Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Because they have no interest in it stopping. We are approaching the end of our hour, and I want to yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and ask him to give out our Web site.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The woman had to leave that apartment.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, first I want to thank the Democratic leader (Ms. Pelosi) of California for the opportunity to spend some time talking about the issues of concern to Americans across this country, and as a member of the 30-something Democrats, and I know I will be joined by my colleagues in a few moments, we have appreciated hearing from the literally hundreds of Americans both in our generation and across the generational spectrum over the last weeks since we have been talking about those issues on the floor here. My good friend from Pennsylvania, I cannot help but spend a few moments talking about some of the matters that he has just addressed, being that I am a Representative of the State of Florida; and I had an opportunity to engage in a very interesting and informative and timely dialogue with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) just yesterday. Unfortunately, the industry organization that he just cited, which he also cited in our debate the other night, Associated Industries of Florida, that is not an organization, if the Members are familiar with Florida politics, that is at all representative of the average business organization in our State. Associated Industries of Florida is primarily made up of the most major corporations in Florida. Every major oil company is a member of Associated Industries. So it makes quite a bit of sense that the opinion of Associated Industries would reflect what Mr. Peterson of Pennsylvania just described. Mr. Peterson of Pennsylvania advocates for more drilling off the coast of Florida, California, all around the coastline of our country. He particularly focuses on natural gas and professes that natural gas is a clean-burning gas and that there would be little to no risk to expanding that drilling. Well, when one is a representative from the State of Florida, and we have 77 million people who visited our State just last year alone and $56.5 billion in taxable sales is generated by tourism, most of which is the result of our beautiful beaches and our pristine coastline, one can clearly see why most Floridians would have a significant problem with the possibility of there being oil rigs off our beaches within the eyesight of tourists or our residents. And Mr. Peterson of Pennsylvania has continually represented that natural gas is a potential alternative energy source. Well, just off the Florida coastline, the Minerals Management Service, which is a government agency under the Department of the Interior, has documented that there is only about a 70-day supply of natural gas off the coastline of Florida in the gulf under current consumption rates in the United States. That to me does not appear to take us into the rest of the century in terms of dealing with our energy needs. What we should be doing is uniting as Members of Congress representing this country and dealing with our long-term energy crisis by exploring alternative energy sources, not going to the same old energy sources and trying to drill our way out of this problem. Drilling is not the solution. There is far too much environmental risk to drilling, whether we are drilling for natural gas or drilling for oil; and the proposal that we will be considering that is attached to the budget reconciliation bill, the budget-cut document that we will be considering, at the earliest, next week, includes a terrible proposal that would expand drilling off the coastline of Florida and bring drilling within 125 miles of Florida's coast on the gulf. That is a totally inappropriate proposal. It makes absolutely no sense. It would jeopardize our environment, and I am hopeful that my colleagues from Florida and other colleagues who represent coastal communities which will also be in jeopardy if this provision passes will join us in opposing this budget reconciliation bill, not the least of which, because there are many other reasons why it should be opposed because of the dire cuts that are in the budget that are going to rain terror down on Americans across this country; but to add insult to injury, it also has a terrible provision in it that would allow drilling off the coastline around our entire country. So with that having been said, I want to talk a little bit about what we talked about in the previous hour and turn the conversation back to the budget reconciliation bill. There are a number of significant problems with the budget cuts that the Republican leadership is proposing. But one of the things that I wanted to turn to is what Democrats think we should be doing in terms of the budget. Democrats want to bring the budget back into balance. What we proposed in the Budget Committee today included a proposal that would bring the budget back into balance by 2012. The Democratic budget also has a smaller deficit than the Republican budget every year and would accumulate less debt and waste fewer resources on interest payments that are needed to service the national debt. We would include budget enforcement measures to protect Social Security. We would do more for education. The Democratic proposal provides $4.5 billion more for appropriated education and training programs than the Republican budget for 2006 and $41 billion more over the next 5 years. We also reject the $21 billion in cuts that the Republican budget requires the Education and Workforce Committee to make over the next 5 years. Those are cuts that could fall on students loans and school lunches. These are not the same old tired complaints. It is insulting to suggest that cutting school lunches and financial aid are