30-Something Working Group
30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP -- (House of Representatives - March 08, 2006)
Mr. DELAHUNT. Madam Speaker, I thank the Speaker for according me the time. I am claiming it on behalf of my colleagues who will be here shortly with me, Mr. Meek and Mr. Ryan, the cofounders of the 30-Something Working Group. We will be exploring an array of issues this evening dealing with many of the subjects that my colleague and the gentleman from the other side of the aisle discussed this evening.
Much of what the gentleman said or some of what he said I would agree with. It certainly would be a contribution to the public discourse if there were an open and transparent debate and discussion on the issues that are confronting the American people.
I only wish that were the truth, not just the official truth but the real truth because what is lacking within this institution, this body, is an open and transparent and real discussion, genuine debate and respectful discourse.
I find it interesting that the gentleman talks about cutting spending and indicates that this side of the aisle supports raising taxes. Well, that is just simply inaccurate.
I think the only tax that we can agree on that ought to be cut is the tax that is in the form of waste and fraud and abuse. Tragically, what we have observed over the course of the past 6 years is an abundance of fraud and waste, a corruption tax, if you will, Madam Speaker. But what we have not seen is an open and transparent and respectful process to discuss these particular issues.
If the Chair would bear with me for a moment, I am going to read excerpts into the RECORD of a deal that was struck between conferees on the Senate side and on the House side that did not include the Members of the minority party. How can you have a discourse or a conversation when Members of the minority party are excluded?
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. You cannot.
Mr. DELAHUNT. You cannot, that is right, and I welcome Mr. Ryan to the floor.
Mr. Ryan, let me pause for a moment and find that particular report so we can discuss transparent and open and respectful discourse and inclusion. The previous speaker was correct; there ought to be inclusion. But there is none and that is a sad comment on democracy within this institution. I would only hope that the rhetoric that I heard earlier would be matched by action and deeds on the part of the Republican leadership in this House.
Madam Speaker, let me read into the RECORD an article from The Washington Post. It is dated January 24, 2006.
We talk about saving money, Madam Speaker. We all want to save money. We had an opportunity to do that, Madam Speaker, but we failed because of a closed-door deal that reduced a savings that was possible by $22 billion.
Again, I am quoting from the Washington Post: "House and Senate GOP negotiators, Republican negotiators, meeting behind closed doors last month to complete a major budget-cutting bill, agreed on a change to Senate-passed Medicare legislation that would save the health insurance industry $22 billion over the next year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office."
Now, let me repeat that, Madam Speaker, and may all those that are observing our conversation tonight, our colleagues and all those in attendance here, listen carefully. It would save the health insurance industry $22 billion. Not the American taxpayer, but the health insurance industry it would save $22 billion.
"The Senate version would have targeted private HMOs participating in Medicare by changing the formula that governs their reimbursement, lowering payments $26 billion over the next decade. But after lobbying by the health insurance industry, the final version made a critical change that had the effect of eliminating all but $4 billion of the projected savings," for the taxpayer, Madam Speaker, not for the HMOs. But who loses in that closed-door deal? And yet we hear, the taxpayer. You cut spending.
I can't wait until this budget is finally produced here on the floor, because we have not had a budget in years, until President Clinton was the President, that has been balanced.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Balanced by not one Republican vote in the House or the Senate.
Mr. DELAHUNT. No, I understand that. But, do you know what? Let us remember then we had dialogue and a working relationship between the President and the Congress. Let's give credit. What I am looking for, when I hear talk about let's sit down and talk, of course, we welcome that, and let's have this understanding. Let's work together.
How can you work together when you have closed-door deals going on that eliminate a savings to the taxpayers of America for $22 billion? Is this about saving the HMOs and the health care industry money, or is it about taking care of the American taxpayer?
