Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I am just looking at some of the facts and figures that our staff has put together for us, and sometimes I have difficulty thinking about the size and scope of what it means to have the largest deficit in American history and a debt that combined with the previous 224 years is greater than the debt from those years. It is easier to deal with that information in nuggets, so let us talk about debt and its impact on individuals for a moment. And since this is the 30-something Working Group and we often try to highlight the difficulty our generation is having or what our generation lives through, let us just go through some facts and figures comparatively for our generation through the years. Since 1992-93, the average college grad student loan debt has grown from $12,100 to $19,300 in 2003, just 10 years. Over 25 percent of college graduates in 2003 had a student loan debt higher than $25,000, which is a 7 percent increase from 10 years ago. In 2002, 14 percent of young adults reported that student loans caused them to delay marriage, which is up from 7 percent in 1991. One in five said their debt had caused them to delay having children, up from 12 percent in 1991. Forty percent reported they delayed buying a home because of their loans, compared with 25 percent in 1991. And 17 percent significantly changed careers because of their debt, about the same as 1991. The policy decisions that are made here, Mr. Ryan, the culture of corruption that translates into special interests and the wealthiest few being at the top of the heap here as opposed to the average working family or the average hardworking recent college graduate being put first or being considered at least on the same level has caused real strife, real difficulty. Imagine being in love, finding the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, knowing you want to have children, knowing that you could potentially buy that house that you would love to live in and have the dream of homeownership, essentially the American Dream, and you have so much debt that you are saddled with because your government, your Congress did not at least provide the ability for you to get a higher education because it was more important to provide tax cuts to the wealthiest few; more important to provide tax breaks for Big Oil and for pharmaceutical companies and ensure that they are first in line. That is real life. Those are the real-life decisions that real people, our people, have to make. It is just so wrong. I used to think about this in the legislature, too. You come up to Tallahassee in Florida, which is our capital, and Washington here, and we make policy in this body thousands of miles from our constituents, most of us, except those who live right around here. Sometimes I think that is really a significant cause of the insensitivity that clearly goes on in Washington. Because we are so disconnected from our constituents when we make policy. It is not like a city council people, who has to deal with the in- your-face aspect of that type of governing. You know, if there is a dead dog on someone's driveway, that city council person knows about it and they will have to deal with that person in the supermarket or you are right up in their face in the dais. We cannot talk to the people that come here and are sitting in the gallery, and so we are insulated from making those decisions. And perhaps that is wrong. As a result, we make decisions where the people who can get access to us, the people who have the money to pay to get in front of us, they get to be first in line; and I think that really ruins lives for people.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I want to jump off from what you are saying in terms of America lagging behind global education standards with more emblematic examples of the difference between their rhetoric and their deeds. The President, again in the State of the Union, talked about our one commitment being necessary above all in that we must continue to lead the world in human talent and creativity. Our greatest advantage in the world, he says, has always been our educated, hardworking, ambitious people and we are going to keep that edge. That evening he announced what he calls the American Competitiveness Initiative to encourage innovation throughout our economy and to give our Nation's children a firm grounding in math and science. He proposed doubling the Federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs and the physical sciences over the next 10 years and a number of other really lofty goals. Let us match the rhetoric with the reality. Republicans have consistently, consistently failed to even come close to matching the rhetoric that the President laid out in the State of the Union in their deeds and actions in terms of making those words reality. Last year, Republicans provided less than one-third of the promised investment in the Math and Science Partnerships program, which is designed to increase student academic achievement in grades K through 12 in math and science. They have shortchanged the Tech Talent Act, which strengthens postsecondary education to increase the number of degrees in math, science, and engineering, by nearly 33 percent. This comes at a time when only 36 percent of fourth graders and 30 percent of eighth graders tested proficient in math, but our twelfth graders scored at or near the bottom of math and science compared to other countries. We could