tired complaints. If one is struggling to be able to give their children breakfast and lunch on a daily basis and make sure that they are provided with nutrition and they do not financially have the ability to ensure that they can do it themselves, staring down budget cuts that take that opportunity away from them is nothing short of cowardly. This is a cowardly budget reconciliation bill. It does not show any guts at all, and it abandons the American people. Let us talk about housing. In the previous hour, we talked a little bit about the housing cuts that this budget-cut bill would hand down, and I am joined by my good and close friend whom I had an opportunity to serve with in now three different Chambers, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek). His district and my district were hit badly by a category 3 storm last week, Hurricane Wilma; and we were talking in the last hour about housing and the issues related to affordable housing that our constituents were already facing. I want to just point out this picture here. Over the weekend I had an opportunity to go door to door in my district because there are so many senior citizens trapped in their homes without power. We still have half a million people who do not have power in south Florida. And, unfortunately, whether it is because of hurricane fatigue or just the fact that there was so much damage in the gulf coast region that it may be difficult to feel the pain that we are going through in south Florida and understand it, but there is not nearly as much attention as we need focused on what happened in south Florida. When I was going to door to door in my district to try to help some of the folks who have trouble getting out of their houses, and I am talking about people who are in their 80s and 90s, one of the apartments that the building captain in the condominium brought me into included this kind of damage. This is the result of Hurricane Wilma, and this is just one example. There are hundreds and hundreds of condominium units and apartment buildings and homes and mobile homes that look just like this. There is a perception, whether it was created by the media or created by the lack of attention by the national media on what happened with Hurricane Wilma, that everything is fine in south Florida. Everything is not fine, Mr. Speaker, in south Florida. This is the third floor apartment, and that is the ceiling of the apartment. And as we can see, we can look right through the ceiling at the sky. This is this woman's master bedroom; and literally during the storm, 1 minute after she walked out of that master bedroom, the roof caved in on her bed. A minute earlier and it would have caved in on her. When we talk about the affordable housing problem that we already had, now we have thousands of people in south Florida whose homes have been condemned, who are faced with nowhere to go because the average price of a house just in Broward is $348,000 a year. The rental units, the monthly rent is sky high. And FEMA has literally only 300 inspectors in our State going through these homes to determine whether these people are going to qualify for assistance. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, it is worse. It got worse from there. It was not just what he was doing with his attire, rolling up his shirt sleeves, but what he was wearing that they continued to talk about. On August 29, the day of the storm, Brown exchanged e-mails about his attire with Ms. Taylor, his press secretary again. She told him in the e-mail, ``You look fabulous.'' And Brown replied, ``I got it at Nordstrom's. Are you proud of me?'' An hour later he added, If you look at my lovely FEMA attire, you will really vomit. I am a fashion God.'' This is the day of the storm. He is still being paid $148,000 a year to advise FEMA, according to Secretary Chertoff, and change, give or take a dollar or two, to advise FEMA about what they should be doing in the aftermath.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The only thing that they are doing here is they have a lopsided partisan committee that is supposedly reviewing the aftermath of Katrina and FEMA's response. You know, I would feel much better about any review, although I strongly believe that there should be an independent Katrina commission, as do 81 percent of Americans, but if they had learned something between storms. We have had three storms in two months, from Katrina to Rita and from Rita to Wilma. They have learned nothing. After my district and that of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) district got hit by Wilma, and Secretary Paulison now in FEMA is a qualified professional, so at least they have that right now, but unfortunately FEMA still is not getting it right. We still 10 days after the storm do not have a disaster recovery center established in Broward County or in Miami Dade County, a permanent one. There are seven mobile units between the two counties. We have more than 136,000 people in Broward alone who have applied for assistance, and they cannot get it yet because FEMA only has 300 inspectors in the whole state and they can do about 10 a day in terms of the inspections. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, we talk in our 30-something Working Group here, I used to say every week; but now it's every night, about third-party validators, and I think it is important to have third-party validators so that we show the people who are hearing us tonight that this is not Tim Ryan's opinion or Debbie Wasserman Schultz's opinion or Kendrick Meek's opinion or Bill Delahunt's opinion; this opinion is shared by many, many others. The Republican leadership here, they talk a good line about faith and values. In fact, they base almost their entire campaigns, the case they make to the country, about how we need to restore family values, we need to restore values and faith, and there should be more faith injected into every aspect of our government. Well, let us see what the people of faith, our faith leaders are saying about these budget cuts that we are going to be considering next week. Today, there were leaders from various faiths that joined in prayer at the Capitol. Those leaders included Reverend Dr. Bob Edgar, who is the general secretary of the National Council of Churches; Reverend Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners and Convener of Call to Renewal; Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism; and Eleanor Giddings Ivory, director, Washington office, Presbyterian Church. They had a press conference before the prayer and they called for a moral budget and urged Congress to stop immoral budget priorities. Let me just outline a few of the things that they said. Reverend Wallis said, ``As this moral battle for the budget unfolds, I am calling on Members of Congress, some of whom make much out of their faith, to start some Bible studies before they cast votes to cut food stamps, Medicaid, child care and more that hurt the weakest in our Nation. Reverend Edgar of the National Council of Churches said, ``We gather today just days after Rosa Parks, the mother of the civil rights movement, lie in State here in the Capitol rotunda. Even as we celebrate her life and the strong witness she had for justice, we recognize that justice is hanging in the balance as this proposed budget, if passed, would hurt those who are most in need in our society: children, the elderly, and those living in poverty.'' I just want to quote from the remarks that Rabbi Saperstein made. He quoted the Bible and used the Bible's words to help our Republican colleagues understand the impact that they are making. He urges us to ``deal thy bread to the hungry,'' not ``steal thy bread from the hungry.'' Remember Proverbs' stern warning: ``Do not steal from the weak because he is weak and do not oppress the poor in the gate.'' Listen to the voiceless and to the Biblical imperative: ``Speak out for those who cannot speak for the rights of the destitute.'' These are the third-party validators who are our religious leaders that are urging this Republican leadership not to go down this path, not to pull out the rug and the floor and literally burn the house down that people who are so badly in need in this country cannot afford to sustain.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Our priorities, apparently the priorities of this administration are in appointing unqualified people to run Government agencies like Michael Brown, whose priorities clearly were more on what kind of shirt he was wearing, as opposed to making sure that the people in the gulf coast States who were about to get and then did get hit by Katrina did get taken care of. And about whether to roll up their shirtsleeves and by appointing their college roommates to jobs, to making sure that you have well-qualified people in the Government. It does not stop at Michael Brown. You have people who have been found to be wholly unqualified up and down the Government. You have corruption, through and through, from the top. At the White House, the first person working in the White House in 130 years to be indicted in 130 years. You know, we have had quite a few scandals in White Houses past just in my lifetime, but never once has a White House official, an administration official working in the White House been indicted before 130 years ago. That is where their priorities are.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, it is really hard to keep track of all of the lies.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that they do not appear to have any interest in that. Yet again, the cronyism and the culture of corruption continues because one would think that after Brownie they would have learned, who is still on the payroll.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. $148,000 a year. They may have learned and bring in additional people who are qualified. Yet, the President just picked the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, chairman to run the gulf coast recovery. Let us peruse his qualification. He gave $100,000 to President Bush's Presidential campaign.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. He has 30 years' experience in the financial services industry.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It does not stop.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I will tell the gentleman why. Because according to the Republican leadership, they do not want an ownership society; they want an own-everything society. That is why. Because they fall into the category of groups and individuals that the Republican leadership in this country clearly believes should own everything.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, if I can just say one thing, first of all, it is such a pleasure to see you and have you join us tonight. The gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley) has been an amazing advocate for the people who are on this floor tonight championing their cause. Those of us in the 30-something generation have had an opportunity to stand on your shoulders for the years you have been in Congress and been in the legislature in the State of Nevada fighting for the people that have no voice. That is really why we are here. We are so glad and privileged to have you join us tonight to take up this fight.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That is real money. I do not know a lot of people who can just reach into their pocket or go down to their local bank branch and yank out $5,800.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If the gentleman will yield, $8 trillion is a really, really big number, a difficult number for a lot of people to get their minds around in terms of a concept. Tell us, how much money does that translate per man, woman and child in America?