So, please, please, let's match the rhetoric that we hear here with action, not with closed-door deals that benefit the health care industry, the $22 billion, and think nothing of helping the American taxpayer.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman will yield, the point is that it is not that we have the money to give the health care industry. It is not like we have it. It is not like you look at the table behind me in the House of Representatives and it is stacked with money and who wants it. No, the health care industry is over here, Mr. Meek. We will give them some. We don't have the money to give.
This is the point I think we need to focus on: We don't have the money in the United States of America today to subsidize the energy companies, to subsidize the health care industry. So what is the Republican Congress doing? They are borrowing the money, Mr. Meek. They are borrowing the money from the Chinese, they are borrowing the money from the Japanese.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Reclaiming my time, they are borrowing that money, but they are not giving it to the American taxpayer. They are giving $22 billion of it to HMOs in this country. They are not giving it to the beneficiaries, they are not giving it to the American taxpayer. They are giving it to the health care industry.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Right. If you break it down, Mr. Meek, basically what is happening is we are here in the United States Congress. Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution creates this House of Representatives. Levy taxes. The Republican majority levies taxes on the American people. The money comes down here.
What do we do with it? What the Republican majority is doing with it is they are spending it on corporate welfare, and we don't even have it to give to them. So the Republican majority wants to give them so much that they have to go and borrow the money.
I am not making this up. So the Republican majority goes out and borrows the money. They have borrowed so much money in the past 4 or 5 years that they have to go out and borrow it from the Chinese government, from the Japanese government and from----
Mr. DELAHUNT. OPEC.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. OPEC countries in order to fund the corporate welfare.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Reclaiming my time for a moment, it is like we have developed a new class in the United States, and I am trying to think of an appropriate term.
The one that just came to mind while you were speaking was we have a class now of welfare kings.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Bingo.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Welfare kings. What about, Madam Speaker, this $22 billion? Who is it going to? It is going to the welfare kings in this country. That is who is receiving it. It is a tax on Americans. We had a savings of $22 billion, but somebody, behind closed doors, by the way, without the presence of the minority party, decided to give it to some welfare kings.
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Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that the American people understand who is running the show here in Washington. In 2002, the House of Representatives, the majority were Republicans. In 2003, in 2004, in 2005, and 2006, they were Republicans; in 2001, in 2000, in 1999. And since 2001, January, we had a Republican President. And the same is true on the other side of this building in the United States Senate.
So when I hear the head, I presume our colleague is the Chair of the Official Truth Squad, say, you know, we have got to curtail spending, and the Democrats want to take money out of your pockets, I am really befuddled, Madam Speaker. I am really confused, because you are in charge. You are running the operations of Government. Where have you been? Why did you not cut before? Why did you not manage this in a away that was competent? Why did you go and borrow money from the Chinese? Why did you borrow money from the Koreans?
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Why did you borrow money from OPEC?
Mr. DELAHUNT. Exactly. And what is the story? When you come to the floor, the rhetoric is, we want to work with you. And yet when Democrats say we are willing to sit down and have a respectful and substantive discussion about the issues that are confronting America, what do you do? You close the doors on us. You do not tell us where you are meeting. You do not tell us what time.
And you gave a break to the HMOs of $22 billion, which is like asking the taxpayers, you are increasing the tax to the American taxpayers by $22 billion at the same time. It does not compute.
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Mr. DELAHUNT. Can I tell you where else the money is going? The money is being wasted. And the money is being wasted because of sheer incompetence and mismanagement. And no big contracts, no big contracts. I will tell you where the money is going. Let me give you one example.
Can you all see this right here to my left, this chart? Row after row after row after row of trailers. And they are all sinking into the mud. These were the trailers that FEMA, the Federal agency that responds to natural disasters, purchased I am sure for hundreds of millions of dollars. I do not have the exact amount.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Three hundred million dollars.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Three hundred million dollars. So there is $300 million sitting out there, sinking into the mud, that will not ever be used. Meanwhile, we have thousands, tens, hundreds of thousands of people in Alabama, in Louisiana, in Mississippi, the Gulf States, that were devastated by Hurricane Katrina and they do not have any homes. They are homeless. They are living in their cars.
