, Mr. Speaker, my colleague is just absolutely right on target. We are more than willing to sit down and hash out in the spirit of compromise, like the gentleman referred to what they did in 1983. But, at least in my experience, with compromise, you have to be singing off the same song sheet. You cannot start from two completely different places and define the problem in completely different ways and ultimately reach compromise. So if the President and his supporters on this concept would come off of the concept of crisis and get to where we are and where the reality is, because every factual description, including from the Social Security trustees that just released their report 2 weeks ago, points to a problem, a problem looming on the horizon that needs to be dealt with. So when we are singing off the same song sheets, then we will be able to move forward and talk about a compromise that will actually address the solvency question, because private accounts do not address the solvency question, they just cause more debt. What is unbelievable about the private accounts is that the President, at least in my listening to him, has sold them as almost like it would be an addition to your Social Security benefits. But the reality of his vague plan is that you would not get your private account and your Social Security benefits. There would be a commensurate cut in your Social Security benefits in proportion to what is in your account; approximately a 46 percent cut in your Social Security benefits. And let us not forget also that his proposal does not leave out the one-third of Social Security recipients who are not earners. You have people who are beneficiaries of Social Security recipients who have passed on and who are not earning an income. You have children and dependents, and you have the disabled community. Now, they are not able to benefit from private accounts because in order to have a private account, you actually have to have an income. So we are not even thinking about how we would address the huge pure cut that they would suffer from.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Right. Stacked up would equal a foot. A billion dollars would equal the height of the Empire State building in New York. One trillion dollars, stacked up on top of each other, would be a thousand times the height of the Empire State Building. So if you are trying to think about how much $7 trillion is, that is how large that number is. That is not something that almost anyone can get their arms around. And think about the unbelievable irresponsibility that that is, and that there currently appears to be almost no regard for that problem and how to deal with it, and no focus here on how we are going to get a handle on the sheer size of that number and shrinking it, and no realistic proposal; only conversations like that of privatizing Social Security, which are going to make that number ever larger. It really starts to boggle your mind. Yet, when we go home, as we just did, and I spent the last couple of weeks at home going around my district and had town hall meetings. I had a town hall meeting in my district on Social Security, and it appeared as though there is an inverse relationship between the more the President talks about his vague outlines of a proposal and the more people hear about his vague outlines of a proposal. They are moving in opposite directions. In fact, for our age group, which is his target audience, because he has been assuring people 55 and over they will not have to be concerned about their continued checks and the continuation of Social Security for them, and if you believe that, which I found in my district, and I have a very large population of senior citizens who are Social Security recipients, they are very, very skeptical about how a program the size of Social Security, with as monumental a change as this would be, how it is that they can be assured that a monumental change like that is not going to affect them. So there is a healthy amount of skepticism as it is, but the target audience, which is our generation and people younger than 30 years old, the polling that has come out recently, and the Pew Research Center did a March 24 poll, which shows support for private accounts among young adults absolutely plummeting. The more young people have heard about this proposal, the less they like it. They are more than twice as likely to oppose private accounts when they have heard a lot about it. And that is illustrative of the inverse relationship between the President's canned town hall meetings, for lack of a better term. Because what we have been doing out in our districts, as Democrats, we are not ticketing our events. We are not hand-picking the audience. We are saying, come on in and talk to us about Social Security. Let us talk to you about what we hear about this proposal, and you tell us what you think. What is going on in the President's meetings is he is saying, do you agree with me? Oh, okay, you can come in then, and booting people who do not agree with him. That is really not very democratic. It does not show a real ability or desire to actually get input. It is more my way or the highway politics, which is not the way we should be shaping this debate.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I thank my colleague, Mr. Speaker. I think that statistic and those two numbers there are so illustrative. They really are. People can feel, touch, taste and understand what $26,000 means. For every single person, including an infant in this country, that is their share of the national debt. I think people have a harder time, though, I mean none of us literally have an understanding of what $7 trillion is; $7,781,336,014,734.14. That is the national debt. Now, what does that mean? If you are going to try to break it down into what $7 trillion is like, and there are people actually out there figuring this stuff out to try to translate that concept of a trillion dollars into more understandable bites of information, for example, if you stacked a thousand $1 bills, you took a thousand $1 bills and stacked them on top of each other, $1 million would equal 1 foot high of thousand dollar bills. That is how high.