listen to the President say it until he is blue in the face, but until the Republican leadership here and the Members of Congress match what the President is saying with their votes, until he proposes a budget that actually reflects what his words said in the State of the Union, why should people believe them? They should not. They should not believe them because this is another example of how a pervasive culture of corruption and cronyism permeates itself all the way through the process and results in the reality on the ground in a budget that does the exact opposite in terms of producing the competitive talent that the President talked about in the State of the Union, because that cannot happen if you are slashing and burning the programs that accomplish that. The American people are not stupid. They understand the difference between saying it and doing it. When I have traveled across the country, I hear from people that want to believe the things that their politicians tell them. They want to believe in us, and their confidence in this body, in Congress, in the government is so badly shaken by everything that has gone on through the culture of corruption that has gone on here. It has shaken the confidence that people have in this institution to its foundation. We have to do something about it. We have an opportunity to do something about it later this year. I hope that in my second term that I hope to serve in this Congress that things will change.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Right. The deficit is the annual ongoing difference between the revenue we take in and the money we spend. And then the debt is what we have to borrow in order to stay afloat. Over the last 5 years, it is clear that President Bush has lost control of both. Under this President we have gone from a projected 10- year surplus of $5.6 trillion to a projected deficit over the same period of $3.3 trillion, which is an $8.9 trillion reversal. Under President Bush's budget, when omitted costs are included, we have deficits for as far as the eye can see. You have a projected rise in the deficit to $556 billion by 2016. And when we talk about omitted costs, people might say, what do you mean by omitted costs? Like the fact that this budget does not include any spending on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan after next year. Now, I wish, oh, were that to be true, that we would now be in a position where Iraq would be, and the Iraqi people would be, able to sustain themselves without our assistance. Unfortunately, we have created a situation in which that continues to be impossible, and it is a virtual certainty that we are going to need to spend money after next year in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the President's claims. When omitted costs are included, the President's budget does not cut the deficit in half by 2009 as he continues to claim that it will. What continues to be mind-boggling is that we could fix this if you go back to the pay as you go rules of the 1990s, which is what turned the deficits into surpluses, tough votes that people took. Like you said, there were Members that lost their seats, but at the end of the day, it has to be more important to do the right thing than to continue to be here for each one of us, and that is something that we have to internalize. This is a good job. This is a job that we all really enjoy. I have not met a Member of Congress who does not like the job a lot, and that is why many of us, most of us, fight hard to keep it every election cycle. But at the end of the day, you have to be willing to look yourself in the mirror and say you did the right thing and be willing to walk out of this Chamber and know that you may not come back after you did the right thing. Unfortunately, we do not have enough people who serve in this body that are willing to do that. And unfortunately, it appears to be a little lopsided when it comes to the partisan breakdown of that willingness. This is literally the worst reversal, the worst fiscal reversal, in American history. We have never had the kind of turnaround from a record surplus to a record deficit like the one we have had. And the national debt, as you said, continues to skyrocket. They have had to raise the debt limit five times, but total combined it was $2.2 trillion that the debt had to be raised since President Bush took office. I mean, it really is astonishing.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, we spent a great deal of time tonight talking about the challenges that are facing our country, and the thing that I have noticed that is the most frustrating for me, Mr. Ryan, is in the short time that I have been here, you know, I was hopeful that just like when I was in the Florida senate, I was able to work effectively across the aisle and on the major issues that were important to our State, just like I was hopeful that we would be able to do here for the important issues in our country. I was hopeful that I could come to the Congress and sit down, and I was ready to continue to work with Members on the other side on the major issues, not the issues on the margins, because, you know, you are able to find individual Members who you can work with one on one or in small groups on various issues, but on the hot-button issues, on education, on health care, on energy, on prescription drugs, on any of the issues that are really significant to the American people. It is like those issues are radioactive somehow, and there seems to be an impenetrable wall around the Republican Conference, where it is virtually impossible to get any Member from the other side of the aisle to sit down with a group on our side of the aisle and try to hammer out compromise. I just do not come from a place where I was used to dealing with my- way-or-the-highway rules of engagement. And you know, maybe now that there is new leadership in the Republican Conference, things will change. Certainly we are hearing words to that effect. It remains to be seen whether those words will be backed up by action. And I look forward to that possibility. I know you do too. Do you want to talk about the Web site and tell people how they can get in touch with us and reach out to us?

