30-Something Working Group
Floor Speech
30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP
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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. We are all important in our own ways.
Government Oversight and Reform, though, that was a committee that was a little sleepy here for the last few years. I have not been here with you for the last few years, but I was a watcher. I think I could see what was happening down here in C-SPAN. You did not see many oversight hearings. You did not see a lot from the Armed Services Committee, the Government Oversight Committee exercising what used to be the constitutional prerogative of the coequal branch, which is the legislative branch.
Here is how things have changed. Let me put this where people can see it.
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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I want to display an important number here: 104. I will tell you why that number matters. That is the hearings on issues related to the Iraq War just this year; 104 different hearings have been held.
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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. That just happened.
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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. It used to be that, you are right, it was 60 Minutes and New York Times and The New Yorker. That was the oversight branch in our Federal Government. It was the press. We are thankful that they actually brought some things to light.
But what we have learned just in the first 2 months, what we have brought out in these oversight hearings are really stunning to the American people. Nine billion dollars put out in cash on wooden pallets, thrown out of SUVs in sacks as they drove down the street, unaccounted for, do not know where it went, have no idea where it went.
We have got Blackwater, a contractor out there, keeping the diplomats and some American military personnel safe. Well, we find out that the government's role in overseeing Blackwater and a lot of these other contractors, you know what we did? We contracted that out, too. We contracted that out, too. Blackwater took its responsibility and contracted somebody else, and they contracted somebody else. Everybody made a dime along the way. These were things that you did not hear about in these halls until we got here.
So the bill that you outlined, it does the right thing for our troops. It does the right thing for our veterans. There are some other pieces that we can talk about, how it does the right thing for kids, the right things for farmers, but also does the right thing for taxpayers because it finally gives some accountability in how we spend these dollars. We would like to see an end to these dollars. But while we are spending money, at least finally we are going to have some accountability for those dollars.
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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Before Mr. Meek talks about readiness, let me just make one more point on top of that. It seemed that for years this Congress, the Republicans who set the policy for this war, didn't view the cost of the war as including taking care of the soldiers when they came back from Iraq and Afghanistan, that the cost of the war was just the money for the Humvees and the salaries and the missiles and the rifles. No, the cost of the war is all of what it takes to actually conduct that war on the battlefield, but it also is about putting forth every single dollar that is necessary to take care of those brave men and women when they come back to the United States.
Now, used to be in World War I, World War II, wars in the middle of the century that you would have about three injured soldiers for every soldier that was killed in action. Now, with improvements in technology in armor and medicine, we now have a 16-1 ratio. That is great news. That is great news, more people are coming back alive, but they are coming back with more difficult injuries, more complex medical issues. We haven't built into that war the cost of taking care of those veterans.
That is what this bill does. That is what this bill does. It is going to fund the withdrawal. It will fund the redeployment of our forces to fights that we still can win. It will also for the first time, for the first time, recognize that the cost of the war includes taking care of the veterans, not just average health care. In fact, we found out in many cases, in Walter Reed substandard health care, but with gold standard health care. Our veterans system should be the best health care available in this country.
With $1.7 billion in defense health care, $1.7 new dollars for veterans health care, we will finally live up to that commitment to our veterans and our soldiers when they get back here, like we should when they are over fighting for us.
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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Blank checks.
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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Meek, I can't match your level of articulateness, but I think you are saying what people feel out there. I mean, this election had to mean something. I mean, people spoke, they went out there in numbers in parts of the country that we haven't seen in a long time. And they spoke with a pretty loud voice that they wanted a different course of direction in Iraq.
Now let me read something somebody said a few years ago in 1997. Mr. Ryan, when he was joining us here, talked about the fact that there is a little bit of double talk this week from folks on the other side of the aisle, this idea that Congress really needs to back off and let the President do his business. Well, that wasn't the line coming out of here in 1997, when Congress thought something very different about the oversight responsibility of this body when it came to the effort in Bosnia.
The chairman of the Armed Services Committee at that time was a gentleman named Floyd Spence from South Carolina. Here is what he said. This is his floor statement supporting the bill that was going to withdraw funding essentially from the President's intervention in Bosnia. He said, today's vote will call for the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops from a peacekeeping operation of growing expense and seeming unending duration. Mr. Ryan already told us that if that was unending duration, well, then you haven't seen unending duration compared to this effort. He went on to say, the time is long overdue for Congress to express its will on behalf of the American people. It is important that the Clinton administration be held accountable for the Nation's foreign policy and, in this case, for Bosnia policy. Let me say it again. It is long overdue for Congress to express its will on behalf of the American people.
You know what? I agree. That is what we are sent here to do. We are sent to invoke on this floor the will of the American people. That is why we get elected every 2 years instead of every 6 years, because we are the body here, the House of Representatives, and I have only been here for a couple of months, but I have studied enough history to understand that my responsibility when I came here was to speak on behalf of my constituents. And my constituents and the constituents of those that sent new Members here in droves from all over the country, from the Midwest to South, the Sun Belt, the West and the Northeast, said, set a new course. Stand up to the President. Redeploy our forces for fights that still matter. Protect us at home. That is the will of the American people. That is what we are going to be talking about this week.
Mr. Meek, I think elections mean something. And I think what we are going to engage in on Thursday is an effort to put the will of the American people into practice here.
