The State of Beggardom

THE STATE OF BEGGARDOM -- (House of Representatives - February 28, 2006)

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Conaway). Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, let me ask the ``why'' question tonight. Why would the United States allow itself to be reduced to a state of beggardom in the Dubai ports deal?

The definition of a beggar is a person, in this case a country, that lives by asking others for help or charity. So why would the United States allow itself, a nation that created Social Security, won World War II, landed a man on the moon, why would our Nation let itself be reduced to beggary and the Nation, to beggardom?

Why would any level of our government seek foreign ownership or leasing of any of America's key assets, our ports, airports, railroads, turnpikes, industrial plants, even endowments to Presidential libraries? Why would we do it, ever? But why would you do it particularly when we are a nation at war?

The answer is simple. It appears our Nation cannot afford to stand on its own two feet anymore. We beg foreign investment because we cannot pay our own way. Our jobs and productive wealth and manufacturing and agriculture are being shipped offshore every day. Our piggy bank is empty.

So our assets are being sold or leased to foreign interests. Our savings are drained. Our national debt is skyrocketing. So our society is selling off, releasing our crown jewels.

I do not agree with this. I have been fighting it ever since our Nation started to sell more and more of our U.S. debt securities to foreign interests, who now own half, half of the debt of this Nation, and we pay them over $300 billion a year in interest and it is skyrocketing.

Some people who get elected, even Presidents, do not think that there are certain fundamentals in accounting that you must follow. They think that you can avoid responsibility in borrow-and-spend abandon. They think you can avoid responsibility. They mix up their love of money, frankly anybody's money, even foreign interests' money, with freedom's discipline. They somehow think it will all work out.

Well, America has been pushed to the edge of its financial resources with over $7 trillion in debt, which is rising. The war in Iraq has cost billions too much. We were told we would be out of there in 6 months.

We are lectured by a President that we should become energy independent, yet during his presidency he has made us more dependent on foreign sources of oil, so we borrow and spend to make up the difference. And we are paying more and more for imported fuel and going deeper into debt with oil imports, now the largest share of our trade gap.

Budget numbers do not lie. Trade statistics do not lie. Who do you think is financing America's beggardom? Foreign interests. The kind of folks who own Dubai Ports World. Trade deficits are exploding as we witness the import deluge into our country. Last year nearly a trillion dollars in trade debt, staggering, hard to find anything made here anymore.

So now we are in the fire sale phase. Rent out the ports, lease the Indiana Turnpike, sell off the auto industry, print the stationery in China. To live so recklessly and to spend so wildly does exact a price. It forces America to be reduced from our birthright of independence and the discipline that that entails to a sorry state of beggardom.

Curious developments happen too. Why did George Bush, Sr. accept a million-dollar contribution to his Presidential library in Texas from the United Arab Emirates? Who was buying favor with whom and for what?

What is so shocking is that the vast majority of Americans oppose beggardom, oppose the leasing of U.S. ports to any foreign interests, surely by those who could not prevent infiltration of their citizens to this country on 9/11.

Americans want to be independent. They love freedom, not beggardom. The World Ports debacle is the latest evidence America's corporate and political elites, sometimes the same people, are selling out America's independence, making deals with undemocratic kingdoms.

Seven sheiks run the United Arab Emirates. It is not a democratic country. Dubai World Ports is a government-owned enterprise. Why should it compete with free enterprise in this country? That country does not recognize Israel, and it does not allow Christian crosses to be erected anywhere inside the borders of that nation. Who could believe that a nation that sent two terrorists into our Trade Towers and whose banks laundered money for 9/11 will now manage some of our major ports. Insanity.

Some people say our intelligence services failed us. I say our elected leaders have failed us, starting in the Oval Office. They fail us time and again because they are blinded by their own beggary. They used to say you could buy people here in Washington for a lunch. Wow, has the bar been raised.

America, awake. Patrick Henry's clarion had it right, give me liberty or give me death, no beggary, no beggardom, no sellout of our Republic.

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