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And I mean, forgive me. But, come on, am I the only one that felt it was a little disingenuous to hear from this President that America is addicted to oil and we need to end that addiction? I mean, come on. Where has the commitment to that been? In the two energy bills that we were asked to vote on in the last year since I have been here, where we were basically giving away the store to the energy and oil companies? I mean, where is the financial commitment? Where has it been to exploring alternative energy sources? Has there been a miraculous transformation in the White House that I am not aware of? I just do not understand how the administration could not see that you have to, in order to get the American people to believe what you say and to have faith and restore their confidence and belief in you, you have to do what you say you are going to do. And that just does not seem to happen on almost any score, particularly not when it comes to energy independence and exploring alternative energy sources. And you know, I am proud to be a member of the Democratic Caucus, because when we say something, we mean it. But when we lay out a goal, we back it up with how we might do it were we in charge. You know, we would make a funding commitment to exploring alternative energy resources. We would invest our energy and effort into the Midwest so that not only can we become foreign-oil independent, we can become independent from oil, period. You know, I am from a State where I do not want to see drilling off the coast of my shoreline. None of my constituents want to see it either. So we need to explore other ways of generating energy in this country that are not dedicated solely to the production of oil, whether it is developed here or in another country. But we actually have to have a plan that would do that, and have Members who actually cast votes in favor of that plan, which just has not happened by any stretch of the imagination here that I have seen.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Ryan, I am the new kid on the block here, and I do not sit on the Armed Services Committee; and I completely agree it is a privilege and honor to have Mr. Spratt join us tonight. But, you know, Mr. Spratt, my observation being of the shortest tenure among the four of us is, at least since I have been here, we should not be surprised that they would do this, because you start at the beginning of this year, and it was very clear that the leadership here has no regard for the process, no regard for the system of checks and balances, they have no regard for the judiciary. At the beginning of this year, 10 weeks into my tenure, they put the Terri Schiavo bill on the floor, even though you had months and years of court decisions that made it clear that it was not appropriate for Congress to insert itself into one family's tragedy. Yet to them it was seemingly the right thing to do, to insert the legislative branch of government into an area that was clearly the jurisdiction of the courts. Now you fast forward to the end of the year, and throughout this year they have had other examples of their lack of regard for the governmental mechanics and the lack of regard for decency into what the American people support. Adding campaign finance provisions or anything other than the protection and defense of this country to the Defense appropriations bill? I mean, really. If they were so concerned about campaign finance reform, why are they waiting until less than 24 hours before we are supposed to adjourn here? Really, we were supposed to adjourn weeks ago. I mean, they have so little regard for process that they are not able to get the job done. I mean, we are here, and it is a week before Christmas and Chanukah and the beginning of the holiday season, and we are still here in the Chamber debating things that should have been settled long ago. So it has just been obvious to me since I began my term that they have no regard for the process, no regard for the American people's priorities, and they just keep setting example after example.