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor of H.J. Res. 23.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, our colleagues have spent this evening reiterating factually inaccurate information, and I want to make sure we clear it up. The independent guardian ad litem appointed to represent Terri Schiavo has said in his report that, despite the facts cited by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have said that Terri felt pain and laughs and cries, that that is factually inaccurate; that her cerebral cortex has been liquefied, and that is the area of the brain that responds to emotion and reason. So that is impossible what they have detailed here tonight. Additionally, they talk about six neurologists and eight physicians that have said that she is not in a persistent vegetative state. Also factually inaccurate. Those physicians to which they refer have only viewed Terri via videotape. The five court-appointed physicians that have examined Terri, two appointed on Michael Schiavo's side, two on the Schindlers' side, and one court-appointed physician, who have all examined her, the board certified neurologists who had scientifically- based academically-researched testimony, their testimony was deemed to be clear and convincing by the court that she was and is in a persistent vegetative state. The other physicians' testimony was discounted as anecdotal only. In addition to that, I want to just close with the commentary from the guardian ad litem. He spent 20 of 30 days with her. He put his face up close to hers and tried to make eye contact, pleading desperately, trying to will her into giving him any kind of sign. He said, I would beg her, please, Terri, help me. You want to believe there is some connection. You hope she is going to sit up in bed and say, ``Hey, I'm really here, but don't tell anybody.'' Or, ``I'm really here, tell everybody.'' But Schiavo never made eye contact. When Wolfson visited her when her parents were there, she never made eye contact with them either, he said. And for all of Wolfson's pleadings and coaxings, he never got what he most wanted: A sign. He said, I felt like there was something distinctive about whoever Terri is, but I was not clear it was there, inside the vessel. During those 30 days, Wolfson was plagued by nightmares. He concluded that the medical and legal evidence behind Schiavo's diagnosis of being in a persistent vegetative state was credible, but he still felt that for all their expertise, those medical experts would never truly know where Schiavo was. He was dismayed to learn Friday that Barbara Weller, an attorney for the Schindlers, claimed Schiavo tried to speak. He said, Terri does not speak. To claim otherwise reduces her to a fiction.''

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) for yielding me time. There are a number of things that I would like to correct for the record before I begin. I apologize for not knowing the State that the gentleman is from, but the representation regarding the care of Theresa Schiavo by her husband as represented in the Chamber is totally inaccurate. Theresa's husband, and I am quoting from the guardian ad litem report, the independent guardian ad litem report that was required by Florida law during the special session in October of 2003, it says: ``Theresa's husband, Michael Schiavo, and her mother, Mary Schindler, were virtually partners in their care of and dedication to Theresa. There is no question but that complete trust, mutual caring, explicit love, and a common goal of caring for and rehabilitating Theresa were the shared intentions of Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers. Despite aggressive therapies, physician and other clinical assessments consistently revealed no functional abilities, only reflexive rather than cognitive moments, random eye opening, no communication system, and little change cognitively or functionally.'' And the gentleman referenced the percentage of the medical malpractice damage award being $486,000 going to attorneys' fees and to helping her reach her demise. That is also totally inaccurate. Also quoting from the guardian ad litem report: There was a medical malpractice case filed and pursued. Michael Schiavo and Terri Schiavo were awarded $750,000 in economic damages. The economic damages were put into a trust that was meticulously cared for according to the guardian ad litem and which was managed by South Trust Bank as the guardian and independent trustee. This fund was accounted for and Michael Schiavo had absolutely no control over its use. Michael Schiavo was awarded $300,000 for loss of consortium damages. That is money that was awarded to him. There is not very much of that left. And there is no truth to the accusation that he would benefit financially from that damage award and there certainly was not $2 million in damages awarded. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record the report of the guardian ad litem. [Dec. 1, 2003] A Report to Governor Jeb Bush and the 6th Judicial Circuit in the Matter of Theresa Marie Schiavo (Submitted by Jay Wolfson, DrPH, JD, Guardian Ad Litem for Theresa Marie Schiavo) Theresa Marie Schiavo was born in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area on 3 December 1963 to Robert and Mary Schindler. She has two younger siblings, Robert Jr., and Susan. Through the age of 18, Theresa was, according to her parents, very overweight, until she chose to lose weight with the guidance of a physician. She dropped from 250 pounds to around 150 pounds, at which time she met Michael Schiavo. They dated for many months and married in November of 1984. The Schiavo and Schindler families were close and friendly. Theresa and Michael moved to Florida in 1986 and were followed shortly thereafter by Theresa's parents and siblings. Theresa worked for the Prudential Life Insurance Company and Michael was a restaurant manager. About three years later, without the apparent knowledge of her parents, Theresa and Michael sought assistance in becoming pregnant through an obstetrician who specialized in fertility services. For over a year, Theresa and Michael received fertility services and counseling in order to enhance their strongly held desire to have a child. By this time, Theresa's weight had dropped even further, to 110 pounds. She was very proud of her fabulous figure and her stunning appearance, wearing bikini bathing suits for the first time and taking great pride in her improved good looks. Testimony and photographs bare witness to these facts. On the tragic early morning of 25 February 1990, Theresa collapsed in the hallway of her apartment, waking Michael, who called Theresa's family and 911. The lives of Theresa, Michael and the Schindlers were to change forever. Theresa suffered a cardiac arrest. During the several minutes it took for paramedics to arrive, Theresa experienced loss of oxygen to the brain, or anoxia, for a period sufficiently long to cause permanent loss of brain function. Despite heroic efforts to resuscitate, Theresa remained unconscious and slipped into a coma. She was intubated, ventilated and trached, meaning that she was given life saving medical technological interventions, without which she surely would have died that day. The cause of the cardiac arrest was adduced to a dramatically reduced potassium level in Theresa's body. Sodium and potassium maintain a vital, chemical balance in the human body that helps define the electrolyte levels. The cause of the imbalance was not clearly identified, but may be linked, in theory, to her drinking 10-15 glasses of iced tea each day. While no formal proof emerged, the medical records note that the combination of aggressive weight loss, diet control and excessive hydration raised questions about Theresa suffering from bulimia, an eating disorder, more common among women than men, in which purging through vomiting, laxatives and other methods of diet control becomes obsessive. Theresa spent two and a half months as an inpatient at Humana Northside Hospital, eventually emerging from her coma state, but not recovering consciousness. On 12 May 1990, following extensive testing, therapy and observation, she was discharged to the College Park skilled care and rehabilitation facility. Forty-nine days later, she was transferred again to Bayfront Hospital for additional, aggressive rehabilitation efforts. In September of 1990, she was brought home, but following only three weeks, she was returned to the College Park facility because the ``family was overwhelmed by Terry's care needs.'' On 18 June 1990, Michael was formally appointed by the court to serve as Theresa's legal guardian, because she was adjudicated to be incompetent by law. Michael's appointment was undisputed by the parties. The clinical records within the massive case file indicate that Theresa was not responsive to neurological and swallowing tests. She received regular and intense physical, occupational and speech therapies. Theresa's husband, Michael Schiavo and her mother, Mary Schindler, were virtual partners in their care of and dedication to Theresa. There is no question but that complete trust, mutual caring, explicit love and a common goal of caring for and rehabilitating Theresa, were the shared intentions of Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers. In late Autumn of 1990, following months of therapy and testing, formal diagnoses of persistent vegetative state with no evidence of improvement, Michael took Theresa to California, where she received an experimental thalamic stimulator implant in her brain. Michael remained in California caring for Theresa during a period of several months and returned to Florida with her in January of 1991. Theresa was transferred to the Mediplex Rehabilitation Center in Brandon, where she received 24-hour skilled care, physical, occupational, speech and recreational therapies. Despite aggressive therapies, physician and other clinical assessments consistently revealed no functional abilities, only reflexive, rather than cognitive movements, random eye opening, no communication system and little change cognitively or functionally. On 19 July 1991 Theresa was transferred to the Sable Palms skilled care facility. Periodic neurological exams, regular and aggressive physical, occupational and speech therapy continued through 1994. Michael Schiavo, on Theresa's and his own behalf, initiated a medical malpractice lawsuit against the obstetrician who had been overseeing Theresa's fertility therapy. In 1993, the malpractice action concluded in Theresa and Michael's favor, resulting in a two element award: More than $750,000 in economic damages for Theresa, and a loss of consortium award (non economic damages) of $300,000 to Michael. The court established a trust fund for Theresa's financial award, with South Trust Bank as the Guardian and an independent trustee. This fund was meticulously managed and accounted for and Michael Schiavo had no control over its use. There is no evidence in the record of the trust administration documents of any mismanagement of Theresa's estate, and the records on this matter are excellently maintained. After the malpractice case judgment, evidence of disaffection between the Schindlers and Michael Schiavo openly emerged for the first time. The Schindlers petitioned the court to remove Michael as Guardian. They made allegations that he was not caring for Theresa, and that his behavior was disruptive to Theresa's treatment and condition. Proceedings concluded that there was no basis for the removal of Michael as Guardian Further, it