It is a natural disgrace. Six months after the disaster. But because this administration has made incompetence a virtue, we are wasting $300 million of the taxpayers' money, Madam Speaker. I mean, think of that. If you want to talk about fraud and abuse and mismanagement, that picture, let me suggest, epitomizes.
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Mr. DELAHUNT. How do you say, if I can interrupt, how can you say we were fully prepared? We were fully prepared? The President said that to the American people in the aftermath of the hurricanes and in the disasters that befell the Gulf States.
This is just a closeup of the picture of the chart that I showed earlier of those trailers that are crumbling someplace, somewhere, at the tune of $300 million. Well, if we were fully prepared, God save this Republic in the event of another natural disaster or a terrorist attack. I would suggest to the American people and to you, my friends, that we are ill-prepared. We are not fully prepared. We are unprepared. We are fully unprepared because of the incompetence and mismanagement that we witness on a daily basis near Washington.
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Mr. DELAHUNT. Madam Speaker, if I can, that is the problem that the Secretary of Treasury has. He is representing an administration and a rubber-stamp Congress that can only be described as irresponsible when it comes to fiscal policy. I mean, maybe we ought to write back, now, this is a letter dated March 6, 2006, and say, you know, we are sorry, but we are not going to raise the debt limit anymore; we are done, we are finished, we are closing you down.
Why should we be voting to raise the debt limit? With all of the fraud and the mismanagement and the abuse of the taxpayers, why do we not say go back to that conference committee and tell them to reconsider their closed deal that cost the American taxpayers $22 billion? Why do we not do that instead? Or why do we not recommend that the Bush administration stop spending $1.6 billion on advertising and public relations contracts; why do we not do that? Why do we not tell them to stop the no-bid contracts that are leaving resources sinking in mud somewhere in Arkansas to the tune of $300 billion? Why do we not tell them that they ought to go find the $9 billion that they cannot find that is somewhere in Iraq that is unaccounted for?
You know what? I am not going to vote simply because the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States is representing an administration that is in accord, if you will, with a Congress that cannot handle the budget in an appropriate way.
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Mr. DELAHUNT. You know, the three of us were watching you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, lead the first hour, and it was very informative and we want to congratulate you on a great presentation.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Many of our female colleagues on the Democratic side participated, and you talked about the role of government, particularly as it impacts women. You know, the truth is, and we have seen it just recently in South Dakota, that if the Republican majority has their way, they will see to it that the woman's right to choose will be ended in this country. They will do everything that they can to effectively repeal Roe v. Wade.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is not only the woman's right to choose. We have a variety of things. It is about throwing people in prison. Throwing people in prison, Mr. Delahunt.
Mr. DELAHUNT. If you are familiar with that South Dakota law.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Even in the case of rape or incest.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Exactly. In case of rape or incest. This is a dramatic change in terms of the role of government as reflected in the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade and all of the advances that have been made in terms of civil rights and other issues.
But I know we all want to get back to discuss the issues that impact every American.
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Mr. DELAHUNT. I think we ought to inform our colleagues here and those that are observing our conversation what the Democratic policy is in terms of inspection of goods coming into this country is not 5 percent, but 100 percent. We have what I would call a zero tolerance policy, and it can be done, and it can be done in a very cost-efficient way, in a way that not only will prevent a terrorist attack coming in via our maritime shipping, but will be efficient in terms of taxpayer dollars.
Do you know in Hong Kong every single container ship that comes in, every piece of cargo, goes through a high-technology review? Every single piece is inspected. I guess what my point would be is that if they can do it in Hong Kong, we can do it in the United States of America. We can do it. We should have a zero tolerance policy, period.
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Mr. DELAHUNT. Madam Speaker, let me just conclude by saying we should not ever mislead the American people. We know and they know who is in charge here in Washington. When I hear comments that would suggest that Democrats are in any way impeding or obstructing this Congress, my response is that is absurd. The Republican Party is in control.
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