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Before you change the subject, I just want to say, on veterans, because if we are going to talk about tails, there is the tail the size of a doberman and one the size of a German shepherd. I want to do the length of a German shepherd on this. We are not talking about the fact that a chairman here who was wonderful for veterans was removed from the chairmanship and removed from the committee. We can go much further and lengthen the tail and talk about the commitment or severe lack thereof commitment to veterans and their health care and sustaining veterans who have given not just their lives but dedicated their lives to this country and put their lives on the line. Just 6 months ago, we finally had a culmination of a debate that we had begun where we, as Democrats, have been insisting that the Veterans Affairs had a significant shortfall in their budget, at least $1 billion, and there was denial after denial that that was the case. I was not here. In fact, I was not a Member of Congress at the beginning of that debate. Then I joined the Congress, and a few months later, we are on the floor passing a supplemental appropriation because the Republican leadership here had to finally acknowledge that there was a shortfall. We had to come in and pass an emergency appropriation so that our veterans could continue to get health care. As it is, the Republican administration here makes them wait at least 6 months to get any health care services. Now, in this budget, we are going to be cutting, under the Republican's plan, veterans health care by as much as $600 million, even as we have the number of our veterans growing with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. So it is not just what we are doing to veterans by throwing out the Members here on both sides who support them, but we are also totally shortchanging them. I just wanted to add that.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. A joyous holiday season.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. While we are at it, while we are cutting the budget and basically paying for what is going on in the war in Iraq, we are providing billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy, and we are all about third party validators here. On top of what you just outlined, tax analysts agree, and this is in the New York Times, third party validators, tax analysts agree that the overwhelming bulk of the dividend goes to the top 5 percent of income earners. We just passed a $56 billion tax cut package over 5 years one day last week after we passed another tax cut package that is $39 billion over 5 years. There was no argument, no argument at all that the tax cuts that we have been passing go to the top two-tenths of 1 percent of the wealthiest people in America. When I go home, I represent a fairly middle class district, working families, not the depths of the poor, working families. When I stand up in town hall meetings, I ask my folks to raise your hand if you have benefited from any of the tax breaks that have been handed down by the Bush administration for the last 6 years. Do you know, maybe one, two hands go up in a roomful of hundreds of people? Who are getting these tax breaks? The Rolls Royce Republicans. That is who are getting these tax breaks. That is what this administration and this leadership is all about, the Rolls Royce Republicans.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We have got to stop thinking about the special interests before we think about the average American because that is really what it boils down to, and those Republicans that you are talking about, I represent a lot of them. I live in a town that precinct by precinct, 13 precincts in my town, in this city of Weston; every single one of them is majority Republican registration. I cannot walk down the street without interacting with a Republican registered voter, and by the way, I win every one of those precincts with more than 60 percent of the vote. I am certainly not a Republican, and the reason that happens is because it happens to be a community that has some wealth. People stop me in the supermarket, on the soccer field all the time and say: Debbie, keep the darn tax cut. I do not need the tax cut. It does not help me that much. I want my kid to have a good education. I want people to have health care. They understand. They understand that the economy does not boom because the top two-tenths of 1 percent of Americans get a tax cut. They understand that it is kids who grow up and can get a good education and who sit across the desk from these constituents of mine, most of whom are employers, who are bosses who are interviewing kids who graduate from high school unprepared for the path that they choose in life because we are not adequately funding education because they come to work sick and have to go home early because we have 45 million people who do not have health insurance. They want to know where this Republican leadership's priorities are, where their Republican party that they have chosen to affiliate themselves with, where their priorities are, because it is not with them. I am not sure what our other colleagues' Republican constituents are saying to them, but that is what mine are saying to me. I think we have got to stop being the Congress of the special interests and return to being the Congress of the American people. While we are on the subject of the success of this administration, and you talk about how significant that deficit, and the combination of 42 other Presidents combined, had a bigger deficit. The President does like to talk about the success of the economy and how it is experiencing a resurgence and how we are really in real good shape right now. I want to just show you a chart that I had made up. It gives you an example of the economic success of America under the Bush administration. Let us go down memory lane. Under the administration of Bush 41, the Dow went up 10.1 percent. Under President Clinton's first Presidency, 19.6 percent. Second Clinton Presidency, 12.3 percent. Negative. Three percent under this President's first term; now two-tenth's of 1 percent. Literally, President Clinton's Dow went up 225 percent; and under this President, the Dow has gone up 3 percent. Not exactly a stellar record in terms of improving the economy. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I look forward to coming back and joining my colleagues in the 30-something Working Group next year.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We thank the gentleman from South Carolina so much for joining us. Your expertise is incredibly helpful in terms of us highlighting the problems that we are trying to address in this Chamber. Do you know how I would analogize the fact that the Republican leadership has now allowed the drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to be added to the Defense appropriations bill, that they have actually agreed to that? I would analogize it this way, and analogize the addition of any extraneous material, campaign finance reform, well, I would say, we almost would have to say ``reverse campaign finance reform,'' because the 527 legislation that they are talking about is more insidious, not being done in a way that would be designed to help add to the public discourse. But the addition of campaign finance issues or oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to the Defense appropriations bill, the way I would analogize it is similar to insurgents in Iraq and in other areas of the world using children as shields. When our troops go into a neighborhood in Iraq and the insurgents put women and children in front of them so that they get killed instead of the insurgents, that is exactly what the Republican leadership is trying to do here. They are trying to put things in that they cannot get passed on their own because they cannot stand on their own merits. They are putting the Defense appropriations bill, analogous to the women and children in war-torn countries, in front of items that have no merit, that do not have broad bipartisan support, and that cannot pass by themselves and, as a result, causing significant, unnecessary harming to this country. It is just absolutely unconscionable. It is another circumvention of the process. It is another example of not dealing straight; another example of the incompetence, of the corruption, of the cronyism. Why can they not just be straight? I serve on a committee where we work together in a bipartisan fashion. We lay our cards on the table in the Financial Services Committee. We agree on some things; we do not agree on others. But there is no clandestine backroom dealing. There is no attempt in that committee to try to stick things in that they can hide what they are really trying to do. The American people want openness. They want us to vote clearly. I want a clear shot to vote tomorrow. I support defense of this country. Since I have been here, I have taken every opportunity to vote ``yes'' on defending this country to the degree that we need to. But I have serious problems, and so do my constituents, with drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. Quite honestly, we have a raging debate about oil drilling off the coast of Florida. Fortunately, that is not in this bill, but it could have been. If we are going to continue the debate that we have had on campaign finance reform, then it should be done in the open. It should be done not at the last minute when we are trying to get out of here for the holidays. It should be done in the deliberative fashion, in the appropriate place, in the committees of jurisdiction. But they cannot get it in the honest and straight and fair way. It has to be the back door. It has to be clandestine. And it has to be putting things that they feel like most Members could not vote against in front of, just like insurgents put women and children in front of them so that they can get hurt first. The American people are going to get hurt first when extraneous material that has nothing to do with the defense of our country is in front of some awful proposals that would never be sustained on their own.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, the infinite risks associated with terrorism demonstrated their potential to destabilize our Nation's markets after the attacks of September 11, which is why I will support the final version of TRIA before the House today. However, I, too, do so with strong reservations and some disappointment in what could have and should have been. In spite of the tremendous leadership, hard work and cooperative efforts put forth by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley and Ranking Member Barney Frank, the other body chose to forego a fair and democratic conference process and needlessly tossed away an opportunity to truly strengthen our markets and protect consumers. I commend Chairman Oxley, Ranking Member Frank, Mr. Kanjorski and Mr. Baker and all the members and staff, especially, of the Financial Services Committee for producing an initial bill that included a number of critical reforms to help protect Americans and our economy in the event of another terrorist attack. This initial bill passed by an overwhelming majority here on the House floor and included a number of important consumer protections. As has been discussed, it would have extended the Federal backstop to include group life insurance, thereby ensuring that taxpayer dollars would be used not only to undergird real estate and insurance companies in the event of brick