was determined that he had been very aggressive and attentive in his care of Theresa. His demanding concern for her well being and meticulous care by the nursing home earned him the characterization by the administrator as ``a nursing home administrator's nightmare''. It is notable that through more than thirteen years after Theresa's collapse, she has never had a bedsore. By 1994, Michael's attitude and perspective about Theresa's condition changed. During the previous four years, he had insistently held to the premise that Theresa could recover and the evidence is incontrovertible that he gave his heart and soul to her treatment and care. This was in the face of consistent medical reports indicating that there was little or no likelihood for her improvement. In early 1994 Theresa contracted a urinary tract infection and Michael, in consultation with Theresa's treating physician, elected not to treat the infection and simultaneously imposed a ``do not resuscitate'' order should Theresa experience cardiac arrest. When the nursing facility initiated an intervention to challenge this decision, Michael canceled the orders. Following the incident involving the infection, Theresa was transferred to another skilled nursing facility. Michael's decision not to treat was based upon discussions and consultation with Theresa's doctor, and was predicated on his reasoned belief that there was no longer any hope for Theresa's recovery. It had taken Michael more than three years to accommodate this reality and he was beginning to accept the idea of allowing Theresa to die naturally rather than remain in the non-cognitive, vegetative state. It took Michael a long time to consider the prospect of getting on with his life--something he was actively encouraged to do by the Schindlers, long before enmity tore them apart. He was even encouraged by the Schindlers to date, and introduced his in-law family to women he was dating. But this was just prior to the malpractice case ending. As part of the first challenge to Michael's Guardianship, the court appointed John H. Pecarek as Guardian Ad Litem to determine if there had been any abuse by Michael Schiavo. His report, issued 1 March 1994, found no inappropriate actions and indicated that Michael had been very attentive to Theresa. After two more years of legal contention, the Schindlers action against Michael was dismissed with prejudice. Efforts to remove Michael as Guardian were attempted in subsequent years, without success. Hostilities increased and the Schindlers and Michael Schiavo did not communicate directly. By June of 1996, the court had to order that copies of medical reports be shared with the Schindlers and that all health care providers be permitted to discuss Theresa's condition with the Schindlers--something Michael had temporarily precluded. In 1997, six years after Theresa's tragic collapse, Michael elected to initiate an action to withdraw artificial life support from Theresa. More than a year later, in May of 1998, the first petition to discontinue life support was entered. The court appointed Richard Pearse, Esq., to serve as Guardian Ad Litem to review the request for withdrawal, a standard procedure. Mr. Pearse's report, submitted to the court on 20 December 1998 contains what appear to be objective and challenging findings. His review of the clinical record confirmed that Theresa's condition was that of a diagnosed persistent vegetative state with no chance of improvement. Mr. Pearse's investigation concluded that the statements of Mrs. Schindler, Theresa's mother, indicated that Theresa displayed special responses, mostly to her, but that these were not observed or documented. Mr. Pearse documents the evolving disaffections between the Schindlers and Michael Schiavo. He concludes that Michael Schiavo's testimony regarding the basis for his decision to withdraw life support--a conversation he had with his wife, Theresa, was not clear and convincing, and that potential conflicts of interest regarding the disposition of residual funds in Theresa's trust account following her death affected Michael and the Schindlers--but he placed greater emphasis on the impact it might have had on Michael's decision to discontinue artificial life support. At the time of Mr. Pearse's report, more than $700,000 remained in the guardianship estate. Mr. Pearse concludes that Michael's hearsay testimony about Theresa's intent is ``necessarily adversely affected by the obvious financial benefit to him of being the sole heir at law . . .'' and ``. . . by the chronology of this case . . .'', specifically referencing Michael's change in position relative to maintaining Theresa following the malpractice award. Mr. Pearse recommended that the petition for removal of the feeding tube be denied, or in the alternative, if the court found the evidence to be clear and convincing, the feeding tube should be withdrawn. Mr. Pearse also recommended that a Guardian Ad Litem continue to serve in all subsequent proceedings. In response to Mr. Pearse's report, Michael Schiavo filed a Suggestion of Bias against Mr. Pearse. This document notes that Mr. Pearse failed to mention in his report that Michael Schiavo had earlier, formally offered to divest himself entirely of his financial interest in the guardianship estate. The criticism continues to note that Mr. Pearse's concern about abuse of inheritance potential was directly solely at Michael, not at the Schindlers in the event they might become the heirs and also choose to terminate artificial life support. Further, significant chronological deficits and factual errors are noted, detracting from and prejudicing the objective credibility of Mr. Pearse's report. The Suggestion of Bias challenges premises and findings of Mr. Pearse, establishing a well pleaded case for bias. In February of 1999, Mr. Pearse tendered his petition for additional authority or discharge. He was discharged in June of 1999 