Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It has just been astonishing to me. I literally have had more calls in a shorter period of time on this issue from constituents, and not the organized calls, not the calls that groups generate, that they, you know, send an e-mail out to their members and say, call your Congresswoman, here is her phone number. This is Joe and Jane Average Constituent who saw the news or read the newspaper or listened to the radio and called me and said, you know, what is going on here? Do these people not get it? How could they not get it? I have had little old ladies crying on the other end of the phone in my district office because the flames that have been fanned so much by this administration on the terror threat and national security, which is understandable because we really needed to raise the level of concern in America about being conscious of our own security. That is understandable. But for the President to be shocked by the American people's reaction, that is what is so astonishing, that they are really the victims, I guess. Their decision is really the result of their own magnification of this issue. And, you know, that they have not responded with the funding that we need to enhance port security is just truly shocking.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. There are job openings for people of courage. We need a few more people of courage. There are a couple on that side, but we need a whole lot more.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. There is a $6 billion gap between what the Coast Guard says they need and what the Republican Congress appropriated.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. What is amazing, and you are so right, what has happened in the last several weeks is there has been an effort by the Bush administration since this DPW port deal has come to light to portray this as people who have a problem with Middle Eastern countries and even have gone so far as to say, well, why are you concerned, because Federal agencies control and conduct all port security. I learned and knew this, but it was illuminated even more clearly when I went to the port that that is not the case. Yes, on the external port properties the government body running the port, in our case, in Miami it is the Board of County Commissioners in Miami, they are responsible for external security. But at a terminal in the Port of Miami Terminal Operating Company and under the five other terminals that DPW would take over, they are responsible for their own internal security. They will have intimate knowledge of the external security on the port property, and they are responsible for security internally. This is a foreign government-owned company. This is not a private company from a foreign country. It is a foreign government-owned company. Would it be okay with anyone in this country, not the least of which should be the Bush administration, if the same situation occurred in an airport? Would we let a foreign government-owned company run a terminal in our airports? Would we let them control loading and off-loading passengers or cargo coming into an airport? Not in a billion, no pun intended, years. Really. Why are they so unconcerned about port security? Let us look at what the Coast Guard is responsible for. Again, third- party validators. The Coast Guard on a typical day saves 15 lives, assists 117 people in distress, protects $2.8 million in property, interdicts 30 illegal migrants at sea, conducts 90 search and rescue cases, seizes $21 million worth of illegal drugs, responds to 11 oil and hazardous chemical spills, and boards and inspects 122 vessels. There are 361 ports in this country that they are responsible for, and we have 95,000 miles of coastline. And the difference between what the Coast Guard has said they needed, $7.2 billion to really complete their mission in terms of port security, and what the Republican leadership here has appropriated, $910 million, is $6 billion. There is a disconnect from the top to the bottom here. It is shocking.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The thing that we did not mention yet that is the most outrageous is the President in his budget that he just proposed actually eliminates direct port security grants. He literally says, no, no, no, we do not need to directly appropriate grant money to individual ports for port security. I have a bright idea. He has a bright idea. He wants to let ports compete for security grant funding with railway stations and airports and have any one of these transportation-related entryways to our country compete for security grants. I mean, I do not understand that. He proposed it last year, and the response from the Republican Congress was a $910 million appropriations for port security. And now he is proposing it yet again. Where are their priorities? If we are going to propose cuts to try to get the budget deficit situation under control, do we start with port security? I mean, when they are sitting down around the table in the Roosevelt Room, I really want to be a fly on the wall sometimes. Who in there is saying port security grants, that is what we should, that is how we are going to solve the deficit? Medicaid funding, we have got all the poor people covered with health care; who are the people the most in need, where are our most significant needs, let us cut those. It is astonishing.