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I think we should put a link on the 30-something Web site.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I am also going to speak up for those of our colleagues with white hair, because Mr. Meek and I represent tens of thousands of folks with white hair. When the President talked about an ownership society, I think he was talking, well, I must have misunderstood him because, apparently, he is more interested in making sure that the top 1 percent of the population owns everything and that they are the only ones in a position to own anything. Because if you look at people's ability to afford housing, in almost every major city in America, it has become virtually out of reach. The average price of a house in just my county is $348,000, the average price of a house. Now, that is not an attainable price for an average middle-class person, never mind somebody who is on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. But let us talk about senior citizens. Let us talk about the folks who are living on fixed incomes. And then, let us turn to the people who are in our community, in south Florida, who just got hit by a category 3 storm who, right after the storm, were in a bad enough situation to begin with, because we got hit much worse than anyone expected. But then, 2 days ago, it started pouring rain on the houses that were already blown out by the wind and the rain.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Oh, yes. These people in this picture, this lovely couple who happen to be constituents of mine, they live in a condominium in my district where I just went door to door giving out self-heating meals. These are people who are frail. They were told that they had to leave because many hundreds of the apartments in this condominium complex alone are being condemned after the rain because there are gaping holes in the roof. And on top of that, with thousands of people now, thousands of people in Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami- Dade counties who were hit by Wilma and whose homes are being condemned, there are numbers in the thousands, and that is just after this week's rain, we expect more rain in the future; and they are not even done counting the number of buildings that have been affected. This budget reconciliation, these budget cuts cut housing vouchers, cut affordable housing programs. Just in our State, we would take a 3,500 section 8 voucher cut. So we are talking about people who are hit by a natural disaster who are being forced out of their houses, and now they will have the manmade disaster of this budget cut, these budget cuts that will force even more people out of their houses. But ``we want to create an ownership society in America.'' The President of the United States was elected to help people own things and to accumulate things. All I can see anyone accumulating is people who already have a whole lot and could live their whole lives not accumulating one more thing. When is it going to stop? When are we going to be able to be in a position here in this Chamber to move this country in a new direction and start helping people again?

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thanks.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I am champing at the bit here because he is absolutely right, and one of the things I want to emphasize, because I think in the last few nights we have not gotten this point across to the Speaker and to the folks who might be hearing this conversation this evening, the purpose of the 30-something Group, the main purpose, is for us to help get some understanding out to our generation about the issues that we are debating in this Congress and how it affects them. And the student aid cuts that the gentleman was talking about just a few minutes ago, more than any other issue almost, is the easiest for folks in our generation to understand how it impacts them. What maybe is not so obvious is what Congressman Meek was just talking about a minute ago. The Republican leadership, our friends on the other side of the aisle, will try, as they put forth this reconciliation act, AKA budget cuts, because reconciliation and other words that are used inside this Chamber and in this Capitol, that is Washington speak for budget cuts, the budget cuts that they are saying they are going to need to put forward to address the deficit and to address the out-of-control spending that they have engaged in are not for Katrina relief, are not being put forward so that we can pay for Katrina and for the aftermath of Katrina. They are so that they can preserve the $70 billion in tax cuts that they have put forward. Let us boil this down to its simplest terms. They will represent and have been representing that they have to do these cuts because the impact from Katrina is so significant and we have got to do something. We have got to get a handle on the spending. Why does getting a handle on the spending have to be on the backs of the people who can least afford it and we are going to enrich the backs of the people who do not need help?

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to be even more specific, because he is absolutely right. The groups that are out there trying to help those in need are opposing these cuts. Every major religious institution has sent letters to our Speaker, to this Republican leadership, asking them not to do what they are trying to do, not to harm people who are most in need, particularly in exchange for preserving tax cuts for our wealthiest citizens. Just in student aid alone, they are proposing a cut of more than $14 billion from the student aid program, which is the largest cut in history to Federal student loan programs. On top of that, it increases the cost for student borrowers who are already saddled with about $17,500 in debt. They will be forced to pay $5,800 more for their college loans. In my community that is really real money.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, the most troubling aspect of what he just said is the question why will they not admit that they made a mistake. And the troubling aspect of that is that they did not make a mistake. It was deliberate. There is a strong possibility, given all the things we talked about here tonight, that they took us into war because they wanted to take us into war, because they had some grand plan. They had motivation. They had ``war fever,'' as the gentleman referenced earlier that Colin Powell indicated that Vice President Cheney had. The ability to admit mistakes when one believes they made them, but one has to first believe they made one. That is kind of the first rule. And the lack of capacity to acknowledge that they made mistakes is just astonishing. It really is, and they continue to astonish us on this floor and the American people.