and no new Guardian Ad Litem was named. Actions by the Schindlers to remove Michael as Guardian and to block the petition to remove artificial life support took on a frenetic quality at this juncture. More external parties on both sides made appearances as potential interveners. On 11 February 2000, consequent to hearings and the presentation of competent evidence, Judge Greer ordered the removal of Theresa's artificial life support. The Schindlers aggressively sought means by which to stop the removal of Theresa's feeding tube. Most of the motions in these efforts were denied, but not without apparent careful and detailed review by the court, often involving hearings at which considerable latitude was afforded the Schindlers in their efforts to proffer testimony and admit evidence. The motion and hearing process continued through 2000. Then the Schindlers sought to introduce new evidence that was believed to be of a sufficiently substantial nature as to change the court's decision regarding the removal of the feeding tube. The hearings and testimony before the trial court leading to the decision to discontinue artificial life support included admitted hearsay from Theresa's brother-in- law (Michael Schiavo's brother) and his wife (Michael Schiavo's sister-in-law) along with testimony from Michael. The testimony of these parties referenced specific conversations in which Theresa commented about her desire never to be placed on artificial life support. The testimony reflected conversations at or proximate to funerals of close family members who had been on artificial life support. The context and content of the testimony, while hearsay, was deemed credible and consistent and was used by the court as a supporting basis for its decision to discontinue artificial life support. The Schindlers' new evidence ostensibly reflected adversely on Michael Schiavo's role as Guardian. It related to his personal romantic life, the fact that he had relationships with other women, that he had allegedly failed to provide appropriate care and treatment for Theresa, that he was wasting the assets within the guardianship account, and that he was no longer competent to represent Theresa's best interests. Testimony provided by members of the Schindler family included very personal statements about their desire and intention to ensure that Theresa remain alive. Throughout the course of the litigation, deposition and trial testimony by members of the Schindler family voiced the disturbing belief that they would keep Theresa alive at any and all costs. Nearly gruesome examples were given, eliciting agreement by family members that in the event Theresa should contract diabetes and subsequent gangrene in each of her limbs, they would agree to amputate each limb, and would then, were she to be diagnosed with heart disease, perform open heart surgery. There was additional, difficult testimony that appeared to establish that despite the sad and undesirable condition of Theresa, the parents still derived joy from having her alive, even if Theresa might not be at all aware of her environment given the persistent vegetative state. Within the testimony, as part of the hypotheticals presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it. Throughout this painful and difficult trial, the family acknowledged that Theresa was in a diagnosed persistent vegetative state. The court denied the Schindlers' motions to remove the guardian, allowing that the evidence was not sufficient and in some instances, not relevant. It set a date for the artificial life support to be discontinued, as of 24 April 2001. The decision was appealed to the Florida 2nd District Court of Appeals (DCA), and was affirmed in January 2001. The requested appeal to the Florida Supreme Court was denied on 23 April 2001, one day before the scheduled removal of Theresa's feeding tube. On 24 April 2001, Theresa Schiavo's artificial feeding tube was clamped, and she ceased receiving nutrition and hydration. Under normal circumstances, Theresa would die naturally within a week to ten days. Two days after the clamping of Theresa's feeding tube, the Schindlers filed a civil action in their capacity as ``natural guardians'' for Theresa. The trial court, in emergency review, granted a temporary injunction and the tube was unclamped. Michael Schiavo filed an emergency motion to vacate the injunction. This led to the second review and appeal to the 2nd DCA. The 2nd DCA found that the intention of Florida Statute 765 with respect to matters such as Theresa's, is to help expedite proceedings of the court when decisions have been made by the bona fide guardian. The 2nd DCA also noted that the Court had acted independently as proxy decision maker regarding the removal of artificial life support. In October 2001, the 2nd DCA concluded that the Schindlers ``have presented no credible evidence suggesting new treatment can restore Mrs. Schiavo.'' The injunction was lifted and plans moved forward to discontinue artificial nutrition. Fresh and exhaustive motions regarding new evidence were again crafted and proffered to the trial court by the Schindlers resulting in a lengthy hearing. Affidavits from medical doctors and others alleged that Theresa's condition could be improved. In particular, the sworn statement of a single, osteopathic physician, Dr. Webber, claimed that he could improve Theresa's condition and had done so in like and similar cases. The quality of evidence in this affidavit was marginal, but the court allowed it to create a colorable entitlement to additional medical review. The case was remanded to the trial court with the charge that each side would select two expert physicians (a neurologist or a neurosurgeon, according to the court) and agree between them regarding a fifth, and if they could not agree on the fifth, the court would select it. By May of 2002, the physicians were selected by both sides, but no agreement could be