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. There is also specifically related to this Dubai Ports World deal a way to deal with it. There is the bigger issue of port security, and then there is this deal. What is it that is so darn important about this deal that it caused the President to threaten his first veto that if, God forbid, the Congress would do something crazy like pass legislation to stop it, to slow it down to conduct the national security review that should be done? I have the legislation that I have introduced on the House side and Senators Menendez and Clinton and Bill Nelson from our State that have introduced on the Senate side that would say that we should not allow foreign government companies to own or lease ports from us in this country and we should stop this deal and we should review the other foreign government-owned terminals that currently already are in the United States and give congressional oversight in that area.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It is a pleasure to join the gentleman for our 30-something Working Group hour. When I have been home in the community you and I share, I noticed, and this feeling is so palpable among the average voter, the average citizen in America, and I have been to several different cities in the last number of weeks, and to a person, regardless of party, Americana' confidence in their government has been badly shaken, and badly shaken because they look to the leadership here, the Republican leadership, because we do not control a thing. They have the Presidency, the House and the Senate. So when I say that their confidence in their government and leadership is badly shaken, it is essentially the fault of the Republican leadership. It is so disturbing. I have only been in the Congress a year. I could list countless examples and share with people who have expressed their frustration and their sadness and their angst. My first year in Congress was capped by the bookends, starting 10 weeks into my service here, with the Terri Schiavo case and ending the year with the confirmation of Judge Alito, now Justice Alito, to the Supreme Court who obviously we fear will further erode the right to privacy that we began the year eroding with the Terry Schiavo case. If you look in between, sandwiched between those bookends, we have Hurricane Katrina, this port deal, we have the deficit. You have the debt, you have now the debt limit that we are struggling with, the budget reconciliation bill, the countless irresponsible budget cuts and the privatization of Social Security, the Medicare prescription drug fiasco, who the senior citizens that the gentleman and I represent, they are just in tears. They do not know what to do. Just in our community alone, there are 43 different plans offered by 18 different companies. It is pure insanity. So it is no wonder that our constituents and the American people are frustrated. Their confidence in their leadership is badly shaken. Our responsibility over the next several months is going to be to help restore that confidence because we have that ability. We have an agenda and the things that we would do if we were here would restore that confidence, and those are the kinds of things that we talk about on this floor.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I have another question. In looking over our third party validators, I am wondering if you have got the Secretary of the Treasury setting off alarm bells and really saying that there is fire in the theater, why is it that we have not seen an increase in the debt limit on the floor? Could it perhaps be that that is something that the Republican leadership thinks is unwise to have their Members vote on? Is it that this is not the first time, as I asked you earlier, that the debt limit has been increased? In looking at this chart just in the last few minutes, I notice that in June of 2002 the debt limit was increased by $450 billion. And who was President then?

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I believe President Bush was in office then. In May of 2003, the debt limit was increased by another $984 billion, with a B. In November of 2004, the year of the election, $800 billion. We have a $781 billion increase pending now, with a total increase of $3.015 trillion. When President Clinton was in office, I was in the State legislature then, for a time until you were elected to Congress you were too, we had a system in place called PAYGO, pay-as-you-go, which it is my understanding is similar to the way people prefer in America to run their households, where you do not spend money that you don't have, unlike what is going on under the Republican leadership where they appear to enjoy spending like drunken sailors and ``no'' doesn't appear to be possible under this administration, unless, of course, it is to talk about continuing tax cuts for the wealthiest. We say ``yes'' to that. We say ``yes'' to anything politically that they want to advance. The ``no'' is to people who can't afford health care, cutting Medicaid. The ``no'' that they propose to say is to people who are struggling to pay for higher education. So, if we went back to PAYGO rules, which we have proposed time and again and they have rejected time and again, then we would be again in a situation where it wouldn't be necessary to increase the debt limit because we would be only spending money that we have. Here is another third party