Now, it is not just the American people. We just saw a poll the other day that came out and asked specifically whether the American people would support Congress' plan to bring American forces back home and redeploy them to other fights across the globe that we can still win by the fall of 2008, the bill that we are about to vote on this week, and it wasn't even close. A margin of over 20 percent, 59 percent to 34 percent of Americans support that plan. The American people said what they wanted on election day. And when pollsters went to just double-check the temperature and make sure they still thought that, well, they still think that, in fact, probably in greater numbers than they did on election day, seeing that things have only gotten worse on the ground and the President's policy has only become more meandering.
But we don't just have to listen to the American people, because we can also listen to our foreign policy community. We put on that Iraq Study Group some of the brightest minds in American foreign policy. The folks that have set the direction for foreign policy coming out of Washington for years all got together, Republicans and Democrats, folks that probably hadn't agreed on much of anything if you were to poll them on other foreign conflicts. Well, they all came to an agreement, and they sent a report to us saying it is time to set a new direction, it is time to start redeploying forces in 2008.
We can also listen to our military leaders as well. And we have read a lot of quotes on this floor, so we won't belabor it, but just take one. The Deputy Commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq said it very simply: It's clear, you cannot solve this problem militarily. You have to do it with a combination of military, economic and diplomatic things that we have to do.
The American public, our foreign policy community, military leaders on the ground who see this on a day-to-day basis say the same thing: We have put our men and women in the middle of a civil war. We have done virtually nothing to address the underlying causes of that religious conflict. And to simply allow them to continue to be the referee in an increasingly bloody battle, that is not the right policy for our troops, it is not the right policy for this country, and it is time to start focusing on real security issues again.
Let me bring up one last thing, Mr. Meek, before I yield back, what is included in this bill. This isn't just about, you hear this word withdrawal, this isn't about withdrawal. This is about focusing our efforts as a Nation on the fights that matter. We still have a real important conflict in Afghanistan. If we redirect some efforts there, we can still make a difference on the ground. Remember, that is where the people that attacked this country trained. That is where they base their
operations. And if we are not careful, Afghanistan is going to fall right back into the hands of the folks who provided cover for so long to Osama bin Laden and his henchmen.
We also have to do a lot more here on the ground in our own country, Mr. Meek. Now, you voted for efforts on the Democratic minority for years to try to bring light upon the fact that we have been spending billions of dollars over in Iraq. We haven't been spending money here at home to do the things we need to do to protect this Nation.
So this bill is going to put $2.6 billion into homeland security needs, make sure that you and me and our families and our friends are protected here; $2.6 billion, Mr. Meek; $1.25 billion for aviation security, including 1 billion for a new explosive detection system, $90 million to deploy advanced checkpoint explosive detection equipment and screening techniques, $160 million to do better when we are screening air cargo, $1.25 billion for new port and transit and border security features, $150 million for nuclear security, including, at the President's request, $67 million to secure the nuclear material in the former Soviet Union.
Here is where the fight is; it is in places like Afghanistan, it is at our ports, it is on our borders. That is the fight that we are going to engage in. That is where we are going to refocus our efforts.
This vote that is coming up this week is about doing just what the Republicans told us we were supposed to do in 1997; that is, expressing the will of the American people on this floor. This vote is about putting our forces, putting our money where the fights matter most.
Mr. Meek, I am going to be proud to be part of that this week when we finally get that chance to make the will of the American people the law of this country.
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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Meek, this is about government. I mean, you talk about leadership, it takes leadership to govern.
You are right. I am as close as anybody to what is happening and what people are feeling out there because I spent the last 2 years spending every day and every night visiting the pasta suppers and the pancake breakfasts really, I think, being as in touch as anybody in this Chamber is with where the American people were. And, yes, they have specific irreconcilable grievances with this President about the war, about his approach to energy policy, about his lack of any understanding of health care dilemmas facing the American people.
But I think they also just have this sense that this place is broken down, that Congress couldn't govern any longer, that they couldn't maintain their relationship as a coequal branch of government with the President, that they couldn't even get anything done on meaningful issues like health care reform or immigration or oversight of this war.
So is this bill perfect? Absolutely not. Are there things that you would change in it, things that I would change? Would I move a date around here, some money around there? Absolutely. But you know what? This isn't a place where you just come and vote your preferences. I mean, we are not voting for the American Idol here. We are governing. We are putting votes together to make progress for the American people. And so there are going to be a lot of folks who are going to cast green votes for this, who are going to have problems with certain parts of it. But in order to live up to what the American people want us to do here, which is to set a new direction, we have all got to come together and find a way to govern. It is something that wasn't happening here for a very long time.
And so I am going to be proud to go back, once we get through this process, once we are able to put something through the House, through the Senate, we hope get the President's signature, I am going to be proud to go back and talk about it, talk about how we have fulfilled that commitment to redeploy our troops, to start spending our money in different places.
But I am going to be just as proud to tell them that Congress is working again; that there is leadership here that is willing to take some tough stands, that is willing to ask some people to cast some votes that might not be perfect for them; that we haven't allowed the perfect to be the enemy of the good, as a lot of people are talking about these days. I am going to be just as proud to talk about how this place is working again, Mr. Meek.
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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Meek, the Speaker's 30-something Working Group, and I have been blessed for the last 2 months to be able to join you here on the floor and to have Speaker Pelosi allow us the time. Anything that you want to talk to us about, you can e-mail at 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov, a lot of the information that we talk about here, as well as information about the 30-something Working Group, at www.speaker.gov/30something.
Mr. Meek, we hope the people will get in touch with us there.
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