reached about a fifth, so the court selected one. Curiously and surprisingly, Dr. Webber, who had served as the basis for this entire process at the 2nd DCA, did not participate in the exams or the procedure. Each of the physicians was afforded access to Theresa for the purpose of conducting a thorough examination. Video tape recordings were made of some of the examinations along with segments in which family members interacted with Theresa. The physicians were deposed and proffered testimony regarding their findings. Written reports of the examinations were prepared by all five physicians, and a very detailed hearing was held in October of 2002. The clinical evidence presented by the five physicians reflected their examinations and reviews of the medical records. Four of the physicians were board certified in neurology, as suggested by the court, and one physician was board certified in radiology and hyperbaric medicine. All of the physicians had excellent pedigrees of medical training. The scientific quality, value and relevance of the testimony varied. The two neurologists testifying for Michael Schiavo provided strong, academically based, and scientifically supported evidence that was reasonably deemed clear and convincing by the court. Of the two physicians testifying for the Schindlers, only one was a neurologist, the other was a radiologist/hyperbaric physician. The testimony of the Schindler's physicians was substantially anecdotal, and was reasonably deemed to be not clear and convincing. The fifth physician, chosen by the court because the two parties could not agree, presented scientifically grounded, academically based evidence that was reasonably deemed to be clear and convincing by the court. Following exhaustive testimony and the viewing of video tapes, the trial court concluded that no substantial evidence had been presented to indicate any promising treatment that might improve Theresa's cognition. The court sought to glean scientific, case, researchbased foundations for the contentions of the Schindler's physician experts, but received principally anecdotal information. Evidence presented by Michael Schiavo's two physicians and the fifth physician selected by the court was reasonably deemed clear and convincing in support of Theresa being in a persistent vegetative state with no hope for improvement. Simultaneous appeals of this decision and renewed actions to remove Michael Schiavo as Guardian were initiated based upon new evidence. The June 2003 appeal to the 2nd DCA was Schiavo IV. The 2nd DCA panel of judges engaged in what approximated a de novo review of all of the facts, testimony and video tapes presented at trial. The appellate court affirmed the trial court's ruling and its conclusions, and in addition, ordered the trial court to set a hearing date for removal of the artificial life support. The trial court set 15 October 2003 as the date for the removal of Theresa's artificial nutrition tube. The Schindler's renewed efforts to remove Michael Schiavo as Guardian, and to disqualify judges, were not successful. Multiple amicus briefs and affidavits from parties supporting the Schindlers were submitted through the Schindler's actions and in some instances, independently to the court. By mid 2003, the landscape and texture of Theresa Schiavo's case underwent profound changes. National media coverage, active involvement by groups advocating right to life, and the attention of the Governor's office and the Florida Legislature, catapulted Theresa's case into a different dimension. The Schindlers, acting on behalf of Theresa, filed a motion in federal district court seeking a preliminary injunction to stay the removal of the artificial life support from Theresa, scheduled to occur on 15 October 2003. On 6 October 2003, Florida Governor Jeb Bush filed an Amicus brief in support of the motion for a preliminary injunction. The brief argues that removal of artificial nutrition, resulting in death, should be avoided if that person can take oral nutrition and hydration. The Governor predicates his memorandum on the pivotal question as to whether Theresa could ingest food and water on her own. That Theresa is in a diagnosed, persistent vegetative state is explicitly recognized. On 15 October 2003, Theresa Maria Schiavo's artificial feeding tube was disconnected, for the second time. The Florida legislature, in special session, passed HB 35 E on 21 October 2003, authorizing the Governor to stay the disconnection of the artificial feeding tube and required, among other things, the appointment of a Guardian Ad Litem to produce this report. On that same day, 21 October 2003, the artificial feeding tube was re-inserted per the stay ordered by Governor Bush. Other suits and actions were initiated immediately the governor became a named party in the matters involving Theresa Schiavo. I just wanted to correct some of those facts for the record, Mr. Speaker. The circumstances that bring us here today are horribly tragic. No matter where you may fall on this issue, the details of Terri's case are heart-wrenching. No one in this Chamber questions the pain, heartache, and personal struggles that every member of Ms. Schiavo's family has had to deal with over the last 15 years. But heartbreaking decisions like this are deeply intimate, personal, and private matters; and the Federal Government and this body, in particular, should not inject itself into the middle of this private family matter. This very personal matter should not be politicized as it is being here today. Just a few hours ago, I had an opportunity to sit down with Ms. Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler. I know that he speaks with great sincerity as I told him about his sister. Indeed, it is important to emphasize that this type of gut-wrenching, angst-ridden decision happens every day across the country among families dealing with the tragic circumstances of a loved one. And I know the pain that this causes families only too well because it happened in my own family not even 5 weeks ago. My husband's family had to make the identical decision to withdraw sustenance to disconnect the feeding tube of my husband's aunt. Her children came together to make that very difficult decision, and no one in my family felt it was essential that I or any other Member of Congress file legislation to stop it. This type of decision happens every single day to thousands of families across America. Where will we stop if we allow this to go forward? Today will be Terri Schiavo. Tomorrow it will be someone's brother or a constituent's uncle or next week a family member, God forbid, of one of my colleagues or another constituent. Do we really want to set the precedent of this great body, the United States Congress, to insert ourselves in the middle of families' private matters all across America? If we do this, we will end up throwing end-of-life decisions into utter and complete chaos; and we cannot and should not do that. We are Members of Congress. We are not doctors. We are not medical experts. We are not bio-ethicists. We are Members of Congress. When I ran for Congress, I did not ask my constituents for the right to insert myself in their private, personal families decisions; and they do not want me to make those for them. They do not want you to make those for them either. That is the bottom line. I cannot get into the kind of questions that we are getting into being asked here because we do not know. I have never met Michael Schiavo or Terri Schiavo or the Schindlers and the vast majority of people in this body have not either. We do not have the expertise or the facts in enough detail to get into these kinds of decisions and make decisions on these kind of cases. We are not God and we are not Terri Schiavo's husband, sister, brother, uncle or relation. We are Members of Congress. We make laws and we uphold the law and we swore to uphold and protect the Constitution and we are thumbing our noses at the Constitution if we do this here tonight. Now, I have heard a lot of things said about this legislation and about the very proceeding that we are engaging in this evening. I have heard accusations that because this body is debating this legislation, we are threatening somehow the life of Ms. Schiavo. I think it is really important to note that this is a legislative body created by our forefathers for the express purpose of deliberations and representation. The accusation that because we have 3 hours of debate on an unprecedented piece of legislation that seeks to insert the Federal Government in between a family while overruling State courts and circumventing the Constitution, that is an outrageous accusation and not worthy of a representative elected to craft and debate legislation. I notice today that President Bush has returned from Crawford hoping to sign this legislation if it is passed by Congress. I think it is important to note that President Bush when he was Governor of Texas in 1999 signed a Texas law that is on the books today that was just used a few days ago to allow a hospital to withdraw, over the parents' objections, the life support of a 6-month-old boy, over the parents' objections. President Bush signed a law called the Texas Advanced Directives Act, when he was Governor of Texas. This law, that has been used several times and as recently as a few days ago, liberalized the situations under which a person in Texas can avoid artificial life support. Under it, life support can be withheld or withdrawn if you have an irreversible condition in Texas from which you are expected to eventually pass away. Indeed, this law, signed by then Governor Bush, allows doctors to remove a patient from life support if the hospital's ethics committee agrees, even over the objections of a family member, only allowing the family 10 days to find another facility that might accept the patient, barring any State judicial intervention. It appears that President Bush felt, as Governor, that there was a point at which, when doctors felt there was no further hope for the patient, that it is appropriate for an end-of-life decision to be made, even over the objections of family members. That was a law that President Bush did not just allow to become law without his signature, he came back from a campaign trip to sign it. There is an obvious conflict here between the President's feelings on this matter now as compared to when he was Governor of Texas, so I thought that was an important conflict that should be raised here this evening in our discussion. Let me just close my remarks by reiterating there is no room for the Federal Government in this most personal of private angst-ridden family matters, in which a family has to make the most personal of decisions when dealing with the course of care of a loved one. We should not politicize this very personal family matter. Ms. Schiavo made it clear, as opposed to what the gentleman from Wisconsin said, that she would not have wished to remain in a persistent vegetative state, and the guardian ad litem report well documents that. In fact, it documents it to such a degree that it cites the specific conversations referenced by her family members when she attended funerals of loved ones who were in similar situations when they had life support removed; and she had stated that if, God forbid, she was ever in this situation, that she would not have wished to remain on life support. The court heard that testimony not from Terri Schiavo's husband, not from her parents, but from other family members and friends who heard her say these things. They said that there was enough evidence to render the belief that she had made those statements. She made it clear that she wished not to remain in a persistent vegetative state, which she is in today. And this U.S. Government should not step in to circumvent the wishes of one dying woman.