and mortar losses, but it would have provided financial protections to families who suffered the loss of a loved one in the event of another tragedy like September 11. Moreover, those same taxpayers are being denied the right to travel freely by some of the very insurance companies who sought the extension of TRIA in the first place. The House's bill included a provision that I introduced and passed with the support of my colleagues on the Financial Services Committee during the markup of TRIA to address this unfair practice. While Americans can legally travel without the fear of government standing in our way, some life insurance companies do stand in the way, and they will continue to do so until this Congress acts. As Americans, one of the liberties we cherish and enjoy is the freedom to explore and travel legally and freely around the world, be it for recreational, religious or cultural purposes. The unrestrained lawful foreign travel of American citizens is generally considered to be in the best interest of the United States. Potential future travel to countries, especially our Nation's allies, should not be the sole basis for denying individual life insurance coverage. When we allow this to occur, we give in to terrorists and others who wish to change our way of life. While we should be proud that this provision gleaned broadbased, bipartisan support in the House, it is wrong that the other body refused to conference on the important elements in the House-passed version of TRIA. We cannot stop fighting for American consumers and taxpayers. We must back up our tough talk about fighting terrorism with action. And, again, Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank Chairman Oxley and Ranking Member Frank for working cooperatively together. It is a privilege to serve on a committee that puts as a high priority working together for the greater good.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. In conclusion, I want to thank again Speaker Hastert and Mr. Cantor from Virginia for their efforts to help us bring this resolution to the floor. I also want to thank Leader Pelosi and the rest of my colleagues for their assistance. I do want to recognize Speaker Hastert in particular, because he has committed to personally contact the President to urge him to take this resolution and to go ahead and create the executive order. So I look forward to working with him towards that end. Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, throughout the past year, the 350th anniversary of Jewish life in America has been marked by ceremonies and celebrations across the United States. As the festivities come to an end, Chairman Hyde and I would like to establish a formal recognition of American Jewish life by creating American Jewish History Month. This is why I have introduced a resolution calling for a Presidential Proclamation in order to create an executive order to designate the month of January as American Jewish History Month to be observed with appropriate programs, ceremonies and activities. To date, 252 of our esteemed colleagues have expressed support for American Jewish History Month. I wish to thank Chairman Hyde and Mr. Cantor for their continued support and assistance. American Jewish History Month would honor the contributions of American Jews to society. Additionally, creation of this month would celebrate the legacy of the American Jewish experience and the rich cultural heritage of American Jewish communities. Similar to Black History Month in February and Women's History Month in March, American Jewish History Month would present educators with the opportunity and tools to teach diversity and cultural awareness. As Congress continuously strives to promote understanding and awareness of the many cultures of American society, we believe education is a necessity to combat ignorance and misunderstanding. Though support for Jewish communities, Holocaust education and efforts to combat anti-Semitism is well-known in Congress, support among the American public is not as prevalent. Sadly, ignorance about Jews and our history, culture and contributions to American society remains widespread in the United States. This ignorance leads to hatred and bigotry, and one way to stop it is through education. As we all know, education leads to understanding. American Jewish History Month will educate millions of Americans about the rich cultural traditions of the Jewish people, whose contributions to medicine, the arts, science and technology have shaped the fabric of American society and global history. The previous debate demonstrates the need for more education and understanding of the traditions, beliefs and history of not just the Jewish communities but all minority religions in America. It is clear to me after listening to the proponents of the previous resolution that an American Jewish History Month would heighten the sensitivity of those who simply do not have enough information, exposure or tolerance for minority faiths. It is my hope that the next generation of Americans, from all faith traditions, will have their knowledge, tolerance and understanding heightened and enhanced by the creation of American Jewish History Month. I wish to express my sincere appreciation for the 252 Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle who have supported the efforts to establish a formal month. While the expression of the House's sentiment is meaningful, it is essential that the President formally create American Jewish History Month via executive order and put the full strength of the White House behind this effort so that we can enhance the education and understanding of Americans about Jewish cultural traditions. Additionally, I would like to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), Leader Pelosi, and Speaker Hastert for their support and steadfast commitment to helping to establish this month. It is my hope that in the future there will be a permanent American Jewish History Month in addition to a Presidential Proclamation. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Sometimes incompetence is benign. We all interact with people who make mistakes, who maybe are not up to the par that we would like them to be. But not when the stakes are this high, not when you are talking about the people who are running the Government of the United States of America. I mean, not when incompetence results in debts. The thousands of people that are harmed or died as a result of Katrina, incompetence hurt them or killed them. Governor Blanco today, thank God for technology, we talked about that last week a little bit. E-mail technology allows us to know now as opposed to what goes in a paper shredder, that the White House, Homeland Security, and FEMA all knew what was going on down in New Orleans immediately following Katrina and as she was approaching; and they either did nothing or did not know what to do. That kind of incompetence is dangerous. When it is benign you can look the other way and you can sort of throw up your hands and say, well, those are just things you have to deal with when you encounter incompetence. We cannot allow incompetence to reach the heights that we have in this country.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It keeps going: $157.8 billion; a $377.6 billion deficit the next year; $412.1 billion deficit the year after that. We are getting a little better; we go back to $319 billion. Now we are at $323 billion. So the track record here is that there was one dip in the whole time that this President has been in office, and now we are climbing back again. Yet, supposedly, we just passed the Deficit Reduction Act. If you are going to zero in on the incompetence, talk about the fact that the 9/11 Commission just came out with a report grading this administration and this Congress an F on the necessary follow-up to their recommendations. There is still no unified list of terror suspects for use by air travel screeners. There has been a misallocation of funds in terms of Homeland Security money. You have big city police and firefighters who still lack the ability to talk to each other. They lack the communications systems that were one of the key recommendations. Remember, after 9/11, if you know nothing about what happened after 9/11, the thing that sticks in everyone's mind was it was so shocking that these police and firefighters, between agencies, city to county and station to station, could not talk to each other because their communications systems do not line up. They could not talk to the FBI. That has not been fixed. It is just unbelievable. They are still cutting. They are still cutting. They are still cutting the budget, and they are cutting taxes. They are giving more money to wealthy people, not just your run-of-the-mill average wealthy person, but the top two-tenths of 1 percent of the wealthiest people in America, people who make more than $1 million annually. So, Mr. Delahunt, you talk about an economic tsunami. The policies that have been going on in this administration and in this Congress, it is not just an economic tsunami. What the American people have been hit with is Hurricane Republican. You really cannot describe it any other way, because they have been hit by Katrina, they have been hit by Rita, they have been hit by Wilma. And instead of fixing it, instead of addressing the problems that the American people need addressed, they have now been hit by Hurricane Republican. Or they are about to. We can stave it off. We could stave if off because there is a conference report. A bill is passed out of the House. A bill is passed out of the Senate. The cuts Mr. Delahunt described do not have to happen. There is still time to rethink this and come together and truly work together, which in my 11 months here just has not happened enough. There are isolated pockets of instances when we do work together, and I know compromise is possible. I am praying that that happens because the aftermath of the Hurricane Republican could be worse than Katrina, but it does not have to be that way. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If that is not evidence of incompetence, how do you have that big a swing from one year to the next, with the only difference being the person in the White House?