validator, which is the Congressional Record. In 2006, in this budget resolution, of course it was defeated, 228 Republicans voted against it, it was defeated 264-165 when we proposed to return to the pay-as-you-go rules. Then again last year, it was defeated 232-194 and 224 Republicans voted against it. So, to me to break this down in more simple terms, because PAYGO and billions and trillions and debt limit is something that if you are not dealing with it on a daily basis, it is somewhat difficult to understand, one of the things we like to do here is break things down for people that may be listening into regular terms, into the things that they deal with every day. So I thought, Mr. Speaker, it would be a good idea, because a billion is a very big number, a billion is a hard concept to grasp, because most people don't deal in the billions when they are dealing with their everyday normal activity, so let's try to define what a billion is in the way that people think about things in their daily life. Broken down, a billion hours ago, for example, humans were making their first tools in the stone age. That is how much a billion hours ago was, if you are thinking about what a billion means. Let's think about what happened a billion seconds ago. A billion seconds ago it was 1975 and the last American troops had just pulled out of Vietnam. That is how big a billion is. We are in 2006. That was 30 years, 31 years ago. A billion minutes ago it was 104 A.D., Mr. Speaker, and the Chinese first invented paper. That is how long ago it was, if you think about a billion in terms of minutes. Then a billion dollars ago, under this administration and under the Republican leadership, a billion dollars ago was only 3 hours and 32 minutes at the rate that the administration and this Republican Congress spends money. So we have a billion hours ago, it was the stone age; a billion seconds ago, it was 31 years ago; a billion minutes ago, it was 104 A.D. and we were first talking about the invention of paper. But under the Republican leadership and this administration, a billion dollars ago was only 3 hours 32 minutes at the rate of spending under this administration and the Congressional leadership. It is just astonishing, it really is, if you think about it, broken down in this way. All the American people want is their confidence restored. All they want to see is that the people here in this Chamber are using their heads and applying some common sense and thinking about the budget and the money that we spend in the way they would like to think about their own household budget, spending the money that we have, spending it wisely, spending it on things that they care about, not giving away the store, which unfortunately, it appears to be the direction that we have been going in. We are giving away the store in so many ways. Like the port deal, for example. We represent Miami, both of us. I represent Fort Lauderdale. I have both Port Everglades and the port of Miami abutting my district. I went down to the port of Miami, you and I have both been there, it is one of the six ports that the Dubai Ports World deal impacts, and for the people that I have talked to in our community and the calls and communications I have been getting, it defies logic. They really just cannot believe that the President does not understand why people are so deeply concerned that we would have a foreign government-owned corporation running the terminal operations at six of our major ports. This is not just any government, this is a government that just 5 years ago was involved directly, indirectly, in both tangential and more substantive ways in the 9/11 attacks. There were 58 references in the 9/11 Commission Report to the United Arab Emirates and their involvement, either through allowing the 9/11 financing to be funneled through their banks, or just the fact that two of the 9/11 terrorists lived in the United Arab Emirates. But the astonishing thing is that there were no national security reviews triggered under the law when the administration's committee that reviewed these deals took a look at it. There were no alarm bells set off. And that is even more astonishing because it is not even like we are checking the vast majority of containers and goods that come through our ports. Less than 6 percent, if you take a look at this chart, less than 6 percent of U.S. cargo coming through our ports is physically inspected, Mr. Speaker. Ninety-five percent is not inspected, 5 percent is inspected. And that is in spite of the fact that Democrats have repeatedly proposed increasing the funding so that we can ensure more of the cargo coming through our ports is inspected. Literally what I learned when I went to the Port of Miami, Mr. Meek, is that in the last 5 years we have increased our security funding at our airports by $18 billion, which is a good thing. I mean that is absolutely essential. And we have increased our port security funding by $700 million. Now, if you remember, I just went over the difference of what a billion means. So $18 billion on airport security, less than $700 million on port security. I mean, you cannot rest our Nation's security on taking your shoes off as you go through the magnetometer at an airport. That cannot be the sum total of the additional security that we have increased since 9/11. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I am a freshman, and I have only been here a year, and I see this chart in between us. I am wondering, is this potential increase in the debt limit unprecedented? Is it the first time it has happened? Just illuminate for me what the history of debt limit increases is, if there is one.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. UAE.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Meek, the point I want to add is this body has openings for people of courage, and we encourage them to apply for those jobs over the next several months.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, Arlene Kaplan, a resident of Randolph, Massachusetts, was elected president of the National Ladies Auxiliary, Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America on August 19, 2005 in San Diego, California, during the organization's 77th Annual National Convention. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Ms. Kaplan was the eldest of the late Sally and Larry Tattlebaum's four children. After graduating from high school, she attended Hickox School for Business Skills and Quincy College for Business Courses. At age 19, she married Sumner ``Sunny'' Kaplan, a Navy veteran of World War II. Together, they raised three children, and are the proud grandparents of six grandchildren. Once her children were in school, Ms. Kaplan began working for the Esselte Pendaflex Corporation, a Fortune 500 company. When her husband was elected JWV Department of Massachusetts Commander, Ms. Kaplan played a vital role in reorganizing Auxiliary 302, and served as president for its first 2 crucial years. She continues to be active in her auxiliary today. She has served the JWV Department of Massachusetts in various capacities over the years, including as its president from 1996 to 1997. She has been a member of the JWV National Ladies Auxiliary Advisory Board and has chaired several of the organization's committees. Arlene and Sunny Kaplan have been members of Temple Beth Am in Randolph for more than 50 years.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Sagemont School on the occasion of their 10th anniversary celebration. The Sagemont School is an educational establishment in my district that provides a nurturing and stimulating learning environment that inspires each student to think critically, reach his or her maximum potential and grow into a valuable citizen of our global community. The Sagemont School's academic program is a rigorous college-prep curriculum that includes a variety of Honors and AP courses. Sagemont is second to none when it comes to integrating state-of-the-art technology, Internet use and even additional coursework at their ``virtual school'' education partner, University of Miami Online High School. Sagemont also meets the needs of students with specific learning disabilities through its Mountain Peak Academy, a program that mainstreams with the school's regular program. The Sagemont School operates two campuses in Weston, in addition to its Virtual School known as The University of Miami Online High School. The Sagemont Lower School serves students in pre-K through grade 5; the Sagemont Upper School serves grades 6 through 12. The faculty and staff at Sagemont are dedicated to parent-teacher relationships in a high- tech learning environment. With multiple computers in the classroom and an average class size of 17 students, children are learning the skills they will need to be successful both in school and later in life. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to acknowledge the achievements of The Sagemont School over the past decade. It is my sincere belief that the Sagemont School will continue to instill in each of their students the joy of learning, personal growth, and a sense of personal and community responsibility for many years to come.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, on August 19, 2005, David L. Magidson was elected to a 1-year term as National Commander of Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America, during the organization's 101st Annual National Convention in San Diego, California. Mr. Magidson's military service began when he joined the U.S. Army in 1968. He graduated as a 2nd lieutenant from Infantry Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He also served as the Operations Officer for the Miami Field Office of the 111th Military Intelligence Group. His active duty service ended in 1971. Mr. Magidson has held numerous positions in Post 243, including Post Commander. Additionally, he has served as Judge Advocate for the JWV Department of Florida, and as the organization's National Judge Advocate since 2001. Mr. Magidson also serves his Jewish heritage, and is currently a member of the Commission on Social Action of the Union for Reform Judaism. In 2000, he completed a 2-year term as president of Temple Judea in Coral Gables, Florida. Although a native of New York City, Magidson was raised in the Washington, DC, area, the son of a Department of Defense civilian who headed the Claims Division for the U.S. Marine Corps. He earned his undergraduate degree in Spanish at Franklin and Marshall College, and went on to earn a Master's degree in Latin American History from the University of Florida. Upon his release from military service, he attended the University of Miami Law School on the G.I. Bill, and received a law degree. He also studied international law at the Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico City. A family man, Mr. Magidson has been happily married to his wife, Carol, for 35 years, and they have two adult children, Ben and Rebecca.