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. There is a name for that.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Borrow and spend.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. In the last several weeks I have tried to talk about the impact on women that the Bush administration's policies have had. For example, there are 20 million women in this country without health insurance and millions more who can barely afford to pay their premiums; but this budget does nothing to hold down health care costs. It slashes Medicaid by a total of $45 billion over the next 10 years. That is a devastating cut on women and children because women account for over 70 percent of adult Medicaid beneficiaries. In terms of violence against women, the President's budget cuts the Violence Against Women Act programs by $19 million; child care, the budget freezes funding for the Maternal and Child Health block grant and eliminates the Universal Newborn Screening Program. Now, I have a 19-month-old. You have young children. I have passed legislation in Florida that ensured that we expanded screening for genetic anomalies and problems in newborns, and this Bush budget reverses all of that progress. If we do not make sure we screen newborns for hearing problems, then we will have learning disabilities that are directly related to hearing abnormalities and without any excuse. But we have got to make sure that we think about children and families when prioritizing and that is what we could do. And the proof is in the pudding that we do not.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) for yielding me time. I stand here as a Member representing the great State of Florida and as someone who served in the Florida Senate when this gut-wrenching issue was debated intensely almost 2 years ago, where we determined that Terri Schaivo would be allowed to have her feeding tube be reinserted by order of the Governor, who had decided that he was going to be able to usurp a court decision. That was ultimately ruled unconstitutional and for very good reason. There is no doubt that this is a family tragedy. In fact, this is just about the most personal and heart-wrenching of all matters that could arise in any family, but this is a family matter, where there is no room for the Federal Government in this case or in any case that a family has to make the most personal of decisions when dealing with an end-of-life decision. This case in particular related to Terri Schaivo has been through 10 court decisions, 10 court reviews, and each time the courts have sided with Terri's husband and Terri Schaivo's wishes, where they have ruled that she made it clear that she would not have wished to remain in a persistent vegetative state. There is no reason on earth why the U.S. government should step in to circumvent the wishes of one dying woman, and the gentleman from Florida, my colleague from the great State of Florida, maintains that Terri is not in a persistent vegetative state. Yet, doctors who have examined her, and I would imagine that my colleague from the State of Florida has not examined Ms. Schaivo, doctors who have examined her have consistently said that she is in a persistent vegetative state. In fact, it is only physicians who the Schindlers have employed who have said she is not, and they have reviewed her via videotape. The doctors that have actually examined Ms. Schaivo have determined that she in a persistent vegetative state. The courts independently arrived at the decision that they believe that Terri wished to never remain in a persistent vegetative state. They interviewed her husband, her sister-in-law and friends of the family, but the decision that they reached was based on the testimony independently retrieved from her brother, from her sister-in-law and friends. They all testified that Terri had made her intentions clear. The court and the doctors that examined Ms. Schaivo found that she has no cerebral cortex; that the reactions and responses that we have seen on TV dozens of time, that she seems to respond to her parents when they talk to her, that those are all reflexive, that they are not direct responses to interaction with people. The doctors have examined her, again have examined her, that have reviewed her records, that have reviewed her MRIs have said that she is in a persistent vegetative state. This is a horrible case. No matter what the facts are, it is a horrible case, but Terri Schaivo made her wishes clear, and we should not interject this body, the Federal Government, the United States Congress, into a personal family matter. We are taking one set of facts for one family, which is the tragedy of one family and applying it to tens of thousands of families who have or will have loved ones in nursing homes, in hospice facilities or even those being kept alive by their families in their own homes. We are reaching all the way into very personal family cases in communities all across the country, and we are trying to apply a one-size-fits-all solution to all of them. That is totally inappropriate, and I think if we ask just about any family in America whether they think it would be okay if the United States Congress made an end-of-life decision for their loved ones, they would resoundingly say no. I find it particularly hypocritical that those that talk about the defense of marriage now want to interject the Federal Government between a husband and his wife on what was a personal family matter. I ask that we think about how we would feel if, God forbid, our own loved one were in a persistent vegetative state and were in the circumstances and faced the circumstances that Terri Schaivo does. Would we want the United States Congress making the decision or would we want to be involved in that decision ourselves solely on our own? I think that most families would resoundingly say that they want to make that decision. There but for the grace of God go I.