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, we talk about the culture of corruption and cronyism and the total lack of competence on a regular basis in our 30-Something Working Group, and we are really zeroing in on the incompetence tonight, the incompetence and the indifference, because really the two are hand-in- glove. Mr. Delahunt, you talked about the economic tsunami, and I want to follow up on that, but let us build up to the economic tsunami that you have been describing. First, Mr. Meek talks about the debt, the debt under this President being more than the combined total of the previous 42 presidents prior to this one. Now, we have a chart over here that talks about the Defense budget deficits. Let us just look at the two years when we transitioned from President Clinton to President Bush. If you look in fiscal year 2001 and fiscal year 2002, fiscal year 2001, we had a surplus of $128.2 billion. You move into fiscal year 2002, and we have a deficit of $157.8 billion.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join my good friend from Ohio and Massachusetts and Florida here each week. Just to pick up what the gentleman was talking about, it is, sadly, not only on the gulf coast that we have had the issue of housing difficulties following Wilma. They had the same issue in Katrina on the gulf coast. We have got the same issue going on in Wilma, which was much smaller in scope but affected a significant number of people. We had more people affected by Wilma in terms of electric utility outages than all of Katrina, and we still to this day have Wilma victims in South Florida who have not been given temporary housing assistance, still people who are struggling to find that. Yet we are passing budget reconciliation, budget cut bills. We are passing tax cut bills in the name of offsetting the cost of the relief that we need to provide for Katrina victims and victims of natural disasters when the reality is that what we are doing with budget cuts is a direct result of needing to pay for the tax cuts that were passed just a week later. And I want to echo what our good friend from Pennsylvania said when he introduced his Iraq War resolution, and he has repeated this a number of times, that just because you say it does not make it true. And our good friends on the other side of the aisle can continue to repeat over and over if they want to that they are offsetting the cost of Katrina relief with budget cuts, but we all know that the reality is, and I mean, we have only to do the math, that when they pass $50 billion in budget cuts one week and then the very next week they pass $70 billion in tax cuts, that is not a Deficit Reduction Act, as they called it and titled that bill, when we are adding $20 billion to the deficit. I do not know. I go back to my kindergarten and first grade mathematics and can pretty easily sit down with my 6-year-olds, and they can figure out that the math does not work. But, unfortunately, what we have going on here, I guess, the politics of what is going on here is about message. And the Republican leadership's politics is repetition, repetition, repetition. They figure if they repeat the same message over and over again, whether it is true or not, that they figure if it has a kernel of truth, that people will believe it. But Mr. Murtha is absolutely right on tax-cut policy, on budget-cut policy, whether it is how we got into the Iraq war and even down to the description of his own resolution. If you say it, just because you say it does not make it true. That is really what we need to get across to the American people. I would like to yield to my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You are absolutely right. The President is trying to get away with saying generically, amorphously, we are not going to withdraw traps and withdraw from Iraq until we have results on the ground, results-oriented withdrawal. I want to know, my constituents want to know, the American people want to know, what does that mean? Does it mean when the Iraqi troops are 50 percent independent and cannot operate on their own and protect their own country, 75, 23? Which is it? You cannot pick and choose. He cannot be allowed to pick and choose which elements of the process in Iraq he is going to put a number on and which element he is not going to.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Just before we close down in our last couple of minutes, we have been talking about the culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence, zeroing in on incompetence today, and we are about third party validators. It is not just that we say it. We got an e-mail on our 30-Something Web site that responded to some of the things we have been talking about. It was actually a Mr. Miller from Connecticut who said, ``You folks are a great breath of fresh air. I like the theme of `a culture of corruption, cronyism, and incompetence.' Well put, but incomplete. The massive rampant incompetence of this administration,'' he said, ``is a huge problem, no doubt. But for me, a bigger problem is their fundamental disbelief in democratic processes of checks and balances combined with overwhelming ideological arrogance that allows belief to trump evidence.'' I could not have said it better myself.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, let me just insert one more thing because the Newsweek cover just says it all. In Bush's world, in the President's world, you do not have to have accountability. You do not have to put numbers on anything you do. You do not have to say what percentage prepared the troops have to be, and you are never wrong. I have had to teach my kids, and they love to insist that they do not make mistakes. That is the orientation of a juvenile. My young children do not understand that sometimes they are wrong and this is okay and that you should learn how to change course. But in Bush's world, in the President's world, that does not happen. Because he is the President, he apparently has surrounded himself with people who either cannot convince him that he is wrong or he has surrounded himself with people that insist on agreeing with him all the time.