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. A small detail.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Absolutely.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It is indifference, Mr. Ryan. It is indifference, that there is a total disconnect between what the American people care about and understand are their needs and what this administration and this President understand.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you, because, you know, the concept of the debt and the deficit is kind of hard to get your mind around sometimes because the numbers are so big and the concepts are somewhat complex. So we always try, in our 30-something hours, to translate these concepts into what it means to everyday people. So let us just talk about the interest payments on the debt that we owe to these countries that Mr. Meek slapped up on our Nation's map. What we could do with the money, just on the interest payments, just the interest payments on the debt that we pay for veterans: we could be spending about $35 billion, billion with a B, more money on services for our Nation's veterans. We could be spending about $20 billion on homeland security. Billion with a B. Certainly we could dedicate all that money to port security, because we spent about $18 billion since 2001 and 9/11 on airport security. I think we could probably equal it out just with the interest payment on the debt. Let us take a look at education. We are seriously underfunding the No Child Left Behind Act and preventing children from getting themselves prepared for the path that they choose in life. And we could take just the interest payments on the debt and spend that on education. That would be about $75 billion for education. Or we could continue to spend it on the interest, which is now at $250 billion. Let us take it a little bit further and translate that even more specifically. What else could the government do with the interest that the country pays every day on this publicly held debt? We could invest $1 million a day in every single congressional district. Now, I think all 435 of us could find something good we could do to improve the quality of people's lives with $1 million a day. We could provide health care to almost 80,000, 79,925 more veterans in this country. And we know each of us in our districts hears from our veterans about the pitiful health care services that they are receiving and the struggle that they have in just getting an appointment to get health care from the Veterans Administration. We can enroll 60,790 more children in the Head Start program, which we are going in the wrong direction in right now and enrolling fewer because we are not funding it adequately. Or we could improve the solvency of Social Security, which this President has said is in crisis. We have differed with his definition of crisis; but even if it is half as big a problem as he says, we can improve Social Security solvency by almost half a billion dollars, just by using the interest that this Nation pays on the national foreign debt that other countries hold. Now, if you went to a town hall meeting in each of our districts and asked our constituents, and the three of us have a diverse constituency. We represent all different kinds of folks between the three communities that we represent. Universally, they would prefer that that money be available to be spent on these items rather than making interest payments on debt that we owe to foreign countries.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Because, Mr. Meek, what you are saying here, it is not simply a matter of fact. It goes beyond just factual accuracy that you are talking about. There is risk when it comes to this much debt being owned, this much of our debt being owned by another country. And then that doesn't even take into consideration whether the country that owns that debt, how friendly they are towards us. Let us just talk about some recent comments by some of the leaders of the nations that own our debt. The Japanese Prime Minister, obviously Japan is an ally of ours and not one that we have to do a lot of hand wringing about, but Prime Minister Hashimoto just recently, I think this was a couple of weeks ago, stated, ``We hope we don't have to succumb to the temptation to sell off U.S. Treasury bills.'' And later that same day the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 192 points, one of the largest declines in points in history. So there is real risk to accumulating that much debt in each of these nations economically in our country and economically across the world. I have heard many of our colleagues, very flippantly on the other side of the aisle, write off the issue of debt as if it is not a big deal. Debt, in someone's household individually, would be a big deal. When we talk about the deficit and deficit spending, which is obviously a separate issue, that is a very big deal. Debt is something that we should begin to move away from. Yet, instead of that, what Secretary Snow has been asking us to do is continually increase it. And what did they do recently, just during that February 16 letter when the Secretary indicated that the debt limit needed to be raised again? Because the Congress has not done that, he had to dip into the pension fund. He actually had to, because something has to give. If Congress is not raising the debt limit, then he has got to cover that debt somewhere. What I have found ironic for a very long time is that the Republicans like to throw around the L word when it comes to us and that we are tax-and-spenders. Honestly, first of all, that certainly is incorrect. But beyond that, what has been equally, if not more, irresponsible since they have been stewards of this economy is the borrow-and-spend philosophy that they have engaged in, because during the Clinton years there was a surplus. We were only arguing over what we were going to do with that surplus. And now we don't have the ability to talk about that. So how much we are borrowing and dipping into our reserves, so to speak, other people's reserves, is really inappropriate.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Yesterday the amazing thing about this whole port deal that you are alluding to, in the Financial Services Committee we had an opportunity to question the representatives of the administration. Do you know that they testified that six different entities within the White House were aware of the proposal to close this Dubai Ports World deal, and the President still did not know about it, with six of his offices in the White House knowing about it? No explanation in committee for why that happened. Really, this picture says it all. We are essentially outsourcing America's security to a foreign-government-owned company. We are not talking about just a foreign company. I think I can tell you that I recognize that we are not going to shut down foreign companies from owning and operating facilities in our Nation's ports. We are a global economy now. But is it appropriate to allow foreign governments to have intimate knowledge about America's security in our ports and run the terminal operations inside those ports? Overwhelmingly, I think Republicans and Democrats in Congress are saying ``no.'' Why is the President saying ``yes''? This is a person who supposedly thinks that America's national security should be a priority. It has left Americans scratching their heads.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Will the gentleman yield?

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, February 25, 2006, Ronald L. Book was awarded the Anti-Defamation League's Torch of Liberty Award, which recognizes outstanding individuals who have exhibited humanitarian concerns and whose efforts bring together people of all races, religions and ethnic backgrounds. Mr. Book serves as a member of the University Outreach Development Council at Florida International University and is Board Member Emeritus of the Memorial Hospital Foundation and the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital & Foundation. He is chairman of the Dade County Homeless Trust and its executive committee and serves as outside advisor to the Broward Community Partnership on the Homeless. He is also an active participant in South Florida's business community. Mr. Book is a trustee and Council of 100 members of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and was the Director and Special Counsel for former Florida Governor, Bob Graham's Cabinet. Mr. Book earned a Juris Doctorate at Tulane University and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science at Florida International University. He currently practices in Aventura and Tallahassee. Of all his accomplishments, Ron and his wife, Pat, are most proud of their children, Lauren (20), Samantha (18) and Chase (13). For his exemplary and inspirational work, reflecting the goals and aspirations of the ADL, I congratulate Ronald L. Book on this distinguished honor.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Trust them. They have got our back.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It is good to be back with my 30-something friends and to engage in this dialogue. What we have been asking for months is, where is the outrage? Where was the outrage about issue after issue that has come to light since Hurricane Katrina wreaked the devastation that it did? I mean, just by way of example, in the Davis committee report that was just issued, where were the top White House officials on the day Katrina struck? Now, we knew in advance of Katrina, and I live in south Florida, where the hurricane center is. We had days of watching Katrina approach the gulf coast. So it is not like we did not know a category five hurricane was approaching the gulf coast. On the day Katrina struck, President Bush, we know, was on vacation in Crawford, Texas. Vice President Cheney, a little known fact, was fly fishing at his ranch in Wyoming. This was on the day Katrina struck. Chief of Staff Andrew Card was vacationing at his lakefront summer home in Maine, and Homeland Security adviser Francis Townsend was also vacationing in Maine. Now, why would they leave a relatively junior official in charge of the situation room in the White House when you have a cat five hurricane bearing down on probably what they knew, they knew, was the most vulnerable region in the country when it came to hurricane preparedness and what they knew would likely be the aftermath? Why did President Bush and other top administration officials insist that the levees did not break until Tuesday when now we know, with the Davis report and with Mr. Brown's revelation, that he told them the day Katrina struck, the night that Katrina struck?